The Ariel Helwani Show - Alexander Volkanovski's last dance, Alexander Volkov surprises Dana White | The Craic

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

On a special guest edition of The Craic, Ben Fowlkes helms the ship alongside Eric Jackman and Craic debutant Dudey.After reacting to some of the standout moments from the UFC 333 press conference (05:09), the trio turn their focus to the main event between Alexander Volkanovski and Movsar Evloev (16:38).The co-main event is next on the agenda, with Petr Yan set to face Merab Dvalishvili in their trilogy fight (28:32).Next, Arman Tsarukyan and Dillon Danis’ brawl at the RAF 14 press conference gives the crew plenty to unpack (50:15).Then, the unfolding situation in Saudi Arabia and what it could mean for Canelo Alvarez’s next fight comes under the microscope (01:02:07).Last up, the trio answer your Super Chats (01:16:36).

That's right. It's Friday. It's the crack. I am Ben Folks filling in for Peecey Carroll. We have a great show lined up for you today. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Can't wait to get to it. Before I introduce my two co-hosts making a special appearance here on The Crack. First, a word from Kalshi. This episode is sponsored by Kalshi, the largest prediction market in the United States. Here's what makes Kalshi different. You're not. playing against a house, Kalshi is peer-to-peer trading, you buy yes or no contract on whether something will happen, and you're trading directly against other users. Think of it like buying or selling a stock. The line isn't set by some algorithm working against you. Public opinion sets the price. Calci is CFTC approved, federally regulated, which is why it's available all across the country, including California and Texas. Download the Kalshi app and use code crack, That's C-R-A-I-C to get up to $25 when you trade $25. K-A-L-S-H-I-K-I-K-E-C-T, Trade What's Next.

All right, we have a lot to talk about, and I am very excited to bring in two special co-hosts. Brand new look here on the crack today. Don't worry, we'll get into all that later and let you know what's going on. But first, bring them in. Let me introduce them. And there they are.

Look at this bunch. This is a crop. This is an uncrowned crop right up here. You know them, you love them. Everybody knows New York, Rick, Eric Jackman, on the ones and twos over there. But making her uncrown crack debut, it's Judy.

It's Judy. If you've subscribed to the uncrowned newsletter, and if you haven't, why do you hate us? Why don't you want to be our best friend? We'll come over there and kiss you on the mouth. Subscribe. Sign up right now. over on our substack,

but this is the woman behind the uncrowned newsletter, duty. Thank you for joining us. How nervous are you to make your big first appearance on the crack? Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Not nervous at all, actually, because I don't know. It's fun.

It's what I do. Thanks for having me. And yeah, I'm pretty sure we're going to have a fun show. Well, that makes me feel like that. Fun promises you've been making about, you know, the consequences of subscribing to our newsletter This was not on the contract, but it's all right.

It's all right. I can make it happen. The thing is just getting them in the door. And then we can worry about making all the other wishes come true. Maybe I have failed to impart to you how just vitally important the crack is. And so the nerve should be really high. Rick, how about you? How are you feeling over there?

I'm feeling good. I'm looking forward to seeing how we execute the people being kissed for not, for subscribing to the newsletter. and I'm very happy to be here. I'm excited for this maiden voyage of the crack with Ben Folks. Look, don't act like I won't go on a cross-country kissing tour, a globe-trotting kissing tour to thank everybody for signing up for the newsletter. It's that important.

And frankly, I am just that down for whatever. I think everybody should know that about me by now. So first of all, for people who tune into the crack and they're like, you got the Irish music, you got the Irish music, you got the Irish, branding where the hell is the Irish guy? There's not a single Irish person. I don't even have any Irish ancestry. One of the only people in America who doesn't claim to have any Irish ancestry.

What is going on there? We should tell you, Pizzi Carol, alive and well, don't worry about him. He's doing great. But the Carol family welcomed a new addition just this week, a healthy baby boy being brought home from the hospital as we speak. So right about now, Pizzi Carol is figuring out that he, He does actually not know how to parent a baby, and he's going to have to learn it on the fly,

just like everybody else does. It's a terrifying, exciting moment. I speak from my own experience, but we wish Pizzi and his family all the best, take all your time that you need. Being a new parent is no joke, you know? We all know that. So we're looking forward to Pizzi getting back

when he feels that he's up to it. He might not be sleeping a whole lot in the next few weeks, but it's UFC 333 fight week. So we got a whole lot. to discuss here. Plus, we've got people brawling over there in R-A-F. We've got people trying to bring various combat sports events to Saudi Arabia, even as missiles are raining down on the country. Some would say that seems like an awful idea. I include myself among some. But first, here's what we've got to talk about. I want honest answers here, people. Don't, don't beat around the

bush. Did Dana White really not know that was Alexander Volkov standing in the audience in his double-breasted suit with his hair all slicked back, asking a question about how a guy who's been in the USC for 10 years at this point might go about getting himself a title shot duty? What do you think? Did he really not know? Okay. I do want to believe that he knew who he was. I will give Dana the benefit of the doubt just because I've seen him interact with Alexander Volkov before. Like I've seen it with my own well, through the magic of cameras, obviously, but, you know, still. So I do want to believe that he did recognize him.

Maybe not immediately, because I think just, because I watched the video several times. I'm not going to lie to. I was like, it took me a while to, like, come to this conclusion. Because, like, at first he was, like, reading, you know, this little thing that he has, the little teleprompter. So I think he was reading, so he was not really paying much attention to who was speaking. And maybe he did not recognize him instantly. but I do want to believe that by the end of it all,

he knew who that was. But also like, yeah, also like Alexander, he said his name, but he also, like, you couldn't really hear it well enough, I think. So I don't know, I want to give the men the benefit of the doubt. Because if, okay, I'll say, I'll tell you this. If this was some new, some new fighter, I would say that he probably didn't know who he was.

But just because it was Wolkoff who I've seen him kind of, you know, exchange words before, I think he knew. Let's get all Zapruder film on it. Let's go to the video footage. Let's see what we can figure out here. I believe we have the clip. Let's roll it. A few professional fighters.

So what should I do to become a UFC champion? How many fights do you have? Like 20 in the UFC and 21 total. You have 21 fights? What? 51 total? 51 total. and 20 in you see.

How old are you? I'm like 38. How old? 38. 28? Yeah, I was going to say, you're not 28. No. So what are you looking for?

What do you need, sir? How can we help you? I want to become, I want to become a you and you. He thought I didn't know. He's trying to help me out over here. Oh, so why, wait, do I help him? What's going on?

So yeah. I want to become a visit champ. So what should I do to get a title shot? Talk to Sean and Nick. Okay, thanks. Alexander, welcome. Welcome. Welcome.

Hey, brother. I have advice for you. Go to three hours, Dagestan. I forget. Okay. So I'm going to say this, Rick. I tell you, he, the Dana's bearing changes after kind of like the second time. after Volcanovsky steps up and tries to be like,

hey, just so you know, you employ that guy already. Because it doesn't seem. This guy I thought I didn't know. Yeah. This guy right here. And that's where something, something changes in his comportment. He's a little more fun loving because before that, he was just like doing the Dana White grimace and glower and just being like, who are you?

How many people? What do you think? As Uncrown's premier cynic and skeptic, I will not be giving him the benefit of doubt like movie did. The fact that he says, how old are you? How old are you, bud? The fact that he calls him,

sir, what can we do for you, sir? There's not a familiarity there. Look, if he's doing a bit where it's like, I'm calling him, sir, and I'm asking his age, I don't get the bit. I don't understand it. It felt to me more like a lack of recognition. Now, I will grant,

the lack of recognition may be like, I'm miles away from you and you're up in the stands and I can't quite tell who the hell you are, and your accent is not helping. We know Dana White sometimes confuses English for Spanish, let alone other accents. I think he probably might not have recognized him, not for the fact that if Alexander Volkov was standing right in front of him,

he wouldn't have recognized him. But man, you do have to just do better. And the sir and the, you know, how old are you? And Volk asking, telling him, you can clearly see Volk tell him. twice that's volkov and him not acknowledge it the first time maybe thinking like i don't have to or i've got caught with my pants down then the second time he's clearly like can you believe this guy can you believe this guy melkanus here he's telling me he's volkov i know he's volkhov i just

never addressed it or acknowledged or even act like i had any familiarity but other than that it's like so obvious that i knew it was volkov everybody knows i knew it was volkov um i just it's a weird scenario, it's an awkward situation. The UFCPR obviously kind of like thought they were doing a funny thing here. Maybe Dana White is not the best subject to be doing comedy bits with just based on the history of him not knowing much about what's going on in the promotion at the current state. But I don't think instantaneously he recognized them. I think by the second time that Volcanowski let him know, maybe that's when he kind of got clued into it. But I'm not, I'm also not going with like a sweeping indictment. I'll say this. I think it's much worse that he has no idea that Natalia Silva and

Wang Tong are fighting for the title and the accolades that got them there than not recognizing Alexander Volkov standing in the crowd asking a question on the mic. And so this is not his biggest promotional malpractice in even recent history, but he had no fucking idea in that very beginning who Volkov was. Yeah, okay. And see, that's one of the things that I was thinking about is that the fact that everybody started having this conversation that it wasn't immediately like, well, obviously Dana White would know Alexander Volka, kind of tells you where we are in terms of public perception of Dana White's interest in the UFC at this level, because it's, it's been a thing where it feels like almost every week, there's some sort of reminder about how he's just

sort of checked out and he's not that into it anymore. It seems like he is just into doing all this other stuff. And the UFC is just sort of the day job. that you got to clock in for every once in a while, but it sucks and I don't like it. And don't really have a whole ton of enthusiasm for it. And so it's like, if the UFC PR put Volkov up to this, so like, hey, let's play into that,

then I don't think the bit really landed. It's also maybe a little too close to home for everybody to recognize that you're doing a bit. I will say, in Dana White's defense, like you said, Volkov's out there in the crowd. You got the lights in your eyes if you're up there on the day, He's a little bit far away. I know how, like, I'll be out at a bar without my glasses on and somebody will wave to me from 10 feet down.

And it's somebody I've known for 15 years and I don't recognize them just because it's too far away. But it also seems like, Alex and Volkov, you asked me to picture Volkov? I picture the guy in Cornrose with his shirt off and a huge backpiece tattoo. That's how I know. He shows up here in his double-breasted suit looking like a guy, like an extra in the wolf of Wall Street. I can understand maybe how you see that guy and you don't immediately know, oh, that is number four ranked heavyweight Alexander Volkov fighting this weekend, in fact, fighting on this very car.

And it also seems like when we do the thing of like, hey, we recognize him and everything, if it were a bit that we were doing, wouldn't we then go right into promotion of like, here's his fight, here's what we're talking about here and like here's where he stands? I don't know. We don't do that here. You know how you get the title shot. You win on Saturday. Volkov.

That sounds like a great idea. That lend to fight some stakes if you're already up there doing that. Now, I'll say this. Duty, let's say. Oh. Yeah, wow. Look at that. The glow-up has been unreal.

Yeah, he's going for a look these days. Meanwhile, we're familiar with this look. We've seen it on many different winning fighters in the UFC. It's that beard and that stoic glare. Say it wasn't a bit. Say like this is just Volkov getting into his own head, duty. And he goes out here and he does this. Maybe embarrasses the UFC president a little bit.

bit, gets him into this conversation of does he seriously not know his own guys even after 10 years, all that kind of stuff that happens. Had you better win this one? Had you better go out there and win this one if you're Volkov, otherwise maybe you won't be favored by the promotion so much? Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, hey, he's got to win it anyways. Because, like, I mean, the man has won how many in the row and he still cannot get the title

shot. Like, what happens if he, God forbid, loses, like, right? It's just like, game over. like game over immediately. And I mean, as we said, Wolkav has been in the organization for like over 10 years. He's put together pretty good performances, like a pretty good win streak.

I maintain that he beats Cyril Gun in their rematch. I'm sorry, there's no way and no power on earth or not on Earth that's able to, like, I don't know, change my mind about it. You know, and I do believe that most people who have eyes kind of thought that, you know, he beats Cyril Gunn in that fight. So yeah, he definitely, it's a must win for him. But also kind of like, let's kind of like, maybe I'm the optimist here, right? And I'm just kind of trying to look on the bright side of this whole thing.

Like, the last couple of weeks for Volkov have been pretty pretty damn good. Like with an appearance on Ariel's show, like, so I've seen his videos, the videos that he's been doing in Russian language. And the guy's hilarious. Like, really? There is, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's hilarious. And he's so unassuming, like, and also, like, it's just, it's very unexpected, but, like, in Russian, he's very, very, very fun and funny.

And so when he made his appearance on Ariel's show, that kind of translated, which doesn't always translate, but in his case, it really did. And the broken English somehow made it all even funnier, which, again, doesn't always happen, but in his case, definitely worked. So, and just like to build up on that, like on that appearance on Ariel show, and I've seen the comments. Like people were like asking for Volkov, more Volkov, like, when have we heard that, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a rare, rare thing. So people are really getting behind him.

And so with this kind of adding to that build up, right? Like the guy's kind of trying to put up, like, I don't know, like, he's getting some hype behind him. So I think that if he wins, that's just going to like triple all of that. And I think that's going to, at least I want to hope that that's going to bring him some real benefits and some dividends, especially given the state of this division, which is not great. Yeah. Well, Rick, speaking of guys who are going for a look at this press conference, the main eventors here, the headliners you had, Alexander Volcanovv, and Mofzar Evluev, they're coming out there. It's essentially street fighter character versus Peky Blinders guy. and this one, I'll tell you what,

I'm excited about this as a headliner, especially because for me it feels like one of those classic, let's find out if the changing of the guard is about to happen here. Let's find out if this is the end of the road for Alexander Volcanowski. Also, let's find out if we are due for a good long Movsar Evloev title reign, perhaps. What are your thoughts on this headliner generally? How do you see it going? I love this fight.

I think it's, it's the perfect fight for Alexander Volkanowski because the story of his career has been next man up, right? Like, whoever you put in front of me, I'm not going to argue. I'm not going to politic. I'm not going to posture. Let's just get to that person. Even if it is, as we see here, Diego Lopez twice, right?

A fight that nobody else was asking for. And Volk just said, sure, if you want to give this young guy another shot at me, I'll just do it again. Mavsar is the next evolution of that, right? he's a guy who's 20 and O who it seems like everybody thinks has a good potential to upset Volk, especially based on kind of what the odds are looking like right now. And here we see, 50-50. And so it's the perfect fight for a guy who has built a legacy on kind of like stopping people like this

or changing people's perception of things, coming in there and beating Max Holloway three times when everybody thought Max Holloway was going to go on to be the greatest featherweight in history. And so I love the fight. I think on paper, it's as close as those calciads we just saw reflected. I've gone back and forth on it a hundred times in my own head. And I lean at the moment, as we've seen in the staff picks, and I think we are aligned on this. I lean ever so slightly toward Mavsar because I think now that he has secured the title shot, right? Now that in here we're seeing those staff picks, it's nice to see you and I on top after

last year's results. Yeah. I feel that now that he secured the title shot, there's no pressure, right? I did not know what the hell he was doing in the first three rounds of the Lerone Murphy fight. That's Mavsar. I did not understand the game plan other than if his manager got word that you will absolutely not get a title shot unless you are not boring and don't win a decision.

And so he threw caution to the wind and he decided to strike with a far better striker in a pretty sloppy affair. And then in the final three rounds of that fight, starting. in the third and then really like laying heavy in the fourth and fifth. He went to what he does well and does best and does almost better than anybody on the planet. And that is the grappling and that is the wrestling and that is the control. And so without the pressure of if I don't do this, I'm not going to get a title shot. And with the security of if I do do this and I'm successful at it, I will be the UFC champion

and they can't just kind of toss me aside. I think he is going to go in there extremely aggressive. I think he is going to wrestle from bell to bell. and I'm interested to see if Alexander Volkanowski can hold up to that. I don't believe that there's somebody that can do that over five rounds if Mavsar is at his best. And so that's why I lean ever so slightly to Mavsar. But what's fun about this fight is if he makes any mistakes, if he lets Alexander Volcanowski get up and leaves too much space in that exchange, in the get-up,

or in a clinched position against the cage, if on the break there's an opportunity for Volk. or if he just spends an extended amount of time at range with Volk, like he did in the Lorone Murphy fight with Lorone Murphy, Volk is too smart, too good and going to make him pay. And if Volk can do that twice in the first two rounds and all of a sudden, you're now looking at a hole, it's going to get real desperate. So I love this fight. I think it's fantastic.

I think Volk is an incredible warrior and an incredible champion, somebody that is going to, I think, age better like a Demetrius Johnson, that people are going to really appreciate more once he's gone. I do believe that Mavsar is capable of beating the 38-year-old Volk, but I'd like to see it happen. Yeah. I mean, as you said, I also picked Eilwev here, and it was a lean ever so slightly, just like you. I feel absolutely prepared to be wrong, to prepare for Alexander Volganowski to prove me wrong again. It's just that I look at this and I go, here's a guy on the come up who really knows who he is and what he can do,

and he's going up against a champion who's 38 years old in a division that has not been kind to the older fighters. He's been out here fighting these hitters, as Nick Diaz would say, for years and years now. It's got to take a toll. And I just keep thinking, one of these nights, he's got to show up and be old. He just has to. It hasn't happened yet. Also, here's the thing that I wonder about a little bit, duty, and you tell me what you think about it, is that when I look at Alexander Volcanowski, I go, well, no one's really been able to out-wrestle this guy. consistently except for that first fight with Islam

Makachev. And even that was close down the stretch. You know, he held up pretty well and that was against a bigger guy, a guy who's now a welterweight champion, a guy who had a lot of stuff in his favor that really helps if you're a grappling first fighter. Now he gets to fight a guy his own size. I look at his record, I don't see a ton of really great grapplers, really great wrestlers, overpowering wrestlers that he's faced. And yet it does seem like whenever he's faced somebody who thinks, I know what I'll do. I'll get this guy of the ground, slow things down, beat him there. It hasn't worked out for too many people.

Do you think Movsar is the guy to do it? That's the middle end dollar question, right? But I do understand why people are picking Mossar. At the same time, though, I do believe that Alexander Wolkinovsky is, I don't know, I've been saying this for a long time, to be honest. I believe that he's one of the best, if not the best, fighters of this modern generation. And I know he's not undefeated, but that doesn't really change. That, I don't know, for what it's worth, it doesn't really change much in my eyes.

I do think that he just knows how to win men. He just knows how to do his homework. And I think that's something that needs to be said, and especially is going to play a very big role in this fight. I do think that he does his homework well, that he prepares well, that he is extremely strong, despite not having like some physical advantages, you know, like heights or something. He has a pretty big reach, so that works for him. His incredible distance management, which will play a role in this fight, I do believe. And also he's like really, really, really hard to keep on the ground.

Like, it's, yeah, good luck. Like, I mean, Islam is a generational talent as well. Again, there's no shame in losing to Islam, right? At the same time, I don't think Mozart is, Islam, right? Like, they're just different fighters. There's different, um, they're different, the things that they're good at are a little bit different. But yeah, it's going to be a hell of a fight. And, um, the thing is that what fascinates me about Volcanozky is that this dude, he fought the fighters of previous generation, right? Like the old guard. He fought them,

he beat them. Then he fought the fighters of his generation and beat those pretty handedly. And now this dude is like slaying dragons of the next generation. basically, right? Like, so he's fighting this. Topurius and Diego Lopez's and Mozart's. And apart from Ilya, who's also like in a league of his own, right? Nobody has been able to solve that puzzle. And I would like to see Mozart of Lov try. I do think that he's going to have some success, but I definitely would not count walkout. Yeah. Except, yeah, the age is definitely a factor. Yeah. With that age, though, comes a certain whiliness. veteran savvy. I think honestly one of the things that I learned from him fighting Max Holloway seemingly

500 times was that you would watch him in those fights. And I don't know if there's anybody in the game today that is a better mid-fight adjuster than Alexander Volcanowski. He seems like he is getting reeds on you early and often. He's capable of changing and tweaking what he's doing ever so slightly in order to just pull away as a fight goes on. So I'm interested to see how most of it will do with that, especially he says, you look at Movesar's game and you go, there's a guy who if he wins is probably going to have to be here all night to do it. He's probably going to need all five rounds.

You're probably not going to go out there and put Volcanovsky away. So can you do that against a guy who is great at making those midfight adjustments? Rick, one of the other things I wonder about is Chuck Minnihull had a good article where he talked this week to Movesar. And right now we seem to be in sort of a changing period in the UFC. You see this one here where most are talking about how he knows what his style is, what his bread and butter is. He's not changing it for anyone. And yet it does seem like the UFC in a lot of ways is prioritizing action fighters, finish fighters, stand up strikers.

They want knockouts. We're really leaning heavy on. Look how many fights got finished by knockout on these cards. Look how many got finished by first round knockouts. Here comes a guy who is known for being a little bit of a decision merchant. It doesn't seem like the U.S. was in a hurry to get him into a title fight here. It just kind of had to exhaust all other options.

Does a guy like Mossar, as if he goes out here and he wins the title and he's a new featherweight champ, is the UFC happy about that? Does he fit with this UFC attitude toward what kind of fights and fighters we want to see? Probably not, but like the other fighters who have had a style similar to him in the past,

as long as you keep winning, it won't matter, right? Because they can still book you and Bill you is dominant. They can still say, this guy destroys everybody. They can say this guy dominates everybody. And he's thankfully reached that position. If he was still chasing a title shot or if he was still an athlete on the rise, I would not be confident, right? I would not feel like he has a good chance of remaining on the roster. If his contract was up two fights ago, I would have been concerned. But because of the fact that he's in this title fight and if he wins the title fight. I'm not concerned about them and having to promote his style. They've been in this

position before. They just sometimes you're going to have wrestlers and sometimes you're going to have strikers and sometimes you're going to have people like Islam Makachev or Volk who can do everything. But what you do is you accentuate what they do best. And so, you know, Habib was a guy that everybody called a decision merchant for a long time as well. Habib was a guy that everybody didn't want to see when his knee was hurt and everybody was like, ah, get this guy out of here. He's a pullout merchant. We don't want to see him. The the tide completely turned after a certain period of dominance. So Mofsar is 20 and O.

Like this guy is very, very good. And I think if he's able to become champion, it's going to be hard to dethrone him. I think Volk is the type of guy who might have the best shot, right? Like, I think there's going to be, I think this might be his hardest fight. And I think the easier fights might come after he captures the title. But, yeah, I'm not concerned about if he's champion.

On the other hand, if he loses, I do have some concern, right? He is not the type of fighter that you keep on the roster if he is not dominating everybody. If he shows himself to be vulnerable and all of a sudden that O is not after the 20 in his record, and that says 20 and 1, I'd be making sure that those last few fights on my contract, however many there are, look closer to the Leroux Murphy fight than to the previous fights. Yeah, well, you know, you bring up a good point. It seems like in this sport, we don't mind if you're a decision-heavy wrestling

based fighter. If you have something else to sell us on, personality, for lack of a better word, a gimmick. I remember Chil Sona was a great guy who, an example of a guy who, you know, he wasn't exactly the most exciting action fighter once he was in the cage, but he'd really sell you on it before and after. And he even found a way to spin it. He would go out there and say, hey, if I'm going to be on TV, I want to be on TV for 25 minutes. That's why I'm doing this. I want to be on there for the longest time possible. And you got other guys. You know, yeah, good bit. A great bit. Incredible, really.

You know, and here in the co-main event, I think you have another example in Marab, where Marab has that same kind of style. He's just a little bit faster pace about it, but he also is known for winning these fights by decision. But he has a ton of personality. He's always doing something outside the cage to get eyeballs. Plus, he's even going to give you a little something inside the cage to make you feel like this is a more exciting fight than it is at times.

And yet here you have him, again, in this trilogy. with Peter Jan and a lot of the criticism of the second fight, which was one of the best fights of recent memory, at least for me, was that Marab was maybe trying to be a little too exciting and in so doing fighting toward Peter Jan's strengths and not his own. Do you think that Marab corrects for that here in the third fight? Do you think that we see a fight that looks like the second fight did or do you think that we're looking at a whole new ballgame this time? Mm-hmm. So just, if I may, just to touch up on the previous point that I think something that we're overlooking in terms of Mofsar just like very quickly is that Islam is going to retire soon, right? I don't think that they mind having Mofsar as a champion just because of the kind of their involvement in the region. So I think like, as Rick mentioned, if Mofsar was like a middle class fighter, I think that he would be in the possible danger. But just because like, they have someone, especially if he becomes a champion, they now have someone who can headline a card in the region. They can bring him here and, you know, he's going to fill out the stadium and people are going to travel, whether it's from Russia or from the region. So I do think that also kind of plays a role in his favor. So, yeah, for whatever that's worth.

Because, like, I mean, they don't, they no longer have, well, I mean, again, Islam is going to be here for however long he's going to be here, maybe one or two fights more, right? Hamzat is doing whatever Ham, whatever Hamzat is doing, he's no longer a champion, right? So, yeah, I guess it wouldn't, like, they probably still would prefer to have Wolk as a champion, just because of the Australian connection, just because Volk is popular. But I don't think, like, for them having Mofsar as a champ is the end of the world, per se. That being said, moving on to Maraup, sorry. Yeah, I think, I think it's going to be a, like, it's such a fascinating thing, right? because the first fight, the first fight and the second fight were just so completely different to each other, right?

Between Jan and Murab. And I don't think we see that too often, right? Just like one, the first one was completely, Murab was dominating Peter for five rounds, and in the second one we pretty much got the different result, right? because Jan was able to do a lot of damage and basically neutralized a lot of what contributed to Murab's success in the first fight. But I do think that we do need to ask a question of,

and I'm not just saying this because I'm Georgian. I promise you that. Actually, I think I'm on that other side of the spectrum. I don't, you know how sometimes people over-evaluate the fighters that come from there, countries, I think I am just so, like, I'm so scared of, like, evaluating them or, like, valuing them too high that I'm kind of, like, trying to compensate. And I just think of them as worse as they really are. Like, I don't know why. It's just like this weird thing that I'm kind of noticing.

But I do think that, yeah, Marab, we do need to speak and touch up on the fact that he, it was a fourth title defense within the calendar year. And I think, like, even right now, like, when I'm watching his videos from the weigh-ins and comparing them to the, like, videos from last year, it's a different guy, man. It's a different guy. There was no sparkle. There's no spark, not sparkle, but a spark at the, like, by that, by the way-ins at that fourth fight, the man was just, like, exhausted. And understandably so, right? And you just, I understand that, you know, they, like, Peter says that he was not himself in the first fight. I do think that Marab was probably not himself in the second fight either.

Yeah, I mean, that is, if you ask MMA fighters, nobody has ever legitimately lost a fight where they were 100% and performed to the best of their abilities and lost anyway. But, I mean, it was something we were saying about Marab going into that fight, right? It's just the work rate was incredible. Everybody was going, this is a historic, what he's trying to cram in here. But we also were saying, eventually that might catch up with you. I mean, I know this is a guy who likes the shadow box five rounds on the day of the fight and everything,

but you can only everybody is only mortal. Eventually you're going to run up against your limitations as a person. I did want to ask you as the resident Georgian here on the Uncrown. Yes, sir. What is, what's the attitude toward Mara? He does a lot, it seems to me, to sort of like highlight that identity. And, you know, he's out there. I saw his video where we're doing, we're turning our training into the dance kind of thing.

Where, you know, he does a lot. He's clearly very proud of that. He also was very proud to come over and become an American. American citizen because it meant he could slap whoever he wanted and they could not deport him. He would only have to deal with the regular legal system. He was very pleased about that. He clearly made his home here. What's the attitude to whatever? Is he a superstar back there? Are people very excited about this? Oh, 100%. 100%. They love him here. And you are correct in just saying that that he does represent

and he puts his identity as a Georgian on a display. And that's something that he highlights. And I mean, the guy has the contour of a Georgian, like, you know, Georgia on the map just tattooed on his chest. And that's the only tattoo he has. That's not because he's into tattoos. It's not because of anything else other than the fact that they would not allow him to bring the flag into the octagon a couple of years ago. And that was kind of his way of finding like a workaround, like a loop. Yeah, you can't stop the tattoo. No, no, no, you can't.

Yeah, you're apparently. Apparently you can. So yeah, that's a very interesting kind of layer in this whole thing because Piotr is Russian and Murab has been very vocal about, you know, how he feels about Russia. And yeah, so it's, it is definitely, definitely an interesting part of what emotionally what it does to him, because like, I don't know if you guys remember, but he was just so dead serious going into that first fight with him with, with Piotr. And he said, like, if I lose to him, you guys, to him, I will kill myself. Obviously, that was like, you know, an exaggeration, but like, a part of him, like, for him, it's a little more than just a fight. And I think in the second,

in the second bout, it did become a little more just because he probably beat him once. It was a little bit more of just like having, going, going out there and having a good performance. And now that it backfired, I think we're back into that first mentality, which seems to be working for him. Again, it might not be working for other fighters, but yeah, for him, it seems to be working. And I'm just going to, like, go ahead and say this, that new design of Peter Young's shorts, it's not going to do him any favors with Marab because that's going to be like, you know, like a red cloth for a bull or something. I don't know. And maybe that's the hope. Maybe if you get Marab to where he wants to come out there and really throw those hands with you and try to hurt

rather than trying to tactically win a decision. Maybe that plays to Pierion's strengths. Rick, what do you make of, does Jan feel to you right now like, okay, this is the champion Marab has to come and take it from him? Or does this feel like kind of the prove it shot, like when you're playing a game of horse or something? And we need to see Jan prove that he can do this a second time before we really look at him as the champ of the division.

Because when you look back at this guy, it seemed like we wrote him off. And maybe we wrote him off too soon where, you know, he is the champ. He lost the belt with that DQ lost to Al Jermaine. But then he came back, had three losses in a row, and we all went, well, that's kind of a wrap on Jan as one of the top guys in the division. He reels off this win streak, has just the fight of his life against Marab in that second meeting. What do you make of him coming into the third? Yeah, if anything, history has proven that we write off everybody in MMA too soon, not just Yoder Young. That is the tried and true tale of MMA fandom and this community is like, the moment you lose three fights, you've never been.

good, you're trash, and we might as well throw you in the garbage, and then they come back to show that the levels. I don't get that sense. I think the sense is more like Yon was a king off on another mission and then came back to reclaim the throne. I think fans have always felt very highly about Yon, and I think with how surgically he dismantled Marab in that second fight, I think people view him as very much the champion and it's reflected in the line of this fight and how close it is. As far as the fight itself,

this is another one, just like the main event, where I go back and forth a hundred times in my own head and I really don't know which direction to go, made even harder by the fact that each of the two individual fights was so one-sided, right? The first fight, Jan seemed to have nothing from Marab.

And now he has claimed in the time since that his hand was completely busted and he just wasn't able to be offensive in that fight. But he seemed to have nothing for Marab other than the takedown defense. He was able to make Marab struggle to get takedowns. But for Marab, it's never been about effectiveness. It's always been, or efficiency, rather. It's always just been about volume.

It's always been about pressure and volume. And so I came into the second fight thinking, well, Marab's just going to Marab, right? Like, how can anybody stop when Marab just wants to spam takedowns, spam punches? It doesn't matter if he lands either of them. you're really just not able to get your offense off because he's in your face doing these things. And what Jan showed was there is a game plan for that. There is a way to beat that. And I wasn't sure that there was a game plan for it, but he showed that there is. And it is, I'm going to be one of the best defensive fighters on the planet. And you're not going to get those takedowns and you're

not going to land those punches. And in the meantime, what I didn't do in the first fight was make you pay for missing. And in the second fight, he made Marab pay every time he missed. And sometimes when he did it, Sometimes he was on the front foot and he was landing those body shots that seemed to really hurt Marab. It was one of the best performances of the year is one of the best performances of the decade. It was one of the best performances of all time. It was an absolute dismantling of a guy who I thought could not be beat by a guy who he had already beaten. So it was very impressive. I see all that to say.

I've now arrived at the third fight. And after 50 minutes of action, I think the conclusion that I've come to is I believe Peter, Piotr Yan is a better fighter. than Marab de Valishvili. That doesn't mean he's a more effective fighter. That doesn't mean that he's going to win every fight. That doesn't mean he's going to win every fight against Marab de Valishvili. But I believe him to be better in the areas that make someone a better fighter.

And that is he's more defensively sound and he has more ways to win a fight. He has more finishing capability and more upside and more ways to punish you. If Marab was really suffering from those four fights that he had fought, the fights that he had fought previously prior to fighting Jan in that calendar, or year and you'd have to imagine he did, there's going to be a better performance. But what I saw in the two fights was, and especially in the second fight, Marab got to his spots. It was not like Marab was stopped from getting in on Pioter's legs.

It was not like Marab was stopped from throwing punches. It was not as if the aggression had suddenly disappeared, right? As a comparison to say, like, a performance that really baffled me was Carlos Pratchez against Iam Ashado Gary, where he just looked like he was listless and did not. show up and did not do what Carlos Prachas does. Marab did what Marab does. Now, was he doing it at the optimal level? Was he 100%? Probably not. Was he 75%? Who's to say? I really can't tell. But when it came to getting into the positions that he's successful, he got into the positions that he's typically successful, and Peyodor Yan seemed to have the answers for that. And so if he's better in this

fight, I wouldn't be surprised. If Marab is better in this fight, I wouldn't be surprised. But in those same positions, I expect them to be similarly thwarted. I expect Jan who stuffed his takedowns across both of the fights at a very, very high clip to stuff the takedowns again. And in those moments where Marab is having his take down stuff or missing on the punches, I do believe that Peodor has the capability to punish him again. And so I think it'll be a closer fight, but I lean toward the guy who I believe has more tools and more in the arsenal to stop it. Marab's style has always just been this like contradiction where he's not a great striker. He is a great wrestler, but he's not great with control or rather let's control go very easily, right? He lets you up

almost intentionally. We saw him just ragdolling, ragdolling Corey Sanhagan over and over and over again because he wasn't really interested in controlling him. It's a contradiction of how we think of MMA dominance and how other fighters have done it in the past. And I always thought that it was going to be impossible for somebody to figure that out. I saw you. Yan figure it out. I think you will be able to figure it out again. The defense is just too, is too good. Him and Sean Strickland, I think, are on another tier, another plane from everybody else defensively. And so I'm concerned, but I do expect Marab to be better. Sorry, that was so long with it. But I love this fight. I've broken it down a million times in my own head and I've

arrived at different conclusions each time. The one that I'm going with, the one for my own sanity, is that I do think Jan is going to be able to stop Marab from doing what Marab does. Well, you know, one of the things I remember talking to Ray Longo about Marab and he was saying, he's such an easy guy to coach and to game plan with and to be in his corner because he's always just going to do the same thing. You don't have to come up with a plan and drill it into his head and be like, here's what we're going to do for this fight. It's different for what we did. No, we're just going to do the same thing.

And even if you try to tell him to do something else, he's just going to go out there and do the Marab thing. He said it was like the Tasmanian devil where you just sort of like open the shoot, there he goes, and he's going to do that thing to everybody. And that does seem, though, a little bit like the downside of a duty is that Yon knows what's coming. There's not a lot of secrets in Marab's game at this point. You know, it's just a matter of will he consent to strike with you a little bit more? Will he be so focused on the takedown? You know when you fight that guy, I'm going to have to stop a takedown or two if I want to beat him. And one of my favorite clips from that fight that I saw people posting was like a 60-second maybe clip from one round where they each hit a grand B-roll.

They go back and forth with that. And it's just sort of like Peter Yon meeting him being like, I can do this too, but I can also do other stuff. Can you do the other stuff? And it didn't seem like Marab had it, but it also seemed like he was willing to try in that. Do you expect him to fight a different style this time? Do you think he goes, you know what? I stood with this guy. I took some lumps and maybe it made it.

hard for me to come back later in the fight because by that point, you know, you're beat up a little bit. Do you expect him to want to fight this one more on the ground and make it more of a wrestling match and not engage in those battles if he doesn't have to? I do believe that, yeah, he has to fight more. I think one of the mistakes that he did, and he seems to be speaking about it fairly openly, actually, maybe a little too openly, and that, you know, causes additional questions that I just see people get confused by. but yeah, that's something that he's mentioned, that he fought a little too much of Pyotr-Yon's fight,

and he was too willing to stay and engage on Peters' terms. But there's just the reason why this fight fascinates me so much, beyond the fact of what's on the line, right, like the Bent-of-Wa-Wate legacy and yada-yat, all that stuff. But for me, one of the most fascinating parts of this is the clash of two schools of thoughts in MMA that I've been seeing lately. And it's just, when it comes to rematches, people usually, there's, like, people usually, like, split into groups. One group believes that whoever, like, if you have, say, a trilogy, right,

where there's a significant amount of time passes between the first and the second fight, a lot of people will tell you that the person who won the second fight usually wins the third one. If I'm not mistaken, I think UFC on Paramount even posted like a statistic about it on their Instat today or something. I think it was like 6-2-2. That's like kind of the breakdown, the score between the people who won the second fight. They usually win the third one as well. But the interesting thing is that before I came back to Georgia, I did have the pleasure of spending several months in New Zealand. and I did get to talk to the founder and the main coach of Citadel boxing, Eugene Bairman.

And he told me something very different. So his perspective on this, like he views it completely opposite. And from like a strategic point, what he told me, he was like, I do believe that when it comes to rematches and trilogies, whoever lost the last fight actually has the strategic advantage when it comes to the next fight. and it does make sense, the things that he said. And like, mind you, that's the person who prepared Alex Volcanovsky to face Max Holloway three times, and the person who also prepared Volcanovsky to face Diego Lopez twice, right?

So he says that just because the person who lost the fight usually has a better idea of what they did wrong, because obviously you made more mistakes if you as a fighter lost the fight, right? So now you kind of have a lot of things that you can do and improve and change. And the thing is that your opponent doesn't have that because he did a lot of things right. Otherwise he wouldn't have one, right? So he has to kind of like guess and he has to kind of like do this mental exercise of, okay, so this works for me, this works for me and this worked for me. What will my opponent change and try to like negate, right?

And what can I do to potentially negate that? And how do I change some things in my game, but not change them too much, so that the things that made me successful in the previous fight, you know, no longer are there in this next one? I don't know if that makes sense or I made it like very complicated. But I do feel like the clash of these two ideas or philosophies, however you want to put it. Like, I think that's like one of the most fascinating things. And that's kind of like what I'm looking forward to the most in this fight. just figuring out who was right about this, you know, because like I do see both sides and I do see how both of them have a very good point and can can potentially be correct.

But yeah, it's really fascinating. And also I think it's worth mentioning just the physical condition that these guys are in. Marab's nose. It's not getting better. No. Nope. And Maraub's not helping that. Yeah. Yeah. And Pyotr Jan's back. He just had a surgery, right? Like, who's to say that these two guys? guys are going to go in there on Saturday at their 100% right? Yeah. And can you imagine having like a back surgery and having Marab slam you? Well, I mean.

Or like take you down. Like rock. A back surgery. I think the same thing about when people bring up like Kayla Harrison's neck surgery where you're going, if the person, especially an active pro fighter, had the surgery, chances are they needed the surgery for a while before they actually got it. So there's a good chance that they come out of that surgery better than they were beforehand. I think that's definitely going to be a case with Kayla Harrison and the next stuff.

I don't know particularly about Pierre Yang with the back thing, but it's, they don't want to take the time off to go and get those things addressed unless they absolutely have to. And so almost always those things are a case where they've been putting it off, they've been working through the pain, they've been trying to get around it for as long as they can, and they eventually, they can't stop it anymore. They have to go get it addressed and they might be better off afterwards. The nose thing is a little different. Like I understand why fighters adopt a position of why do I want to go get my nose fixed now? I'm just going to keep getting hit in it.

And I've even heard fighters say that they'll go to a doctor who is like, I'm not going to do it now. There's no point. Come to me when you retire. We'll get this nose thing sorted out. But that can be a real issue for people, especially no stuff in particular can be stubborn. We saw Roy McDonald deal with it where after Robbie Lawler completely smashed his nose, anybody touched it. It just became a blood faucet. and then you can't breathe out of it and you got a problem,

that could be an issue for Marabre going forward there. And I do like the point you made about, hey, if you lost the last fight, maybe you have an advantage going into this one. I'm going to use that in beer league hockey when we get one of these playoffs series and we lose a game. And I'll just say, hey, guys, we got an advantage. They beat us last time.

Now they got to figure out how to beat us again, whereas we know what we got to do this time is score more goals. Yeah, I'm not taking credit for that, man. It's Eugene who said that. that guy's smart. So I'm like, yeah, yeah, what he said. Yeah. You know, speaking, we go from talking about a couple good wrestlers here in Marab and Jan.

R-A-F having themselves an event tonight over there in Las Vegas. And wouldn't you know it? You had a press conference that involved Armand's Sarukian and things got physical. Rick, tell me, though, how is it going to be the security guard that comes out of this thing bloody? Armin jumps out of his chair, goes over there to slap Homsot, to slap Dylan Dannis for wearing a Homsot t-shirt. Here we have it here. Which he didn't see, actually.

Yeah, he didn't even see the shirt. He just heard him say something about Homsot, and he's just like, here I go, up out of the chair, going after him. I got to think, honest, first of all, people kind of slow to intervene there. How did you not expect that this was going to happen? People would be disappointed if this didn't happen. This is the whole reason you have both Dylan Danis. agent provocateur and Armand's Rukian known loose cannon.

The whole reason you have these guys at this kind of event is so that you can get some stuff like this. You can get a moment like this to create this kind of interest and attention. It seemed like it works. But at what cost for the poor security guard? I saw Armand sitting down afterwards with Ariel and he didn't even seem to realize until Ariel pointed out like, you got some blood on your shirt, man. You're wearing an all white outfit and you got the security guard's blood on you.

what do you make of this, Rick? Unlike the Volkov Dana White plant as a question asker situation, this one was executed to a team. This one was perfect. This is exactly what RAF wants and this was exactly what RIF got. You got Dylan Dennis up there knowing that he will be the antagonist and then you got loose cannon arm and the only shocker is that it wasn't Hamza, right? The only shocker is that Hamza didn't fly across the stage and close line.

Dylan Dennis, but it worked exactly as, as intended. And thankfully, like, nobody of the competitors was injured, right? Maybe the security guard got the errant slap that Armands Ryuki was aiming at Dylan Dennis. And we will actually see them compete today. And so, um, allegedly. A, yeah, A plus. Well, I guess with Dylan, you never, you never know. Maybe there's still an opportunity for him to find a way out. The clock is ticking, man. The clock is the day of. You've got to. Better come up with something. Get on it. I think R.A.F got what they wanted out of it.

And, you know, not for nothing. It is a UFC 333 fight week. It's a big fight week for the UFC. And I saw that clip everywhere. Yeah. And so they were able to cut through the noise in a way that many other promotions who try to kind of cut through the noise aren't able to. They were successful in doing it.

And so the only concern I have is like, it seems like Armand's finally going to get his title shot. It really does. like it's seen and and let me preface that with i know he got a title shot against the saumacchev and had to pull out of it it seemed like he was never going to get back there because dana white just does not like him i feel like we finally reached a point where arm and sirukin is going to finally get his title shot it seems like in early 2027 he will get it and he's still kind of like finding a way to disrupt things and not not give the best

the count of himself. But I think the Hayes in the bar and I think he'll still get the title shot. But yeah, look, Armin is who Armin is and it has served him very well for this intermediary period where the UFC didn't like him and didn't favor him and wasn't giving him fight matchups that I think are appropriate for the level of competitor that he is. He wrestles for a hefty check that RIF continues to pay him. He gets attention on his social media. He gets attention in some of these like moments where he does lose his temper.

and now he's going to get potentially a title shot against Justin Gaci or if you ask from that interview that you reference with Ariel, he thinks Justin Gachi is going to retire and he's going to be fighting somebody else for the belt. So I think he will fight for the belt. I think this RAF stuff is good for him and for RAF they got exactly what they needed. Yeah, I mean, you're right that Armin has managed to make himself into a thing and largely outside the UFC, which we see almost never these days. And it is crazy to me how if your concern with Armin is, I don't know about this guy, man. He pulled out of one title fight. He headbutted a dude at the way in. He punched a fan on his way to the cage at UFC 300. Can we depend on this guy? But then the flip side of the coin is he is known

for bringing attention as that loose cannon. That's what he has done. In RAF, people go, all right, if Armand's on the card, let me tune in because he's probably going to do something crazy, somewhere along the line. One of my favorite quotes from this interview he did with Ariel was where he was asking him about, like, are you concerned that maybe you're not helping the loose canon reputation

any when you do this stuff and that it might make the UFC, you know, less likely to give you that title shot if their concerns are about like dependability and what is this guy going to do? And his line was, quote, I don't care what happened after. meaning if you say the thing that makes him get up out of the chair and come over and hit you, he's going to do that without thinking about consequences and repercussions later on to which I felt, yeah, we noticed that.

We have observed that in Armand Saruki. Have we gotten to the point in duty where it doesn't hurt him with the UFC anymore just because it's his thing at this point that we'd be a little disappointed if Armand Saru Kian didn't fly off the handle? Yeah, I think it's like a part of the gimmick by this, by this point. point, right? And I think he has a point there when he says that, no, he doesn't think that it's going to affect anything, because it probably doesn't. I do think that the UFC is in on a bit at this point, especially for the, you know, they do have a partnership with a real American freestyle.

That's why they let their athletes compete there, right? And I do think that it is a part of the whole package. I think it's kind of like, it's almost expected that. something like that will happen at RIF, and that's why people tune in. Like, obviously, a lot of people tune in for wrestling. Don't get me wrong, but some people just tune in for this, for the buffoonery, for the delightful buffoonery. Shear buffoonery. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Arman provides that, and I think the UFC knows that RAF counts on that from Armand, and they're okay with that. They might have a problem when something like that happens at their events. I'm still, like, I'm still shocked that for, at whatever happened at U.S. when he had about Dan Hooker, like, that was not cool. Yeah. That was really, really, really bad. And they were in the main event.

And if, God forbid, something would have happened and that whole thing, like, got canceled. Like, it would have been like a disaster of unimaginable, like, basically proportions, right? But thankfully, none of that happens. So I think the UFC almost prefers for him to do all that stuff, you know, and get it all out of his system at RAIF, as long as it means that he kind of like, you know, tunes it down, brings it down a little bit at the UFC events. But also, like, on the other hand, like, when you have Hamzad Shimaev, Armand Sarukyan, and Dylan Danis at the same event, like, you know that meme from Harry Potter of like McGonagall, like looking at Harry Ron Hermione and be like, why is when something is happening around here? Why is always the three of you that are involved? Like, I feel like that's like, these three are the post-poster children for that meme.

Like, you can just, like, Photoshop their name, like, not names, but like their faces on it. And it just, like, applies perfectly to them, to the situation, right? So I think, like, yeah, it's going to be, it was expected. I don't think it affects him his standings with the UFC in any way. And, yeah, I'm very interested, obviously, like, how he performs at our RAF. I think it allows him to stay in shape and, like, to kind of, like, you know, he likes to compete. He likes to stay active. to he likes to hone his craft and get better at stuff.

But I am obviously, as an MMA fan, first of foremost, I am extremely fascinated to see him perform at the highest of levels in the UFC. And I am very interested in what his imminent title shot is going to like basically like look like. Because I do think that he's just, he's been deserving of it for a long time, but it's just like his inactivity hasn't helped him. just because by the time he is scheduled to have a fight, and by the time he beats someone, they're usually so low in the rankings already,

that people are like, well, he just beat the number-ranked, like, number seven-ranked guy. Like, why does he deserve a title shot or something like that? You know? It's just like, I would like to see a little more activity from him. I know that it's not always up to him, but I do feel like we are finally getting to the point where we might not know who's standing there

in the octagon on the other side, you know, opposite of him. But I feel like he is one of the kind of like parts of that equations that we are know today that whenever that lightweight title fight happens next, like whether it's February or March, as he mentioned, because they, as we know that they pretty much have their plans set for Toronto, right? So yeah, we know that probably Thurukyan is going to be there. Yeah. And whoever else is going to be opposing him.

It is interesting when you talk about the volatile mix because it's, you got all those guys. And if Dylan Danes actually does show up as expected here, he, you got a couple guys. That's what he's showing up for, right? Yeah. Yeah, well, it's like, Armand Sarukian and Hamza Jamiav, there's a couple guys who don't play. You know, they don't, they don't mess around. If you go and you talk some shit to these guys, they're going to get in your face about it. You're going to have to back it up.

It's cultural. Sorry. I've seen guys like that. Like I'm surrounded by guys like that. It seems exhaust me. Come to Georgia. You'll see a lot of guys like that. Well, then you add Dylan Danis to the mix who is a guy who does nothing but play.

You know, and now he's going to have to show up and answer for it. I guess that is the whole appeal. I mean, R.R.A. has a pretty interesting lineup here. The head scratcher for me is Hamzot versus Robbie Lawler, a guy who was never really known for his wrestling when he was an active fighter. Yeah, I guess you call up Robbie Lawler and you're like, hey, man, you've lost wrestling matches before. right would you like to get paid to lose one and he goes what's one more yeah like this is nothing compared to you know getting kicked in the head or something i could i could show up and do it uh but you know you also where they're gonna they have a pretty good mix of like here's some crossover stuff to get

attention you know we're gonna throw somebody like jordan burrows in there for the real wrestling heads you got bellamere getting back into some kind of uh competition uh easing her way back in after that dana white's contender series let down so you do have some interesting stuff it'll be uh fun to see what viral clip comes out of this one and if it involves Armin freaking out on anybody. You know what I'm wondering? Like right now you guys were showing the card and like what goes through your mind when you're presented like with the choice of an opponent and you see the last name Magamette Karima for something like that? Like you're like, ah shit. Yeah. If I see a guy with two maglevets in his name, I'm just going like, okay. You know what? Actually, I feel like

I'm coming down with something. I feel like the flu is on me. I, I, Catch me around for the next one. I don't think the promotion likes me. Yeah, they're not trying to be in the you business if they call you up where they got. We got Mago Med, Mago Medov. Would you like to fight that guy? And I just go, no, no, I absolutely would not. I don't want to go up against the guy who's got the Abe Lincoln beard and hair on the top of his shoulders.

That's just not, that's not going to be a good night for me. You know, we got the UFC here this weekend. They're over there in Abu Dhabi. We've got Canelo. He's got a fight planned for Saudi Arabia, I believe, on Halloween, and they're coming up at the end of this month. You've got the WWE, another TKO property planning to head to Saudi Arabia for another Riyadh season thing on November 7th. Meanwhile, the U.S. is pulling its diplomats and their family out of Saudi Arabia this week. You had another attack at a different airport.

I know there's been talk about, like, hey, these guys aren't going to fly in. into the Riyadh airport, which was hit by a cruise missile. Not that long ago, they're going to fly in somewhere else and then travel by ground into Saudi Arabia for this stuff. Rick, am I alone in thinking that it seems crazy to even be talking about doing sporting events there right now? It is essentially an active war zone. Even the U.S. does not want it. It's diplomats there saying everybody who's non-emergency personnel get out of there. It's not safe right now.

And we're going, now's the time to have a boxing match and to have a. pro wrestling event. You could do this stuff other places. It's not as if like it has to be here or it has to be right now. This seems wild to me. What do you think? So the location that it seems that people are going to be coming into is Bahrain. They're going to be coming into Bahrain and then they're going to be shuttled over to Saudi Arabia. I'm going to give a a little bit of bail. I'm going to give a favorable reading of the situation and then I'm going to give my own thoughts on it. So my favorable reading of the situation is, I do believe that the people who are making decisions at this level are aware of the risks. I do believe that they are not just brazenly

deciding like, nah, you're reading all these reports? That's, that's not happening. This is not what's happening here. I do believe that they are at least conversations happening. That's my favorable reading. And that they are deciding, we understand the risks, but we do not believe that the risks will come into play. We believe that we'll be able to safely do this. To steal an example, Dana White at the time that everybody was locked in their houses and not wanting to execute anything, whether it be going to dinner or putting on a sporting event, decided, I've heard the risks, and I am going to put on fights. You're not going to like it. There are going to be people who hate me for it. He was content with the idea that despite all the information that was out there,

he was going to take on that risk and the UFC was going to take on that risk and they came out relatively unscathed, right? People got COVID at those events. People certainly got COVID, but there wasn't any like catastrophic thing that happened where everybody was like, we told you not to do this and you did it anyway. There wasn't, we weren't able to push a finger in Dana White and the UFC's chest and say, we told you not to do this. And I do imagine that a similar scenario could play out in this situation.

if this event moves forward, where they do this event in Saudi Arabia, it could happen and the attack zone happened to this specific arena and everybody comes away and then there will be people who go, well, look, they knew all along. Nothing was supposed to happen. That's my favorable view. My actual feeling is despite the fact that nothing catastrophic may happen and that event may be able to happen without any incident. the message that you are broadcasting to people,

not the end result, not whatever happens at the end, but the message that you are broadcasting to people by continuing to promote this event and say that this is going to happen as intended is that you've heard the calculus and you care more about this event happening and whatever the economics of it are,

whatever the reason that you want to continue forward with this event are, more than the potential toll of human life. Because even if that small risk is, even if that risk is infinitesimal, and I don't believe it to be, obviously, based on all the information that we're getting. But even if that risk is infinitesimal, there's an argument to be made that even if there was any risk,

the smallest percentage risk, that you don't do the event. And now they're willing to accept a higher threshold of risk and say, we're going to do this event anyway. What you are broadcasting, what you are telling to people is, we care less about the people who have to come here to produce the event.

We care less about the people who have to come here and fight. We care less about the people who are coming here just to view the event. then not being able to do the event. We care less about their lives than the event. And I don't know that that's the message that you want to be sending. Again, this is not, is the event going to happen and everybody's fine?

This is not about the outcome. This is not about what happens in the end. This is not about being able to say, ha, ha, we were right or ha, you were wrong. It's about the message that you're sending now. In this moment,

when you're saying we are going to book flights for people to come into these airports or into Bahrain and then travel to this, a country and ignore all the evidence in front of you. And so I think the optics are very bad. I think whatever reason or justification they have for continuing to try to do this event in this location on this date, the optics of it are just horrible. And as I said, I will reiterate this could happen and nothing, there could be no ill effects

to anybody involved. But I don't think that that matters. I think what's happening now, what message you're sending now is the problem. Yeah. I mean, that is the thing because at least during the COVID thing, you had Dana White being like, hey, the world needs sports. It needs some entertainment. It needs the world to continue on as normal. And plus, this is how all these people make a living. I don't want to just put them all out of work. And it's like those arguments that you can make. And also, MMA as a sport was one of those sports, which many of us said at the time, even though Dana White wanted to pretend that we didn't, that you can do this safely during COVID because people are pretty isolated anyway. It's not a team. sport giant locker rooms. You can keep everybody separate. And they did a good job of doing that for the most part. People did get COVID. They went home. We we don't know if anybody's grandma got it later on or anything. But it was not risk free, but like they were able to do it safely and and go on. This one though, you're right. Like these are events, you know, both the Canelo fight, the WWE event, all this. You could do this

stuff anywhere. And it would be the same event. You know, you could do it in Las Vegas. You could do it in Mattis the Square Garden, you could do it. The reason you're going to go over there and do it in Saudi Arabia is because they are paying you to come over there and do it. And when you bring the whole show over there, especially if I was a staff member being asked to work at one of these, I'm going, oh, so you don't really give a shit about me. You're totally willing to put me literally in the line of fire just to go over there so that you can make that Saudi Arabian oil money and act like this stuff isn't happening. It is absolutely happening. It's a ongoing problem that they don't have a way to stop. You're just hoping that it doesn't happen on that day. You're hoping that maybe either,

you know, they, they have other targets planned or that the Houthis who are shooting the missile at you are wise enough, wise enough to go, hey, maybe the world would turn against us super hard if we blew up Canelo. But it also, you're right that it does not send a good message if you're saying, like, hey, our need as a hugely profitable company already is to go over there and to get that Saudi money is greater than our concern for our own people. You know, you're really putting them in a tough situation there. And it just seems to me completely unnecessary. Dutti, what do you think? Maybe they're boxing fans. Maybe they really want to see the match. They're like, you know what, let's just pause this whole thing. Just let's just see, let's just see what Canello does.

But in all seriousness, you touched on two points that I think you were spot on. Like, the first one was the fact that the fight can be, can take place that, that particular fight can take place anywhere else. I would say that there's like, I would actually go further and say that Canello, Riyadh, and Halloween. Like, how did these three words end up in the same sentence? I still don't understand. But hey, here we are. I think, yeah, you can make, you can make a good, good argument that this fight should be taking place anywhere else, but there on that particular date, right? But yeah, yeah, that's kind of the reality that we live in. And the second point that you touched up on a ban,

which I think is like just spot on, really, is the fact that during COVID, they were able to kind of like, you know, mitigate certain things, right? They were able to be proactive about stuff. They were able to control certain variables. Again, yeah, it was a fairly chaotic situation, but you could, like, do some things, right? A lot of stuff they figured out as they were going,

like, as things went on. And those first couple events, you remember, like, the fights were falling off the card left and right, and they just kind of pushed through and push through and push through. But at what point does it become something that you cannot just, like, you know, power through, right? And, like, again, the price of the mistake here is just so, so, so, so incredibly high. Is it really worth it? I don't think it is. And especially in the circumstances where this time, you cannot.

control, right? Yeah. As you mentioned, it's an active war zone. Yeah. Well, we must acknowledge there's somebody in a room somewhere who is saying to themselves that the price is not too high. The only reason that this hasn't already been moved is there a somebody or some group in a room that's looking at the landscape that's assessing the situation and going,

the price is not too high. And that's where you start to wonder, like, who are these people, right? like we can speculate we can have we can have our own thoughts and opinions on who these people might be but there are people in a room somewhere that are going no there is no price that's too high this must go on right because if it if it wasn't if that scenario wasn't happening this would have already been moved this would have already been shut down we've reached we've already reached critical mass on like the idea that this is a very bad idea from everybody on the outside there's somebody on the inside or a group of people on the inside that's saying no they

the risk, the toll, the potential toll is not high enough yet. And I wonder what could happen in the time from now until then that would change that calculus or change that equation. You have to imagine that fighters need flights, right? Is Canelo Alvarez standing waiting for somebody to send him an Expedia confirmation on his flight being booked to Bahrain at this point? Does he have a flight already? It is crazy to think about the logistics.

Like, if you've been around this game enough, even a tiny bit, you know how hard it is to produce an event. You know how difficult just the idea of putting on something like this is. And now we're hearing potentially broadcast partners doing it remotely from studios in London on all these types of things. But even just to get the fighters on the ground and their teams and the accommodations and everything, this is not a small undertaking. And so the idea of us sitting back and waiting and being like, Canneau is probably going to be there. We hope. That's a crazy thought for somebody who knows, for anybody who has any small knowledge of the fight game and how hard these things are to pull off. Yeah.

But also, like, other events are being moved, right? Like, it's only the combat sports that's deciding that, you know what, we're tougher than anyone else. Like, we're going anyways. That's kind of like what robs me the wrong way as well. Like, you already kind of get this feeling, right? Like, there's this regular sports that are regulated and they have their own rules and it's like all nice and stuff. And then there's this wild island where everything is trying to kill you. And that's like combat sports, right?

It's just like wild, wild, wild. Like, you know, I have no idea. I have no idea what we're doing at this point. And why can't, you know, why can't you just be normal? Yeah. For one day, why can't you just be normal combat sports? Maybe this is just the 21st century version of doing the fights on a river barge in order to get around regulations.

And so now we're going to go doing that active wars. Yeah, check out when we go on that BKFC. Are you, am I going to see you guys? I'm looking into a penthouse suite, whatever. I think it's only like $1,700 to get out there. We'll see you there. Imagine the kind of communicable diseases you could catch on the BKFC cruise. Beautiful.

The buffet itself. You mean fun? You mean the disease of fun? Going to be an absolute petri dish. Big, big, big, busy weekend of combat sports here, as always. UFC 333 going down. We got an early start time to this one. One.

Hey, speak for yourself, man. Yeah, okay. Prelims kick off at 10 a.m. Eastern for this one. Main card starts at 2 p.m. Eastern. What time is that for you, Dutie? So for me, main card, the prelims start at 8 and main card starts at 10. So we're going to be probably wrapping it up till, like, by 1 a.m. And that's when we're going to be doing our post-fight show here.

So you'll get to watch it a kind of like normal, like, prime time hour. Which you probably never get to do, right? I don't like that. I don't like that because like I freaking hate it. Like I love the fact when when stuff's happening like in the States, I love that. Like give me that all day long because I get to wake up at 5 a.m. I'll get to like make my coffee. I get to watch some fist bites, you know, breakfast and bruises, as I like to call it.

And yeah, and then like it's all done by like 8.39, 9 a.m. And then I get to like write my post articles. I get to like wrap it all up nicely and then I have my entire day to myself and here I'll have to go like do a live show at like 1 a.m. And then like write stuff and post stuff at like 4 a.m. And it ain't got to be fun. I can tell you that.

I don't know how you Americans do it like honestly. You're going to see how the other half lives. Yeah, yeah. It is a shame. We have to prepare for UFC 333 without the presence of Pizzi Carol here on the crack. Only the addition of new life could justify his absence. But if you missed it earlier, Pizzi is out this week because his family

welcomed their beautiful baby boy into the family and our thoughts are with them. Everybody's doing great. Pizzi's bringing him home. I saw the picture he sent me in the car carrier ready to make that fraught journey home and begin his new life as a parent. So we're thinking about him.

We miss him here. Before we get out of here, though, I got to ask, Andy, do we have any super chats? What a pro. What a pro. Look at this guy, Ben, folks. What a pro. I thought I was going to forget the super chats.

You thought after all this time of me making fun of Pizzi for forgetting the super chat, I was going to forget. It's the legacy of the program. I thought you were maybe just going to do it intentionally to keep up. What is the expectation? Just a gimmick. No, I'm on top of it. What do we got, super chat wise, Andy? This is from at Shananagan's 341 team.

I'm sad the crew did not adopt Irish accents in honor of Pizzi. Please each give us and I've drank so much. I'm leading pints of gat in your best Irish accent to make up for this absolute blasphemy of an oversight. I'll tell you, here's what I'll do. My best pizza impression is one of my favorite things he's ever said is when he was talking about his neighbor's cat, Jasper, I believe. And I couldn't tell if he meant it as a compliment or as a criticism or not. And he said, ah, Jasper, he's some can of piss. And I went, what does that mean?

What does it mean to describe a cat as a can of piss? It sounded almost complimentary. Pizzi has said the cannabis thing to Ariel, who then just like has now beaten it to absolute death. Like, cannabis has become the only moniker that anybody can be known by. I like the cannabis. I do enjoy a good cannabis. Not drinking a canopis, but I do enjoy the phrase cannabis. There we go.

There we go. There we go. That is my impression. because I am not going to affect an Irish accent and get sent to HR. I can't do it. I'm bad. I'm bad at accents, but I do have an accent in all of the languages that I speak, including my native ones.

So that's what you get. I mean, what is your accent and their native language? So my native language is Russian. So whenever I speak Russian, I have like a very thick Georgian accent. When I speak Georgian, I have a very thick Russian accent. And whenever I speak English, people just are like confused as hell. And they're just like, come up and like, where are you from? And I say Georgia.

And they're like, you don't sound Georgia. And I'm like, there we go. Zeroing and in, zeroing in. Not that Georgia. Might be thinking of the wrong Georgia. Grapes, not peaches. Grapes, not peaches. Yeah.

But it was actually, it was hilarious because I did my exchange year in Mississippi. So in the south. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, very, very, very unique location. And so, like, when people would come up and obviously they would notice that it was foreign, and they were like, oh, what are you doing here?

I'm like, I'm an exchange student. They're like, where from? I'm like, Georgia. And they're like, we're paying for this. We have exchange students from Georgia in Mississippi. I'm like, yeah, the taxes, the taxes are being abused. It's the other one. What else we got, Andy?

From at the pariah. subscribed dibs on New York, Rick, hashtag Rod Talk. Shout out to my guys who love the Rod Talk out. And girls, shout out to everybody who loves the Rod Talk. Can't get enough of the Rod Talk. None on this show, thankfully. We've kept it in, you know, holstered for this show. I might have a problem with that.

Yeah, next time, next time, let's get more of the Rod Talk. You want more Rod Talk? Yes, absolutely. We can do it. Never enough Rod Talk. You can't leave the crack out of the Rod Talk. Exactly. What's the point?

Yeah. I feel like we started really well. We started well with like promising people stuff for subscribing. And then we just like completely lost the plot, the boys. Like get on your game. We got anything else, Andy? All right. That is it for the super chats.

And that is also going to be it for the crack, for New York Rick, for duty, for Andy, for Andy, for Pizzie Carroll, the whole Carol family, for Chuck Mendenhall, for Oscar Losef. I think that's it. I think we've got to take it off here, guys. This has been an absolute adventure with you two. I admit, I'm sweating bullets trying to cover for Pizzie Carroll, trying to come up with that same kind of charm and charisma. Obviously can't be done.

The close you can come is a vague approximation, which I hope I have done. Thank you to all of you, crackheads out there for joining us. It wouldn't be Friday without you and without the crack. We couldn't do it without you. Can I do, try the Pizzi's known sign off? That the music