The Ariel Helwani Show - Ariel Helwani Reacts to Classic Interviews, Vol 2: Dana White, Chael Sonnen, James Toney, Steven Seagal, more

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

In another special episode, Ariel Helwani looks back at some of his classic interviews and tells the untold stories behind each, including:- Chael Sonnen, after beating Nate Marquardt at UFC 109, and on the verge of igniting his rivalry with Anderson Silva (07:07)- Dana White, embarrassed and disgusted by Anderson Silva's performance against Demian Maia at UFC 112 (20:27)- Josh Koscheck, moments after being sucker punched by Paul Daley at UFC 113 (32:20)- Boxing great James Toney, before his MMA debut against Randy Couture at UFC 118 (42:52)- Sensei Steven Seagal, in the immediate aftermath of Anderson Silva's iconic front kick KO against Vitor Belfort at UFC 126 (58:19)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ariel Hawani Show! Back in your life! Hello friends, how are you? And welcome to a brand new edition of the Ariel Hawhani Show, a special edition of the program. Why is this a special edition? Well, it is volume two of our classic interviews look back series. Still workshopping the title, but you know what it is. We did one of these back in December. Y'all liked it.

It might have been the most positivity that we've ever seen in the comments. It was unbelievable. And I enjoyed it as well. And we have such a deep extensive library here on this YouTube channel, which really started at all. Like when I was working for AOL back in the day for FanHouse, the early days of MMA Fighting as well, this is where we uploaded the videos because no one really understood what YouTube was or understood

that you should have your own players, so it was just all here and Since we've returned to this channel. We have all these interviews at our disposal and so Back in December we looked at five or six or so even had some old-school MMA rated ones And you can watch yeah, I, you can watch it anytime. It's a nice trip down memory lane. It's evergreen, as we say in the business. And so this time around, we look back at five other classic interviews.

And I think that there are a lot of new fans who probably have never seen any of these before. So I say to you, sit back and relax. We're gonna take a nice old trip down memory lane. And yeah, we've established recently that I am getting older, that I'm, I think some would call me ancient, vintage, unk status, whatever the case may be.

The beauty of being at that point in your life is you can look back and say, 15 years ago, I did so and so and so without further ado let us begin some 15 years ago. Let us begin with UFC 109. Yes UFC 109 took place on February 6, 2010 and way back in the day the UFC would always hold an event on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. So Super Bowl Sunday in Vegas is obviously a big one and Super Bowl weekend in Vegas is a big one and this is of course before the Raiders were playing but you know people would descend upon Vegas and you

know they'd want to gamble and do all kinds of things and the UFC would always hold an event. It was usually New Year's Eve-ish time, Super Bowl weekend, Memorial Day. They don't do any of those anymore. July 4th they still do that, a couple times Labor Day but not often, and usually kind of end the year back. And they'd have some know Vegas events as well but those were the staples and so we'll begin with UFC 109 back on February 6 2010 and as you can or as you just saw the headliner that time was a bit of a throwback if you will it was Randy Couture against Mark Coleman. Coleman returning to the UFC obviously after the stint in Pride they purchased Pride so they got a bunch of these contracts and, you know, it was a fight that was somewhat. Melined, it didn't feel like it had much juice.

Uh, there, there were, you know, no belts on the line or anything like that, but it felt like, you know, a legendary, a classic fight, if you will, for me, the fight that. Captured my attention and really the attention of the entire MMA community, it was Chael P. Sunin against Nate Marquardt. And I say Chael P. Sunin, I say that in retrospect, because at the time he was not Chael P. Sunin. You know, Chael really came out of his shell. He really started to develop the bad guy persona,

the American gangster gimmick, if you will. He did that just a few months prior. It was UFC 104. It was his fight against Yushin Okami and I'll never forget we're at AOL, we're doing the MMA Hour, Chael calls in and you know I had Chael on, I had a good relationship with him, but he was just kind of, he was Colby Covington before the gimmick he was just sort of a you know a vanilla wrestler on the roster and he cuts this crazy promo on Yusha no Kami and he's like he's not promoting I'm promoting no one cares about our fight it's a number one contender fight at 185 pounds what's going on we're on the untelivized prelims

untelivized prelims back in the day they would have onevised prelims. Untelevised prelims. Back in the day they would have one hour prelims on Spike TV main card and that was it. Okami, Sunnin, Staples Center, UFC 104 just a few months prior in October of 2009 was untelevised. I don't even know if you can find the tape anywhere. Anyway he cuts the promo and then afterwards he's like you see you see what I said because Okami had a win over Anderson and so everyone thought that he would be a shoo-in to fight him even though he didn't have a lot of buzz surrounding him. Well, Chael did not get a title shot. He had to fight Nate Marquardt and some of us thought this was a big mistake because he had

developed some momentum and this new persona, oh my god, you're going to put him up there against Nate Marquardt? This is a death sentence. Give him the title shot now. No, no. We've got to put him up there against Nate Marquardt, who was looking great, who was, you know, I don't want to say a rising star, but just like a force to be reckoned with. And that week in Vegas, and I'll never forget this, no one was covering the fights with, you know, with a video camera, a camcorder, whatever the, the, the journalists would, would stand around the fighters at the open workouts, which were at the Mandalay Bay.

And then everyone would move to the side and I would do the one-on-one interview. And, and, and shale pre fight cut a mean promo on Mark Crane. I was like, wow, he's keeping this going. And he was so confident. And I think no one thought that he was going to win the fight. I don't even know if we can, if there are, yeah, uh, Chell was a plus three 60 underdog according to topology. Nate Marquardt was a minus four 38 favorite going into the fight.

Needless to say, no one thought. Chill could beat Nate Marquardt. Well, not only did he beat him, he thoroughly beat him. He dominated Nate Marquardt. Well, not only did he beat him, he thoroughly beat him. He dominated Nate Marquardt, and it was a sign of things to come. Now, we wonder how au naturel he was in the fight, but he did it. He called his shot, and he did it. And after that fight, it produced one of my favorite interactions with Chael ever.

This is post press conference He's got a gnarly cut you could still see like the old kind of you know Good boy country boy vanilla wrestler persona is still there But the bad guys coming out the American gangster is coming out and he starts to unleash the beast on Anderson Silva and of course they ended up fighting a few months later unleashed the beast on Anderson Silva and of course they ended up fighting a few months later. This is great stuff, it is classic stuff and it's one of the early signs that Chael had a lot more to offer as far as interviews are concerned. And so let's go back to Las Vegas, let's go back to the Mandalay Bay, let's go to February 6, 2010, the late hours of February 6, 2010 in Sin City following UFC 109, a old school conversation between

Ariel and the bad guy. Ariel Halwani post fight at UFC 109 with the new number one middleweight contender, Chael Sonnen. How does that sound Chael? That sounds pretty good man. I'm feeling horrible right now so I'll take anything to perk me up a little bit. You're pretty banged up. Have you ever been this banged up before? up before no no I got cut in the fight. I got knocked out in the fight I got choked in the fight. It was a miserable 15 minutes. I want to take you back to UFC 98

You defeated Dan Miller you were at the the post fight press conference And I remember not one person until the very end asked you a question And you thank them for asking that question when the press conference was over No one wanted to talk to you. You were just kind of ignored. Now here you are you got all the questions more than Randy Couture. The spotlight is on you. This has to feel amazing. I never even thought of that till you said it but you're right that is a compliment. I didn't I didn't realize I had but you're right I did get some good attention

today. Okay so what went right out there for you? Everyone you know no one really believed when you said that you were just a better all around fighter than Nate, but you proved it out there. Why did it work so well? I'll tell you, people don't know what UFC stands for. The athletes are forgetting. It's the F that's confusing everybody. Some guys think this is the ultimate mitt hitting championships.

They think it's the ultimate high altitude training championships. The ultimate let me go away in seclusion and eat all the right food for 30 training championships. The ultimate, let me go away in seclusion and eat all the right food for 30 days championships. This is the ultimate fighting championship. And while these guys are out there swinging a sledgehammer and flipping a tire around, I'm throwing fists at a partner's head, neck and chest. I'm fighting in practice every day.

And I don't mean that, you know, we're sparring hard. I just mean I'm working on fighting things. I'm not spending my time on on mental health and and Anthony Robbins and screaming the word yes over and over not that that's bad I'm just saying I'm not spending my time on that if I'm gonna work on fighting I'm going to work on fighting and when you get in a fight that comes in very handy how close were you to tapping out when he had the guillotine choke in there I would never have tapped but I was very close to you to tapping out when he had the guillotine choke in there? I would never have tapped, but I was very close to going to sleep. I was on my way out.

What do you tell yourself in that position? Are you just trying to calm down and not think about it? What goes through your mind? Oh, please God, let him let go. Please let him let go. That's what I just kept saying over and over. Please let him let go. Please. Can you get a breath of air? If you get a breath you can hang on for five more seconds. You can get two breaths. You got ten seconds in you. How long till his arms give out? And then eventually you find a way out of the hole. But it was tight. Okay, so now you're in that number one contender spot. In April Anderson Silva is going to

fight Vitor Belfort. Correct me if I'm wrong here and if I'm assuming correctly, but you're picking Anderson or at least you want Anderson to win this fight, correct? I would prefer Anderson won because I would prefer to fight him over Vitor. I think Vitor is the better fighter. And the day, you know, I don't truly believe that. Yeah, I truly believe that. Well, Vitor has never lost a fight that was standup,

not one ever. And I'm a Vitor fan, so I would know. The blueprint to beat Vitor is out there. It's been done, but it's never been done by a stand-up guy. It's been done by a guy that can push him and pull him and pummel him and take him down to the ground and control him. The one weapon that Anderson's missing.

This isn't Chael coming out and trying to put Anderson down every chance he gets. Anderson is fantastic. He's the champion of the world for a reason. I get that. I'm not delusional. But to answer your question, I would rather

have Anderson Silva, who's big and tall and has those great big legs, that I can come out and run over, than Vitor. In the weeks leading up to this fight, when you were talking about Anderson, you would always say, you know, you ain't seen nothing yet. I got a lot more on this guy. If you do fight him, what can we expect to hear? Well, it'll be a verbal, Anderson Silva will be in tears before it's all over. Look, there's just a lot out there on the guy. I mean, this guy's no more real than the Loch Nest monster. And if he needs me to expose him, I will, but I'll tell you, the guys in

the back know who the tough guy is. If we walk in the back dressing room and Anderson says put on hip hop and Chael walks in and says put on country I guarantee it's gonna be a hoedown the guys are gonna do what I say So as far as him being the bully of the playground well his 15 minutes of fame is up All right, so you're banged up right now But I'm guessing you're very excited to finally get that shot and actually fight again. I think I will be I'm not I'm not right now. I've got to go some rest. I feel horrible. So freaking good. And you know, it's amazing, 15 years later,

I can still see myself looking through these eyes at the cut because the blood was dripping down and I was wondering if it was actually gonna fall. I mean, the Loch Ness Monster line, you know, Anderson is no more real than the Loch Ness Monster, tremendous. The hoedown line about, you know, the hoedown line is an all time. The hoedown line is a.

Is an all time. Top 10 chair, that was unreal. And the fact that he's doing it, while visibly being like, man, I feel terrible. Yes. And then says it again at the end, you can just tell he's feeling terrible is incredible. So freaking good.

Cause you could see the sort of like. That's it. Peaky chair, but also you could see the bad guy coming out, right? You can see the genesis. You can see the formation of what would go on to become one of the most iconic, like, voices and personalities in the sport. Another underrated thing that I love about that is when you ask him, like,

uh, who do you think wins? Well, you know, Vitor has never lost a stand-up fight. He says it with such certainty. And in my mind, I'm like, well, Vitor has lost fights before. Like, what exactly do you mean by that? but he just says things with such great certainty of course Vitor Belfort never ended up fighting Anderson Silva on that card UFC 112 that was in Abu Dhabi just two months later it ended up being Damien Maya shortly thereafter Vitor got hurt and some of us thought would they call

upon Chell to replace Vitor on such short notice they didn't go in that direction they ended up going with Damien Maia but that whole year was about Chael and Anderson and and and the beef and that actually Flows quite nicely into our next interview. I do I do want to just say UFC 109 It's just amazing to look at some of these stats attendance 10,753 this is at the Mandalay Bay, so T-Mobile wasn't around. Paid just 7,000, a little over 7,000 for a pay-per-view. The buy

rate, 285,000 pay-per-views, that's what's been reported, you know, they didn't make them public, they still don't. But the prelim ratings, 1.7 million on Spike TV. In those days, the countdown show on Spike would get over a million consistently. We used to look forward to them because there was so little MMA content on TV. It was special just to get a countdown show. And so we have come a very, very far away. Randy Couture beat Mark Coleman in the main event that night. Chael obviously beat Nate via unanimous decision. Some other notable wins. What about Paulo Thiago beating

Mike Swick via Bravo choke? Damien Maia beat Dan Miller so he had a quick turnaround as well. He beat him on that same card. Matt Serra beat Frank Trigg. That was a big one for Serra and he beat him in the first round just 223. I remember that very very well. Mack Danzig beat Justin Buchholz. Melvin Gillard beat Ronny Torres. Rob Emerson beat Phil Nover. Phil Davis, he was a massive prospect going into this one. That was his UFC debut, I do believe.

He went up against Bryan Stan. Yeah, it was. There was a ton of buzz surrounding him. Beat him in the, I mean, beat him in all facets of the game, but really dominated him and won via decision. Chris Tusher beat Tim Haig and Joey Beltran beat Hollis Gracie in the second round. So that's UFC 109. Shortly thereafter, we found out that Belfort was out and Maya was in. But Chia was still kind of a cloud looming over UFC 112. This was a big event for the UFC

because in January of 2010, the UFC announced that the Abu Dhabi government had sold, excuse me, had purchased 10% of the company. So this was the first time in the Zufa era that Frank and Lorenzo and Dana were gonna give up 10% of the company. So this is the first time in the Zufa era that Frank and Lorenzo and Dana were gonna give up any portion of the company. So it was a pretty big deal.

And they said that the first event was going to be in April and that they were gonna build an arena, a stadium, an outdoor stadium, a rare outdoor pay-per-view in just three months time for the UFC. So this is a really, really big fight and a big fight card. And I was lucky enough to go and actually I wasn't scheduled to go to that card. But what happened was we were doing some work for the Score

in Canada. Now there's an app called the Score and there's Scorebet, but at one point the Score was a TV network in Canada. It was playing like third fiddle to TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, and they were the up-and-comers. And they had some WWE and they had the UFC rights. And there was a reporter there named Sid Sixero, who I'm still friends with till this day, who's an absolute legend. He was their UFC guy. He ended up hosting Tim and Sid and then going to breakfast television and all this stuff. He couldn't go because it was the same weekend

as the NCAA Final Four. And so he went to the Final Four, which I think was in Indy that year, I think. Anyway, he couldn't go and so he asked me if I wanted to go. And he said that it was going to be paid for by the network and we could use the content and we could also share content with the score. And I was like, this is incredible. So I flew to Toronto.

I remember doing a hit on more analysis show, the MMA show on score. Then Casey Esther and I flew from Toronto to Abu Dhabi on Eddie had airways, which was amazing. They were unbelievable. And then we got to Abu Dhabi my first time in the, which was amazing. They were unbelievable. And then we got to Abu Dhabi my first time in the United Arab Emirates and it was incredible. It was 15 years ago. The sport was nowhere near as popular as it was today. I did a video, you can see it on the channel, where I asked people on the street if they knew what the UFC was, if they knew what MMA was, and you could tell, you could tell that people knew what it was. You could tell that there was

starting to, you know, there was starting to become a pretty solid fan base. And it was, you know, it was a pretty good card on paper. Anderson Silva fought Damien Mayen, the main event. Frankie Edgar, BJ Penn, we all remember what happened in that fight. Matt Hughes, Henzo Gracie was a big one because Henzo was instrumental in brokering the deal between the Royal Family and the UFC. So they put them on there for his one and only UFC fight RDA, Terry Adam, Mark Munoz, Kendall Grove, Phil Davis back against Gustafson, Rick story, Nick Oshipshack, the Marcus Johnson, Brad Blackburn, Paul Kelly, Matt Feach, John Madsen, Mustafa Al-Turk. Not many, you know, sometimes Veach, John Madsen, Mustafa Al Turk.

Sometimes you'll see these cards now and there's a ton of local guys and no one. Reading some of these names, man, takes me back. It's unbelievable. So anyway, big event. All the luminaries are there. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget sitting All the luminaries are there. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget sitting on on press rows one of the very few North American journalists there and and I'll never forget that I had less than 5,000 Twitter followers. I probably started the night at around like 3,000 and I remember sitting next to Kevin Ioli who had way more than than I did and I remember looking at his he had probably I don't know 12,000 I was like was like, wow, 12,000, that's unbelievable.

And then I remember watching the main event and I remember it being an absolute stinker. It was a horrible fight, it was an awful fight. It was one of those classic Anderson Silver fights where he didn't engage, he didn't want to fight, he was messing around. And I remember at what point later the fight, Dana White leaves and takes the middleweight title

and gives it to Ed Soros, his longtime manager, and says, you give him the belt. And Anderson wins, but everyone was disinterested. No one was into it. It was an awful way to end a very important fight and a very important card for the company. And so we go to the press conference afterwards. It's in a tent outdoors. It's a bunch of like local media there, very few people who understood the magnitude of it all and who followed the sport very closely. They didn't stream it and I was there and I was live tweeting everything that was being said.

And I remember just, I would get notifications when I would get followers and I remember just getting a flood of emails this person's following this and I remember gaining a thousand Twitter followers that night and thinking it was unbelievable and I remember some fighters like Joe Lozano and Patrick Cote follow me I'm like wow fighters are actually paying attention Dana was pissed it was it was awkward it was tense he didn't hide his frustration and then usually the protocol was Dana would do

a post-fight press conference and then we would all gather around and he would do a scrum. And to his credit, he did the presser and he did the scrum. And I remember, and usually what would happen is presser, scrum, and then I would get a one-on-one. And I remember kind of like going up to him and not knowing how he would respond. And I remember asking him and he said yes. And it was a gigantic deal for me.

This interview that I'm going to show you is the post fight press conference interview with Dana White. It was unbelievable because we spent a couple days after the event in UAE. We toured Dubai. We had to stay there for an extra day because of the flight. And I remember seeing this video gained, this is back in 2010, a million views in 24 hours. And that just blew, like we did nothing close to that prior to that. And it really did feel like a major turning point for just me and my reporting and people paying attention to my work.

I will always say, very appreciative that he spoke to me that night, very appreciative that he gave us some time, because as you can see, he was not in a good mood. And as you will hear, Anderson Silva was waiting for him. So for him to pause everything and talk to us really did mean a lot. And so without further ado, here's my post-UFC 112 interview with Dana White after that debacle of a main event. Ariel Hawani post fight at UFC 112. Dana, you said a lot of big words today.

Embarrassed, disgraced. Is this your lowest moment as president of UFC? No doubt about it, absolutely. 100%. You know, this was a big event for us tonight. This was a really big moment. I was really excited. I've been here. I've been fired up. I've been on the road a lot. And this whole last three weeks of my life

was leading to this night here. The people in this country, including the media, have really got behind this thing. And with support like I've never, ever seen anywhere. And I'm really embarrassed. It almost feels like a broken record now. UFC 90, UFC 97, now this. Do you feel as though Anderson, when he fights at 185,

continues to let you down? I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. Yeah, I don't know. He's waiting for me. I just sent them to my trailer. For you to talk to him? So we'll find out. I know that's a private conversation, but what will you say to him, if you can share with us?

What are some of the things? It's a private conversation. Is it true that you did leave in the fourth round and give the belt to Ed Suarez? I left in the fourth round and I gave the belt to Ed and I said, you put it on him. I'm not doing it. Do you have any interest in seeing him defend the title again or do you think he just needs to be challenged? Cuz as we said in the press conference,

when he fights at 205 he's knocking guys out in the first round. Yeah, I agree. Seriously, I don't know how to fix this. My head hurts like right here, right now. And I honestly, I don't know the answer. I don't know why he acted the way that he did he comes in and the other thing that Is even more baffling is that he feels that he doesn't owe the fans an apology yet. I'm apologizing I didn't go in and fight like a jackass for five rounds. I didn't do what he did tonight, but I'm embarrassed and I

Feel like I should apologize to the fans and I feel like I owe the fans one and like I said earlier I don't know how I'm going to do it but I'm going to pay everybody back and at the same time too I hate to take away from the guys who did perform tonight and put on a great show. You know Frankie Edgar went in there and you know too small and 7 to 1 underdog and you know beat one of the pound-for-pound best and probably the greatest lightweight to ever f*** off So I hate to take that away from Frankie and all the other guys to Marcus Johnson and Brad Blackburn put on an amazing performance tonight. Munoz got you know dominated in the first round It comes back and wins. You know there were a lot of great fights tonight, so

but you know it's always the main event that everybody's gonna remember and I will make it up to the fans. You just answered five of my questions there so I'll let you go. I just want to ask this you know obviously you care so much about this sport you care so much about this company there are a lot of new faces in them in you know the press conference here a lot of new faces in the crowd. As the president of the company, how badly do you feel about this? Do you feel, you know, first impression, it's always the biggest one. Is that what you're thinking right now? No doubt about it.

It's all about first impressions and, you know, one of the things that I've always been proud of is every time we go into a new market, we always leave a good first impression. People always leave the event and spread what I call the virus. You know, they infect 15 other people with what they saw that night. Well, let's hope that doesn't happen tonight. Final question. There are a lot of fans on Twitter. You know this, you talk to the fans.

They're saying two names, GSP, Brock Lesnar. They want to see Anderson fight one of those guys. Do any of those fights interest you right now? Anderson doesn't interest me right now. The only thing I care about right now is going in and having the conversation that I wanna have with him right now. As far as him fighting again,

what else, I can't even think about it right now. What a time. I'll never forget him saying, I have a pain right here. You see the despair on his face and his voice. You see the body language. And you'll have to remember, that was UFC 112.

Prior to that he knocked out, Anderson did, Forrest Griffin at UFC 101, a fight that New York Ric was at in Philly. That was a great fight, but I referenced 185. It felt like at 185 he just wasn't motivated because the two fights prior to that one were Tallis ladies in Montreal UFC 97 and Patrick Cote in Chicago UFC 90 and those were stinkers as well and so three of his last four fights were just not good imagine if Islam was just putting out stinkers or Alex Pryor was just putting out stinker after stinker after stinker. Ilya Tuporiya like one of the faces of the sport. And afterwards, I remember on social media,

people were like, feed him to Brock, because we thought Brock would just annihilate him. Or feed him to George, because he was the champion at 170. Well, in the end, they fed him to Chael Sonnen. His next fight was against Chael Sonnen, and it was just a few months later, in August of 2010 and and Chael was that freaking close to beating him didn't happen got submitted and of course tested positive after so it would have all been for naught but I mean just it's a wild thing to look back I remember the fan in that

room I remember how hot it was you can see I'm kind of sweaty as well. And I just remember the vibe because he was so mad. He was so upset. Anderson was kind of sheepish. He was he was feeling like he was being attacked. He doesn't feel like he owes anyone an apology or an explanation. And the media there were all just kind of local media saying like, so what did you think of the UAE? What do you think of Dubai? It was very hot, it was the middle of the night, it was April, it was muggy. They didn't do a lot of those outdoor cards. I mean, off the top of the dome, have they done another?

Has there been another outdoor card since then? I feel like these days they kind of build a contraption usually around around right? It's usually even like even like Fight Island wasn't outdoors. No it was they built something around Something that would be outdoors and so yeah, I can't think of one You touched on it, but to me the most bizarre part of this like certainly I'm a huge Anderson Silva fan This was the prime of Anderson Silva. This was me feeling like, oh, Anderson Silva is the man. I was always more Silva than GSP.

This performance, even for me, was like baffling to the point that if you are this much better than Damien Maia, then prove it, finish him, right? Instead of dancing around. But the craziest part of this to me is it's sandwiched by literally probably his three best performances. By the three that when you say Anderson Silva's name, it's the Forrest Griffin matrix, then it's this one.

But on the other side of it's chill and the other side of it's the VTOR Belfort front kick. His best moments are like right around this time and this one just dead in the middle of it and it was a stinker. And I don't, you know, Dana White's sentiment I think spoke for many fans at that time. 2010 is one of my favorite years covering this sport.

And so let us stick with 2010 UFC action and let's go to the following pay-per-view UFC 113. That was a crazy stretch because I went, yeah, that's the one, Meshida against Shogun 2. They fought at UFC 104. It was very controversial. And a lot of people thought that Lyoto didn't deserve to win that fight. He did get the nod in Los Angeles. And then they ran it back right away with Shogun.

That stretch, I went... I was in Abu Dhabi. I came home. That following week, I went to Nashville for Strike Force Nashville, the CBS card where the brawl happened. These things happen in MMA. That following week, I went to Sacramento for the WEC pay-per-view, the lone one, Aldo Faber.

I had two weeks at home, and then I returned to Montreal. May 8th was the, was the night of that fight. And then the following week was strike force in St. Louis. It was like, what was that? Five events in six weeks. It was crazy. And it was always very special to go back home and this was a big fight. And I think it was big.

It was, it was one of the, the rare ones where it was a non-GSP or non-canadian in the main event you know 84 was was was GSP 97 also didn't have GSP but obviously you know against Diaz against Condit against Koschek it was it was always GSP in those early days so this was a rematch between Shogun and Leota Machida. And obviously Shogun won that fight. He knocked out Machida emphatically in the first round. It was very, very quick. And wouldn't you know it, I was there.

I was covering the event. I missed it. I missed the entire thing. I did not see it. Why did I miss it? Because I was interviewing Josh Koschek. And you may be asking yourself, how could you be so stupid? How could you miss the main event to interview Josh Koscheck?

But let me tell you, the story was Josh Koscheck because Josh Koscheck, who was one of the true legitimate bad boys of the sport back then, of the UFC, had this bitter feud with Paul Daly. And the buildup was quite bitter. And there was the Bob Ross picture and all that stuff, if you recall. And the fight was a frustrating one for Paul Daly. It was a very frustrating one for Paul Daly.

And the worry was, if you were a Daly fan, he didn't have the wrestling to negate whatever Kostrych wanted to do, which was wrestle him. And he wasn't gonna be able to keep the fight standing. He wasn't going to be able to unleash the left hand, the bomb, Semtex. And so that's how the fight played out. It was one-sided, there was a lot of grappling, he was smothered, he was frustrated. Things were said during the fight, and as the fight ended, and once it ended,

and before the referee, Damir G Gliada was able to step in and officially end it, Daly got a shot in. You all remember it? Infamous shot. Here's the photo courtesy of the legendary Esther Lin, the future Hall of Famer herself. And the UFC was not happy about this. Dana White at the Post-Fight Press Conference announcing that Daly had been cut. He never went back on that word. He made the call and always stuck to it even though some people were asking, especially after the the Strike Force purchase never brought Paul Daly back. And in fact if you go into the archives, uncrowned zoned Ben Fokesokes who at the time was working for MMA fighting.com penned this article cutting Paul Daly from UFC was only punishment that fits

the crime. I wonder if Ben still feels that way. Maybe we can ask him. May 9th 2010. And so anyway I got a chance to speak to Josh Kosciak minutes after the fight. You can see it's very raw, it's very fresh, and pay attention early on. We react because we hear the crowd go crazy because Shogun has just knocked out Liotto to become the new light heavyweight champion. And he stops, reacts, and then we get back to the controversy surrounding that fight. Take a look. Ariel Hawani post fight at UFC 11c one thirty with josh cost check who

defeated paul daily tonight and first off josh congratulations on a very big victory i hate to take away from the victory but obviously the end was a little ugly in your opinion what exactly happened out there uh... you know is talking to him in his ear just a little bit let him know that uh... some of things that he said on the countdown show weren't very polite and uh... he didn't take too kindly of it. So he started eye-gouging me. And first off, the guy's a blatant cheater.

He had oil all over him. So you know what? I just stuck to the game plan. The game plan was to be conservative, get the victory any way I could, take him down, wrestle, go back to the old school a little bit. And you know, I had a lot of riding on this fight and you know, I played it conservative and had to get the victory. So you felt as though he was oiled up? Thank you. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, I could smell it from the beginning.

So you know, no big deal. You know, I knew what I had to do and that's go out and get the victory, you know. But I was telling the guys earlier this was a big test for me, you know, to get here for this fight. You know, lots of things went wrong in training, you know, not making any excuses, but you know, it was the toughest training camp of my life, a lot of personal issues. God, I thank God that, just want to thank God that being on my side and he got me here and got me through this. Do you want to talk about a little more what went wrong?

Nah, just personal issues and that's the extent that I can go with. But I made it here and guess what? This fight's in the past now and now I'm focused on becoming a better fighter so I can go out and perform and beat George St. Peter do you think the UFC should cut him for what he did well you know that's not my opinion you know Paul Daly is a good fighter he's a tough fighter one dimensional but he's a very tough opponent and you know I think he'll be back to fight another day obviously your takedowns in your wrestling were a big factor in terms of why you won the fight.

A lot of people are questioning, you know, will you stand with him? It seems as though you were able to execute your game plan perfectly, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, look at George St. Pierre, what he did to Hardy, you know. I watched that fight 25, 30 times, you know. Just you know, George, good wrestler. And you know, I wanted to show my wrestling tonight. And I want to thank Zink and Entertainment, Bob Cook, all the guys at AK.

I had a... Showgun 1? Holy s***. Sounds like you just did. Wow. I called that too. Our locker room is undefeated. How about that?

Geez. Wow. But I just... I just... Yeah, man. But I just, yeah man, I don't even know what, I'm speechless. I just have to ask about the knee. A lot of people are booing you. They said that you embellished. Did he in fact hit you in the head with his knee?

Yeah, absolutely. Hit me with something while I was down, so I don't know if it was a knee, fist, or what. But I got hit pretty hard, and I could have quit. I got up and kept fighting. Next up, the Ultimate Fighter and George St. Pierre. Are you ready for this? Yeah, this is going to be great.

This is a dream come true. Like I said, I was very conservative this fight and I apologize to my fans, but I had to get the victory. I've had a crazy career, ups and downs, wins and losses, just a lot of stuff. Here I am, 13 wins in the UFC. Who would ever figure a guy from the Ultimate Fighter would be in this position? And you know, it's God's blessing that I'm here and I'm super excited. Well congratulations on the victory, Josh, and congrats on the Penns winning tonight.

Yeah, the Pings, did they win? They did win, 2-1, yeah. I don't think you knew that when you were talking to them, right? No, so they're up 3-2? They're up 3-2, game 6 on Monday. Oh, there we go. You got some extra security going around Montreal tonight after that comment? I think I'll be wearing a hoodie and a toboggan tonight and yeah, I'm gonna have security or else I'm not going out. So at the time, the Canadians were playing the Penguins in the NHL playoffs and he's a big Penguins guy, so that's what I'm referring to there.

It's just amazing to go back. I haven't really watched these in a long time. I picked the interviews and kinda wanna watch them for the first time as we're doing this. Kosciak, I feel, Rick, do you feel like Kosciak is one of those guys that has kinda been forgotten about one of those classic characters? I don't feel like he gets talked about.

I don't even know what he looks like now. I haven't seen him, you don't see him at the fights. He's not coaching people. He's not running a gym. He's not really involved. He just kind of disappeared. For how significant he was to the sport at the time. Yeah. Yes, it feels like he has kind of just, like, disappeared out of it. To the point that, like, because Daly's career went on so long, like, feels like Daly is more memorable of the two

when at that moment in time, Kaschek was on top and Daly was on the verge of being released. Yep and you know we referenced the Ultimate Fighter that was on the line. The winner of the fight was slated to coach opposite GSP. Imagine if it would have been Paul Daly. There was a lot at stake there and obviously Kostchek wins the fight, coaches the Ultimate Fighter and fights GSP later on that year in December of 2010 at UFC 124 back in Montreal. There was that controversial moment with the knee, and some said that he embellished. He said he was hurt. He was hit.

And credit to him at the time. He didn't call for Daly to get get fired even though it seemed like this was something that was building up and then at the post-fight press conference shortly thereafter Dana White announces that but you can hear early on the crowd go crazy and then it just kind of lingers and then you hear Buffer make the announcement and he reacts to it what a time also on that card by the way Jeremy Stevens who is back in the UFC, unbelievably, he beat Sam Stout, hands of stone, via split decision, Matt Mitrione beat the late, great Kimbo Slice in his second and final UFC appearance. He had fought Houston Alexander a few months prior,

and it was a pretty big deal to have Kimbo Slice fight in Montreal, I have to say. He didn't get that opportunity to fight in Florida in the UFC. That would have been amazing. And Mitreon ended up winning via second round KO. We had Alan Belcher defeating Patrick Cote. So it was a rough one for some of the Canadian stars. Joe Dirksen beat Tom Lawler.

The Irish hand grenade, Marcus Davis beat Jonathan Goulet. Johnny Hendricks beat TJ Grant. Joey Beltran beat Tim Hague. Mike Gaiman beat Yoshiyuki Yoshida. And John Salter beat Jason McDonald. Oh, man, Jason McDonald, legend, the athlete. Been a while since I thought of him. What a time, what an era.

Enjoyed that one very much. Let's move along and let's stick with 2010. What a year. Did I peak in 2010? Has it been all downhill since then? Golly. 2010 was a crazy year. I mean, I didn't want to mention it when we were talking about the Anderson Silver, but you know, that was the year that BJ Penn got jerk-jobbed in Abu Dhabi. Yeah. Did you notice? I didn't want to say, I didn't't wanna say to derail it, but. They did run it back a few months later

and it was quite one-sided. We need a 2010 book with a catchy title. 2010? 2010, the year I peaked. At least on Twitter, right? It sounded like you were buzzing. But I mean, all these interviews, I don't know, they're all in 2010, golly, didn't even notice.

It was an important year. Well, we fast forward to July of 2010. We're in Las Vegas. It's UFC one 16 and look at the stars, Brock Lesnar is back going up against Shane Carwin. This was the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. It was like mountain man versus mountain man. Brock coming back, Carwin, the interim champ

beats Frank Mir. It's, it's a unification bout coming back Carwin the interim champ beats Frank Mir It's it's a unification bout. It's at the MGM classic What a time July 4th weekend. It's it's July 3rd to be exact Leibin coming back on just two weeks notice to to fight Yoshi Yoshihiro Akiyama, Sexy Yama, Lytle Matt Brown, the late great Stefan Bonner against Christoph Shosinski, George Sotteropoulos and Kurt Pellegrino opening the card. That was a big one. Brendan Shaw defeating Chris Tucher on the prelims, televised. Ricardo Romero beat Seth Petruzzelli via armbar. Remember him.

Kendall Grove, Goran Releich, Gerald Harrison, David Branch. Remember that knockout, the slam? It got them on SportsCenter and everyone was freaking out. Gerald Harris got on SportsCenter top 10. Daniel Roberts against Forrest Petz and John Madsen versus Carlos Vemula. That's the card there. And the interview I'm going to show you has nothing to do with the card. But on the day before the interview, prior to the weigh-ins,

and back then there was no morning weigh-in ceremony, just one morning, they were just going to have a match. And they were going to show you has nothing to do with the card. But on the day before the interview, prior to the weigh-ins, and back then there was no, you know, there were no morning weigh-ins, ceremonial, just one weigh-in afternoon, that was the official one, I had a chance to speak to the great Lights Out James Toney. Now a few months prior, I was doing a post-fight interview with Dana White after an event. It might have been 108 I think or 109 it was either 108 or 109 110 was in Australia anyway James Tony crashed the interview he was just kind of there and he wanted a fight in the UFC and he

wanted to fight Randy Couture and this was crazy I mean it's James Tony's legendary boxer Hall of Fame boxer. He wants to come over. Like usually it was the MMA fighters talking about going over to boxing. He wanted to come over. Now there were some rumors about, did he need the money, IRS, this and that, who knows? But you gotta give the guy credit.

Incredible boxer, wanted to come over, fish out of water, and he wanted to try MMA. And he wanted to fight in UFC against Couture, who they booked him against, who obviously we know about his bread and butter, that's wrestling. Well, he had a media availability. They would bring the guys. They wouldn't really do press conferences back then,

but you'd get a chance to talk to them. So I got to talk to James Toney, and this is an all-time classic. The one I did on Fight Week with him was classic as well. It was tense though. He tried to take the microphone, all this stuff. This one was a little friendlier and I think remembered a little more fondly

because it was the first one and it also went all over the place. Credit to my long-time cameraman, Casey Lydon. He followed us everywhere. It went all over the gaff. And it's one that people still talk to me about till this day. So here we are on July 2nd 2010 the day before UFC 116 talking to James

Tony about his UFC 118 flight which was happening just a couple of weeks later really like five or six weeks later in Boston big debut for the UFC in Boston against Randy Couture I got a chance to talk to Lights Out for the very first time and it's definitely one of my My most memorable and favorite interviews of all time. I'll never forget it. Take a look Ariel Hawani in Las Vegas, Nevada with the boxing champion turned UFC rookie James Lights Out Tony Who faces Randy Couture this August live on pay-per-view UFC 118. James how are you? Good how about yourself? I'm very good. I'm very excited to talk to you because I have a lot of questions for you. The first one is why are you coming to MMA? What do you have to prove you've

done so much in your boxing career? Why did you make this decision? I have to fight and plus you know I can't get nobody to fight. Here I am running here with champions. I can't get the other champions to fight me or anybody else for most. So, you know, then when I heard that Dana White said, MMA fighters are better than boxers, I had to put a hold to it, you know what I'm saying? So that's why we're here. Did he ever say that though? Because I've looked through the archives

and Dana is a boxing fan. I do not remember him ever specifically calling you out or calling boxers out. He didn't call me up, but he called boxers out. People were telling me this. And so when I heard that, you know, I had to step up to the plate for boxing. I represented boxing. I represented an old school. That's me. So give us the thought process here. You then decided to sort of like stalk him, right? I remember seeing you at UFC 107 in Memphis. You showed up here in Las Vegas as well.

Why did you decide to do this? And do you think if you didn't do that? He would have never signed you He really I won't worry about your sign. No, I don't care about getting something by nobody. No James. I'm James Tony My thing is is um, I heard he's put them people tell people on Twitter if James one won't see me here come here You don't say so I did we well I just did why he anything I was gonna do and when I showed up it kind of shocked him a little bit and I said it's no animosity to me and him Dana white. No, no, I mean he's a good dude. I love it I love the UFC. I've always been a big fan of it But you know when you step over some of the boundaries since you've been

Somebody else I got a big problem with that. You know, so here I am the rectify somebody else, I got a big problem with that. So here I am, the rectifier. Well, there's a video online of you guys having a meeting before you signed with the UFC. And you said some terms that a lot of people have used to raise red flags that you might not know a lot about MMA. You said something like a side check kick. And correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think that really

exists in terms of moves. So what's the deal? How much do you really know about the sport? I don't know nothing about the sport. Just tune in August 28th. Y'all find out how much I know about the sport. So, you're not gonna tip your hand. Tune in August 28th, pay your $59.95 or whatever you got to pay for it. Tune in and watch me see how much I know. Who have you been training with? Who has helped you you know learn the game of MMA? I've got my dad King Mo Musasi

couple of guys Antonio McKee So I've been working with some good fighters and good athletes some excellent people. Is it true that you tapped out? I just say he was getting so annoyed of me at this point. He says King Mo Musasi Who I think he was combining King Mo and Gaggar Musasi And then also the side check kick thing. I don't think he was combining King Mo and Gaggar Musasi and then also the side check kick thing I don't think he liked so you can see him getting more and more aggravated with my questions and well it kind of boils over take a

look. King Mo. You asked King Mo. He said it. What did it happen? I ain't gonna lie to you. What kind of submission maneuver was it? Worse. It was a what? Red nigga choke baby. Really? So obviously you know Jiu Jitsu, you're wrestling. I don't know Jiu Jitsu, I don't know wrestling.

All I know how to do is fight. Period. And how about when they offered you Randy Gattour as an opponent? Was that the fight that you wanted or did you rather perhaps fight someone else? Hear this guy over here. Y'all hear this guy over here. Do I rather fight somebody else? Anybody. Do I rather fight anybody? Man, look, I told them when first came to the UFC, I don't want to fight none of these bums, no one of these kind of fighters. I want the best. I wanted Brock. I wanted this man right here. But he was sick. I know that so then he and I said how about Chuck

Chuck over them in total. He was sitting a little all scared nervous. I won't wait in there. You're saying and then Simba I mean Kimber where we gonna Kimber slice. They want that to then which car came up I'm gonna walk with James Tony and back timesize him to the UFC. Fine, let's do it. No problem. Now fans out there don't like me, that's true, I done brag. Cause after August 1st and 8th, y'all really ain't gonna like me

because I'm gonna destroy y'all so-called legend. A guy with 12 losses is a legend. Ain't that a bitch? Obviously he is a legend, he's one of the greatest. Obviously you're a, you're a, you're a, you're a Couture fan, right? No, I am not. You must be,

I'm neutral. I'm the opposite. Well, he's in the UFC Hall of Fame. He's won multiple titles in different weight classes. See, that's why y'all sported so much stuff. You, like boxing, NFL, NBA, you have to be retired for five years to be considered a Hall of Fame.

This guy has never retired. He's already in the Hall of Fame. Y'all got the s***, but you know what? I'ma clean it up. Well, I don't know if we want to get into a boxing versus MMA debate because... We can do that if you want to because you're gonna lose, man. You're gonna lose. You're gonna lose, period. You're saying boxing is better than MMA?

All day. I'm telling you right now what you're gonna do about it. I don't represent the sport. August 20th, find out. But James, one more question for you if you don't mind. You are obviously facing Randy Couture. But I got questions about the game plan, James. This is the spot right here. This is where we're doing the interview, my man.

Should we follow him? Let's follow him. Let's have a talk with James. Right over here, have a seat right next to him. James, a good friend of yours, David Hayes, says you're delusional for fighting in MMA. He's gay. Okay. Is that the fight that you're...is it Randy then David? It could be Randy, David, or the bitch girl sisters.

It don't even matter, man, because you know what I'm saying? If David...if he do...he could have fought me by now. We could have fought October 6th, but he decided to fight Farley Harrison. But you know what I'm saying? I'm not even thinking about him. If he had to go out of the way to talk about James Sonny, damn, something wrong with him. My mind's on Randy Couture, he's a great fighter.

I ain't got no animosity to him. Randy Couture, he's a great fighter in the sport, but come August 20th, he's just totally bitten. So I'm gonna kick his ass. Are you carrying around a doll of Randy Couture? I saw you holding something earlier. You want me to take home with you? No, no, I just want to see it,

because I'm not sure if it was Randy or if it was someone else. He mad. I can tell he a Randy Couture friend. He upset about this shit. I'm very offended over the potential of you messing with Randy Couture's doll, if it is Randy Couture's action figure, is it? Oh, look at that. Looks like he's got a purse and a dress. That is Randy. Now this is, have you been, you know, practicing your maneuvers on this doll or is this just to sort of make

fun of him? Oh, that's a good one. Okay, let's finish on this. Let's finish on this. Dana White has said that he does not know now why he signed you. And he actually was on a Washington DC radio show earlier this week with Luke Thomas and said that he considers this a freak show fight. What do you make of that? The only freak show I got is between my legs. So whatever man.

So I don't even think about that man. Whatever he, I don't know, Dana White's on. He a good dude, me, we cool. Doesn't confuse you? What the f***, I look like I'm blind? No, I mean does it confuse you that he would sign you and then say something like that? They don't confuse me for nothing.

I'm a handle my business. That's about all he can do. He can think of any one thing. That's cool. Side show, side show, slide show, whatever you want to call it. Tune in, tune in, August 1st and 8th. Get your bucks up. All your friends get to go to one house. Or stay in a super house. I prefer super houses. Or the 59.95. And you're not in it for just one fight. You want to have an actual career in the UFC.

Let me tell you something though. After I knock out Randy Couture, the real heavyweight boxer title, October or November, come back and fight in the UFC in January or February. It doesn't matter, I'm a two-sport athlete, the oldest man ever to do that. Any final words for MMA fans, boxing fans, James Tony fans, Randy Couture fans, anything you wanna say to them before we go? Yeah, have a good day. Thanks James, looking forward to it. UFC 118, the debut of James Lights Out Tony

against Randy the Natural Couture. I can't wait, I can't wait. I'm burning up right now. I should be at home training, but you know, I'm up here with you guys. Love it. Holler to the boy, lights out. August 28th, Boston.

Bean town. Here we come. All day. Can't wait. Matter of fact, they might close Boston down for a day because everybody from Detroit coming up in their mugs. I'll scare y'all away. Roll, baby.

We done? We done, cut. I'm hearing Andy count me down and I can hear the laughing. Roll baby. We done? We done. Cut. I'm hearing Andy count me down and I can hear the laughing. It's an all time classic. GC, you've never seen that one, right? No, first time seeing it. What a guy.

Fantastic. What a guy. They don't make him like James Tony anymore. In the end, he lost via first round arm triangle choke submission. A memorable moment of that submission was he didn't really know like how to tap. So he just like tapped to the sky.

I don't even know if he, you know, trained for it really. No, he was, you know, side check kicks. Don't forget about this. Yeah, you remember people were killing for that. The front kick, the back kick, the side check kick. He knew. By the way, shout out to him. He was 41. He was still in the midst of his career. He took the chance I was gonna say it's a bit of like, you know a laughable moment now

But like got to respect a dude who had an entire Like epic career in the boxing ring and decided to come into the sport as we've seen like that's not like common That that is something that many will not do. And so I respect him, even though, like, certainly he was not going to beat a wrestler in Randy Couture. When he took that fight, his boxing record was 72, 6, and 3 with two no contests. This would be akin to, he isn't as big as a Furrier, Joshua, but someone at the stage of their careers

taking a fight like this and against the worst possible opponent. He mentioned he called him Simba, Kimbo. Kimbo had just fought. I think the UFC probably didn't want to do that because that would just turn into a boxing match essentially and Tony would have probably won that. And so I think they used this opportunity to prove a point. Hey, we're better. Don't come over here. Don't think that you're just gonna

waltz into our sport. And this was one of like the early you know MMA versus the versus boxing debates. And on this night, one of the rare times that in that debate, MMA won. And so just a couple of, not a couple months, less than a couple months, like six or so weeks later, he ended up losing to Randy Couture and also on that night Frank Edgar beat BJ Penn via unanimous decision. What a legend! James Tony. The interview that we did before 118, he tried to take the mic away, it got a lot more, a lot more aggressive, a lot more tense. Maybe we'll look at that one in a future installment of this classic interview series.

All right, one more to go. How about that? And let's get out of 2010. Let's go to 2011 and let's go to UFC 126. You know, we started things kind of talking about Anderson Silva with Chell and all the craziness in Abu Dhabi. Well, let's end on a good note. Anderson did in fact end up fighting Vitor Belfort.

That was UFC 126, also Super Bowl weekend a year later, 2011. And the build-up to this one was quite tense. He's now, you know, he's got his groove back, he beat Chael. This is a big time robbery. The VTOR is back in the UFC, Brazil turf war, all this stuff and more. They did not like each other. No love lost. And I'll never forget at the weigh-ins the night before this fight, Anderson showing up with the Jabberwockies and he puts on the mask. One of the most iconic face-offs of all time. Look at that. Amazing. And I think what he was trying to say was like you're two-faced something like that. I'm still not quite sure. But anyway it was a tremendous fight. It ended up producing one of the greatest knockouts in UFC history, in MMA history. A front kick to

the face. Shout out to our good friend, James Law, who captured this photo. Look at that. Ended up being on the cover of the upcoming video game, just iconic stuff. Look at that. Look how clean, look at the, the, the, the, the toes hitting Vitor's face.

By the way, look at the shorts. Beautiful, unique, different, Ruka, Muscle Farm, the colors. Oh, how I long for those things. Imagine the custom ones Venom could have made for me. Gosh, it would have been so great with like a spider. It would have been sick. Yeah.

Oh. Oh. It would have been amazing. It would have been amazing. Anyway, everyone was freaking out. One of the all time great knockouts, a great moment. And now all of a sudden it's like Anderson's got his groove back.

He's knocking people out. He's winning at 185 in tremendous fashion. He's got the goatee. back. He's knocking people out. He's winning at 185 in tremendous fashion. He's got the goatee. This is vintage, prime Anderson Silva. Ah, take me back to those days. February of 2011. Afterwards, we're all kind of, you know,

getting ready to go to the press conference and word starts trickling throughout that it was in fact the great Stephen Seagal who taught Anderson Silva that kick. Now Stephen was kind of a part of the the entourage. We weren't quite sure what was going on, but on this night we found out that he wasn't just Stephen Seagal to Anderson Silva. He was Sensei Seagal. Sensei Stephen Seagal. He taught him that move. This is what people were saying.

I had to find out for myself. As an intrepid young reporter, I had to find out for myself. And so I found Stephen Segal walking in the bowels of the arena, the Mandalay Bay, and I was thinking to myself, do I ask this man for an interview? I mean, this is a legend.

This is an absolute Hollywood legend. Everyone loves Steven Seagal. If I could score an interview with him and he could tell me on camera that he taught him the move that knocked out Vitoria's head cockback, this would be a huge break for me. And to my surprise, he obliged. He said yes. He said, I'll happily do it, but I do have one request. He asked myself and our cameraman, E.K.C. Leiden, if he can hold the camera over his head and shoot that way. So not like this, one of those cameras. He wanted him to shoot like that. Why? cameras, he wanted him to shoot like that. Why? I'll let you be the judge. But it was a rare request. In fact, no one had ever asked us this before. No one asked us this afterwards other than Sensei Segal, who we ended up interviewing a few more times later on. But he was always very kind to us, came on the MMA hour as well. When I saw him, he'd always be very kind.

But this was the first one, and this is the most memorable one this is where he reveals to the world that he was in fact the man who taught Anderson Silva that front kick to the face. Enjoy this classic interview with the one and only the inimitable the often imitated never duplicated Sensei Seagal. Ariel Hawani post fight at UFC 126 alongside Steven Seagal after Anderson Silva's brilliant win over Vitor Belfort tonight and Mr. Seagal you thank you very much for the time first and foremost Anderson after the fight said that he learned that front kick to the face from you right where'd you teach that where'd you learn that? Where did I learn? Well I learned it you know you

know sort of a variation of that in Japan probably 30, 40 years ago and I've been perfecting it all these years. It's not exactly karate, it's just something that I created that's a little bit different than I thought. Anderson can learn well because he's sort of a natural born athlete, he has very quick hands and feet and his kicks are good to begin with. So I started teaching him kicks that I thought he could really hurt people with. And in practice he was knocking people out with body shots. At that point I knew he was going to start to really make these kicks work.

Have you ever seen someone in a combat sports match knock someone out with that kick? Well, nobody knows the kick. I'm teaching it to Machida and Machida-kun and Anderson and a few other Brazilians, but we haven't really used it much yet. I haven't shown it to many people yet. So when you actually saw him pull it off, what were you thinking? I was really proud of him and really happy. You know, he did it really well. What were your thoughts on the first couple minutes

of the fight where they were sort of not really engaging each other? I just felt that the word we have for that in the fight community is something that wouldn't be fit for mainline publication. But it's a kind of a phobia let's call it you know you know there's just this there's this sort of you know hesitance to really get in there and as soon as somebody throws the first punch or kick and somebody feels

the first punch or kick then usually they get over that and they start getting their timing their distance corrected and then they start you know being able to kind of hit each other, kick each other, and so it took them a while to warm up. How did you actually meet Anderson? Gosh, I don't remember. But anyway, people had come to ask me, you know, if I would be interested in...

Oh, he actually sent me a letter, a memo saying, will you please teach me your deadly stuff? And then I made a point to come and see him. And him and Leo Tomachita are two of my favorite guys, but all the guys in that house are my favorite guys. But those two especially I'm trying to work hard on. Would you ever consider training other fighters too, or would you just like to focus on them?

It's really about attitude and friendship. I'm not doing any of this for money or fame or anything you know I mean this is the first interview I would I wouldn't even be doing this interview of George's and tell me not to do it for him but I'm just doing out of love for the guys you know and trying to help them perfect themselves. Dana White just said that next for Anderson could be George St. Pierre. I know it's kind of early, but how do you see that fight playing out? I think it would be a very, very tough fight for both of them. Alright, final question. What do you think of UFC in general?

You mean you're a guy who has been around the martial arts world, you were one of the first. My whole life, yeah. And now the sport, you know, martial arts in general are getting a lot more attention because of the UFC and the rise of mixed martial arts. What do you think of it? Well, I mean, it's a double-edged sword, you know, on one hand there's some people who are saying, and certainly some of this is true, that we've lost a lot of the sacred nature of the secret lineage of passing on things that wouldn't be disseminated in the public and, you know, these traditions that are, you know, really in the public and you know these traditions that are

you know really not to be you know bought and sold and played out in public like this. But on the other hand it's really helped people hone their techniques to learn what really works in the real world and it's brought attention to the martial arts which is a great thing and so I think you have to kind of always you know take the good with the bad and and look at the whole picture in which case I would say that you know UFC has brought out a lot of spectacular moments and a lot of amazing athletes and martial artists. And if the sport was this popular perhaps 20 years ago you think you might have competed inside the octagon? Well I wouldn't supposed I was not supposed to do that, but I may have been a bad boy and done it.

Ah, he may have been a bad boy. One of my favorite lines from that interview is when he said that Anderson asked him to teach him his deadly stuff. He mentions George, who he said, I wouldn't have done this if George didn't say it was okay or ask me to. He's referring to George Gimares, who is a legendary manager in the game, who now manages the likes of Alex Pereira and Alex Pantoja. So still very much involved in the sport. I appreciated that very much.

And also of note is, you know, the reference to the GSP fight, which as you can see, we talked about so many times and never actually came to fruition. I feel like Frank really enjoyed that one. Frank, did you like that one with the sentences? I couldn't stop laughing, that was great. Why were you laughing?

Laughing because it's just charming to hear a younger Ariel Hoani and Sensei Seagal discussing the finer points of martial arts. Why are you laughing? I don't know. Did you like his glasses, the shooter glasses? I think the glasses and the backwards hat really shows that it was 2011.

And I respect it. You mentioned George, sorry, go ahead, GC. I just said fitted backwards hat. Oh yeah, that's the good stuff. You think it was like a flex fit one? It looks like a flex fit one. That's a flex fit one. Fubu?

You mentioned George still doing it, managing top stars. How about Sensei Seagal still doing it, showing Alex Pereira his deadly techniques, to the point that they had to cut the video. We showed this recently on the Ariel Hawhani show. Yeah, still training our top fighters in the deadly arts. Well, how about the fact that he's like, he's flabbergasted when I say like,

oh, have you ever seen this? He's like, I'm the only one who knows it. I only showed it to Anderson and Machida-kun. He used to refer to him as that. And then literally, three events later, Machida pulls off the kick. He knocks out Randy Couture with the same kick. Have I seen it? I invented it. Yes.

He knocks him out. How have you seen it? I invented it. And then I interviewed him in the Blue Jays clubhouse because that was at the Sky Dome, the Rogers Center. After that kick as well, I was like, wait a second, Sensei, you actually did teach them this? Yeah, what'd you think? Another classic one. Oh my God, Sensei Seagal, what a time. Forrest Griffin beat Rich Franklin in the Chief Support that night. John Jones beat Ryan Bader, got the title shot as a result, replaced Rashad Evans, and then two events later,

beat Shogun. Look at all the incredible things that were happening in back-to-back events. Do you think we'll look back on 2025 UFC in the same way? I'm just being an old, old fogey when I look back with such fondness. Probably. I don't know. I can't even remember who had the last pay-per-view for God's sakes. Jake Ellenberger, he defeated Carlos Eduardo Rocha. Miguel Torres beat Antonio Banuelas on these

spike prelims. We had Donald Cerrone beating Paul Kelly in Cerrone's UFC debut. That was a big one coming over from WEC and also coming over from WEC was Chad Mendez who defeated Michihiro Omigawa. On the Facebook prelims, Demetrius Johnson beat the late great Kid Yamamoto. How about that? There was one Facebook prelim fight. What a time. I miss those days. Shout out to the Facebook prelims. Yeah. A sign of things to come. Dana on the meta board. I'd love to bet on some Facebook prelims. That sounds peak right there. No, no, no. You gotta put it up on the laptop. Open up your Facebook. Let me tell you the stream quality wasn't quite... I want to see my

bar like it busted on the first fight of the night a minus 600 while I'm streaming it on Facebook. Can we say though, fight quality pretty damn good. Oh yeah also by the way Demetrius Johnson was on the Facebook prelims. Demetrius Johnson was a former bantamweight title contender. Or no, actually, he ended up fighting later that year. But a guy who was about to fight for the belt, he wasn't like a scrub. And neither was Kid Yamamoto.

No, legend in the game. A legend. Joe Sonnen's prelims weren't even televised. Weren't even televised. And we had three non-televised fights on this card. We had Paul Taylor beat Gabe Rutiger via KO We had Kyle Kingsbury TKO Ricardo Romero in just 21 seconds and Mike Pierce KOing Kenny Robertson and there weren't any highlights or anything. Anyway, it was just took the word for it

This is what they would do. They would tape them They would call them and if there was a break in the action, if a main card fight ended quickly, they would play it on the main card. This happened earlier tonight. Okay, to like fill the space. To fill the space. Okay. Did Dozel ever end up on those like

UFC unleashed programs as well? Yes, that too, that too. Yeah. So they're probably somewhere. There is some- There's definitely archives of them cause they were recorded, they were called, all that stuff. But I bet there's some fights that no one has ever seen.

Like a stinker that never saw the legitimate UFC 123 in the building in Detroit Debut of Edson Barboza leg-kicking Mike Lulo to death Oh, yeah, nobody had any idea that this was happening and I was like I promise you like this guy's gonna be like a Revolutionary guy in the sport. Nobody had any idea. It was yeah, it was a crazy time Oh, you've been to Detroit. Shout out Auburn Hill or it was actually Auburn Hills. But then I was in Ann Arbor. It was a weekend. I went to Michigan football game against Wisconsin at the Big House and then drove to UFC the next day. How about the fact that we were both in the building? We were both in the building and didn't know each other. Yeah, no idea.

That was the event where they presented Jose Aldo with the Rampage versus Liotto. Liotto. BJ Penn versus Matt Hughes. 21 second knockout. Hell yeah. How do we get into UFC 123? We can do that on another episode. This is about 126. Sorry, I was just talking about prelims. Those dark matches that nobody used to see.

It's so fun. Anyway, that was a great time. And I enjoyed that very much. I hope you're enjoying these as much as we are. Some of us reliving the good times, the interviews, and some of us learning about them for the very first time. That's the beauty and they can stand the test of time, pop it in whenever.

Well, you can't really pop these in anymore. Just kind of. Wow, you're really dating yourself. Search and click play. But nevertheless. Be kind nevertheless be kind and rewind yeah yeah blockbuster night I'm down for that Hollywood video guy myself you know Wow really that makes sense then well everything ends up now it's the mom and pop rental place how predictable how predictable Hollywood video yeah it's such a country I don't even know what Hollywood video is Yeah, they probably didn't have it. It's just a blockbuster knockoff. Yeah, but was it was it like a corporate chain or was it?

So it was like it had better deals on the game passes, you know program Publix whatever your grocery stores, right? What was we used to let you rent for free if you give him a straight a report card? Those are the days really really was there was something magical about those Friday nights. I now understand that none of you got to take advantage of that because of your grades, but. Blockbuster across from Pizza Hut, that was the ultimate. Did you guys ever rent video games from Blockbuster? Absolutely, yeah.

I used to rent video game consoles. Hollywood video programs. Video game consoles is a little sussy, you know? Wait, what sussy?? I said read the console Oh, they were coming though. You can actually buy these they're like still in the plastic pieces that they used to rent them out Were they like like how did they how did they just came in they they took a $200 deposit? That if you didn't return it you're paying for the system. Yeah, otherwise, how long did you keep it for just five days?

I thought it was like 24 hours Console damn now man Nothing was better than a Friday night at blockbuster back and then my dad would get mad at me because I was taking too long And I couldn't figure out like and then would you guys have to take those little things like there was like a little pod Would you guys have to know what is the pot is a Canadian? So so so how would you know if the video was in or not? They would have it out on the back and then behind the empty Yeah, empty box and you bring it up to the front or there used to do is they start doing like, you know

Like a representation of it, right if they if they have three copies There's like three plastic sleeves with it in there. And then was there anything worse than when you saw it and got excited and it wasn't there? The worst. So what we had was, um, Velcro and like a little pod, like sort of like the pod that you would see at the, uh, the Brazilian steakhouse.

Yeah. And it was Velcroed. And if the pod was there, they had it. So you just brought the pod and if they had four of them there'd be four pods you sure this wasn't a Hollywood video? Are they pods or pods? Sounds like a Hollywood video to me baby. There it is. That's the resolution of the videos you can expect from us too. So we had a place called Plast Video and that's what I'm talking about yeah it was local. And say this word in the pod?

I didn't want to muddy the waters. Yeah, it's like a pod. Do you guys have any idea? Pog, Pog, Pog, Pog. Is that what it is? Do you guys have any idea? Pog, Pog, Pog, Pog. A shout out to Pogs though too.

It's the beginning of the 90s. Little piece of cardboard. This is getting so efficient. Oh yeah, we're talking about this toy. I don't know where y'all's mods at. Do you guys know the last time you were at a Blockbuster? I mean, it's been a while It's like no I mean when it closed like there went up until it closed there was one in my college town

That just like hung around till like 2016. There's one still. Yeah, and then there's a Business there's still a storefront in Brooklyn and they use it for old movies Yeah, cuz it's they just keep it there So if they want to show something that's like based in the 90s, they could just do a camera pan Like when did they shut down? When did they stop actually being in business? It's tiny one open. This is one open in Alaska by the way, by the way, this is like those Instagram memes that I see like There will come a time where you will pick up your daughter for the last time.

You won't know it, but it will come. And we all had that moment. We didn't know it. We had our last blockbuster. We had our last. We served the same algorithm. I see those videos all the time. I still hold them late for this. They kill me. They kill me. Start crying and stuff. Anyway, guys, it's time to go. Thank you very much for watching. Volume two of our classic interview look back series. What are we calling this?

Classic interview reaction? I don't know, but it's a grand time and I'm enjoying it and I hope you are as well. What a time 2010 and 2011 was in the sport. More of those to come because well, if I'm being honest, those are the oldest ones and those are the ones on the channel that we wouldn't get in trouble for using I mean I could probably try to use some of the other ones but it's it's more fun to go back into the the early 10s 11s the

odds why do they call it odds no idea it's two zeros why is that odd what does that even mean like odds like zero zel No, is that like a German phrase? No, no. I know Frank's dropping this like this should become a no. Yeah, this is very common, no one knows. Aught, aught, aught, zero? No one will know. You're acting like we're so dumb.

I'm not saying dumb, I'm just surprised. Explain it to us. Are you disappointed? Just do it like zero. What is aught? In what language? Yeah. In English. It you disappointed? Just do it like zero. What is a ox? In what language? Yeah. In English.

It means zero? It means zero. Like zilch means zero. Okay, all right, all right. By the way. Why isn't it the zilches? By the way, we were talking about UFC 123. You know what the bonuses were back then?

80K. Woo! You think the UFC was making- Only then? Why? You think the UFC was making more money back then than now? Yeah, well, you said 123? Yeah, the gate was making more money back then than now? You said $123 million?

Yeah. The gate was $2 million and the $80k bonuses. We've gone backwards! Well, guess what? We're not going backwards around these parts. Well, only when we look back at these interviews. We'll do many more of these to come. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Thank you for watching and please... rewind the tape.