The Ariel Helwani Show - Ariel is back! Arman Tsarukyan, Jiří Prochzaka, Merab Dvalishvili, Paulo Costa, Patrick Habirora, MASSIVE news update on Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, more

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Ariel Helwani is back from the Olympics and he starts the show with a recap of recent news and notes from the combat sports space (11:21). Jiri Prochazka joins the show to discuss his light heavyweight title fight against Carlos Ulberg at UFC 327, his thoughts on Alex Pereira vacating the belt, training at altitude in Mexico City, the upcoming birth of his child, and more (23:20). Rising PFL prospect Patrick Habirora is up next, announcing his fight against Benson Henderson in Belgium, then talking about what he hopes to accomplish in the promotion, a potential fight with Cedric Doumbe, and more (50:43). Merab Dvalishvili is back, breaking down the RAF brawl between Arman Tsarukyan and Georgio Poullas, before moving on to his own career, reflecting on his second fight with Petr Yan, expressing interest in the trilogy being next, supporting Ilia Topuria during his hiatus, and more (1:04:11). Paulo Costa returns to preview his meeting with Azamat Murzakanov, discussing how the fight came together, diving into his beef with Khamzat Chimaev, predicting the outcome of a potential bout between Chimaev and Sean Strickland, explaining the long layoff from his last fight, and more (1:35:37). Ariel is joined by The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll to discuss hot topics, including the White House card, Conor McGregor’s next fight, Zuffa Boxing and UFC fighter pay drama, Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven, UFC Mexico, and more (2:07:04). Arman Tsarukyan is our final guest of the day, going into detail about his explosive grappling match and brawl at RAF 6, opponent Georgio Poullas’ dirty tactics, UFC offering him a title fight in September, linking up with Jake Paul, and more (3:31:15). Ariel answers your Super Chats to close the show (3:31:15).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the er- on this Monday, March 2nd, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. I've missed you. It's been four long weeks, 28 days to be exact, since I sat in this chair, at this desk, in front of this camera, talking to all of you. Yes, we've talked a little bit remotely, you know, in the Italian Alps, in Milano, back home, we've done all that. But nothing quite like being here in this studio.

And I have to say, as I have often said about numerous things, absence and distance makes the heart grow fonder four weeks away from this, my home, my actual home, this place, this team, this studio, this desk, these chotchkes, all this, the machine. that is. Golly, four weeks, it makes me miss it. I woke up today, pep in my step. Yeah, usually Mondays, we love Mondays. Mondays are big shows for us, but like this felt different.

I was excited to get in the car. I was excited for the commute. I was excited to smell New York City. I was excited to be back. So much to talk about. So much going on. I miss this so much. There are times.

Look, in our lives, we all have great jobs. We all have, you know, things we love, things we don't love, things that, you know, bog us down. I miss it. And sometimes you don't appreciate it. And I went out and I did something that I'm very proud of. I put myself in a somewhat uncomfortable position. I know nothing about curling. I know nothing about slope style skiing, big air snowboarding.

I know nothing about half pipe. I mean, I've now skied down one, but I know nothing about this world. And I went out there. I did it for my country. Worked with great people. I was so proud to do it. I was so excited. I was so honored, so grateful, so appreciative.

I got stuck an extra day. I flew home. I was happy to be back. I missed my family so much. But I missed all of this. I missed my daily life. I missed uncrowned. I missed everything that we're doing.

And since I last sat in this chair, February 2nd, 2026 was the last time I sat in this chair. Just days removed from UFC 325. We're now gearing up for 326. We're 326 fight week. It is upon us. Since I sat in this chair, we launched two new pods, the uncrown wrestling show, inside boxing. We dropped two uncrowned films.

We were nominated for an AP award for our coverage of Hulk Hogan's death. Shout out to the dot-com team. And then, you know, I wasn't sure if I was going to see everyone back there because they all carried me. I mean, I wasn't sure

if they were going to show up today because they carried me. They carried this whole operation for the past month. Shout out to the boys in the back. Shout out to PCs. Shout out to Andy. Shout out to Frank.

Shout out to Jordan. Shout out to Dad. Shout out to Josh. Shout out to everyone who stepped up when I was away. It was amazing. Like I said, I'm not going to rehash all of that that I said last week when I was in the hotel room. But golly, I missed it all very, very much. I missed it all.

And watching it all sort of move on without me, made me so proud. It made me quevelled inside. But I was keeping track of everything. I had my finger on the pulse. One second, I'm talking to someone who just want a gold medal in half pipe. and the next second, you know, I'm locked in on UFC Houston. Sean Strickland with a big win. UFC was back this weekend, by the way.

UFC Mexico City was all right, it was okay. Loner Kavanaugh was fantastic. We'll talk to him later in the week. What a performance, golly. What is it about guys who lose to Charles Johnson who then become flyway contenders? It's an amazing thing. David Martinez with the big win as well.

There were some solid performances. It was good. R.A.F. RIF, though. we're going to talk a lot about that today and they are killing it man I did not expect them to be as far along as they are

they launched in late August and here they are in March and it seems like every time they put on an event that was their sixth I do believe it seems like every time they put on an event they steal the headlines for the weekend very impressive stuff so I am back like the great Eric Bischoff theme song speaking

of RAF once stated I'm back and better than ever I'm back Frankie did you miss me? Absolutely Did you miss me? I walked in today and everyone's like Oh hey Ariel what's I was like what?

I missed you all I missed you all shout out to everyone back there shout out I didn't miss that You don't have to do that So good to be back My chair isn't fitting in quite As I want

In case you're wondering I haven't jumped off the Nottingham Forest Bandwagon this is not my computer my usual computer we're working through the kinks as far as the computers are concerned so it's smaller it doesn't quite fit the same

you can see a little bit more of this maybe it's just cold in there the forest laptop is right over there still have the forest jersey right here tough loss yesterday to brine we're hanging on hanging on by two points but I have not jumped off the bandwagon so I have no fear doing pretty well

around a 16 in Europa League so who's to check who's to check but my friends we've got so much to discuss We can do four hours on just the news and notes We can do four hours And I'm not trying to rehash everything That's happened since I last sat here But a lot of things have happened

In the last like few days So we're gonna get into everything We'll get your super chats back in I'm sure you're all very excited to see me I'm sure you're all missing me And longing for me Even though I think like we didn't really miss a beat If I'm being honest

But but but but As you know when I go away I always feel like I have to come back with a bang I always feel like I have to like, er, have something. And I think we have something today, my friends. We've got five guests, a super stacked five pack of superstars

coming on today's program. In about 14 minutes time, Yuri Prakaska, the pride of the Czech Republic, two-time title contender, trying to become undisputed champion for the first time in his career as far as UFC is concerned. It was announced over the weekend.

Late, late, late Friday. late Friday, Dana White gets on the old IG Live. I mean, with the enthusiasm of a doctor who's telling you, hey, you know, the colonoscopy results, they were okay. You know, nothing to write home about. Dana White's up there at like 1145. The MMA aggregators are dying. They're complaining.

Ah, where's the news? Where's the news? He's stringing you along. He's stringing you along. All you had to do was ask me, I would have told you. Had I known that you guys were waiting, I would have told you. It's Yuri Prakaska against Carlos Elberg for the vacant light heavyweight title. That's the news that was dropped.

By the way, less than a month and a half away from that event in Beautiful Miami at the Kaseya Center, he drops the main event. He drops some other fights as well. We already knew the co-main was Joshua Van against Tetsura-Taira, not in Japan, unfortunately, but in beautiful Miami. That was big news. The bigger news is Alex Pereira, is no longer the light heavyweight champion.

We'll talk about that in a moment. So we'll have Yuri on to talk about this fight and everything else going on in his life. He's going to be a dad. He's going to be a dad, which is a beautiful thing. At 145, Patrick Habirora is going to join us. The Pride of Belgium, the Belgian bomber. What's his nickname again, Frank?

Flashball. Flashball. I was going to say something else. I didn't want to say it. Flashball is going to join us. He's got some news to share. He's been teasing some news. He is one of the bright young stars, dare I say the brightest youngest star in PFL.

And I'm looking forward to having him on. He's a great character and he's a great fighter. And I think he's going to be a real problem in their welterweight division at 2 o'clock. Marab Dwalisvili is going to join us. Haven't talked to him since the loss of Peirrean in December. So I'm looking forward to catching up. But also we found out he's linked up with REF. And he's going to be going up against the one and only Henry Sehudo who beat Uriah Fabor this past weekend.

in Arizona Marab versus Suhudo in April so we'll talk to the now former UFC Bantamweight champion in my fighter of the year for 2025

Paulo Costa is going to be on that April 11th Miami UFC 327 card moving up to 205 we'll talk to Bojasinia about that haven't spoken to him since his activities over the summer

he was supposed to fight this weekend that got pushed 185 now 205 5 making his light heavyweight debut in the UFC. Always great to catch up with him at approximately 4.30. So we're going along today. We got a lot of time to make up for. Maybe.

Is there a strong case to be made that top five most popular fighters in the UFC right now is Armant-Shrukin except the only difference is he doesn't fight? He's ready to fight. He's willing to fight. But he's doing all the side quests in the world. He's got another one coming up on March 11th because for whatever reason the UFC doesn't want him to fight or it doesn't want to give him a fight. I don't know. But if you are in the camp of Armin is a hothead, Armin is an issue, he's a liability, he can't be trusted, he's too

crazy, well, you got more ammunition this past Saturday at RAF. He got into a bit of a brawl, which has gone super viral, which one might say is the best thing to happen to RAF because now you've got an incredible rematch. Here, we have some footage here in case you've missed it. I assume if you're one of the people out there who are watching our show, you know about this. Can we show them something from this? Yeah, here it is.

Here's Armid Serukian going up against George Poulas, the man who said, no one can take him down $1,000. But where's the incident? Where's the incident? That's the takedown. Where's the incident? Do we have the incident? There was an incident where.

George was very, very, very aggressive towards him, pushing him, slapping him, and there's some ground and pound, and all hell breaks loose. Armitirukian, my feeling is, if I'm being honest, my feeling is, there were a lot of shots to the face. This is Marab's POV, by the way. There were a lot of shots to the face. Now, do you want to see something like that? No.

But if the UFC says, yeah, we're okay with a rematch now, I could see them saying like, hey, no mas, but if they say, Yeah, we're okay. That's the biggest match in RAF history now. Those two did a great job of selling it. Today we'll talk to Armin. Tomorrow we'll talk to George. So we'll get it from all angles. I can't wait to get into all of this. Look at that. Look at that five pack. Look at that five pack, guys. Guys, did you miss me? Did everyone miss me? Remember what I said? When I left? You'll miss me when I'm gone. You're going to miss me when I'm gone. You're going to miss me when I'm there. You're going to miss me.

I'm not hearing. Okay, I wanted something. I needed something. Yeah, hey guys. Good to have you back. Guys, weird to see you on that side of the fence, right? Is it weird? It's been like a full month.

Is it weird? Are the lights like a little bit different? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lights are very different. I got this headlight just right in front of me instead of the nice separated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Studio.

I just got the one light. I noticed the beard's a little longer. No, I actually got it trimmed. Wow. On Thursday, yeah. So it might actually be shorter than when you love. Okay. And is that a yeary shirt?

Oh, it sure is. I like the fact. I like the fact that you're coming up with the eerie shirt despite what happened last time. We don't need to talk about it. Look, man, the glazing allegations, they're going to come and go, but my fandom remains the same. I love it. I love it. Rick held down the fort, EP Rick.

I mean, we just do what we do. I did notice, I mean, I was showering you guys with praise, but I did notice a couple times being like, you know, Ariel, this multiple times a week thing is. is a lot harder than you make it look. I thought that was nice of you guys. You said that. You said that internally. I didn't see a lot of that externally,

but I thought it was really nice. He said it on every single show. I'm pretty sure I said it. You know, thanks for watching, man. I was locked in. I was in the chat. I was like, hey guys,

Megan all of them, you just want a gold medal. I need to finish this segment right here, right? They're doing pound for pound right now. It's a favorite. Oh, I do love. Pound for pound astronauts.

Hold on, gold medalist. Yeah, yeah. We're locked in here. The one moment I really was thinking about your dual roles, like the duality of you having to be there covering the Olympics, having to be there,

you having the honor of being there and covering the Olympics. And the show part of it was when I was thinking, oh, Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano. Ariel's talking to six skiers right now, thinking when can I record

a video to send to react to this moment? I was foaming at the mouth. I mean, all this stuff was happening. In the past, guys in the past like three weeks we've gotten Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano May 16th Netflix Yeah first MMA card ever on Netflix

The the MVP MMA debut if you will We've gone over the past couple days Rico Verhoeven against Alexander Usig And I'm seeing some awful takes about this fight I can't wait to get into all of that Connor Ben leaving matchroom signing with Zoufa did he sign with Zufa

Is he with Netflix? What's going on? He's fighting Regis Progray at 150 pounds at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. You've got a lawsuit brewing between Queensberry and Turkey Al-Shake. You've got Manny Pachial fighting Floyd Mayweather at the sphere

on September 19th on Netflix. Plus, Floyd's fighting a bunch of other people. Yeah, through exhibitions between now and that. He's got a Mike Tyson fight, which I still don't believe is actually going to happen. And then a fight against some guy over in Greece, of all places. Oh, by the way, Riko Verhoeven is fighting Alexandria in Egypt at the pyramids in Giza.

what else what else oh I talked to you about all the stuff that happened with Alex Pereira there just seems like a lot of shit that's happened but it's fun shit I'm excited about this stuff I love it you've got people excited about the men's hockey team winning and then they hate the men's hockey team winning you've got Ayatollah's dying all over the place there's a war happening in the Middle East what else is there to talk about should we get it to the war guys no no no that's probably where we probably oh my God oh my God it's a crazy time oh by the way Jack Delamadeleine is fighting Carlos Prachas in Perth.

I believe that's May 2nd. So there's a lot. There's a lot to get into. Ali Abdel Aziz is saying, no, it's not going to be Islamahachev against Ian Gary. Ian Gary is saying, what the hell is going on? Let's go. You're the pound for pound king. You should be ready to fight whenever. Let's stick with that one for a moment.

There was once a plan in place for Ian Gary to fight Islamachev, April 11th main event in Miami. Why that fight isn't happening? I'm not quite sure. If you were to ask Ian Gary, he's saying Islam isn't ready. There it is. I'm ready. He needs more time. Imagine being the number one pound for pound fighter on the planet and needing all caps more time.

He went to Georgia. You see the flag behind them, all that stuff and more. Ali Abdelaziz is saying we got other things. Is it Michael Morales? I know there was some talk of Morales versus JDM. They obviously went the Carlos Prachas route. Prochus also saying that, hey, there was talk of me versus Connor. And Connor turned that one down.

I don't know. That one doesn't make any sense to me, but there's all kinds of talk at that 170-pound weight class. What I know is this, there was talk of April 11th. Ian Gary should 1,000% be next to fight against Islamahadchev. That's the fight. That's the biggest fight. That's the most intriguing fight. That's the one that you sell. And Morales could use one more fight in my opinion to, it feels inevitable that this man will fight for a belt. He is so young. But Ian has done everything that they asked him to do and has beaten everyone,

except for Shafkat, and I just feel like that's the fight to make. You know, you can rekindle the Ireland versus Dagestan thing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's the fight to make. So why isn't it happening in April? I don't know. Could it happen in May? Sure. Is it going to happen at the White House?

No. There is a July 11th International Fight Week events scheduled for Las Vegas. That's the one that I think they want Connor McGregor on. As I said in my video update over the weekend, Connor at the White House is a long shot. I think the one that they want to make for the White House is obviously John Jones versus Alex Pura. And John Jones backed that up some 12 hours later. He had an appearance and he said, I'm in talks with the UFC to fight at the White House. Can they get it done?

Will they get it done? That remains to be seen. But the fight is Alex. Alex did not vacate his 205 belt to just fight anyone. He certainly didn't vacate his 205 belt to not fight for a belt. I think fighting against John is just as big if not bigger, but he wants that history. And so the question is, if he does fight John at the White House, would it be for the interim title?

Would they dare strip Tom Aspinall? And if they can't do the John Jones fight, is it going to be Alex versus Surreal Gun? All this stuff, and that would be probably for an interim belt, another interim title fight for Seril Gun. All this stuff is very much up in the air. But if you were one of those people who really wanted to see John Jones fight at the White House and see John Jones fight one more time, there's really. renewed hope, I would say.

And honestly, if you look at the landscape, it's the fight to make. They are not going to put two non-Americans in the main event of a card at the White House to honor America's 250th birthday. It makes no sense. And I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, G.C., John Jones probably the favorite going into that fight, just given his skill set. Alex Pereira fight? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I've seen lines at like minus 500. Exactly. So you want the card to end with an American win. I would be surprised, honestly, if there's any fights on that card that doesn't feature an American. Like, you're not going to get Brazilian versus Brazilian, in my opinion. It makes no sense for what they're trying to accomplish. And you're probably going to want to try to put fights together that, you know,

the American has a good chance of winning. You think this administration wants to have a Russian beaten American on the White House lawn? You're out of your mind. You're absolutely out of your mind. There's no way. So John versus Pereira checks off all the boxes. John's the favorite. John's an American.

He's one of the biggest stars ever. It's probably his retirement fight. He clearly wants it. He's not going to get $30 million for it. And so I feel like these dominoes are all falling into place. A, he vacates the title. You make the Yerry versus Alberg fight. He meaning Alex.

And now you're free to have John Jones fight Alex Pereira. Now, I don't hate this fight for two reasons. Number one, it's a big time fight. It's a massive fight. There's potential history at stake. But also, John can do as he pleases. He's not tied to any belt anymore. So it's not like, oh, he should be fighting Tom Aspel.

He should be fighting. No, he's a non-champ. He's champ emeritus. It doesn't matter anymore. So let him have this fight. Let this be the White House main event. And we could all move on with our lives. And then July 11th, you get Connor McGregor at Team Mobile Arena.

You get him headlining international fight week where he should. You sell tickets. You sell ads. you sell sponsors, you sell all this stuff, you get a $25 million gate, everyone wins. Now, as far as Connor is concerned, there's two options in my opinion. It's you bring back Nate Diaz,

or it's the winner of Charles Olivaara versus Max Holloway, because he's got a history with Max. The Oliva fight, obviously people love Charles. It's a fresh matchup, and you could put a belt out at stake. You put a belt on the line. You give Connor a title fight when he comes back.

now Conner has two fights left will he want to fight for a belt if he wants to play out the contract that remains to be seen but that's the perfect belt to have him fight for say he can win another belt right he won 145

you either do the Max Holloway rematch or you get a fresh match up against Charles or you do the Nate Diaz fight if you're not going to do Chandler which has always been my number one choice because of just the fact that they promised him and he had a contract and all that stuff then those are your two options in my opinion

but yeah at the White House doesn't seem to be a thing. And the moment I found out that it's going to be hard to sell tickets, you hear them crying about the fact that we're going to be down 60 million, which, by the way, I don't buy because there's going to be commercials. Part of it's going to air on CBS. They're going to be commercials. You're going to make money off of it.

There's going to be sign-ups. They're not just throwing money in a bucket. And oh, by the way, fighting at the White House, like the price of that is exponential. like the PR that they're going to receive yeah it won't be money in the banks so to speak but there's different kinds of money that you can generate and that's big time dollars

so when you hear them on the conference calls talking about like ah you know this is a long term play and we're 60 million in the hole this down and the other I'm like yeah not really not really but when I found that they weren't going to be able to have like sponsors on the mat or sell tickets this that or the other like oh yeah you can't have Conor fight on that card

given the way they view these things It's the same reason why they didn't want to have Connor fight during the pandemic. Couldn't sell tickets. Connor wanted to fight at the apex. Connor wanted to fight whenever. I remember after Amanda Nunes fought of Felicia Spencer, he was like, let me fucking fight. Let me fight. What are you doing?

I'm going crazy here. And they waited the first time he fought was the first time they were allowed to have fans back, or at least put themselves in a position to have fans back, which was that. the event in January of 21 in Abu Dhabi. That was the first time. So there's a lot there. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I can't wait to get into the Rico stuff.

I can't wait to get into the Ronda stuff. I can't wait to get into all this stuff. Oh my gosh. What a time. Are you guys excited to have me back or what? Yeah, I'm excited too. Who me? Yeah, that's right.

Thank you, Frank. I missed you also, Frank. Oh. I missed you also. All right? I just want to let you know. It's great time. Yeah, I was curious.

Your text were a little frosty. I'm not going to lie, but I missed you. What a way to kick off our return. There's a lot to get into, like I said, but let's get into the guest because we have a lot to discuss with a lot of superstars. They are joining us five superstars on today's program. And as I said, just moments ago, late, late Friday, we got the news that the main event for UFC 327 is going to be Yeri Prakaska against Carlos Sahlberg for the vacant UFC light heavyweight title, Alex Pera seemingly moving up. That would be the indication to heavyweight. And so now we get this big time main event,

a main event that I love, by the way, that makes all the sense in the world. Here to talk to us about it all is the pride of the Czech Republic, the one and only Yiri Prakaska. There he is. Hello, my friend, Yuri. How are you?

Hey, Ariel. I'm great. Good to be here. Good to see you. Great to talk to you, as always, my friend. And by the way, most important, I want to say congratulations and good luck. I understand you're going to be a father soon, my friend.

This is very exciting. Thanks. This is very exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It is. It is exciting and it's really exciting and a lot of pressure because I have the date of flight 11th of April and my girlfriend, she has a date of birth, like around 13, 15 of April.

Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow. So that's the point. Okay, and this was the reveal, which I thought was great and very appropriate to you with the samurai sword. I love that. Yeah, with this, with this sword. Is that a significant sword? Is that something special about that sword? This sword made for me, for me, the one Czech Swartman. And I was there. I was there when he made that, like from, from, from the ash, from the iron ash.

Wow. And I was there for a few days and watched how that sword were made. And it's really impressive. It's really impressive. It's, yeah, impressive. And I really like that. So I'm glad that that's work and it's made it for, like a sword would have what had one one special like a shogun from from Japan.

Oh wow, wow, wow. I love that. Yes, you talk about. Yeah. By the way, could I ask, considering it's so close to the due date, would you have preferred to fight in May or June or before? Because it's so, you know, it's just like two days, as you said. Yeah. Uh, well, sorry, I didn't understand. Yeah, like you, you mean, you mean the, the fight like later? Yeah, because you said, uh, your girlfriend is expecting like the 13th, 15th and the fight is

the 11th. So I was wondering if you would have preferred fighting in May or June after the baby. So you, you can be there, no stress or before as opposed to this particular day, which is so close. I understand. Understand. Yeah. I was, uh, I like to be rather, rather to, to fight later. in June or

whenever like one month after the bird will be the best but but like I said like I said to UFC and because my girlfriend told me like if you will have the title fight

11 of May because that was the possible date let's do that but it have to be like big fights don't fight. Don't like some similar fight because you can fight all the year these these these these another normal fights and then we start to negotiate with UFC about the

about the title fight and here it is okay were you surprised that Alex vacated the title I'm not surprised I'm not surprised I think it's it's like gentleman gentleman thing about when you when you go up and he wants to go up

that it's normal to release the title were you disappointed were you hoping that if you fight for the belt again it could be against Alex so that you can beat him yeah that's the thing

that's the thing what I hope for what I hoped for and possible opponents for me there were Uberg or Pereira

I wanted just one of these two for a title fight because I think other fighters other fighters didn't don't deserve it and I made enough to

to take back what's mine So ultimately it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, what means most to you is to win the belt as opposed to who you were fighting to win the belt, right? That's right. That's right. I think, I believe soon or later, Alex Berrera will come in my way. Is that the dream scenario? Right now, my dream scenario is to do the best fight.

To do the best fights, best performances, to be proud of myself, to be proud of my victories and all the performances. That's all my career. Only one rule to do the best, do the best performance, do the best preparation. and I think it works. It works. I noticed you said take back what's mine, but you've not held the UFC light heavyweight title yet. So why do you feel like it's yours?

Because I believe that I don't want to be like, I want to be honest. Yeah. And right now I came to the point when I said to myself, like there is no there is no time for bad fights

there is no time for changing the champions taking belt losing belt and again another champion I believe I can be the champion defend the belt and stay as a champion

there was some talk of you fighting Carlos late last year was there any doubt in your mind that he would accept this fight? Like when? Before? No, like you remember in around September there was some talk of you guys and I think you said

and so when you heard that this is what they wanted were you at all thinking maybe he wouldn't say yes I mean obviously it's for the belt so it's different but I was curious how you thought it would play out. Yeah, last year last year we negotiate about that fight night what was in Australia where Ullberg fought with Dominic Reyes I offered I offered

this position to fight Ullberg and he declined that he took he took a race and here we are Yes. So I really don't care right now, but I just do what's necessary. And obviously, Yuri, I have to apologize to you. You won the light heavy weight title. I said you take back what's yours. This is my mistake, my brain. You know that.

You were nice enough to not correct me there. You should have told me, Ariel, you're an idiot. What's wrong with you? Man, I just wanted to explain you to explain you why I, because right now, I'm pure in this way to the title and every time I'm trying to find a better way better attitude

how to go for the title and who's that Erie who want to be the champion and that man I have to be every day every day and that's what I realized I want to be champion

I want to defend the belt I want to stay as a champion Do you feel in your mind That this is your last chance to get the belt back Do you view it that way Are you putting that kind of pressure on you? No, I really don't care if that's last chance Or there is many chances or whatever

For me, this fight, every fight for me Is the title fight So I'm every time giving everything To every fight and here it is. Let's go for hunt. Yes. And also curious, when you look back at the last two fights against Alex,

do you have regrets? And is there anything that you will do or lessons that you learn from those fights to say, okay, this time when I'm fighting for the belt, I'm not going to do the same thing. Do you look at it that way? Yeah, for sure. Short notices. Yeah.

For short notice. like I did that in I think in November 2224 and early early 24 I don't know but both both types with him I was not in in total health so so there was a like I said the not last chances the the last minute late last minute short notice short notice the fight so next time or whatever doesn't matter right now i'm i i learned from that a lot so so right now i i know what to do and what not to do i just that's why i wanted like regular regular preparation really good preparation really good and take a time to make a best preparation and take a title. And I had heard that you started to train and started to prepare,

even though you didn't get the date in the fight just yet, is it because you wanted to have enough time? Like you were doing everything even before you got the official confirmation? Yeah, that was something what was for me and for my team, really big thing because we went to Mexico City. for a high altitude training just because we believed that we believed that fight will happen. We just went for that fight just like that. Like all the flights, all the another country, high altitude training, full power training in Mexico City.

And after we came back, after that camp all that camp they confirmed our fight but all that time was just wait for the next week wait for the next week wait for the next week so so i think uh right now this camp in mexico was for me like a small victory and right now it's time for tough work tough sparrings and keep ourself healthy and be the best. I saw a video of you

rock climbing and I think the UFC posted it and I think you didn't want them to post it this one. What was going on here? First of all, scary, Yuri.

It's very scary the view there but what happened? You didn't think they would post it and were you upset about that? I didn't want to post it because it was a little bit dangerous.

It was a little bit dangerous, it was a little bit stupid for me, but you know, there's a moment, moments and moments. And in this moment, in this moment, this offer to jump, jump out, jump off to the gate. Yeah. which which was the end of the road and there was just a climbing way for the for the climbers with the ropes and with everything and they just told they just told us like it's closed and you can't go more like up to the to the top of the of this mountain so we just wait and my friend me like, I will wait here. I believe you. Let's go there.

Okay, so I said to myself like, okay. And yeah, it was not easy, really, it was not easy. In few minutes, in some time there, I really felt like that's not easy. That's not

really fun. That's not really funny. No, no, no. So, So, but you have to understand what is what to decide. If it's good to believe and continue or be professional and go back. So I take it professionally and take it more seriously and go. And I went up to the top and back. So sometimes it's life like that.

you have to just believe. Just believe there is no other answers around you. So you have to just keep going. Did you also spend four hours in a sauna over there? Yeah. You know everything, all these things. Well, you posted it.

That's how I know. Four hours, my friend. I see Tim Simpson there with you and your whole team is there. Yeah. What's going on? Yeah, that's the Temaski. They're traditional, traditional Mexican sauna.

Okay. And these traditional Mexican sauna is based like a ritual, like a ceremonial sauna for cleaning yourself from the bad energy. And that's why you're there a long time. And it's really strong. It's really strong. It's really strong. and man I lost almost like almost 10 kilos after after that Wow Wow wow wow wow like what's the what's the temperature do you have any idea I don't know okay it's a small it's a small cave it's a small cave there is a lot of rocks under the rocks there is a fire and they put the water on the rocks so is there a big a big like a hot like really hot. It's there.

Only you could pull that off. I don't think us normal people could do that. Man, you're built different. Yeah, you have to, you have to do the sauna, sauna every day. By the way, I saw you and Carlos Prachas, I think in Czech Republic, right? He came to visit you, to treat with you. How did that happen? He just came after the fight to, he traveled in Europe, and he traveled to Czech Republic.

and I saw him, saw my team, they, they touch him with message and and so we just went for some training. Yeah. Okay. I don't know if you pay attention to these things, but we were looking at your

record and it's a very special month for you the month of April. You made your pro debut April 7th, 2012. You fought on Risen 1, April 17th, 2016. You became Risen champion when you beat Kigmo. April 21st, 2019, and you beat Alexander Rackich at UFC 300, April 13th, 2024.

So those four big moments in your career all happened in the month of April. Now here you are fighting for the belt in the month of April. I didn't realize that yet. But thank you. Thank you for that. So I believe and I hope, I believe, I believe I will make the time. title again in this in this in these beautiful days when you when you look at the flight your fights are so exciting your your last fight against you know

roundtree was incredible like you just don't you always produce these fun fights and sometimes if you're a fan of Yuri sometimes it looks a little bit and then you come back and you pull it out how do you feel like this fight is going to play out when you envision this fight when you think of Carlos Elberg how do you see it playing out for me right now I'm already already choose the way like to hunt the Ulberg because he don't like the pressure. He don't like to be hunted. And this is what I said to myself,

like I need to be that one who catch this guy. Okay, so aggressive, Yuri. You're going to bring the fight to him, bring the fire to him. Yeah, there is no other way, like to fight with him. Because he's fast, he's good kickboxer. he he likes to jump a lot to be light on the legs

and he don't like to wrestle he don't like to be on the ground so pressure pressure okay that's it and by the way if we do get Alex Pereira against John Jones this is something

they're talking about who do you think wins that Alex Pereira at John Jones yeah at heavyweight let the better win but I think that John Jones will use his powerful wrestling for for for for these opponents in stand-up I think there is a more more more more more proxents more on the Pereira side but I think it will be more about the

wrestling so that's that's that's the that's the four Jones okay I saw by the way Yuri on your YouTube channel you're doing like these cooking videos And the production, look at this production is beautiful, this production. The way it's shot, I feel like this should be seen by more people. This is really nice stuff. These are your recipes that mean something to you, the BJP plates, right? BJP power plates. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we started with our traditional food, like Czech, Czech fried carp with Czech potato salad. and it was I didn't expect that because a lot of things changes here in Czech Republic how to be how can be the Czech carp with potato salad really good so I made it with one famous Czech chef Adam Rundus and it was really great

it's beautiful the way it's shot the food looks great but i was really impressed with the production as well so yeah yeah production was great yeah that's that's that's that's one one more thing was like really really beautiful yeah um and also i saw you with the uh the check baseball team i didn't know that baseball was popular in the check republic is uh it is it is it is i didn't i didn't watch them uh how they how they how they played in uh it starts this week it starts this week it starts this week It hasn't started yet. Okay.

Yeah. So I will watch. Yes. I didn't watch other sport. Other sport in just M.MA. No Olympics? You didn't watch Olympics? No, no.

And sometimes just a hockey a little bit because my girlfriend watched that. But I don't watch too much like these stuff. Yeah, my country, Canada eliminated Czech Republic in the hockey. I know. I know. By the way, they refer to you as Czechia in the country. the Olympics. Why Czechia? Is that how you say it in, in Czech. I never heard of that before. It's like some like new bullshit here in China. It's like new world bullshit. They tried to change

our like Czech Republic to Czechia. But everybody who who heard that in Czech Republic don't like that. So, so Czech Republic is Czech Republic. Yeah, we keep it the same. I thought that was, I never heard of that before. And then all of the same. sudden everyone's saying you have to call it check yet as i never heard yeah um before i let you go yri can you explain to the audience why does the belt mean so much to you why is this fight you've had so many great moments so many great fights and wins why does this belt and this fight mean so much to you why man for me it's a simple question it's uh to reclaim back the belt is for me wow to show myself to show myself that I'm the champion I'm the true man who is keeping his word

because I said that like like two years back that I will I will get back the title and this is for me something what was essential in my way And all this way to get back the title is, I don't do that because of other people, because of crowd, because of whoever. This is just only because I want it. I want it and I want it like from deepest, from deepest, my of my heart so so this is it

this is it and with all the power all my love to martial arts all my love what I what I decide to give to give in in this sport

that's why that's why so let's go for hunt Let's go for that. The fact that you're about to become a father, does that add anything? Does that make it more special? Does it make you feel any different?

Yeah. I really wanted to head this title fight before the birth. Because I know after a birth, a lot of things will change. But this is something what I wanted to be, I wanted to be father. And especially these two strong moments in my life, I believe we can make it. Wow. I believe we can make it.

Like I said earlier, April is a very special month for you. Imagine you become a father and champion once again in the month of April in just a month and a half from now. It's incredible. Yes, yes. Let's go for that. You're the man. And once again, I want to apologize for having the mistake there that I had earlier.

It's bothering me very much, Erie, because I'm a perfectionist, I think like you. And I had a, this is my first show back because I was at the Olympics. No excuses. But it's my first show back. And so I made a mistake, and I apologize. I shouldn't take that away from you. So I hope you accept my apology. I appreciate you so much and always appreciate you making time for us.

Thank you. I'm so happy you got this fight, and I can't wait to see it in just a little over a month, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. Me too. Stay strong. let's go for that let's go and also by the way good luck to your

girlfriend I hope she's feeling okay and that everything goes smoothly yeah she's okay she's downstairs and she's enjoying the food okay happy wife happy life as they say so well done that's right

thank you all the best to you thank you thank you have a good night there he is the great Yuri Prakaska the pride of the Czech Republic gali right off the bat I took a title victory away from the guy for some reason I said that I was like that doesn't seem right

I would blame you know being rusty but that's no excuse I fucked up that's on me but I feel like I caught it rather quickly and I just was like wait a second that didn't sound right someone could have alerted me in the chat where was the chat where were you guys thanks for helping me out thanks a lot chat can't wait for that if I love that fight and hopefully later in the week we're going to talk to Carlos Alberg about his first title opportunity.

That I know for sure. He has not for Has he vote? No, he has not. All right, let's move along still to come. A Rob Dwellishfili, Paolo Costa, guys who know a thing or two about fighting for belts, being champions, and of course, Armantarukian, who hopes to get that opportunity in due time.

Now let's talk to one of the brightest young stars in the sport, regardless of promotion. I would say he is the brightest young star in the PFL. They are very much behind him, and they are pushing him to the moon, as they should, because he is an absolute, stud and a future superstar. He is well on his way. Of course, he's already that in his home country of Belgium and it's starting to permeate throughout the MMA world. He is Patrick Habirora,

the Belgian bomber. He is kind enough to join us right here and now. There he is. Patrick, my old friend, how are you? How are you, my friend? Good. I'm doing really well. Thank you for joining us. It's a pleasure. And let's get the information out of the way. You teased this yesterday on social media. You have some news to share, so I want to hand the microphone to you. What is the news? Yeah, so basically the PFL is coming back in Belgium for a second time. And now we're selling out an arena of 10,000 people. So it's going to be even bigger and even stronger. And I'm coming back in World Warwick again. And I will face the former UFC champion, Benson Anderson. Okay. So it's a done deal. There it is.

Patrick Habirora against Benson-Henderson, welterweight main event, May 23rd, in Brussels, back for you in Brussels. Is this a bigger venue than the last time you fought in Belgium? Yeah, it's going to be bigger. I think the last time they were ready about the fans, and it was 8,000 people, but it was too small. So I told them, like, you have to make it bigger.

So, yeah, now it's going to be 10,000-plus people. So the ticket's going to get sold out so fast. I know my country is behind me, and everyone is going to come for this fight, and especially against a former UFC champ, and he's still fighting now in wrestling. I've seen him fighting arm and grappling, so yeah, it's going to be a good fight. And I can let people know that the pre-sale tickets are available as of tomorrow, 12 p.m. local time, and the general sale available as of Wednesday, 12 p.m. local time. So this is going to air here on the ESPN app in America, but on RMC Sport.

in France, when they offered you, Benson, who's by far the biggest name that you have fought, what did you think of the opportunity of the offer? Basically, with the PFO, we're going, that they offer me a name and I just say, yes, I think they have a big plan for me. I think they are planning something really big as we resigned a new contract with them, and we are going in the road to the belt, and they're trying to build something really great around me, so they need big names. And obviously, they were more into, like, fighting a really big name in the world of MMA for Brussels to be special for them.

So when did you sign this new deal? Yeah, we saw each other at Dubai. I was there when it was Usman against Alfie Davis. I was in Dubai. We talked in Dubai with all the team. And yeah, it's done now. Okay. And was your other contract running out?

Like, were you done? Were you a free agent? No, I wasn't done. I was still with the PFL, but they already wanted to show me that they really care about me. And I do believe that right now I'm really, really well with them. And it's really nice to have this type of contract as young as I am. Okay. So you feel the love, you feel the support from the PFL.

Yeah, I feel like they respect me and they want to build big super fight. And I think also we're trying to go worldwide now. As you said before, in Belgium, I're well known. In France, I'm well known. but I want to be well known in the whole world. So we're starting to fight those big names outside of Europe. Have they talked to you about other names that are on the hit list? Obviously Benson is first, but the types of fights that they want you in.

Right now I'm in the rankings. So I'm looking up the rankings and I'm thinking about few names and I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. Some guys from the top five, I'm already into it. So after Benson Anderson, I will see. I have to win. first thing first and inshallah I will win this fight and then I will be looking up to fighting someone maybe in the top five you were always in there are sorry go ahead they already know they give me a name and I say yes when they told me Kevin Jusay I say yes directly so it's not

going to be something how far away do you think you are from being in the title picture I think it's going to be if I fight someone from the top five and I beat him like clear with a strong knockout, it can be quick. Really quick, you know, it's how it goes. If you fight someone from the top five and you knock him out, you can have the title shot if there stills a line. When Benson Henderson was a champion of the UFC, you were 12 years old. Did you even know who he was?

No, back in the day, I didn't know, but I knew him when I started in MMA. I started at 716, so I saw him fighting, I saw him with a long hair. And then I saw him back against Armand Syracan. a long time ago. Armant Saugan is number one contender in UFC. He fought, I think, yesterday or two days ago in rough in wrestling. I do believe his background is maybe grappling or wrestling something like that. So, yeah, it's going to be a good matchup, mix of styles and, you know, young generation

against all generation. I think the PFO is starting to do a little bit of this with me. And I do believe it's a special part they're trying to build for me. So, yeah. It's wild. When he made his debut in MMA, you were five years old, Patrick. So this is really like the new generation against the old generation. Yeah, but I think at the level I'm starting to gain in the top 10, I do believe I'm the youngest.

And if you see the top 10 in UFC, top 15, I'm still young. In comparison of them, all the champ are like 30 over. Maybe there's just Joshua Avan or some young guys. So yeah, it's going to be always like that now. I will always be the new generation again, the old generation, because I'm a, I'm a, I'm a guy from the 2000. I was born in 2001, so it's a new generation. And is 170 your home?

Are you done with 55? No, I'm not down. I do believe I will be a big 155, but I still believe that I can do both. And you will see me again in 125, I think. And I will see how it goes. Which do you prefer, 55 or 70? I feel really powerful at 172.

I was wondering about my power at 170 how I will maybe able to be fighting those big guys, but I still believe that I'm really, really powerful. And I still believe that I'm still gaining weights too. So we will see. We will see, I think I can do both. Obviously, when you were in Dubai, you saw the champion Usman in front of you. Were you sizing them up? Were you thinking about how you would fare against them?

Yeah, I've seen his fight. First thing in my head It was I want to train with these guys Because this 11 wrestling I think it could help me a lot In my MMA fighting style But as seeing Yeah

I've seen also his opponent Alfie and I've seen Paul Hughes And I was like damn this guy is And 155 looks smaller To me Because I feel like I'm a big 155 but as you know Size doesn't make fights

It's just the size of the dog But I'm still a big dog too. I feel like the biggest fight in maybe PFL right now, bigger than any fight is you versus Cedric Dumbay. That's the biggest fight I think that that can be made, especially for that region.

Is there any chances happen? I don't know. People should ask him about this fight. Because some people are asking to me, but you should ask to Cedric Dumbay, I think he's focused on his path. I don't know. I heard that he's going to come back and he did so many

great things for the sports. Actually, he did so many great things and I've been looking up to him because back in the day he was doing boxing and I was starting MMA and he was already a superstar so I was definitely looking up to him and I knew I'm still the new generation and he's the old generation but you should ask Cedric about this fight I don't know sure yeah he's been a little bit elusive lately we haven't seen much of him in MMA I'm wondering yeah I think he was injured but maybe he's going to come back I've seen some videos that he's going to come back so we don't know about the future yet When you spoke to the PFL brass, when the executive spoke with you in Dubai,

did they talk about a desire to make that fight? They didn't talk to me about Cereid Nube. Nobody talked to me about Cereid Nurember from the Phaefel, but the fans in France and Belgium are speaking about this fight every day and time. But I still don't know what's the plan of the PIFO. Okay, that would be gigantic. It must feel really nice that they're coming back to Belgium just for you, right? Yeah.

Yeah, it's... I think it's a great honor. Actually, being able to bring a world-class promotion of MMA in my small country, but we have a ton of talent. And I know for sure that right now my name will be in the books and the history books because I am the one who bring the PFL two times in Belgium and I headline it. And I hope it's going to be a sold-out again arena. So it's going to be just showing to the world that I can sell out arena in my home country.

and I'm the face of my sports in my country. And I'm trying to promote the best way I can. And the best way I can promote it is winning by knockouts. And you're killing it, my friend. I saw you in Paris Fashion Week. You're doing everything. Yeah, I'm doing everything. Yeah, basically, yes.

And the story is so random, because if you know the thing is, I was just going to my friend, Sophia and Palmer is the famous pianist. He's going to be the stadium of France, 80,000 people soon. And he's one of the most famous pianists in the world. And I was just doing at his after party when he was playing piano.

And I was rocking just a suit. And the brand's owner sold me and they told me, you have to catwalk for us. So it's really random. Wow. And from now, I'm gaining in the modeling also. So life is about his experiences. And I try to do everything. I don't want to be, I already told you in one case, like I'm just an MMF fighter.

I can do everything and still touch to everything. is a new generation. I love music. I love modeling. I love MMA. I love punching people. And you love driving Rolls Royces, I saw as well. Is that yours? Whose car is that? I was in Dubai. There's just a location. But yeah, I like to, I like cars and I have my own good car. Like, now I can pay my own car, so it's nice. I think back in the day I was remembering, I was taking the train to go to MMA, and I was taking like one hour and 45 minutes, went one hour and 45 minute back and I was like oh my god I don't have any money my first car I bought it like 2000 3,000 euro is like $3,500 and I was my my window was broke and I have everything

to pay in this car but I was so happy with that first car because it was my first one and now being able to drive those such car like that and have my own car I love it so much and I call it my batmobile car so yeah MMA is going well and I'm taking thankful to the PFO to show me that they respect me and they respect my work. And as soon I deliver in the cage, they deliver back in my pocket. So yeah, it's good. Are you starting to feel like especially in your neck of the woods, in your country and in surrounding countries, are you starting to feel like your star is growing?

Like the byproduct of your success is coming to fruition. Yeah, yeah. And it's good because it can make me able to be focused on my MMA craft, you know. because sometimes when you're young and you get like a little bit famous, I would say, because it's just in my French-speaking country sport. But you can get like in your head like, yeah, I will be lazy. I will go to this. I won't go to training.

But for us, it's just better because we are hungry. We come from poverty. We came from people, place we didn't have like so much things in our pocket. And now I want everything in the world. So yeah, I'm focused to just win my fights and getting in the top five after that, calling out someone and then get to the title shop this is my goal you versus benson henderson may 23rd how does it finish i do believe that you already know my style so i don't need to speak that much about what i'm capable to do just the thing is don't do one mistake with me you know you already

know it's a flashball dunk han ha ha ha ha i know it i know it there it is what a huge fight uh good luck to you my friend what a big opportunity for you back in belgium to fight a legend like Benson Henderson, very happy for you, and thank you for coming on the show to talk about it. We appreciate it very much. Bon courage, and good luck.

Thank you, my friend. Thank you. All right, there he is. The one and only, the Belgian bomber himself, the great young stud that the PFL is so excited about representing Belgium,

and their lineup is starting to come together. Their final year, as of now, on ESPN, they've got the PFL Madrid card on March 20th, and then PFL Pittsburgh the following weekend, March 28th, PFL Chicago, April 11th, PFLBelfast, April 16th. That was announced recently, Mr. Paul Hughes on that card. PFL Sue Falls on the 2nd of May and then PFL Brussels on May 23rd. So there you have it.

It is a new day and a new era for them. And I'm a big fan of that young man and him getting an opportunity to fight in his home country is a really, really big deal. Okay, still to come, Armitzurukian and Paolo Costa. but for now, it is so great to speak to this man. We've been wanting to speak to him for quite some time. He's kind enough to join us. He was there in attendance on Saturday at R.EF. He got a front row seat to that brawl.

He's the one and only Marab de Wally-Svili. Marab, my friend, long time, no speak. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. It's great to have you.

I've been bothering you a lot lately. So thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, so a lot to talk to you about Marab. but first can I ask you about this past weekend you were there you saw the whole melee between Giorgio and Armin

what was your what was your perspective on it was someone in the right was someone in the wrong did someone do something that led to this how did you feel like it played out let me tell you what it was so fun to watch it was wrestling but it feels like it was fight

because they were slapped each other I can't tell you who was right and who was wrong because they did take a point from each other. But I think what happened after the fight that was after the wrestling match

that shouldn't have not happened but it was still fun, you know? It was fun. Yeah, it was fun. I'm just, I'm curious about the shots to the face. Some people saying Georgia was too aggressive with the hands in the face and the slapping. Is that part of wrestling in your opinion

or is that too much? Yeah, I think. I think, yeah, Georgia started that and yeah, I think he was doing too much. But they did take points from him. And yeah, I'm not a wrestler. And I think if they were supposed to fight, they should fight during their wrestling match. Yes. Not after, you know, that's my only opinion.

And now, but yeah, Georgia was doing too much for sure. He was fighting aggressive, and we all see also after, like, now you see how he was, like, pushing his face and stuff, yeah. What did you think of the show? What did you think of R.F? I know your friend Al Jermaine was there, and he was victorious against Benson Henderson, being there in person. What did you think? I enjoy a lot. It was the great wrestling show.

Even it was wrestling. It was so much fun and so entertainment. like it was really high level. I only, you know, even UFC when I go, even I have a best seat. Sometimes it's, when you're at the arena, it's hard to enjoy because, I don't know. Sometimes I rather watching TV. Of course, I love watching UFC, but I rather watch it in TV. But anything else, like jujitsu or wrestling, I don't know.

I don't like to be in arena because it's, you know, but this show was the best. You know, we all have so much fun. We all were so focused. And it was lots of fun, great show, organized everything, and it was really entertainment. I saw you said hello to Sean O'Malley and Tim Welch, so all good there. Yes, all good. And yeah, I saw Team Walsch earlier in the cafeteria. And, yeah, I shake hands, of course, like, no, nothing.

Nothing. I moved on. And, of course, for Sean, I have respect. He's a good fighter. And then now I like Sean's jokes. And now I'm catching his jokes. He's actually funny and a good guy. And, yeah, so we.

Team, his coach, I have no problem with him now. Okay. And also, you were announced to be joining RAF. You're going to be competing for them against Henry Sohudo, April 18th. There it is, in Philadelphia. And so how did this come about for you? And what do you think of the matchup? That's, yeah, RAF signed me.

And that was the damn plan. If Henry going to win, they was going to make this matchup. and I like the match up because I'm competitive at his sport. We all see, Henry, he's a good wrestler, and that's his, he was Olympic champion, and he was winning everything since he was kid, and he's a really good wrestler. We all know that, and I'm not wrestler, but I do wrestling in the fight, And I use this like my judo ensemble technique good. And it's going to be challenged for me, but I like this challenge.

And now since I don't have a fight and Peter decided to taking care of himself. So I need to be busy. I need to train for something. And this is a good opportunity to fight and challenge myself and give people this. I think a lot of wrestling fans was excited for this is my chap

I want to see this and I'm excited too Yes obviously you beat him in February of 2024. It was rather convincing but now you're stepping into his world so that's interesting and he dominated Yariah on Saturday were you impressed, were you surprised

that it was so convincing in his favor? Yes I was impressed and I was mentioning before I hope he's going to win because I won wrestling against him but he made it look easy and then yeah he looked very good

and so he shows us again he's a great wrestler and he's his own sport he's the king really because he has a low stand and he grabs the ankle and like, you know, how he level changed and he, you know,

he doesn't need to take a punch or he's good wrestler, you know, he has his own technique, and he's good. So you just mentioned your old foe, Peter Yan. That's obviously the big one that a lot of people want to see and want to see for you. Where do things stand right now,

Mara, between you and your career and Peter Yan? What do you mean where we stand? Well, So you said he's taking a little bit more time. I had heard, Marab, that there was a plan in place for you to fight maybe May against Jan and then maybe in New Jersey. But now that's not the plan anymore because I think he had an injury and he had to have surgery, right? Yes, that was I was hoping because right after the hour fight,

UFC call me and tell me in person just take your time much as you want recover and you are fighting for the belt for sure and just let us know when you want to fight like when you want to come back and then we give you a fight but my manager told me they're not going to give us fight at the White House because I'm from Georgia, he's from Russian and this is like not really makes sense.

And so then I was hoping then, yes, May in New Jersey. And when I came back from Spain and Georgia and I was working hard training, but then I see that this news that we all see that Peter did his back surgery. And like now like I have no fights. I don't know now. I know I'm not fighting June. I was hoping in July, but who knows, who knows? Maybe, you know, who knows when Peter coming back,

and who knows when UFC will book us our fight? You're so used to being active. Is this frustrating for you that you don't even have a date, let alone, you know, anything to train for right now? Any particular fight? So, I was enjoying to be busy, but, and then, like, even after my fight, when I first I go to Hawaii, I was training with Mark Zucker, and after I go to Spain, training with Iilia. And then I was a little bit stressed because, like, I, you know, like, and then I was not, okay, and I was in Georgia for a little B, and I wanted to, I wanted to come back in Vegas and training in my own zone and just be focused.

And I was a little bit stressed all this time. I wanted to start training. And I came back, I was training hard, like I said, but soon as I heard the news, Peter did surgery and I was not going to fight any time. soon something like release, you know, it feels good too. Now I'm fine. I don't have fight and I'm good. Now I, because now I know who I'm going to fight and taking my time, even I don't want this. It feels release and feels good.

Is there any part of you that wants to, you know, or that you think if he doesn't come back by July, I'm going to fight someone else just because I love to fight. I want to be active. or are you waiting for him no matter what? I'm waiting for Peter Ian because this fights makes sense. Now we are one and one. I beat him in 2023. He beat me and busted and opened me up in 2025.

And like I said, I have no excuse. Of course I was going through some injuries, some hard training sessions, everything else. But now, third fight, we both will have a good. time to prepare and I want to even challenge myself and see who's going to be winner in third fight in trilogy and I'm sure everybody will be excited for this one and now it's worth it to wait and then after this fight we move on I've been I've been wanting to ask you this question since December Marab is there any part of you that

regrets taking that fourth fight in 2025 No, I don't regret nothing. This is who I am. I like to take risk. I like to take challenges. And it was a challenge for me. I know the Peter was top opponent for me. I know what it takes to beat him. You know, when I beat him in 23, I know I was so focused every second in 25 minutes. I was fighting for giving everything. And yeah, like, now we all see it. And maybe I was churning over, like, till my last fight, you know,

and then, you know, I was a little bit, you know, like a little bit of from injuries, whatever. But, no, I don't regret, you know. And, you know, I think people enjoy this fight, and I'm a fighter. and yeah, I'm glad and I fought and it's okay. And I know it's a complex question to answer, but do you have a theory or two as to why it didn't go your way,

why it was so different than the first fight? Yeah, I know why first Twitter is good opponent. Like I said, even when I was fighting in 2023, I did my pass to beat him. It wasn't easy, but I make it look easy. This time I make some mistakes. First, I try to hurt him in his own game in boxing, and he stopped my takedown, wasn't working,

and then I'm like, I want to enjoy this fight. And I don't know which round I make this, this. decision, I said, I'm going to enjoy this fight. I don't care. I don't know, something clicking in my mind and I was enjoying it, but he cracked me with one, two, and he cracked me two times with a body shot, and it was a tough fight. And like, end of the fight, I kind I kind of give him signal, let's fight, you know, that he shoot me and take me down. I'm like, are you a wrestler now? He did take me down.

First couple times when he shoot, I try to guillotine him. I do this very well, and I make a lot of people tap out, but I don't know, Peter's neck was so strong and feels like unreal. Like I as a 135 he he was very strong and big and and so next time I will not try to choke him you know, I will. He felt different than the first time? I mean, yes, yes. No, I won't say that.

No, I don't know, so I was so. I don't know. Maybe I was also different than the first time, you know? Right. Of course, it's a new fight, new date. And so, okay, I can only imagine he lost against me. And then I really beat him in 23. And all rounds, and it was like one-sided fight.

I win, like, you anima's decision. And I'm sure he worked a lot to, he studied me. work to how to beat me and he makes a lot of changes. And I did get better after that, but I don't prepare this specific fight. I was ready for everybody, but I was not training specific for Peter Ryan. I think, you know, I was just training, like spying with everybody, doing my best, but I should, you know, I should prepare for him specific, you know, more, more. specific, you know, which is like, and it was, during the fight, I know something wasn't

right and it was hard to make changes in during the fight. And so now for our trilogy fight, I should sit down, watch his fight, make some changes, study him and prepare more, you know. But it's all my mistake, you know. In first fight, I did homework, and that's why I beat him. This last fight against Peter, I guess I was too comfortable. I don't do too much homework and I was just going to, I wanted to fight him, you know, to give everybody a good fight and I want to take challenge.

But, you know, I should be more smart to study him and do more. I was working hard for last fight, but I should not work only for hard. I should work for smart. You know, sometimes I was even training over too much training, you know. I was, but this is, this is. how we learn and I hope I can fix this and win the next one. The next day, the Sunday or the Monday when you woke up in the fight had happened and you weren't the champion anymore.

How did that sit with you? Because you had been championed for so long. You were so dominant. You were my 2025 fighter of the year, by the way, despite the fight in December. I think you earned that. I saw that and thank you so much for this. respect. I appreciate you. I appreciate you, Ariel, and I appreciate all the people, yeah, who respect my work. Even when I lost the last one, yeah, a lot of people say that I was Fight of the Night, like, including you.

And thank you so much. That means Allah for me. That's, that's, that was, that was, that's what I want. You know, I want to be just a respectful fighter who, who's ready for fight anybody, anytime, anywhere. But this time, I have to fight Peter, and we have to find out who's the real champion. And it's worth it to wait to him. And yeah. What I was wondering was when the reality sunk in that you weren't the champion, how did that sit with you?

Were you sad? Were you down? You always come across so happy and high on life. But when you woke up on that Sunday or Monday, How did it feel? Only, I don't care belt too much because you know, that was my dream to come champion

one time and I was good but I did win the belt four times. So a belt is not everything for me. But yeah, it was a little bit sad, you know, lost against Peter Ian. Even he's a great

father and I don't think he's the best person, you know, and to lost against this rude guy, it was hard, you know, but this is part of the life. And, no, I was fine, you know, this is part of the sport. And, yeah, I was a little bit emotional after the fight, you know, I wanted to just send my mom to message, you know, I was fine. If she saw me, that was busted up, my face, my nose, I was fine and I was cool. I just want to send a message to my mom. But I was a little emotional at the moment, but after that, I was fine. And I was just positive and I was cool about it.

I lost a fight. Peter was better man that night. And now I want to. This is good motivation. to me work more and win the next one. Is there any part of you that feels like Peter won't agree to fight you, that he'll try to fight someone else, that he'll say he wants to fight someone else that the UFC will go in a different direction?

Is there any part of you that is worried about this? No, I'm not worried. If he will fight me, I'm ready. If he don't want to fight me, then I'm going to fight somebody else. but no I think he will take a fight you know he he's also top guy you know he's been fighting everybody and I think he will he will fight me

I believe he you know he's not he's not gonna like he's not gonna do that okay and and do you have any sense like are you hearing October November September are they giving you any sort of time frame. No, actually, I have no idea, but I'm just hoping to as soon as possible.

Even I was ready for fight in April or May, but yeah, now we know that I have to wait until summer. But I'm still hoping to I can get minimum two fights this year. Okay, so two fights this year. Wow, that would be an active, I mean, that's not a big deal for you. you fought four times last year in October and December. So hopefully that does come to fruition. I have to say, Marab, I thought it was very heartwarming to see, especially at the beginning

of the year after your fight, you and Ilya together so much, because obviously you were coming off the disappointing loss. And I know we all know that he was going through a difficult time as well. It seems like he's much happier. And it just felt to me like you were there for each other, that you came to support him, to be together like a good friend should do. Is that what you were trying to do? Were you there to support your brother and show him that you're here by his side during his difficult period?

Absolutely, yes. You know, Ilya, he's a killer in the Arctican, but he has a big heart and he's a great, great family man, great friend and a great guy. And yeah, I'm glad I was there at this moment. he was going through like top time moments you know you know like he wasn't even training you know he he was just you know he was you know like because of this this family situation and yeah he was going top moment but yeah is great guy and um yeah i'm glad i went in Spain and I spent time with him. And, yeah, you're right, like you said, I was also, like, I was also depressed.

I was coming from the loss and that time hit me depressed, you know, a little bit because I wanted to come back as soon as possible, start training, but I can't control. You know, I know Peter was taking his time and it was tough, top time at this time. but yeah but everything is good now yeah it seemed like yeah everything sorry yeah i'm glad everything is you know it's fine he's good you know and everything is good my side too yeah it seemed like uh you were both there for each other when you needed each other for different reasons i thought it was nice all the videos of you guys together training eating together uh it it warmed the soul i thought that was nice i also just wanted to ask you before

i let you go uh there's a youngster named david martina who had a win over Cito Vera this weekend. Have you seen this guy? Have you been impressed with him? Any thoughts on him? Because he fought in the co-main event on Saturday. Yes, for sure. Yeah, he's top contender.

And the win three fights in UFC and beat like a front and Chittovera. It's a lot. And yeah, I haven't watched his last fight against Chito. But, yeah, he's a new, new contender in our class, I like it. Yeah.

And I would like to fight him one day too and I would like to challenge myself against this like top contenders. Okay, and when you saw Tim and Sean, they didn't tell you that they were going to try to like get the Jan fight before you, right?

There was no talk of that. Actually, Sean did mention like Jan, he says something. What he's, doing or what's news about Jan or something and I just tell him I said I'm I think I'm fighting him and he just did back surgery and just like you know saying like what I know like I don't know when he's coming back and like he shows mentioned him some somehow I don't remember words how he did mention but you know it was like no conversation about

that I just shake team's hand and Sean like just a little bit conversation he was funny something you know he was cool and yeah actually it was like when the

I believe his name is Dave he's the champion 165 division the wrestling oh in the RAF yeah I David Carr yes when he

he went and he was doing interview with Charles Annen and Charles Arsane and asked about me, Marab signed to RAA who who Marab should wrestling against him and I was I was looking Sean and Mali. I said me and you that would be good my job, you know? And then Sean said no, he don't want that. And then yeah, that was fun. So with Sean that at RA.RASC, wrestling match. It seemed like everyone enjoys it there. Like even Aljo seemed like he really had a lot of fun doing it, right?

Yes, I'm so right. This is, man, I don't know. It was such a cool event and it's so good to be there at the live event. And yeah, it's really high level, everything. And then it's a fun, fun wrestling matchups. And then against the Olympic medalist, like my friend was giving my chest. I was really Georgian. I'm so proud of him.

Al Jammai Sterling. He was a former wrestler now. You know the grappler, the UFC fighter, my friend. And he looked good. And then, yeah, it's a great show. Very fun. And I'm sure motivates a lot of young wrestlers to have a show like this and league like this

to work hard, hard, be good wrestling and be in this show or in future. I'm grateful and I'm lucky to compete at this organization because, you know, so it's a great opportunity. And by the way, what about Luca Berulava and Anastasia Metalkina? You know them? Yes, of course. yeah the

the Georgia the only medal we got we got the medal and Olympics we are good in summer

Olympic games we always win the goals and we have dominate judo and wrestling

or even like lifting the power lifting yeah power lifting but now yeah winter

Olympics we finally got the medals and I'm so proud of these two. Figure skating. First ever medal for the country of Georgia. I was very excited for you when I saw that.

Thank you so much. And yeah, I'm grateful for them. They represent Georgia very good. And let's go, Georgia. And I saw you was there. You have a good time, Mario? Yes, amazing. I loved it.

It was incredible. So that's why I know all these little facts about the Olympics now because I was like in that world for three weeks. Wow, amazing. Yeah. Great athletes. They remind me a lot. The athletes there remind me a lot of MMA fighters because they work so hard.

They're humble. I think they're underpaid. They're underappreciated at times. But they're all fighting so hard to achieve a dream that means so much them to represent their country. The interactions that I had with the athletes reminded me a lot of the interactions that I have with you guys, the fighters. So I really enjoyed it.

That's amazing. Good. Yeah, you're right. I think only pick sports, they're underpaid. They don't get this much. No. No money, no even no popularity, you know, because even they're great and they're like,

they spend all them life and they're high-level athletes. But we know, you know, I know, and then all the athletes, we know how good there, how hard work are there, how good people there. Amazing. Well, you represent your country very, well as well. Congratulations on the RAF deal. Looking forward to that April 18th in Philadelphia against Henry Sohudo, a rematch of sorts. And obviously, good luck getting that title fight. I hope

it happens soon for you. And thank you for always coming on and talk to us and being a class act, Marab. So appreciate it very much, my friend, and all the best as you prepare for your RAF debut. Thank you, Ariel. I appreciate you. All right. Talk to you soon. There he is. The great Marab de Wally Shili, the pride of Georgia, making his RAF debut on the 18th of April in the Ilydelf, as they say, the beautiful Philadelphia region. They are rolling. They have another show, March 28th, I do believe.

That'll be RAF 7. They've got something, man. They've got something. I've said it from the beginning. Now, the question is, do the hardcore wrestling community, a hardcore wrestling fan, do you want wrestler versus wrestler? You get that on those shows. And then you got the stuff that it like, it taps into the M.M.

community where it's Henry and I know Henry's an Olympic gold medalist and all that but now more I would say known for his his MMA work as opposed to wrestling work his resume against the Marab that's fun and then you'll get the you know a hardcore wrestler

against the MMA fighter which we've seen a bunch of times which more often than not doesn't go well for the MMA fighter but there's intrigue and look at Armin this past weekend I know Georgia is not an Olympic wrestler if you will but you know I think they've got something with the mix and they're coming at it fast and furious every month they've got

sometimes two a month like this month they've got two well i guess was was a saturday the well i guess that was february 28th but you get the point within four or so weeks anyway looking forward to that very much and looking forward to talking to our next guest been a minute since we spoke to him but it's always a great pleasure to speak to this man he'll be moving up to 205 on april 11th in miami a ufc 327 there was some talk of him fighting this weekend and it ain't happening He's got the secret juice times two because he's moving up from 185 to 205. Is he there? Paulo Costa, Bojaschina, the hardest man to track.

Yes. Paulo, how are you, my friend? Hello. Very good, man. Thank you for having me here. I miss you. I miss you, Paolo. I miss you, too, man.

I miss you too. How are you? I'm good, very good. Thank you. Tamaya told me about the interview. I've become very exciting. but I was sad because you was available, right? You were travel, travel.

Yes. And doing cover Olympics, I think. Yes, I was covering the Olympics. But I'm glad you're back now. Yes. We need you. We need you. Thank you, Paula.

That means a lot. You cut your hair? It's something different about you. What's different? The beard? What's different? You changed. I think I'm heavy.

Yeah, you're a big boy. Did you get engaged yet? Yeah. Yes. You did? You get engaged here? No, yeah. Not yet.

Not yet. Not yet. Too much things going on. I know I have this business, the secret joists, that fight coming up. But this year, this is going to happen. But, yeah. How big are you right now, Paolo? Oh, my gosh.

Look at that. It zoomed out. Wow, now it's zoomed in. How much do you weigh now, Paulo? You look huge. Did you zoom out in? No. Because I did.

I don't know who did that. I think it was the... The computer's doing it or the government. Yeah, maybe you have some teleksynesis. Because when you say this thing, yeah, that was great. I'm two, I don't know in pounds, but I know in kilos, I'm a hundred two kilos, something like that. I'm going to look at 102 kilos is how many pounds. that's 224, almost 225.

No, I think it's more than that. It says 102 kilograms is 225 pounds. Okay, okay, so okay, good. Okay, so you're moving up to 205. How come? Yes, for this fight. Just for this fight? Yeah, especially for this fight

because there was a good opportunity to fight somebody well ranked on middle, on light half-eight. So in the middle eight was a little bit, you know, nobody was available. So this is a good match, a good opportunity to fight a good fighter. And be, and be on work, you know, be busy. That's why we get in this. But I can make 1-85 any time.

Okay. So the opponent is Azamad Mersakanov. What about him interested you? I think because he's undefeated and he's on number six. He's supposed to fight against the guy who beat Alex and then he lost for Alex. I forgot his name. Magomed? Yes, Uncle Ayiv.

They're supposed to fight. So he's a good name. He's the best name that I was in April for me right now. So this is just one fight for you at 205 afterwards? You're going to go back? We don't know. I'm just saying I came back to 185 anytime. You know, it's not something that I cannot make $1.85 anymore.

No, it's not the case. I can fight for the middleweight as well. But I just saw the opportunity. So I don't know. Let's see after this fight, what's going on. Maybe I can do one more fight at 205 or maybe I came back to 185. I'm just looking for good matches and fun fights, you know? Yeah.

I would imagine life is a little bit better when you're fighting at 205 because you don't have to cut that. Oh, much bad. Yes, much better. Yeah. Less stress, last tension, you know, you can have a better, I would say, less restrictive life. And there was once talk of you fighting this weekend, right, against Bruno Farheda, I think. What happened?

Yeah, that's why, because nobody was available. So the UFC suggests me to fight him. right now in March but I was not happy for the match I was always looking for for the best fighters the best challengers you know something that would be more entertaining to watch so I was not so happy against you know to fight him not against him just because I think there is other opinion better than him to fight you know like better matches okay in terms of in terms of entertaining in terms of challenger and and that's what's

happened at UFC final Azamad who is better ranking and who is dangerous than him so I say that's it let's do that okay so it wasn't that you were injured or something, it was just a fight that didn't really interest you? Yes, yes, yes. I was hoping I thought maybe they would do you versus Kyle Boholio. I thought that was a fight that made a lot of sense. Yeah, that would be bad at the end. Yeah.

What's going on with you and Kyle? Why? I don't know. I feel like there's tension there between you guys. He used to talk about me. You know, maybe he wanted to... to get in the take some

attention, I don't know, but he used to talk bad things about me but he's not the only one Yes that means you're a star when people are talking about you Huh? It means you're a star, you're popular that means that you're doing something well

Yeah, probably I don't know, I don't know what reason make they talk about me but for some reason they're doing that, but that's okay. I'm just not doing the same. I'm just, you know, I just get about my business and stuff. My business is right here, you know. You talk about secret juice.

I have a bunch of them. We're going to launch this secret juice in close to my fight, April 11. Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It's actual Ken. Look at that. This is a can, actually a can. Finally.

Wow, wow, wow. Where can we get it? Secret juice and dial. Tamayo is over here. Hello, Tamara. How are you? We see you. She's hiding in the back.

Yeah, she's hiding in the back, but she has caught. And, yes. So, finally, finally we're going to have the drink for the fans. and not for everybody, be struggling jacket as well. I'm happy for this. Where can I buy it? Where are people going to buy this? How?

We're going to give them all the day you're supposed to launch. We're going to be to the website, my website. Okay, okay. Secretjuice.com? I don't know exactly the site, but we're going to release these and make you know as much possible. So I don't know exactly how they, you know, I don't care about this business. They care about this. You tell me.

When you know the answer, you tell us and we'll tell the world. Of course, of course. Of course. You are my guy. You always help me with these promoting secret juice. And I'm going to bring for you as much as you want. Thank you. And yes.

By the way, is Hamza Chimaev on the Secret Juice? I saw he's looking a little bigger these days. I don't think so. I think he's looking fat. Fat ass. He's looking fat, fat ass. You don't think he looks good? This guy doesn't deserve the Secret Juice.

The Secret Juice is for nice people. Okay. He's not nice. Was there any talk of you getting him? I know you really wanted that fight really badly. Was there any talk? No, I mean, I always make this public that I want to fight him. And it's about the UFC, you know, if UFC want to make this fight one day.

But he's a champion right now. I think after a good victory against Azamat on April 11, I came back at middle-eight to be in line to fight him. or I can wait for him at 205. So I can fight him on both divisions. I think you're going to enjoy 205 and just stay there. Maybe, maybe, but it can happen. It depends what proposed is going to pop up after this fight.

It depends who are going to be available. It's about the matches. Yeah. I mean, if there is a good opportunity to fight Azamad at middleweight or anybody else at top five, at middleweight,

I cannot be back, you know, because I'm not far. I'm 103 kilos or 226, I think you say. Yeah. Yeah. So I can drop more 10 pounds and fight at 185.

there is not a big deal, not a big problem. But of course, I like to not cut too much weight and not being on diet every single day for two months to make 185. It's less stress and it's okay. It's okay for me. And the talk now is Hamzad and Sean Strickland, they want to fight each other. How do you think that goes? I'll it's hard to predict

but I think Hansa are going to put down sometimes and I think this can be a body fight if you go to the ground I think he's going to try

to hold him like he did against Dracus but yeah but strictly is tough as well so the only probably is Strickle doesn't have that knockout power.

For a single punch, he's more about, you know, being grinding, running during the fight into the fifth round. So I think he's a little bit better for Chimayev to fight him. Who do you think has a better chance of beating him, Strickland or Imavov? Or neither? Maybe Mavov has better chance. How come?

I think by striking, boxing. Okay. More well-rounded. Yeah, yeah. I think so. I think so. He'll be faster than street one and faster than she might have as well. Yeah, but that's it.

Yeah. But I think the worst match for Shima is me. That's what I believe. Do you think he's avoiding you? He used to avoid me in the past when the FC pushed him very hard to get that fight against me in Abu Dhabi. He was, unfortunately, that fight that happened. I got to do a surgery, but the FC used to push him very hard because he's avoided me. Hopefully we get to see it finally. It has to happen at some point.

Oh man, yes. This needs to happen, you know. He's my goal. I'm sick of him. I'm just following him. And I hope in the very near future, very soon, we can match and fight. Was there talk of you doing a grappling match against Sharra Bullitt in Rio this weekend? Yes, yes. I had this talk. And what happened? I was surprised. I was surprised as well because I didn't expect Sharpelling want to grappling or know how to grapple.

That was funny. And what happened? Is it still happening? Yes. They contacted Tamaya to talk about that. Tamar was in talks with his coach. and we agreed to fight. We agreed to fight.

They were talking about just the details about the payment, but Hunter Capable from UFC does allow that. He says it's too close to my fight. It's important to fight. Very, very important fight. So he said, no way to do that, to allow that. After fight, maybe. Okay, okay, because everyone's doing grappling matches now, right?

You see Armin doing stuff? Sharra's doing it. Everyone's doing it. I was happy. I was happy for the call. You know, that would be in Rio. I'm in Los Angeles right now,

so not Los Angeles, California. I'm in Orange County. So I should take a flight to Rio and be back. Then we, there would be confused on my schedule, but I think that would be possible. But I understand NFC to say it's not allowed me to do that right now.

I don't think I would get the injury or he's going to hurt me on a crappy match. But, yeah, I'm sad because that was a good money, very good money to do that match, just a grapy match. Like six minutes. I think. Yeah.

But that's okay. I'm focusing on the other erosion as a man. Your last fight was in July. How come it's taken so long for you to get a fight? Yeah, it sucks. I tried to fight before. Bernard Haring was offered to me around October or November. Who was?

Who was that? Brandon Allen. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, and what happened? He was offered, but I don't know, I accept. I say yes, but the fight don't happen.

I don't know why. I don't know if the UFC changed the planes or that was because of brain a lot. But the fight doesn't happen. And after that, who else? Am I? Who else? Sharia bullet. And Sharia bullet as well was offered, but he was injured.

I think he had his nose broken, so he was not possible to fight. And that was in November against Shire. Okay. And then I just waiting. I wait for these two guys. So after that, it would be difficult to find another opponent. That's why UFC came up with the Brazil and Bruno. And by January, Azamat pops up.

He was available and we made that for the match. I remember after your fight, oh, go ahead, go ahead. I asked to fight Azamat in March, March 7, like this Saturday. Oh, yeah? But UFC Yes, UFC prepared Prefer to respond to

Miami card April 11 Okay Was not by me You know UFC pushed this for April 11 Okay How'd you feel about that? I mean, it's a lot time

I don't need all this time to To prepare for April 11 In In special 5 in a 205 Because on 205 I don't need like I need three months or 12 weeks to fight at 185 to make weight but for 205 I need just seven weeks so I say we can go in seven weeks

but they say no wait there because there's a bigger card in Miami and we want this fight for that. How do you feel about the new UFC on Paramount now, no pay-per-view, the bonuses are up are the contracts up or is the fighter pay up I'm not sure we'll see how that goes how do you feel about all these changes

yeah and my payment is the same but I think I think this is very good for this for sports you know it's more people watching us and put rise on our sport to become more and more popular more and more

access the access easier for people know and I think for exciting fights this is going to be a very good change I think

if you are buying fight right now this is bad for you because if you hold people if you don't want to bring action they're going to try to remove you

you know But if you're exciting fight, I think it's going to be something very good for us. This can make us very popular, very, very, very popular, like super, super stars. I would just, and I'm not trying to... I hope so. I would just like to see the fighter pay go up also, you know, because they're getting so much more now. Yes, I think this is going to happen some later. I think the things can be balanced.

Like as soon, the UFC game or money, they're going to repast this for athletes. But I don't know when this is going to happen. But, you know, I think this can happen right now. Yes, I agree. By the way, I remember when we spoke in July. after your fight, you said you needed to get your confidence back. That was step one.

Do you feel like the confidence is back yet, or you need this next fight now in a new way class to get that confidence fully back? How are you feeling confidence-wise? I'm thinking very, very pretty confident on myself, my skills right now. But every fight is going to bring you different perspective and different experience and different

and more and more confidence as well. So it's kind of a progress, five by five. This is going to happen naturally more and more. But of course, right now I'm much more confident in my skills than I was like a couple of fights ago. Okay. So you're starting to feel like yourself, if not better, soon. It's a process, but you're in the direction of feeling that way. Yes, exactly. Thank you.

Yes, yes, yes. And you're training in California? Yeah, I'm training California. The Dio, this company, make a team over here. They have an octagon close here. So it's a special camp for this fight, for my fight, for me. So I bring the coach over here. I have the spark partners. I have a nice house here.

And this sponsor is a Dio. The name is Dio Labs. Okay. Who is collaborating with me. And what about your YouTube channel? I saw you have a part one of your sort of road to UFC 327 up there. There it is. It's nice.

I like it. I like the graphics. What are we doing there? Because it's been, look. I see this one got posted four days ago. Your last video, one year ago. Yeah. So it's been a while since you were on YouTube.

What's going on over there? Yeah. I did like a break on my YouTube for a long time, like a year ago or more. I was more focused on grow my skills, you know, and fix some things that I should. fix in general, I mean, about my training, about the organization of the structure of the team and people's, coach and people who surround me. And once I fixed that, I was able to come back with, you know, this promoting on YouTube,

doing social media and stuff, more professional. and right now is the time because I feel like the things is on the way you know so you can move and do different different types of things at the same time right now because we have people to do that we have professional people to to have recording to film everything to edit

and to care about these social media so now I'm free to do my stuff. The things that I need to put my attention. And I'm at the social media for these people and then they're doing this right now. That's why

we come back and we're trying to show like everything about the training camp. Everything that is possible to show, we're going to show like five or six episodes until the fight and after the fight as well.

So this is something that can make me close to the fans and people who want to see, you know, behind the scenes and everything else. The UFC does a show, everything else, but not the fight. So we're trying to do that. I like it. Look at you. You've got the drink coming out. You've revived the YouTube channel. You've got this behind-the-scenes look.

It's great. Who's your head coach, by the way, now? Are you still, are you, do you have a, who's the man? Who's the guy over there? Uh, we, we, we don't decide yet, officially who is the, the head coat, but we have some, some head minds here. I would say we have a, Johnny, you have a net, Nero, Kelson, have a Benke. so Baduola

my brother so everybody has Tamaya as well everybody has a different different holes okay your brother your actual brother

yeah yeah my actual brother I didn't know that he's a part of your team yes you don't know that is he a fighter he used to fight he used to fight he's my

older brother five years older than me. He was my coach for my whole career. Okay, with Captain Eric? He was by my side. No.

No. He's not blue. Yeah. Before him. Wow. What's his name? Yeah. His name is Carlos.

Carlos Costa. And Carlos Costor. Carlos Costa. Amazing. He has a He has another fighter. Natalia, Silver, is a Brazilian fighter.

She's training her as well. Of course. She's doing great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. The haircut that you did for our guy, it's come in very nicely. In case you were wondering. Say again. Sorry. The haircut that you did for my producer, it grew out very nice. The waves?

Look. Eric. Yeah, Eric. It looks nice. Eric, it looks nice, brother. Yeah, I see that. He didn't touch it. He didn't touch it since you came.

No, really? Yeah, yeah. Look how nicely it came in. Give him a nice look there. Look at that. Beautiful. Show there, like that. Show the sides.

Show the sides, Eric. You see that? How nice. Oh, yes. Looks nice. Now, now looks very nice, Eric. Professional. I need another one.

I need some waves. back. I need the waves again. Come back. Oh, yeah. The waves looks a little bit better on you, to be honest, yes. But, okay, next time I'll show up. For sure.

Paolo, you're my kid's favorite fighter. They always ask me about you. When is Paolo Costa fighting again? Something's not you. They're a big fan. This is amazing. This is amazing. I love your kids.

You have a great kids. they are super nice with me. They said you have aura. You know what aura means. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. I'm glad to know that. I'm glad. I will keep the a aura kids.

I love it. And then we're getting a win, April 11th against Mirzikanov. April 11th. I'm going to bring this victory. This is going to be a nice fight, a great fight. I'm prepared for that. I have its map all the game playing already. If this fight would happen this afternoon, I would be ready for this afternoon.

So pay attention to this fight. This is going to be a great match. This guy is undefeated until April 11th. And I'm going to beat him very badly. Can't wait. Thank you, Paolo. All the best to you. Good luck.

Let us know about the secret juice. Very exciting. Very happy for you. And I can't wait to see you back in there April 11th at 205. Thank you so much. Thank you, very much. Thank you, I.O., thank you, I, and the whole team. Thank you, Pallel.

Thank you, Paolo. There he is. The great Paulo Costa, returning to action, April 11th, UFC 327. He had that one fight at 205 against Marvin Vittori, I do believe it was, right? Was it Marvin Vittori? Yeah. And now here he is returning, but he says that it might just be a pit stop for him. He might be back at 185.

Big-time fight. Mirzikhanov has looked great as of late. He's coming off that win over Alexander Rackich. A bunch of stoppages. First round against Rackich. First round against Brensen, Hibero, second round against Alonzo Menefield, decision against Jacoby, third round against Devin Clark, third round against Tafon, Nietz Kui. Then a contender series first round, and then a first round on the brave scene. tough guy

a tough guy hailing from Russia nicknamed the professional will be the professional against the eraser April 11th and we know the main event

Carl Selberg against Yuri Prakaska to retire against Joshua Van All right All right Still to come In about

90 minutes time Like I said Super Size show Super Stack show Armant Sirukian Of course One of the biggest Stars in the sport

There is no question about it You can make a strong case At this point He's top five Without fighting in the UFC It's unbelievable what this guy has done. He was involved in that fracas on Saturday at RAF in Arizona. We'll talk to him about that.

Georgia is going to join us tomorrow on the program. More on tomorrow's lineup in a moment. But now we have an opportunity after speaking to what was that? Four guests, Yuri, Patrick, Marab, and Paolo to get into the news. Is the whole gang here? Yeah. The boys are back in town. The boys are back in town.

Pizzi. long time. Look at you. You had to come back and just throw it down the table. Didn't you four interviews still a big one to come?

Come on. That's how we was texting after one week saying when are you coming back? It feels like you've been gone a month. But it was actually a month. The best part was 7 a.m.

There was only one person I knew on this earth that was awake. So we'd have our nice chats in the morning. You are so busy over there though. It was, it was manic the hours you were awoken, wasn't it?

It was some kind of piss. But I would always see a bunch of people. I would see a bunch of Irish flags everywhere. I would see a bunch. Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that? First day I get there, guys, I'm walking around. I'm like, Pizzi, there's Irish flags everywhere here. And I'm sending him pictures, pictures, pictures, multiple pictures. He's like, uh, that's red. That's the Italian flag. I really thought I was like, this must be the Irish HQ. There's another one. What, am I in some kind of Irish locale here? Was, I legit thought those were Irish flag. Turns out. It was in Italy. I was in Italy. I was in Italy. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

But I'm so happy to be back. In fact, I just heard Frank laugh over there. Ptzee, I came back to a whole bunch of packages and mail. And I did receive this letter right here. And I'd like to open it. Oh, wow. What's this? A little ASMR. Okay, here's a letter. It's addressed to Frank Lens. All right. Who me? Let's celebrate. It's a nice little card. Are you guys familiar with what this is over there, Rick, G.C? No, I'm not. No, tell me about.

I've heard rumors of it, but I haven't. I don't know what's inside. Oh, wow. Okay. Here's a card. Very nice penmanship, by the way. Thank you. Wow, Frank, you really did it.

Congratulations on this monumental victory. Just to be clear, I sent this money exactly when I said I did. I did not send it later. I did not forget. And most of all, I did not only send it after being publicly accused. on a show Watched by Thousands. That would be ridiculous. Also enclosed, you will find a separate envelope

for the winner of the 2027 Royal Rumble sweepstakes. I'm sending it in advance to avoid my claims of non-payment and or delayed payment. Not to say you would do something as despicable as that, and by the way, I learned over the summer PC does not like accusations of any kind, especially on a live broadcast, watched by thousands of people. Wow, I think he actually

was bothered by this, Frank. Yours in good faith, a man of his word, Peter James Carroll. There's also... Wow, Peter James Carroll at the end there. There's also some toothpicks in here. I believe courtesy of our friend Tommy Aspinall. I don't see any money, though. Where's the money? I don't see any money.

I'm a long gone, but... Oh, wow. Okay. I was like, oh, words. Wait, did he actually send it advance his payment for the next? Well, I have another letter here. Oh, you can open that one if you want to. It says Royal Rumble winner, 2027, not for Frank. Oh, wow.

And he's already planning on not winning, I guess. Hold on, is this USD? There's actually another card in here with another letter. Oh, and more tooth. And more toothpaste. And more two things. What figures are those two days? Congratulations on winning the 2027 Royal Rumble sweepstakes.

I just hope you were more active in the text group than our 2026 winner, Frank. Unless, of course, Frank wanted again, that would be devastating. P.S. Between you and me, actually sent Frank his money late last year, and you know what? I am glad I did. You know what else? I'd do it again unless, of course, he wanted again this year, in which case, congrats Frank. If only Jordan was here, he's our what? What is it called when you take the money? Our escrow. Treasure. By the way, this is a wild watermelon, which sounds. I need one. I don't know. Fantastic.

This is macho mint. How hard was it for you to get the American USD over there, the dollar bill? I don't want to go true. You know, like, you know, it's so easy to just digitally send money. Is it even money at that stage? No. I hit them with some hard currency. That's all I know.

And on time, I'm waiting for an apology, to be honest, having heard money yet, Frank. It was Irish time. Let's be honest. There was talk of non-payment. There was talk of me not being a man of my word. And, I mean, there it is. Well, I appreciate it, Pizzi. the heartwarming letter.

That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for... Well, you're going to continue to wait if it's a sorry that you're looking for. That's all I wanted to hear. Thanks, Mike. Don't... No need to apologize, mate.

It's fine. Clip that off. Clip off that, sorry. All right, well, well, done. Thank you for doing that. I appreciate it. We have a lot to get to, guys. I almost am looking at the clock,

and I'm like, do we devote 20 minutes each and every one of these topics because there's a lot to get into here. And let's pick up where I left off at the top of the show. show. It's Yerry versus Alberg. And by the way, it's killing me inside that I said to him that he's never won the belt before.

Like, it is literally killing me inside. I feel like you are, it right, man. Check yourself 30 seconds later. Yeah, you checked it. He's completely unbothered by. It's, it's killing me. I can't even, if you had said he won the belt, he would have said, why are you so excited about me

winning the belt? Calm yourself a little bit down. And let's focus on winning the next belt. That's a fact. I actually do feel your pain, though, a little bit. me and Rick were talking about next potential fights for Melky Costa while you were away and Rick was like, oh, Steve Garcia, I was like, oh, that'd be a banger.

And then after the show, I remember they had already fought and it actually killed me on the inside. I was like, oh my God. I appreciate you saying that. That's like a one out of ten compared to my blunder there. That's like... Okay, yeah, sure, downplay my suffering. It's all right. No, no, no. I'm saying Melky... Forgetting that Melchicosta and Steve Garcia

fought. It's... It's nowhere near. Tell Yuri, he's never been a champion before. That is an all time blunder. That might be my worst blunder ever. You really corrected it almost immediately. Who's to check? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think we'd all agree that they got it right, right? If Alex

wasn't fighting at 205, it had to be Erie versus Alberg. It's like the easiest fight to make for a vacant title, right, Rick? The only thing that could have entered the play is if Hamzat was actually going up to 205, but this is for sure. There's too many vacant belts at that point. Like, there's just too much, there's too much activity.

Like, you need... This is all right. This is a vacant belt. belt. No, I know, but now you're doing two vacant belts. We just said it. You'll have a vacant belt at 85 and a vacant belt at 205. Now the question is, now the question is, and I said it in our video on a Saturday morning, can they get Alex versus Jones done? Can they get Pereira versus Jones done? Can they get it done? In fact, John Jones, some 12 hours later, was doing some sort of appearance, I think, in Maine, and he, I don't know if it was intentionally, unintentionally confirmed my report, because I kind of just said it in my thing, and then I saw it all over the place. And here's John Jones confirming that he is, in fact, in talks, and I'll tell you more about it, with the UFC to fight on the White House card. I'm in negotiations with the UFC about this White House thing as well.

Very, very, very, very common American, and I cannot win to represent one more time. Why does that look like a gender reveal or something? And why is everyone congratulating him and cheering for the announcement that he's indexed? negotiations. It's a big step. My favorite thing is the pacing back and forth, you know, like he's holding court there and got something exciting to share with all of us.

It is exciting. It is exciting. You tell me if you feel differently, I don't think John Jones would have been the hold up on this fight as opposed to he was in the Tom Aspinall negotiations, right? In the Tom Aspinall negotiations, John Jones was the one that said, I need this dollar figure, make it right? and I'll fight. Then they did, and then he didn't fight, right? He was the hold up. Tom was not the hold up. In this current iteration, in this White House fight, potentially against Alex Pereira, I don't think John Jones would be the one that will be holding up ceremony, right? It was the UFC,

right? They have other options, right? Hey, we're going to do maybe Connor McGregor, maybe Iliott Toporia, all these other options are on the table. Dana White, uh, miffed at John Jones, doesn't want to call him. Now all of a sudden, you're in the scenario that I've been predicting since December where you got to break glass in case of emergency and you call John Jones, I don't think he's the holdup anymore. So I'm pretty hopeful that he will fight Alex Pereira. There's only one potential holdup, and that's UFC. Right, and it's not John this time. No, no, no.

Yeah. And he ain't getting $30 million for this in my opinion. Yeah, he blew it last. But it's fine. Honestly, I think it's one of those where he's like, I think he's at peace with that. I think they'll do right by him. I think they'll pay him very well. I think he'll do very well. He'll get millions of dollars, no problem. I don't know if it's going to be 30. I think the only potential holdup is the UFC.

They don't have a better option. And I'm not even suggesting that this is a bad option. This is an amazing option. There's no better. It checks off all the boxes. It's everything that you would want in this White House main event. John seems to be very, very happy to do this. He seems to want to do it.

He seems to be motivated to do it. He's an American. There's history at stake. It feels like the greatest no-brainer. It feels like the fight to make. G.C. agree or disagree? Yeah, 100%. everything that you just said, the desires of this administration and the UFC as well to have an American, you know, he's no longer champion, but he's one of the greatest, longest reigning champions we've ever seen in the UFC. He would be a massive favorite in this matchup against Alex Pereira. And then the B side of it, you're getting Alex Pereira, who is one of the hottest stars in the entire sport. This feels like big business. This feels like the main event of the White House card. This feels like something that you could put on CBS potentially as well. Is there a better option? Can I ask a different,

question. Is there another option, right? You mentioned Connor McGregor potentially fighting in July and targeting that area. Is there another option? Or is this the option and that's why they were... The only other option that features an American would be Gaetchi versus Ilya. Ilya

was on the table. Ilya was on with Aidan Ross. He said that that's not being discussed and I can confirm that's not being discussed at this time. They're not talking to him about that. So then that fit, this feels like you better go all in, right? I mean, John Jones on the truth is, what do you really even need for the White House card?

Like I, I, if you have this, nothing else. It doesn't matter. No, but my point is like, you could do anything for the White House. I really think so. I think, I think the casual sports fan is going to hear UFC fight at the White House and be like, all right, I'll watch that because the draw is the venue. The draw is the location. I don't think that you're going, like, this thing that you're going to get six title fights

or this thing that you're going to get like six, you're not going to get that. You're going to get maybe six, seven. Oh, God. Six seven. Yeah. You're going to get that many fights, not your usual 13, and you'll get a big one at the top, and then you'll get a bunch of other Americans versus non-Americans at the bottom, or maybe all Americans. You say a big one at the top, but if it's not Ilya, it's not John, it's not Alex, and it's not Connor.

Yeah. Who is it? No, no, no. It has to be this one. We have been talking about the White House card since July of 2025, right? We've been talking about this. It has now become crystal clear, right? We were always saying it's a little too soon, it's a little too soon.

The time is now. And in a five to six year stretch, when they couldn't get John Jones versus Francis done, and they couldn't get John Jones versus Aspinall done, and they couldn't get John Jones versus Francis done a second time, and they couldn't get Francis versus Aspinol. And every other freaking iteration is right here. You've got a mega fight on your hands in the most famous venue of all time that you'll ever put on a fight. John wants to do it.

Alex openly wants to do it. He just vacated his title. This is it. Now is the time to do it. Like make this fight happen. And that's it. They could have been faced with a UFC 300 situation where they literally had nothing. They had to call upon Jamal Hill to headline UFC 300.

That was not the plan. That was like plan G. They've got a plan A plus right now. Just make it happen. But this is what I was, you said they could do anything. If they can't do this, then what? I don't even want to go there. Yeah, they need to do this.

Because to your point, Ariel, like the casual audience. is tuning in for the venue, but you need that one big hook. Yeah. So if you have this beyond it, it really doesn't matter how you stack the back. Now, Ptzee, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Does it have to be for a belt? Like for Alex just vacate the title.

Does he have to fight for interim? Or, dare I say, by asking this, I want to make this very clear. I do not think that they should be stripping Tom Asmel. That would be insane. He just fought in October. So let's chill out. But do you think it's going to be for a belt? Do you think it has to be for a belt?

should be for a belt, could be for a belt, interim or vacant. I think they're going to do for a belt. I think it will be the interim title. I think to your point, Aspinall, having fought in October, and obviously his future is really up in the air at the moment. We're waiting to hear results of how the procedures went just a few weeks back. But as we found out when we're over there, there is a chance that there's another procedure that will have to be undertaken at that point.

So I think interim is the way to go. about it. I'm hoping that Tom will get back in there. I'm hoping that we hear something about this soon in terms of, well, not soon, maybe in a couple of months time about whether he will be back in the sport. I think the sport is Richard to have him there. I think it will hurt him to watch John Jones fighting if that is the case, which will probably motivate John Jones a bit more to be fair because we know there is no love loss there between Jones and Aspinall, certainly on Jones side. We know he's just kind of said Tom's an asshole in the past and things like that. So I don't think he'd mind getting one over on them. I think for the event, for what it is, I think they

got to put a toilet on. If you're going to make Alex move up the heavyweight and not for a, for a toilet, it doesn't really make sense. And what's the point in vacating it at that point? Okay, so then let me ask you this. John has said he wants one more fight. He has said this. So what, you're going to make an interim belt so that he can potentially win and then what, retire that belt? Like, what's the point? I don't think it needs to back. That's exactly what he's going to do. That's what he's going to do. Okay, you say he doesn't need a belt and I agree, because fighting John Jones is bigger than a belt. It's the goat versus the light heavyweight champ.

But then why the hell did this guy give up his belt? To take this opportunity. But to not hold up that division. You wouldn't need to vacate the belt to take an opportunity. We saw Anderson Silver take opportunities in the past. Yeah, but that's not... This is the new version. This is the Iliot Toporia and Islam Makachev have to give up their belts era.

Why would you ever take a belt off Iliotipoer or Islam Makachev? And the answer is, only in this new era. I would never take a belt off those belts. You don't think, you don't think Paulo Costa, excuse me, Paula Costa, you don't think Alex Pereira vacating his title is an indication that he is fighting for a belt of some time. I would think it is,

but I don't think it needs to, I'm not, I'm saying I don't care either way. The same way, when everybody's talking about Elia versus Islam, I don't think a belt needs to be on the line for that either. I think some fights are big enough to have the fight. I could not agree more, but I feel like for the White House, for the president,

for their friends there, for John Jones, and for Alex, they'll just make an interim. But then they get into that situation. You just said. John, they don't care. They don't care. I think everything is about June 14th. Yeah, just do it. They will slap anything on it. Think about it as well. Through the first three, three paper views of the Paramount Era, we've gotten one actual undisputed title. Hey, by the way, just make up a belt. It's not the first time. Just make up a fucking belt.

The Red White Bluebell. Heavyweight. Who cares? Make up a belt. I like that. Yeah, there you go. America belt. America 250. Get Dana on the blower and let's figure this out. white and blue. The bald eagle belt, something. Imagine Alex wins it. John, the American loses and Alex is walking around the red, white and blue belt. Would that be a disaster? With your point, no.

No. Sorry. Not for the UFC. No. Alex Pere would be in goat conversations. Sure, sure, sure. I was just thinking about for like the image of what they're trying to portray here. What did you want to say there, PT? I was just saying, like, to Rick's point earlier about Islam and Elliot, the reasons why they gave up the belt was to fight for another one.

You know, like I think that's, that's the But they could have kept it and fought for another one like we've seen in the past. Connor McGregor did that. Everybody who did double champ did that. They could have held that belt. There was no reason to take it off him. But if his intentions weren't to... That's the UFC's decision.

Like that is what they're doing. That's my play. That's why when you ask, you know, why do they have to take Alex's belt? They don't, but this is the modern UFC. This is what they do. When you want to change weight classes, we're going to take your belt. Go do something else. That's fine.

I think it's also a clear indication that his intentions are just to stay at heavyweight for the remainder of his career. I think if this was just a one-off to save the White House card, they would be like, you can just come up fight, we won't put it for a belt, and then you can go back down to light heavyweight and defend your title. If he pulls this off, if he beats John Jones and wins the interim belt,

is he the greatest UFC fighter of all time? No, he's right behind John, though. The resume becomes mind-boggling. Three belts, and he beat John. Yeah. Why does that put him behind him? Because he's fighting John at the tail end? Yeah, maybe controversially,

I don't think head-to-head wins are the be-all, end-all of, you know, greatest of all-time conversation. I still think Chris Seiborg is the greatest female fighter of all time, even despite a loss to Amanda Nunes. John's resume is just too good. And for Alex Pryor to beat him in the twilight of his career in his very last fight, to me is not as significant

as the body of work John has put in. But if he beats John and then, dare I say, Tom Aspinall comes back and he beats him too, now I'm ready to have the conversation about somebody being better than John Jones. there's no way they announce this card and these fights on IG Live, right? At like 11. There's no way.

Trump's got to do it, right? Trump has to do it. It can't be Dana. Can I ask a question without getting too far deep into things, and I'm happy to, but, you know, some people get nervous about this stuff. The state of the world right now is obviously a very tricky place. Yeah. And I know what Pete's thinking there, because I think he tried to predict this not that long ago. Like, is there anyone who thinks that if things continue to escalate and get worse that all of this,

just kind of goes away. And obviously it would be the least important thing. Let's make that very, very clear. A fight not happening at the White House is not the most important thing in the world. That is obvious. But I do think it's kind of wild, right? I mean, the U.S. is engaged in a war right now. There might be some circumstances that would say, like, hey, maybe this isn't the time.

This doesn't... Go ahead. Is it controversial to say, I think the worst things get, the more likely it is to happen? Well, I was just going to say, this is the one administration that, probably says like, oh, yeah, you think we're not going to do it? Of course we're going to do it. It's just, it's interesting to talk about all this. These two worlds coming together is, you know, it's just, it's wild that we're even here talking about this being a thing. But I feel like they've been given this on a silver platter. It's right there. Alex vacating the title. And I

usually hate vacated belts and divisions and all that. But Yuri versus Ulberg makes a lot of sense. I love that fight. Yeri obviously had his two cracks and seems hell bent on winning the belt and hopefully luring him back. I don't hate the way this has played out. You get your White House main event. You know, I would hate the fact that I would hate to see John win and not fight Tom, but I think that's probably going to happen. And I would love to see Alex win and fight Tom or the winner of Tom versus Surreal,

because obviously that needs some resolution. And it obviously makes heavyweight infinitely more interesting all of a sudden, right? Like these two guys entering the heavyweight division now all of a sudden makes it so much more interesting. Do you care more at this point about John versus Tom or Cyril versus Tom? Silver versus Tom needs a resolution. I'm more invested in that if I'm being honest. I care more about seeing the resolution between Cyril and Tom than I do John and Tom. At the moment, yes.

Cyril's got to be the Bickel plan, right? Like if John isn't there, like, you know, and they're... But not for the White House. You can't do Alex versus Cyril at the White House, right? I mean, I guess you could do whatever the hell you want. But it makes me... It's a polar bear in Arlington over there. You're watching PFL Brussels.

Yeah. But that's the thing... You're not included in. By the way, that's the thing that I was talking about on Saturday. It's like, all right, if they can't for whatever reason, figure it out with John. If he starts asking for too much or God knows what. It's hurt. He has arthritis.

Like, there's a million ways this could go sideways. Now we're doing Alex versus Surreal for the interim belt until Tom comes around. I mean, would it not be fitting? You talked about UFC 300? Are we not in the same position where it's... It's like, but not at the White House. Fills the day.

Fill in somebody. But not at the White House. Then you're stuck with a real scenario where it's like, well, what the hell is headlining the White House if it's not Gai Chi? Maybe you can't divulge or maybe, you know, they're not additional. Give it to Osir. That's what I want to ask too. Why is Connor McGregor not eligible for the White House in only July?

I mean, it's what I talked about earlier. There's, there's no, they were just on a conference call again today talking about the 60 million that they're losing. They're not putting Connor on a card where they can't. where they can't sell the gate. So there's just too much money to be made off of a Connor McGregor fight. Do you then just abort that? You're now looking at a potential like $85 million loss because like a Connor fight at T-Mobile is like $25 million like that.

Well, no, then you're also have to pay his fee, which is going to be higher. So you're looking at $100 million all told. They're just not going to do it. But do you, your point was, hey, you're in real trouble. Do you then consider it? You put out the bat signal and then who's the fight. Connor, let's do it. Which American is he fighting?

Doesn't matter. He doesn't need to fight. It doesn't matter. I'll fight him, honestly. Yeah, let one of us do it. Here, Elwani, tell us, right? Yeah. You know, tell us, tell us what, like, the plan is, if everything goes according to plan right now, as far as you know, like, the point is, what are we looking at?

I know you don't know everything, but give us the layer of length. Yeah. Now, I know there were some fights that were discussed, but I don't think that they're coming to fruition. And I know that doesn't answer your question, but at the top, I would say the front runner right now is that one. And that's the one they want. That's the one that everyone wants. Can they get it done? I thought you were going to ask me about Connor, because that to me is the mystery, right? A, do they get him for that date? You know, he's tweeting some stuff and then deleting. Do they get him for that date? And then B, who is it against? The Carlos Prochus fight made no sense.

No sense. Well, what do you, how does that make any sense for Connor? Why would he come back to to fight Carlos Prochus? To me, it's like I said earlier. And you guys didn't weigh in, so I'd like to get you to way in. It's, it's, it's, you bring back Nate Diaz. Yes. Yeah. Or it's the winner of Holloway versus Charles and it's for a belt. And I actually feel like that's the easier fight to make. They're already under contract. You don't have to do a deal with Diaz and it's for a belt. Yeah, but Diaz would be the one. Dias is the one. International Fight Week. Yeah, versus D.S. 3 would be crazy. You don't think Holloway, Holloway, B.M.F. It's great. It's not Diaz. It's huge. They're going to do Diaz, McGregor, somewhere else if they don't do it now.

This feels like last chance to leave for them to make this fight, as far as I'm concerned. It's the one. Yeah, and it just also feels like, you know, by that time, that'll be July of 2026, it'll be five years since we last saw Connor McGregor going to the Octon. We don't really know where he's at. And if Max is always coming off of a win over Charles Olivera, he's still at the peak of his game, I would rather see Nate Diaz, who actually has fought more recently than Connor McGregor go for the trilogy. You don't think they'll be...

That's the one. You don't think they'll be captivated by a belt on the line. The BMS out? Yeah. I think Conner McGregor fighting, it just doesn't matter. I think he won. You don't think he wants it?

Another one on the mantle. I'm sure he does, but that Nate fight, I think that's the one the fans want. I saw a tweet from John Kavanaugh talking about the BMF and I actually agreed with him on this. I hadn't really given it much thought, but I actually agreed with what he said.

What has bothered me about the BMF is the fact that it's two guys who lost to the actual champion fighting for the BMF belt that makes no sense. cents. Kavanaugh wrote two incredible warriors will be a great fight, but it's a little strange. Both will cut huge amount of weight to be the BMF. Why not leave it to open weight? Which I know will be hard to do in this day and age, especially with the American athletic commissions, but he says UFC pick two guys with similar natural weights. In this case, both are say, let's say, 180-ish. They'll cut to 185, then back to 180-ish. Why not skip the weight-cutting part and fight at 180-ish? It's not a bad shout. So he's opening up the idea of like you can get a welter wave. fighting a lightweight, maybe even pushing it a feather way. It's weird to have BMF, like... Division-specific.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one... But it's not division-specific. It just made up whenever you want, right? Like, it was at a different way. Now they're like, all right, now it's going to be it this way. Who, you know...

It was at... It was at 70? It was at 70. And now it's at 55. It's like, it doesn't matter. But they erased that one. That lineage stopped. They killed that one.

They killed it and they just like, let's plop it in here. Yeah. It would be interesting if it was available to everyone. That's besides. the point, but when he said that, that honestly, and I didn't ask him, Han on Hart didn't ask him, but I was like, are they thinking about that belt? Like, why is John Kavanaugh tweeting about the BMF? And maybe I'm doing like one plus one equals eight, but I just thought like, oh, is that in their

sites? Is that what they're thinking? Are they getting the winner of this one? I don't know. There's a world where I think Armin gets the winner of this fight, and that's how they sort of appease him by not giving him a title shot. Oh, for real? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And then who's getting the title shot? Justin. Justin. Oh, yeah, yes, of course. I'm sorry. Oh, man. How long are we going to do this shit with Arm-Sherukian?

Well, it's either that or he fights like a no... Or just give him a title shot. I mean, I know that sounds crazy. He's going to have to wait up this Justin thing. I know. Like him fighting in November again? So what? He'll do six grappling matches and make 15 videos.

Six? He's already got another one this weekend. Yeah, I'll do 30 grappling matches. You're right. You're right. Let's get them in the hot dog eating contest down on Coney Island. Guys, you know what's so interesting about all this? It's like, I just saw this thing that Paramount is going to combine HBO Max and Paramount Plus now because they're buying WBD, which is obviously gigantic.

So I guess the UFC is going to be on HBO Max. They haven't really laid out where each thing lands and how they're going to do that, but I do expect some kind of changes. Yeah. Paramount Skydance said Monday, this is from the financial post that it will combine the Paramount Plus and HBO. max streaming services into a single platform. So if it's one single platform, it would have to be on it, but are they going to get rid of one brand? Why would you? HBO still, I think, holds weight. Following the company's $110 billion acquisition of WBD, the company expects the transaction, which was formally signed on February 27th to close in the third quarter, which would mean,

that would be like the fall. The deal came after months of effort on the part of Paramount, Chief Executive Officer David Ellison to acquire the famed Hollywood Studio and the related assets such as HBO, CNN, and TNT. They won the bidding war with Netflix, yada, yada. So my point is, there's all this stuff. It looks like the deal with Paramount Plus is going to be beneficial to them. There was a whole article on Sportico last week about like how many subs Paramount Plus needs to sell to actually recoup this money. They've got big fights in their back pocket. Like they have big fights. I just, I got to be honest, like, there's a part of me that's like, it's, I'm unsure if this regime, all I keep hearing about is the UFC has never been more disorganized.

This is what everyone's telling me. I've been checking in while I'm away. What's going on with this? What's going on with this? Why are they announcing Miami so late? Like, what's going on with that? You know what I mean? By now, historically, we would know what's the main event for May by now, let alone April 11th. And there's a part of me that wonders, look at the stuff that Rhonda said. You know, like you would think like, why wouldn't you take Ronda Rousey back? You're telling me Ronda Rousey doesn't add a few more subs? You know what I mean? Against Gina or not?

Why wouldn't you take her back? And so there's a part of me that is worried that this regime, like, can they close the deal? Can they make the big fights happen? Will they close the deal with John and Alex? Will they close the deal with Connor McGregor? Will they close the deal on some of these big fights? There are, Ilya, like, he's ready to go, it seems, right? That was my impression from the stream he did on Friday.

Can they close these big fights? When's the last mega fight that they closed for us? When's the last megapite? I can't remember. But can I ask? To run this thing, Ariel, how, like, is that believable to you that they could be just trying to put on

the cheapest events as far as she's concerned, like not wanting to spend money to maximize their profit? Like, do you believe that's real in 2026 having just signed this Paramount deal or does that seem to be far-fetched? It does not. It does not.

And so that would tell me, though, that this is by design, right? The big fights require big purses. The big fights require... If you... If it costs X number of dollars to get John Jones, to get Connor McGregor, to get Ronda Rousey, and I can make 80% of what I was going to make with those people, but my cost is one-fourth, one-tenth. Why? Why would I do it from a business perspective?

They got to make the big fights, man. Do they? economically do they have you're in the fight making business like enough already who else is a big freaking fights but they they they're not under obligation to because nobody else can make those fights but all nobody else can make those fights 100% you're the only one I get what you're trying to say when I say you got to it's not like there's a gun to their head but like you're in the fight making business deliver man deliver like it's these aren't these aren't like massive roadblocks well what's funny about it is on the boxing side you hear they executives and Dana White and everybody being like,

boxing never made the big fights. They never have this guy fighting this guy. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. And I'm laughing because I'm looking over at the MMA side of shit. And they never do it. And they've continued to not do it. And we continue to see these fights that everybody's clamoring for and not get made.

I just do feel like to Pizzi's point that they are pretty transparent. Mark Shapiro is on a conference call seemingly every day talking about their bottom line and nothing about the actual fights themselves. Not that that's his job. But when he talks about it, it's very clear to me. that they're counting dollars and cents and we're worried about profit margins in ROI and not necessarily making the best fights.

And if it hasn't been clear by how much Dana White's Contender Series filler talent appears on every single card, they've been telling us that they don't care about the big fights for years now. Well, I don't believe them. Well, this is the perfect segue because I remember saying this

at the beginning of the Zufa boxing experiment where it's like on this hand, they are the leader and there is such a gap between them and everyone else. on this hand, the boxing side, they need to disrupt. They need to poach, right? And so they're going to overpay here to get talent to make these big fights to show people that were the big dog. Case in point, Mr. Connor Ben, who, you know, by all accounts, they signed to this deal, $15 million to fight on this April 11th card against Regis Progray.

That is not a big fight. And so I know that you guys have weighed in last week about the sugar shons of the world, the MVPs of the world. I mean, takes a lot of guts, bravery to speak up. and they're few and far between. And so when Eddie Hearn was saying, not that long ago, like, hey, there's going to be an uprising. I think he knew what was coming, but I still don't agree with him that there's going to be an uprising because nothing has told us in the past that the fighters will collectively bargain, come together, you know, group their interests and efforts to try to fight back.

But what's so interesting is, like, with all due respect to Connor Ben, like, Sean O'Malley's a bigger star than him. Sean O'Malley is a bigger draw than him and miss me on the U-Bank stuff, like, with all due respect, back. Sean O'Malley is a champion who is a massive, massive, massive star. The U-Bank stuff was sold based off of the family, the lineage, the two of them together. You can't sell one without the other. And so it's going to be really interesting to see how they continue to navigate this world, where on the one hand, they're not making the big fights. And on the other hand, they're overpaying for guys to try to poach from others and putting them in not so big fights. Now, I do want to talk about one thing with regards to Connor Ben, because Eddie alluded to this in some interviews. What I think

happened with Connor Ben is this. What I think happened was, and who knows ultimately, like, Shapiro says it's from Turkey and, you know, who knows who side he's on. But ultimately what I think happened, and again, Eddie alluded to this was they structured that deal. Everyone's talking about this one-fight deal. They structured that deal in a way to where it was almost virtually impossible for Eddie to match it. And everyone's fixating on this one-fight deal. I don't believe it's a one-fight deal. I believe it's a handshake, wink, wink, nudge, I don't believe Connor Ben would sabotage, would ruin a relationship with Eddie Hearn for one fight.

I don't believe it. I believe that there's a deal in place for multiple fights, and even Mark Shapiro talked about it on the conference call, like, oh, we may see him on Zufa Boxing Paramount Plus. Can't talk about that just yet? Because right now it's a one-fight deal for 15 that Eddie couldn't match. And so you front-load it with the 15,

but you really have another... It was a very savvy business move. And Eddie's kind of alluding to this. Like they made it in a way to where we couldn't match. That's what he's alluding to. And I think we'll see him stick around and fight in these other fights. It was a very savvy move. And as I've said time and again, there are very savvy people running the show over there.

And so you look at that and you're like, 50 million for Regis Prograde, it's not 15 million for Regis Progray. It's really a front-loaded deal. And, you know, the rest will kind of be spread out on the back end. That's the way I think they played. this and that's the way I think they got him. And so now it's going to be interesting to see how do they maneuver going forward? Like is it going to be, you know, is it going to be like the Regis Prograde type of fights just to take these guys away?

And are they going to try to go after the Bam Rodriguez's of the world? Because that seems a little bit up in the air as well. And then there's obviously the Tyson Fury fight and the Anthony Joshua situation. How are they going to get that done if they want to get that done? And how would Eddie be involved? Like, man, that's why I keep saying, like, this is such a fascinating thing. but when you actually think about all these worlds intertwining, like they've never intertwined before,

the MMA pay drama with the boxing and them coming into this world and having to poach and having to keep these inmates at bay, so to speak, it's so fascinating. But that's what I think happened with the Connor Ben thing. After thinking about it and talking to people, I think they front-loaded it, I think they did it,

they structured it in a way that he couldn't match, somewhat reminiscent of like the Eddie Alvarez situation with Bellator back in the day, if you structure in a way where the other entity cannot match, now you're forcing them to say, all right, we're out, and then they fix it on the back end.

Fix is not the best word, but you get what I'm trying to say. Does that make sense? It does, and we see this in the NBA, right? This is not specific to combat sports. We see this in other team sports where you front load the deal so that the existing teams, the existing players team doesn't have the salary cap to get them.

They can't get them. And then the back end of the deal is lesser and yada, yada. it's all business manipulation and it's smart by them. The question, I said this last week and I'm curious your thoughts on it. I think they made a tactical error. And the tactical error was announcing Connor Ben signing with Zufa in the way that they announced Jay Apataya signing with Zufa and anybody else potentially signing with Zufa.

If this had just fallen under the same, you're fighting on Netflix, it's going to be like a Canello versus Crawford where you have the big payday and nobody's counting Canello or Crawford's money, right? We didn't hear a single UFC fighter going like, oh man, Canello and Crawford are making this. I should be making this. It's a Zufa thing. You just structure it that same way.

He's fighting this one-off fight. Connor Ben, you're involved. Then on the back end, if he does sign with Zufa boxing, that's when you do the announcement. There's no $15 million figure attached. You don't have Sean O'Malley, MVP, everybody else looking at their pocket and being like, I didn't get $15 million. I think this was a marketing mistake, a communications mistake, much more so than a strategic. mistake from the business side. I think it's smart to poach Connor Ben and to take him from Eddie Hearn and say we're here. But I do feel like the attention that came from he's a Zufa

boxing fighter and he's getting 15 million when they could have done that if he does sign a long-term deal was a tactical error. I wonder if the devil is in the details. And I wonder if the reason why they did that was because this is a bit of an awkward situation here because who's the one that they're saying is bankrolling this? It's turkey. Right? And, and And Turkey was, you know, buddy, buddy with Eddie. He was buddy, buddy with Frank. You see what happened there, right? And so does he want to like...

Stick it to him outright? Stick it to him? Or is it easier to say these guys stuck at you? Even though we know that you funneled, you like champion the cause to take this guy away from one of your closest allies, right? That's what makes it even crazier. And so, yes, I agree from a PR standpoint, this could have been easily avoided. it if he just showed up on that Netflix card 100% everyone would have been like yeah cool

but you notice even today when they announced the undercard for this card Queensberry not attached obviously Matchroom not attached obviously you see who is attached Boxer is attached all of a sudden Boxer who was very much on the outside looking in

they're being used as the promoter I knew it I knew it Isn't that crazy? Man Shalom was on and all this is pop up yeah everything's popping off everything's popping off everyone's going in on Connor

they go with the show along when they go, and what do you think of Turkey after all this best tomorrow in the business? Just really going to business. I'm like, well, there's a deal that's happening there. One question, I have two questions, right? First of all, two, the fighter speaking out.

The only difference we have in this situation is Connor Ben getting this amount of money because previously Operation Spearhead, the Bjorn Revenue one, whatever they were, all the other concerted efforts to organize. They fell by the way, because they were all kind of applying like,

you eat what you kill, which Dana always says. Connor McGregor gets a lot of money. Look at the eyeballs as Connor McGregor brings in. Connor Ben is a different situation where it's like, this guy is not the most famous boxer in the world. The U-bank fights that you mentioned earlier,

the two fights were massive in the UK and Ireland. They weren't huge in the US. My question is, does this give them a better precedent, the disgruntled fighters to the point where this could store something inside them in a way that I'm a bit. McGregor Clinton because he was eating what he, he was bringing in so much money because of the

amount of money he was earning them. Could they then point to Connor Ben and be like, this guy, to Sean O'Malley's point, didn't even know he was. Will this get them more angry and perhaps gain some momentum towards doing something about it? Or is it, as Ben folks said, and that quick reaction, Sean did, where he went from being very angry to ultimately accepting his situation in one minute, is that ultimately what's going to happen here again? Yeah, I think the latter. I just don't see it. I just don't see it. Trust me, they all see it. And I'm not, it's easy for me to sit here and be like, ah, you guys should speak up, you should come together. I get it. It's real. Trust me. I get it. I really get it. It's awkward. It's tough. There's no where else. There's no plan B. I get it.

But I just don't see it. I don't see it happening. It will bubble up and guys like MVP and Sean that are confident and have, you know, the balls to do it will speak about it. But I just don't see it leading to any sort of massive change. It is amazing, though. Talk about hubris. right? Like, talk about chutzpah of being like 50 million, no problem, disseminate that to your favorite media outlets while knowing very well that these guys are getting like peanuts compared to that, right? And there's no fear. There's no fear whatsoever. Like, you look at their, their earnings from last year, 850 million before taxes and all that stuff. That's, I mean, and they're going to make way more with this new Paramount deal. They're going to make way more.

and there's no, like, there's no batting of an eye, like, oh, this would be a PR nightmare. We need to, like, hide this. We need to do this, down and the other. They continue to show the UFC fighters and the rest of the roster. What the fuck are you going to do about it? Yeah.

What are you going to do? Yeah, you're standing up. You're using your voice. You're doing whatever. We got Sean Strickland talking about, you know, he's with complex talking about they're going to find a guy to replace me for five and five. He's right.

What are they going to do? What are you going to do? Unless you get together, there ain't shit you're going to do. There's no. other options. Now we've got this MVP, MVP, MMA card that's like interesting, right? Because Ronda Rousey was very publicly out there saying, they didn't pay me what I was worth. It stands to reason that you assume, you would assume that she got paid what she was worth

to fight for this other promotion on Netflix. And so it does make me go, okay, are there going to be some fighters that might be able to negotiate with the UFC? And if the UFC doesn't meet their price, maybe there's an outlet for them to go somewhere else. I'm still pretty skeptical, but at least there's something out there. But man, there's not options. The UFC is daring somebody to call their bluff and nobody has the power or leverage to do it. That's the scary thing here because we talked about earlier. They're not making the big fights.

Nobody can make the big fights if UFC aren't making the big fights because they have everyone under contract. Right. So we can't talk about this from the business point of view because that's not what we are. Like, we're guys who love the fights. We want to see the best fights. I'm not interested in how much fucking money. made this year or next year or the year after. I don't give a fuck. But what I do care about is putting on the best fights. So our objectives were aligned for a very long time when in the

UFCs. They had the best fights. They had the best fighters and they put on the best fights. The reason where there's criticism now is you have it all there. You've had it there for years. Nearly every year we do that show at the start of the year, what's the fight we're most looking forward to? They never do it. And that becomes very problematic as a fight fan, which we all are. And then we get to Rico Verhoeven against Alexander Usik. And can I just say to my friends in the boxing media, Rico Verhoeven, I've heard like 900 different pronunciations of his names and of his name.

And you know, a few things like crystallized for me since this news came out. I knew that this was in the work for quite some time. As I told you guys, I think I said to this audience back in November, I remember doing... A few hinties, you did? Well, I told you first about the Derek Lewis fight. And then I told you about the Anthony Joshua fight. And once the Anthony Joshua fight wasn't on the table because obviously he's going through a lot of stuff, they tried to make it right with him.

This is the God's honest truth. This is the God's honest truth. Do you remember when Francis Inganu beat Henan Faheda? Yes. And then do you remember afterwards on this little engine that could, we talked about, what did we talk about? The only fight that makes sense is Rico versus Francis. Rico versus Francis, right? Rico versus Francis, do a three-fight series.

one MMA, one kickboxing, one boxing, do one boxing, meet in the middle, do something. That's the only fight that's interesting. Rico's done it all in glory, no one's interested anymore in him in glory, all that, right? Okay, so now, like, it doesn't really happen. We had him in international fight week. Remember, we had him in our casino studio, talked about it a little bit, but it didn't feel like it had a ton of momentum. God's honest truth. This, some way, somehow, got to Jason Statham. Jason Statham is a very good friend of Rico Verhavan. Jason Statham is also a very good friend of Turkey Al-Asheikh. Jason Statham pitched

Turkey-Ale-Lashake RICO Verhoeven. Turkey-Ale-Shake was not familiar with Rico Verhoven. And he said, this is the guy, this is my boy. I think they were in a movie together, was a Dennythieves. So one of those movies, this is my guy. You should make this fight, Francis versus Rico. The timing wasn't good for Francis at that time, but they were committed to RICO. Rico gets out of the glory contract. They have a chat with the UFC. The UFC offers them actually pretty good money, by the way. I know there were jokes about like 40 and 40,

but what I was told was pretty good money to fight Derek Lewis on the first Paramount card. But obviously, the money was greater to fight Anthony Joshua in February. Anthony takes the Jake Paul fight. That was the fight that he had afterwards. He beats Jake. They start saying maybe February is a little bit too soon,

maybe March. Then, of course, the accident and everything, you know, gets put to the side. But they still have this deal, and they still want to make right, they still want to do right, they still want to make a deal with Rico Verhoeven.

And so they say, okay, what's the next best thing? Let's go to Alexander Usik. And so that's how this whole thing got made. So in reality, we made the Rico Verhoeven versus Alexander Usik fight. Thank you very much.

But the point is, what I've seen over the last couple days, is that despite the fact that it's kickboxing, and I knew this, I think we all knew this, there is much more cohesion in unity,

between the MMA kickboxing world and the, as opposed to the boxing kickboxing world. Because I've been blown away by the disrespect that has been shown to Rico Verhoeven. Am I sitting here and saying he's going to beat Alexander Usik? No, of course I'm not saying that. Alexander Usik is arguably the best fighter, pound for pound of the world,

certainly the best heavyweight of this generation. He's one of the greatest all-time fighters. He's an Olympic medalist. He's a two-division champion. His resume is unmatched. But they're talking about him like he's a total scrub. And not in the same way that they were talking about Francis. They spoke about Francis like he was not on Tyson's level.

That's not the talk here. The talk here is, who is this guy? And where did he come from? Well, I just told you where he came from. But I put out a poll on Friday, I put out a poll on Friday asking which fight would you have been more interested in? Francis versus Rico or Rico versus Usek. And I get that my base is probably more MMA-centric.

But I think that there would have been a much greater interest. in a Francis, RICO MMA or boxing match than a RICO Usek boxing match. And not necessarily because of the skill discrepancy, because I don't think that there is a crossover between boxing and kickboxing. For whatever reason, MMA fans get excited about this sort of thing. I think they would have been very excited about RICO versus Francis. Boxing fans are very much like, leave us alone, the legitimacy of the sport, the sanctity of the belts.

Look at the reaction to the WBC saying, no, in fact, we are going to sanction this and put our belt on the they lost their shit they lost their shit I think this was a miscalculation I think that they thought I think that the powers that be who are putting on this fight Sela ring all these guys

Jason Dayton The fight should have been Francis versus Rico in my opinion and by the way tomorrow we're gonna have Rico Verhoeven on the show and I'm not trying I am happy for Rico I am so happy for Rico

it's about time he gets Nash I'm just blown away by the disrespect and it kind of like came to mind like wow it could have felt bigger over here. Does that make sense? Does anyone disagree with that? No, it does. And as somebody who worked at Rico for a very long time

when I was doing PR for glory, like, to your point, he deserves this, right? He has carried the sport of kickboxing for quite a long time. He's the biggest star. His rivalry of Badrari was the only, like, kind of like, crossover point when he was over there, and he had done everything.

He deserves the shine, the notoriety to payday. But to talk about what we were talking about when it comes to to like Sean O'Malley and Connor Ben, right? if Rico Verhoeven, if we're talking about Connor Ben as being a local star, right, in the UK, Rico Verhoven is very local to the Netherlands. He is only a star in the Netherlands and almost nowhere else.

There are not a lot of Americans to know him. There are not a lot of Europeans who know him. Maybe like in the UK where kickboxing has some kind of fan base, but he is primarily a Dutch star. He is primarily somebody plucked out of the Netherlands. This feels like it can work from a Netflix perspective, right on Netflix I know I'm just saying

By the way it would have been Feels like a Netflix It feels like a Netflix thing Because Netflix what they're very good at Is segment like They make movies that feature stars From different nationalities In different countries

And they find the audiences And things like that It feels like a Netflix type thing Uh But it misses the mark everywhere else It's like I'm happy for Rico He deserves it He deserves this opportunity

I don't think it's gonna be competitive But I will say Francis kind of like Reshaped everything I feel about squash matches Like he's kind of shocked me into believing that any of it is possible. Rico versus Francis would have been so interesting to me, right?

It's more interesting. MMA fans in general like that kind of stuff. Remember Haraguchi and Tension? Yeah. Reuji and Reuters, and Reardon-specific too. Why are we more interested in this stuff? Why are we more open?

The sport is born in this kind of stuff. Yeah. The sport is born out of the jihitsu guy versus the boxer against the Savak guy against, that's what this whole sport is. So when these things happen, for an MMA audience, it's nostalgia as well. It's like, you know, they always...

It's a shame, man. Rico versus Francis would have been so fun. It's not off the table. No, it can still happen. Not for nothing. You know, some of our best MMA fighters are former kickboxers, right? Alex Perr is about to fight John Jones in the White House.

He is a glory kickboxer of the same ilk as Rico Verhoeven. I would argue Rico Verhoeven was a way, a much better kickboxer than Alex Perrower was. but we know these guys because we have to know these guys because they come over and they are doing well in our sport. Israel Adesanya was a champion for a long, long time. It was a fantastic kickboxer in boxing that doesn't have that lineage. There are some people who have crossed over.

More often than not, it's from boxing into kickboxing, but there have been some that crossed over. But we need to know these people more because they tend to do well in MMA. No, you're 100% right. You're 100% right. Can I ask you, Ariel, this. WBC question. Yes, please.

Okay. So listen, Seller got involved with the UFC because they're like, we need to get rid of these belts. Yeah. I don't trust these tree word, tree letter organizations anymore. In a way, WBC making this for the undisputed toil, it's playing into their hands to a certain degree. Just for the WBC, by the way.

So the WBO belt is going to be contested when Fabio Wardley fights, right? And that's coming up in just a few weeks' time. he is the owner of three belts Alexander Usik. The IBF, the WBA and the WBC. IBF and WBA haven't said anything about this fight. WBC, who said that they wouldn't put their belt

on the line when Fury fought in Ganu, Fury was the WBC champ. First said, we're not going to sanction this. We're going to make a special like Egyptian title for this. And then they came back yesterday and said, no, in fact, we are going to sanction this. So just for the record, there is the statement after careful consideration.

The WBC Board of Governors has ruled in favor of sanctioning the WBC World Heavyweight Championship. Alexander Ussig's voluntary defense. So not a mandatory, of course, against legendary kickboxing champion Rico Verhoeven. At its 63rd annual convention in Bangkok, Thailand, the WBC granted champion Usook. That was late last year. A voluntary defense. Subsequently, the WBC received the petition to sanction the Usook versus Herohven. They even misspelled his name.

Golly, the disrespect. That's a bullshit. Oh, my God, as a voluntary defense. sorry for interrupting. So it's not for undisputed for WBC. WBC is on the line. And as we know, this was the war cry of Zufu boxing. We're going to get rid of all these fucking bells.

Turkey's involved with this promotion. Is he happy that the WBC are putting this belt in the line? Does it add to the promotion? I would say it probably does. So my question is you have Frank Warren, who thought he was best pals with Turkey Alashik. You have Eddie Heron, who thought he was best pals with Turkey Alashik. is Dana not going well

something's going to happen here for it down the line I don't think so I don't think so you know why because they're in the WWE business they're very much abetted their WrestleMania is coming to Saudi Arabia I think the apple of their eye of Turkey's eye was always TKO I think that's where he

always wanted to be and the Netflix stuff like he recognizes them as being the preeminent combat sports promoters they've got MMA they've got boxing so I don't think he's going to do any of that to them. And I think this is consistent.

To be fair to him, he has not said anything about the WBC. He even had this WBC World Grand Prix thing at the end of the year last year. It's the other guys, namely Dana White, who have said things about the three letters. Nick Con has said it a little bit. Mark Shapiro said it a little bit, but it was mainly Dana White over the last few months. But this is consistent. Don't say anything, don't say anything. And then strike when need be, i.e. the Queensberry situation, the matchroom situation.

What I think is interesting about this is, A, number one, as you said, like, all right, you say that you don't want to have WBC, but here you are putting it on as a WBC title fight. And I think that lends credibility to it. I think it's more interesting that the WBC is okay with it. And so what's changed in the last three years? What's changed is they see their power slipping. They see their influence on the sport slipping. I think if this was four years ago, they would have said, no way.

We're not going to sanction this. We're not going to put our belt on the line. You know how I know that? Because they said it when Francis fought Tyson Fury. And so what's the difference? The difference is they don't want to upset the Apple Cart now. They don't want to say no to the Saudis. So they're saying, okay, that's the difference.

They are seeing their grip on this sport, you know, slowly, slowly, slowly fade away. I also think it's hilarious. Shout out to the inside boxing guys. New members of our team, but I vehemently disagree with their stance on the WBC belt being online here. calling it a joke. Maddie Pachia was out of fighting for like six years and fought for the WBC belt. And I'm not saying you didn't have an issue with that, but let's not pretend like the WBC

is this bastion of legitimacy. Ryan Garcia just fought for the WBC title against the same guy Mario Barrios coming off a loss, a listless performance, and a drug infraction. What? Now you can say, oh, he has more fights on his resume. Come on, man. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, let's stop pretending like there's actual order in these rankings and that all

of this makes that much sense. It doesn't make sense. But if Rico Verhoeven goes in and beats Ussick in a boxing match, who gives, like... That makes him the WBC champ. Who gives him the champ? You know, like, it doesn't make any sense. Of course. I think it's crazier to advocate for this to be a non-title fight.

Yes, I agree. Like, what is this? Saturday morning pro wrestling where it's a non-title match and Hulk Hogan's going up against some jabroney. No, Alexander Usick owns three belts. If he loses that fight, that guy should own those three belts. That's absolutely right. By the way, Ptze, the other big difference is

Sella's 60% ownership in the Zufa boxing, as opposed to the partnerships with Warren and it with Match Room and Queensberry. They were just kind of, you know, getting Intel, partnering, everybody's chummy. Now they have their own money in the game and ownership and the stake. So I find

it unlikely they'd like double-cross themselves, but maybe the long term is to buy out, you know, the TKO group down the line, but they all seem very happy at the moment. By the way, I'm happy for Usik as well. Like, this guy has done everything right. He's fought everyone. He's had to fight them twice. Like, he's done everything. He deserves that fun fight. I have no problem with him getting that fight. I think the poster is badass as well. I'm not going to lie. I think it's awesome. It's incredible. It's kind of surreal. It made it like, it looks like the fighters as well. Whoever did the artwork for it killed it.

No, it's brilliant. The location is brilliant. Like, I don't know what all this is going to cost them as far as putting it on there and all that stuff. It's wild. I don't know why it's even happening in Egypt, to be honest. What's it going to look like? Is it going to be closer to the Times Square? Is it going to be like the backdrop of the pyramids as they're fighting? I certainly hope that.

But it is weird. None of them have ties to Egypt. So like, why is it happening in Egypt? But that's fine. It doesn't matter. I'm happy for him. I'm happy for Rico. I think it's unfortunate, just to be honest, I wish it was on Netflix because no one's going to watch it on his own pay-per-view. Who's watching that? or on their fight pass thingy that they have. It's like it's where fights go to die, it feels like.

And so this fight feels like a mega event. It feels like a Netflix type of event where it's like, oh, wow, this is a crossing of two worlds. But it's just amazing, like, if you ever had any doubt that boxing fans just kind of live here and don't care about anything else, we kind of knew about that. Like, we tend to give boxing so much more respect than boxing gives MMA. And we give, I think, kickboxing and bare knuckles. and jujitsu and all these other things grappling, so much more respect. To them, it's just like,

oh, leave us alone, this is our thing, and PT nailed it, it's because our sport was born out of this wackiness. Just the disrespect shown to this guy over the last few days has been appalling. Absolutely appalling. Is there not something to... Dollars to draw his tears with them?

No, I know, I know. Is there not something to take away from this if you are the people putting on this fight, which is people didn't really want this? Our poor fan base did not. really want this fight? That's the other point. That's why I put out that pull. Like, I'd be, I'd be reading the, the room here a little bit in terms of, man, did we, did we fuck this up? Do we need to change course here? If, if the outcry is basically who is watching this,

I don't know if that's the place you want to be. I mean, in Giza, with, with the purses that they're going to have to pay on his own pay-per-view, I just, I can't imagine this is going to be very profitable for them. This is a very expensive favorite adjacent Statham. Who deserves it? The best part about this whole thing. My brother involved getting this done. The best promoter in all of boxing, Jason State. Yo, Rico, like, owes that guy. I hope Jason walks him out.

I hope he gives him a little, like, what a wingman, right? I hope they film a scene for his next movie at this thing. I just watched Shelter with Jason Statham. That's probably why it's in Giza. This is probably going to be... That was his choice? Yeah, this is probably going to be part of his next action movie.

Jason, where would you like this fight to take place? I don't know. What about the pyramids? Yeah. He was calling somebody a geyser, and they thought he said geesea, and they put it out. Exactly. I'll watch the geyser fight anyway. Were they in a movie together?

They were in something, right? I think they're just friends. Turkey and Jason? Jason Statham's not in Dennythieves. This is pitiful by you guys, by the way. He's in the greatest shark movie of all time, Meg and Meg, too. Jason Statham is a huge kickboxing fan. Oh, is that it?

He used to come to, he came to the New York early on glory shows. He is a massive kickboxing fan. he's a huge fan of combat sports and he just knew Rico. He knew ball. Listen, Jason Statham knows ball. Is Turkey just a huge fan of Jason Statham?

Yes. I love it. For whatever reason. What? Maybe forever. Whatever reason. I'm just saying, like, they seem to be very cozy.

Like, they're sitting together. Jason fucking Statham. All right. He'd be his best friend too. Isn't it a cool that world shit still happens? Because we are so used to monotony and, you know, we have the Hoy House this year.

We're looking forward to, but like, it got to a stage where every event, no matter where, UFC, where in the world, we just were like, this is very similar. It doesn't feel like they're marking their, their kind of, their status in this new location. Do you want a fucking boxing match besides the great pyramids?

This is, this is crazy shit. And I'm happy you said that because I've seen a lot of takes like, what a fucking weird month for fight announcements, Karano Rousey, Mayweather Pakiel, Usig versus Rico, this, that. And I'm like, yeah, I don't mind. I don't mind the fun. I don't, I really. don't mind the fun.

Like there's enough. Were you guys staying up to watch the Navaradi fight on Saturday? Yes, I did. Yeah, I know you did. I know you did. It was a fucking great fight. Were you foaming at the mouth to watch Kavanaugh against Moreno? Like I'm talking about the people that are complaining about all this stuff. You know what I mean?

It's like a little fun sprinkled into the fight game is not so bad. It's a new shit. Like complain is a new pastime. Wait, but while you guys are in this mood, while you guys are in this mood, can I sell you on joining me? Yes. In the get rid of rankings movement? No.

While we're in this mood and while we're talking about just doing what's the most fun and fuck, you know, order and all this stuff, can I get you to join me and let's just do the most fun fights. We don't need rankings. We can just do whatever comes to mind. I like this idea.

Let's just do it. Can I just say, I've never been in favor of the UFC having rankings? I've never been in favor of this. I like this. I've always said, you know this, I've always said, tell us your rankings. I'm more interested in knowing your rankings what you think of these guys

than a bunch of other guys who we don't even know if they're actual. human beings what they think, A, and B, I was fine in a previous lifetime where it was like, you'd go on Sherdog, you'd go on this site, they would have rankings, all you get some sort of sense, but then the fights were the fights. Yeah. So yeah, all they're doing is handcuffing themselves. As we've said before, in 2013, they introduced the rankings because they got together

with Fox and Fox said it would be great if we could promote six versus five, two versus four. That's the only reason. They never had rankings before that. It was never a thing. Let's go back. And I'm fine with that. I mean, look at Usik versus Rico. That's my point, right?

Like, boxing is about these sanctioning bodies, and they're about their order and the rankings and the mandatory and the best stuff like the best. And the best and then we don't see it. And then they just say, hey, the WBC belt's going to be on the line for a kickboxer who's never fought in boxing and the best heavyweight of this era. Get rid of rankings altogether, every sport. But why do people complain about, like, the fun? Oh, this is a sign that boxing is there. They just want to complain. No, it's not.

The question I was get asked online, if I show any sort of excitement for any of these, is just like, you're seriously going to watch this shit? You're excited for it? Yeah, dude, I'm also going to watch the curtain jerker on Apex 115. You think I'm not going to watch this shit? Yes, of course I'm going to watch it, dude. I'm watching Carly Judez versus Giuliana Miller all 15 minutes of it.

Yes. glued to the TV like I'm loving it. Of course I'm going to watch Alexander Usik versus Rico Verhoeven at the Pyramids of the team. Yes, of course. It's great. And it's not like that. Okay, look, the big belly aching for that particular fight is he should be fighting Kabayel. All right, whatever.

I get it. I get it. I understand that. But like, what are you going to boycott that? Your boycott? No, you're all going to watch it. You're all going to make content off of it. It's a little bit like the Jake Paul stuff where everyone belly aches, but they all make a thousand videos about it.

They all break it down. They all do previews. They all benefit from it. There's enough of the other stuff to where, like, Rousy Carrano existing is not taking away from anything. In fact, it's just adding. It's just adding. Mayweather Paciel... The UFC, to do something better. I don't even... By the way, I don't even look at it that way.

It's, to me, it's just a nice... I hope it was... Ah, who knows. Mayweather Pachiao is not taking away from anything. Everyone lost their shit when when Pachial fought Barrios. So it's just a fun little thing on the side. I don't... I think this is all value add. I don't think it's

taking away, and I don't think it's any indication that MMA is dead, that boxing is dead, that kickboxing is dead, that any of this is dead. We've got into a space where if you don't like what I like, you're wrong. That's basically how the internet works at this point. I like what I like. And if you disagree with that, if you don't like what I like, and you're a fucking asshole and you're an idiot.

And Cabiel, like, what's going to get more, like, boy balls? Rico or Caboiel? Cabiel's what, best win is against Jain? Like, come on. Yeah, like, come on. Usik has fought everyone twice. He's done everything that's being asked of him. Let him have this one fight.

Can we talk about Mexico City? We might as well talk about it since you were up. watching it. What about your boy Loner Kavanaugh? And is it Loner? It's Lonnie. They call them Lonnie. They were calling Loney. Since when? When did this happen? I don't know. We did pound for pound loners last week on boys in the back and people let us know. This reminded me of watching the Olympics and all of a sudden everyone's calling Czech Republic Czechia. I'm like, when did this happen? Do you guys notice that? Why? How about a year you just happened? Yeah, the anti-woke propaganda is like that's a bullshit.

What are woke nonsense? That's what it is. Checkia. I love it. What about what about the Caval? Okay, so it's Lonnie now. Lonnie. No, I'm not doing that. All the way through fuck. No, do you know what? Because Habib went to fucking the UFC.

They were calling him Norma Gomelhoff for fucking three years. And then they came up with the new one. Like, yo, let's just relax. Let him tell us what his name is. All the way through cage wears, it was Lonair, Kavana. Now it's, what I was thinking, right, with the UK accent, could he be like, it's not here. Ah. So get, do it slowly?

Say it so. Law, I can't do it. No, do the proper pronounce you. Yeah, yeah. I'm calling them Lonnier Kavana. Lonier, Lonier. Yeah. So it's not like Calais and insomation ER.

Yeah, Lonair, Kana, yeah. That's what I've called him my whole life. It could be wrong. I'm not willing to go to Lonnie yet, though. I'm not willing. Well, let me tell you, LK, he looked phenomenal. Unreal. Did he not, Pizzi?

Did he not look phenomenal? Like that. He's savage, right? The thing is, they've been talking about this guy as a savage for so long. And they are so confident in him. And, you know, on his UFC debut, the lads in that Jim were telling me, like, he can fight the champion. They were saying this in interviews. He can fight the champion now. And I was like, oh, no, we've all been excited about fighters before. But then Brandon Moreno is, like, you know, one of the great active fly weights in Mexico City,

you're kind of saying, if there's a banana skin here, here it is. And he does everything you would expect someone to make life awkward for a brilliant striker he uses range like Kavanaugh does. Tom Moreno was doing all that stuff. For him to get through this is absolutely unbelievable. And there's nowhere really else to go. Sure, you can put him in a few fights, but we know he's there now. This guy at such a young age, and you can't help but think. Like the fights that are out there for him, the strike and matchups, Vann as well.

Flyway is absolutely buzzing at the moment. And this guy is a big part of it. Like, the contenders at the top of that division are all so exciting. You can look at all the different matchups they can do every single one of them's exciting. And Pantosia isn't even back yet. That's the good that we're saying as soon as he's ready to go, put him straight in the title mix. There is just so much exciting shit going down on a floy way. And Kavana is another one to add to that list of really, really exciting fighters.

Yeah, man, I was impressed. I was impressed with the striking. I really was. He looked great to do that on short notice against Moreno in Mexico. He looked phenomenal. The striking, the defensive grappling, the gas tank to go all five rounds at elevation on short notice. It was, talk about stepping up and taking a chance on an opportunity. He was 15th, and then he got dropped by the rankings the week of his fight,

and now he's going to find himself at like number six or number five in flyaway rankings. Like, it's just insane. Is the biggest winner in all of this, Charles Johnson? He just keeps knocking out these guys that end up at the top of the division. His victories are aging so well, and he's coming off, you know, a disappointing performance. But, like, his victories are looking great. He had the knockout against Joshua Vannius, the knockout of Kavanaugh. And Kavanaugh's last fight, like I was feeling.

no buzz for this fight whatsoever. I did a video for BetMGM saying that the PME is Martinez versus Vera and that didn't really exactly blow the roof off of the joint. I know Martinez is on this run now and he's looking very good. I'm bummed for Cheeto. I'm bummed for Cheeto.

I know it's four losses in a row but I feel like there's still that other gear there. Maybe I'm just, I don't know. Maybe I'm trying to will it into existence. I don't know. But he isn't that Diaz situation, Rivera. Like people just love watching them fight. He's just like as soon as he's on the carriage, like, oh, watch the shit out with

this guy fight and no matter who they put him in against. I think he's elevated to that level. So there's always going to be appetite for him as far as. Something I found interesting is they started doing these interviews back in the locker room. A little, a little bit awkward interview his coach while he's getting his hand wrap is right there. And his coach was like, well, you know, if we put the foot on the gas and we try to finish this guy, it'll be an early night and shoot he'll be happy. Or if we come out slow, it's going to be much of the same and we're going to leave disappointed and it ended up being kind of much of the same. Yeah, he was like talking right to him.

He was talking right to. So hoping he'd hear him. I'm okay with the coaches. They have a rule where they don't like fighters being interviewed in the back and that's, that's fine. Now there's a new thing that they've added because this coach thing like in the back is new. I'm okay with it, but with him being right there, it's like, there's a part of me that's like, can you just put the microphone and ask Cheeto how he's doing?

He's like literally right there in the shot. But anyway, anyway. Yeah, some other ones. The King Green win was huge. I thought the stoppage was another bad one from Herb Dean, if I'm being honest, not trying to pick on him. Shout out to Uncrowned Films with our great look at the referee and official seminar that they put on in early January. I just feel like he's consistently late. He's like just late to stop the action.

I don't get it. I was even actually watching it with my son. He's like, why did he let that go on so long? I'm like, I don't know. It seemed very obvious. check. What do you do with Zell Hubert, man? Three and four? Tell what's the stat there? What's the stat about him being a... If you had bet against him in all seven of his UFC fights, just $100, he's won three of them, so you would have lost $300 right there. You'd still be up almost $1,100. He's lost

as a minus $8.50, a minus $500 this week, a minus $400 against Trey Ogden. He just keeps losing in these spots that he's supposed to win. I don't know what to do with the guy. He does not look good in these losses. Bobby Green was styling on him, man. It might be that they cut him. I've seen people cut for less. Yeah. Almeda, those guys, you know. Anyway, any

other result? The Immanuel Rodriguez fight against Kevin Borjas was insane. Yeah, that comeback was sick. That was insane. I thought that that guy was going to get his O taken away from him, Daniel Cornier fighter, and came

back in the second round. A great great win for him. Eileen Perez continues to be very entertaining. More so the twerking after? Yeah, yeah. Laying down and not

it's just as she called out Tracy Cortez. What about Regina Taran? Yeah, shout out. Nice debut. Three days notice, was it? Try it off for WWE?

Yeah, shout out for WWE's fought in combat. Yeah. That's doing. Francis Marshall. Any other guy you want to shout out here? It was just kind of there, wasn't it?

It was just kind of there, but it was there on picture and picture. It was there on picture and picture. Thank you. I was so excited. And again, like, what time did this card start? Like, four Eastern, I think it was? Five Eastern. Five Eastern.

My son had a soccer game 430. I'm sorry if I'm not like some 17-year-old kid with best MMA FightPix.com on his Twitter. Like, yeah, I get it. You've got nothing going on. This is your life. You're trying to build a life. So they'll be like, could you imagine being in MMA and not sitting down and watching the whole

card for eight hours? Yeah, guess what? I have three dependents and they do a lot of things on a Saturday afternoon. So I'm ready to go. Four o'clock. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go.

I'm putting it in the earbud. I'm checking. I'm doing things. I'm a grown-ass adult. All right? I'm not great fight pick odds at h hotmail.com. Like, you're a baby. We've been here for years.

I get it. We're not exactly on the same level here, youngster. And I know you're always waiting for opportunities to poke holes. Like yesterday, I posted the video of Kavanaugh walking out. That wasn't from last night. Learn the fight game. Understand what you're watching. I'm sorry.

I'm not doing a Patreon stream in front of. six people giving them odds that no one's even monitoring or no one even knows how you're doing, but you've called yourself some kind of savant. You've not left your house in six months. I get it. You're 17 years old. Mom's calling you for for dinner in five seconds. I get it. I get it. I get it. We're literally beating up babies. I understand it. That's what it feels like. That's what it feels like. That's what it's what it fucking feels like. Could you imagine being an MMA journalist and not being locked in at 430 for the first fight? You'll have to make. You say all this. This feels direct at someone, but I just don't...

Literally not you. Literally not you. Literally. No, your big thing is that you just say you don't use PIP. And I actually continue to be blown away by that. I just throw it on and I just... It's so crazy. It's just getting swiped up.

It's so crazy to me. In your defense, the picture that you sent, you were like, yo, shout out. Was the penis Schultz fight? The very first fight of the night you were watching. Thank you. And you were like, the Pips back. Yes, the Pips back.

I'm at the soccer game. I put my phone on. I get a text. And I'm like, wait a second. it actually worked why did anyone tell me this i write to the group and of course first message is don't use pip don't care for pip i do love what you were like i was like i'm not doing this again i i could tell the area was seething too he's just like the pineapple yeah you're like those guys you just think you better than i i eat my meat rare i don't have pineapple on pizza my coffee's black

and i don't use pip all right all right calm down but actually that rant was a about you. I swear on my life. It was about the people being like, you didn't know that Lano video was first Friday. Get the fuck out of here. Fuck you. That's a good place, isn't it? It's fun. Yeah. It's fun. You know what? F.U. And congratulations to all of you, because now that the king is

back, you all have great content to aggregate off of us, all right? So. Can you believe Ariel Hawaii didn't know year you for Hoska won the light heavyweight championship? That's the next one. That's the next one. That's the next one. That's a video already. It's already done. Someone's already making a YouTube breakdown. You've already seen it. You've already. You already said.

No, no, no, just saying. There, fuck. I'm actually making it when I get home. By the way, I did say, give them a month or two and they'll figure it out. They had to figure it out. And it's changed my life dramatically. It's a nice little swipe up. Did you try it?

Oh, you don't even have Paramount Plus. I don't even have that shit, me. I don't mind Paramount so far. I've kind of enjoyed it. White Pass has Pip. Has it. Okay. Wait, you watch that on Fight Pass?

Yeah. Not on T&T. There's an early, like, the first hour, the early Fight Pass, whatever the fall? Oh, you got to switch broadcasters? Oh, that's annoying. Oh, yeah. Oh, man, I throw that. I throw Paramount on and it just rolls.

Oh, you guys wouldn't get it, you know what I mean? You're not in the trenches like, man. Oh, so yeah, I'm also not until 3 a.m. though. I actually wouldn't get it. I wish. This dude's texting us about never ready at 12 o'clock. It's 5 a.

Not a word back. I was like, I was watching this fight. I was already asleep. I was long gone. I was still on the talent any time. I was standing up in the synroom. I was standing up in the synonym. I didn't even make it to Cavanaeau walking out of the octagon.

I was sitting there and like as soon as he finished talking I clicked and rolled back over. Guys real quick. Shout out to the boys, inside boxing though, because I wouldn't have watched that for you unless they... Oh, they're doing a great job. I mean, the takes on Verhoeven, a little cum-sie-cum-side. Not so much on Algeria's part. Actually, Algeria's actually the perfect guy to talk about this because he's a former kickboxing champion. I love it.

So perfect timing for us. Before we get to Armin, Armin's going to join us at 4.30. So please alert the masses. What did we make of this scene, guys? R-A-F is stealing headlines. and I'm dying. Can I be honest? I want to see Armand v. Georgio 2

more so than Armand versus Ilya at this point. That was great shit with the face, the slapping and the gouging and all that. What did you guys make of this? Do you guys see this? Of course, yeah. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing it. It felt like the biggest story in combat sports on the weekend.

I mean, I think it's huge for Raff. You're getting a star in Armant Siru Kian against this social media star, and they're making these highlights. It was at the very end of the match. And these people being like, God, the sanctity of wrestling and this isn't what you do. Oh, get out of here.

This was not one of raft's, like, real hardcore championship wrestler versus championship wrestler. This was much more of a gimmick match. It's Armand Sarukian going up against the social media influencer that offers $1,000 if someone takes them down. So I feel like him posting the video in the neck brace from the ambulance, calling Armin a bitch and everything like that, is selling them potentially doing this again.

What do you think, P.C.? I thought it was great. And you look at it from so many different angles. I know you already talked about the fact that there had an arm and naysairs. Can you trust this guy? Of course, it's going to back them up there. But it's also, look at the guy just take over the space this weekend on a wrestling card. Everybody is talking about this guy.

There's videos of this absolutely everywhere. Funny enough, I have seen this happen a number of times with grapplers versus MMA fighters. I believe there's a famous clip from back in the day of Orlando Sanchez, or I believe it was passed away since then. But he was grappling with Sean O'Malley. and they're fighting for insides. They're tying up, like, in clinches standing up. And he was cutting him with his arm, and it was, like, kind of slapping him in the face,

which is legal, but it's being a dickhead in grappling. And eventually, Sean just lost his shit. And I think he throws a punch at him on a spinning back fist. You can't play with the rules like that against an MMA guy who can't punch you in the face. There is nobody around to stop this guy from doing this. Oh. Like, this is acceptable, like, in a, like, in a, like, in a grappling match to some degree. But it's not cool.

And you're fucking, it's like a red rag to a bull when the dude you're doing it is fucking arm and Siruqi. That's the other point. To an actual bull. Like this is a man who has had outburst and has admitted sometimes he can't control his temper. The best was that. Don't slap the dude. There was a video of them talking before and he's like, oh, let's let's let's like, let's

bypass the weight cut here. And he's like, well, how much do you weigh? He's like, who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuck? It's so good. It's so good. He's the freaking man. He's the freaking man.

but that was intense. I mean, like, I don't, there's another video of Giorgio talking to Armin as their, I think, signing posters. And he's like, who are you? Like, why do you think you're so good? You haven't competed against high-level guys. You've not competed in the Olympics. You don't go D-1. And this Georgio guy, which I'll admit, I'm not, I'm not, I wasn't extremely familiar with him before.

And I think what he's done is amazing. Like, you look on his page and the $1,000, if you could take me down, think is brilliant. and the beef that they have started, the story that they've started, and I don't think this is Eric Bischoff, people are saying like, oh, it's two WWE, like, no, this is exactly. If RAF could check off, like,

give people the hardcore wrestling matches, and what I mean by hardcore is not like Mick Foley type of matches. I mean, like, you know, the actual collegiate wrestlers going up against each other are Olympians, give people the fun fights like this one, and then give people like us, like the Henry Sohudo versus Marab.

I think that's a full offering. I don't think it should be one or the other. Do you know what I mean? And I think they're actually doing a really good job. I really think that they're doing a good job at a very quick pace. They'll be doing their seventh show at the end of the month, eight show come April 18th. And that's since launching in August.

It's very hard to launch up. Once the last time we've seen an MMA promotion, and I get that they have the benefit of being able to use some established names, but to see a promotion get off the ground this quickly in such a short amount of time and steal these kinds of headlines, I think it's supremely impressive. I think that was a great night for them.

The only problem is the UFC could be like, no, man, you can't do that. Like, that's the only thing, right? That's the only thing. The UFC can literally say, Armand, no more. For sure, because you're saying, like, how people are pointing to potentially, you know, Bisch off WWE, he lands on him there.

Like, he's really throwing, and, like, he's got Giorgio bleeding and stuff, and, you know, then it comes into, repercussions and everything like that and someone's potentially seriously getting hurt. So as long as the UFC continues to allow them to do it, I think it would be great, maybe not ending in this same way. But in terms of publicity, like publicity, this was about as good as Raff could have asked for. Would you be surprised if they're like, no more?

For Armin specifically now. But for like an out, like they're going to let Marab and Henry Sehudo do it. Would you be surprised? I feel like it's up. I feel like this is a byproduct of the, of the class action lawsuit to where they want to be able to say like, look, we let guys do stuff. And I feel like this will end at some point. Because essentially, we only talk about RAF because of these guys being involved, right? They're known commodities. If these guys weren't involved, it would remain very, very niche. And I feel

like at some point they're going to put an end to it. Maybe not today, tomorrow, but like, I feel like at some point, they're going to be like, why are we propping up these other guys? Once the class action storm passes, and that might be in a while, then they'll put an end to it, is my feeling. Now you got Hamzad out there, guys. You see this? Hamsat's a lot. like tag me in. Yeah, it's crazy. Like you have one of the UFC's biggest stars being like, let me get next on Raff.

Look at this. Next RAF. I will make American boy humble again. Colby Clown, let's go. Aren't you injured? No, I'm waiting for Strickland. I mean, can we talk about just like, what a, first he wants Colby on Rath?

And then he's like, oh yeah, also confirming I'm going to fight Strickland. Yeah, what is that all about? Eamov said, I got to be honest, it's a way bigger fight. Way bigger. I know I said last week. but like I thought about it and I'm like look Imov it makes it complicated because Strickland did be

Imovov but it feels like it was a different lifetime and he was a different fighter and he's on this streak and you kind of have to reward the streak it was also 205 it was short notice it was back-to-back main events for Strickland I mean dude he looked fantastic against Fluffy Hernandez best he's ever looked yeah defensive grappling looked unbelievable and he's just a he's just a bigger star you think they'll do it corners a bigger eye I wouldn't be surprised I do I said last Monday

I still feel the same I think that's what's what's going to be next. How many in a row now for Emavov? Five? Yeah, I mean, dudes with longer winning streaks have gotten the shaft, right? For sure. I wonder why he said.

I would be surprised. Hams out at RAF would be huge. Against Colby, is there anyone that thinks that Kobe would actually take that fight? I don't think so. No. I actually think RAF being so closely linked to Colby actually makes them less cool,

if I'm being honest. Like, I saw him holding court there. I mean, there was not even a, peep from the crowd. Like, I want GSP, I want this. No one cares. Can't even tell you who he wrestled. He didn't wrestle. They just had him come out and cut a promo. Just goes to show you. Yeah.

Just goes to show you. He didn't even do anything. I don't know if there's one. I mean, I guess Humzaa v. Colby would be big. I was going to say Hamza would make it big. Yeah. Oh, no doubt. How do we watch this? How do we watch this over? Fox Nation. I'll give you my user and pass. Yeah. And you can watch, you know. All right.

Whatever else I have. What else I got a bit of there. No, no. We don't have that, but we do have to get to our next guest, Pizzi. So we'll talk to you tomorrow. God bless. Let's talk to the man that you all want to hear from, who's one of the biggest stars in the sport today. You don't need me to go on and on about it. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

Every week you wonder how much bigger he can get. Well, on Saturday, I think he got even bigger. We just spoke about him and what transpired in Arizona. Now let's talk to him. He's the one and only. The Armenian Batman, Armin, Surukin, is here to talk to us about what happened. Hello, Armin. How are you, my friend?

It's good to see you again. Good to see it, too. Armin, this... Every time I think you've kind of reached your ceiling as far as like this run that you're on, you surpass it somehow. I'm just starting. You're just starting.

I love it, my friend. Okay, so let's talk about Saturday. We haven't heard much from you. I've seen some posts here and there, but from your perspective, what went wrong with Giorgio that led to the brawl afterwards? I mean, his game plan was just fight during the fight.

and make a hype and he wanted to do that because the actual wrestling like natural wrestlers never never do that because it's disrespectful and the referee can like cut you cut you out but this referee he was like just taking points from him but if he he like punched two times one time he got like a one time he did they say if you do one more time we just come touch you from the wrestling and the referee still keep like waiting for him and he's like just knocking me out.

So you feel like he just went in there to make a moment, right? He didn't have any Yeah, yeah. He knew like he got to stop this wrestling because he's losing first of all. Second one, he cannot beat me. Third one, if he lose he got to pay me because we had the deal.

Who wins get the like money. How much? It's supposed to be He came and said Oh, let's Let's pay If I win

You pay me 50,000 If I If I win I get 25,000 If he wins He gets 50 times I say you're stupid or what What are you talking about?

You come to a casino and say Listen I'll bet like 100K If I win I get my 200 If I lose I give you 50,000 well like come on

and I said I said you're we have a different pocket let's stay under 10,000 and we just shake the hand but I haven't seen my money yet he is saying that that wasn't a takedown what's your response I mean he just got

gotta go and look the rules from the wrestling freestyle wrestling rules but our bet it wasn't takedown it was who wins the fight sure but you know he has a gimmick where it's like you can't take him down, right? And it seems, at least to me, I'm not an expert, that you took him down right now. It's a four points. Even a referee, referee gave a two points, which is okay. But like,

if you go deeper, it's a four points from me, because I started the technique and I stopped it on his back, so it's a four point. Do you think that he is happy, even though it ended with you, you know, hitting him and all that stuff? Do you think he's happy? ended this way because now he can push for the rematch and technically he didn't lose? Yeah, of course he made his name. He has a hype

now and now he's thinking superstar and like and yeah but he did his job, you know, he's a he's not good wrestler he wanted like fight with me but it was a stupid

because if you want to fight actually I want to watch his fight just today. Luke Rothold showed me his amateur fight. Someone knocked him out in the first round.

Wow. Yeah, like that. He went to sleep. Before all... He wants to fight. He knows like if he wants to fight, we can fight anyway, but not on the wrestling

match. Right. Before all of this, were you familiar with him? No. But Ralph, we compete on the same in Miami. We compete together and I knew from there. Right. And what was the vibe that you, I saw the one video where you guys were signing cards

and I saw you talking to him about the weight cut, like the vibe that you were getting from him as you were seeing him during the week or in the days leading up was that, did you think he was going to come to wrestle you? Or did you think that he was going to come to try to do something to make a moment like this? Like, did you have an inclination that this would have? happen. No, I thought he's going to wrestle, but like when he started like a punching, I said, okay, this guy wants to fight and cancel the fight and like do like a dirty, dirty wrestling.

And so to you, what was the last straw? What was the moment where you kind of said you had enough? No, I was, I was waiting when his wrestling is done. And that moment I wanted to punch him right the way and like I won the wrestling and I heard the whistle and I said okay now it's time because I got the victory okay if I did before I could like not win him all right so it did go to the very end right yeah I won I want I'm getting my money like a victory uh from who from him or from R a F from RF okay but from him from him too I'm waiting for my 10k and what did you get you got a little elbow in there on a nice little knee No, I just punch with my head.

Oh, it was a straight punch. I thought it was like a nice little ground. It was a straight punch. Yeah. It felt good? No, I would like to throw a couple elbows. Okay. If there is no referee.

If it's one-on-one, he's like, he wouldn't even say anything because he know I just kill him in a 30 second. And I saw a video, he poked you in the eye and he slapped you. What were some of the things that he was doing? Maybe 20 times. he's trying to like park my eyes break my fingers

and I always show to the referee and like a referee shouldn't do that and by the way the judges was so bad for that day not just my wrestling and the other ones was like they just giving like

I don't know from where some points especially when it's cutting wrestling with the other guy was like the points is coming from nowhere so you weren't impressed

they got to yeah they got it they got to fix that okay because if you're like high level of a wrestler you gotta you go on there like you know

wrestle not just someone can like some referee can give any points I saw a video of him he was in an ambulance with a neck brace. Did you see this video? Yeah, he's a bullshuter guy.

He was in an ambulance and then maybe someone told him, told him, don't do that. He started, he right away delayed that video from his AG and then he said, okay, we are like drinking water. We are getting rematch. He's like a clown. You hate this guy? I don't hate. He's like a clown.

How I can like it. He's just doing his thing. So RAF officials told me they're trying, they're actively working to do a rematch. Are you interested in a rematch? No. If they want to do rematch, we just got a fight on the street, even better than rematch. Okay. Because I don't want to fight in the freestyle wrestling.

If you want to fight, we can't fight anywhere. You can come to Newport, we can fight on the sand, on the beach. Oh, gosh. That would be something. Yeah, but he never do that because he knows, like, I need one second to knock him out. So a rematch in freestyle wrestling, no interest to you. No interesting, no at all, because I'm not going to wait him.

If they want to do that, if he's not going to do the same, I'm going to fight right away. If he's going to wrestle, yeah, we can think about it. But if I feel like someone gonna punch me again, it's no way. Does this sour your feelings towards RAF? Does it make you not want to compete for them anymore? No, I want to compete with wrestlers,

not like these guys, because they gotta figure out with referees too. Because I throw the guy, they gave two points instead of four points. And then, like, I see on the TV, there is just one point. How? If the referee show two, you put one. And, like, maybe they're new.

That's why they got to fix some details, you know. When all that happened afterwards, like when the cameras were off, did anything else happen in the back that we didn't see between your team and his team? No, no. I didn't see him after that. you didn't seem too bothered I saw you got a nice massage yesterday life is good

I mean it's fighting is my thing you know like if someone wants to fight I'm open everybody knows where I'm at and like whatever you want street fight boxing or like

a boon knuckle I saw a video in the locker room he said I had my 60 something year old dad and I think he said maybe his friend or brother, and then it was like 15 Armenians against him. Was it fair? No, because I just got two corners and my manager. That's all.

Okay. So who were all those other people? I don't know, maybe fans. They just jumped. Yeah. Did anyone hit you? No, the referee, like... You jumped in there, huh?

Yeah, three, four guys trying to hold me. Crazy. And Chuck, too, the owners of He was all living too. He tried his best. Yeah, but they're right. You know, we shouldn't do that. Were they mad at you? Did they say anything afterwards?

I haven't talked to them yet. Okay. What do you think they'll say? If they say something, I got to say something too, you know. What would you say? No, I'm saying. If they say why you do that, because, you know, how I can handle, like, this guy, like, he's, like, throwing, like, 20, 20 punches on my head. I'm a fighter league. I was patient that I won, and then, no, I think they cool.

They cool with me. They treat me very well, and they always, like, they're nice, you know, to me, and I feel, like, rough, very interesting on me, and it's always good to have, like, this relationship is rough, you know. you feel like you need them. It's always good. So, yeah. Honestly, I feel like they'll be pretty happy about all this because I think that they're trying to do the rematch.

So that would suggest that they're not too upset. Yeah, if they do rematch, they got to figure out with the rules. Hmm. Yeah. So like real freestyle wrestling rules, if someone like punched the time, he got disqualification. That would be huge. be the biggest match for them.

Yeah, we offered him grappling much, so we'll see maybe the grapple too. Oh, really? To Georgia Yeah. With which promotion? Hi. Wow. Big money? Yeah, big money. He never earned his money

in his life, for sure. Are you grappling next week for them? If he's down, yeah, I will drop on him. Oh, no, because I saw a poster that said, I think, March a lot. Yeah, they're looking for an opponent for me, so we got three, four names. Oh gosh, this is it, right? March 11th? Yeah.

And it says you versus mystery opponent. Do you want to be him? They want to be him. We got three, four names, and we'll see who is the best for us. Another side quest for you. Every week. Every week. Do you think he would accept? Yeah, why not?

because it's a changing life, you know, for him. Does he know to grapple? He knows how to wrestle. Yeah, but like, does he know jiu-jitsu? I don't know, but like if you not get some mid-eight minutes, it's a draw, so his game is going to be run out like shot at it, you know, with me. Would it be more money, this more money than the RIF?

Yeah, right more money. Okay. Now, now you know I love you, Armin, but you know what the people will say. You told the UFC you'd be a good boy, and now here you are getting into another incident. No, no, this is not my fault. This is not my fault.

Everybody on my side now. You think so? I was like, I was waiting like six minutes. He was like punching me six minutes. What do you want to wait for me? You don't think the UFC sees this and says, look, we can't trust this guy. He makes too many problems.

bro like if someone punch you what do you do oh i'm on your side by the way i think you should have fought for the belt a year and a half ago i'm on your side but i was just the first thing i thought of was like oh no yeah they both like okay they okay but everybody is different you know what are you gonna do if someone like punch you 20 times like you're not you're not gonna let him do that so i i it's the opposite they gotta be happy that you see farther don't let

somebody to beat up you see fighter number one you see fighter go to the freestyle wrestling beat the freestyle wrestler and to show like what's the level of you see okay okay I know I get it I was just wondering if they said something to you if someone messaged you and said ah another thing

we'll see I'm going there on Friday and watch fights on Saturday okay you'll talk to them I think so I already talked to Hunter When was that? A couple weeks ago He got a couple of options

Oh yeah, like what? Like title fights Like Just fights, I don't know We'll see how it's play out When you say title fight You mean like lightweight title fight or BMF title Any title

Any title fight? You're getting anything you want Yeah 170, 141 155. Wow, wow, wow. What's the most appealing option that they gave you? Fight for the 155 title and like in September, October. Would that be after Justin or before Justin?

After Justin. Okay. You want to wait that long? I'm just doing like wrestling. Yeah. Maybe. So you don't mind. I'll do wrestling. I don't mind. Man. I don't mind. Maybe. grappling, wrestling, rough, what else?

Maybe some new promotions. We'll see maybe they create some, I don't know. I would like to go for race, car, I don't know, or like TV somewhere. Okay, okay.

Did they say maybe the winner of Charles and Max? Yes. Yeah. Does that interest you? Yes. What about Volk? walk is good too did they say they're interested

they say something about that oh wow so it was a good meeting yeah it was a good meeting I mean I have a good meeting you feel like you're like on good terms I'm always good

with the hunter so was Dana there no we were on the phone call Oh, okay. So you spoke to him? Yeah, yeah. And how was that? It was good. It was good. Okay.

They said, keep doing, what are you doing? Oh, they like it. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Look at that. That must have felt good, right? Of course, of course. They like the videos. Yeah, they said, like, what are you doing?

So that's good, I guess. Armin, I think there's a case to be made that you're now like top three most popular fighters in the UFC. No, boom. What do you mean? No. Who's more popular than you? Chimaev, John Jones, Islam, Topuya,

poor time. We're getting into top five. We're no worse than top five. Some of those are a little bit debatable. Some of those are a little bit debatable. Some are there. but yeah this is amazing but to

become a popular it's not it's not hard so it is hard it is not hard I think if you have like money

you can like buy like Ferrari and like give you to your followers and you gain like 10 million followers in like no

it's not about that it's the content your content it's on fire that's why that's why I need a UCBEL you do

yeah no I know you've done your job At any point are you going to stop? What I'm doing now. Meaning like, okay, enough is enough. I prove my point. I'm the man. Now I just wait for the belt.

No, now I like it, what I'm doing. Which one are you most proud of? For my competitions. That I'm beating freestyle wrestling under freestyle wrestling, grapplers on the grappling. Okay. How did the link up with Jake Paul happen? We met in Newport and then

he is good of friend of my friend and he watched my videos what I'm doing in Russia, Armenia. So we have a like kind of same lifestyle. You know, he likes activities like me and yeah. So he was in Italy close to Armenians and said come come and let's hang out in Romania and he was done. Wow, did you like hanging out with him? Yeah, cool guy, good energy. And, like, yeah, good energy. And he was down for everything. You say, okay, let's jump from the roof to the snow.

Let's do it. I don't know. Like, yeah, he's a cool guy. You're eating caviar there? Yeah. Wow, wow. Caviar, a lot of meat, a lot of different. and meals.

I saw you recently, I think one of your most recent ones was a lot of meat, right? You said to the vegans to scroll past it. Yeah, it was yesterday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's this? In Glendale. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's my friend's house and we just had a barbecue because I won my competition and I wanted to rest one day and but today I'm back to training.

And are you now living there? No, I'm just staying here And I came to To see Hamza Hamza is here too Tonight I'm going to see him I got his t-shirt I like it yeah

He's training out of there now right In Orange County Yeah Full time No no he's living in Abu Dhabi Russia But for the training camp He comes here

Because he likes the weather He likes the gym and he brings all his people here and he can focus on the training camp but in Russia and Abu Dhabi is a little bit difficult for him I saw him react to your video it was fun to see he just called me right away and say bro like should I fly out to that come I said don't come come down he wanted to come Saturday night he said boy he said boy like why you didn't invite me I knew I knew like when it's five

when there's a fight you never invite me like I gotta be there I said no no no bro that would have been crazy oh yeah Hamza Hamza shouldn't be there me and me and Hamza yeah yeah we shouldn't we shouldn't be together on the fights

Who do you think is like a little bit crazier You or him? Well for sure him You think so? I don't see many brawls with him Because everybody's scared of him That's a good point. That is not a... I wouldn't do with him. I wouldn't fight him, too.

Did he really kick someone at the airport? I haven't talked about that. I have no idea. But I don't think so. Yeah, yeah. A lot of rumors about him. Because Hamzad is so calm and he never started first. And I don't know what is going to be that Hamzat kick somebody.

Because, you know, he's... strong he knows he has a big name and like he he doesn't go down you know to anybody but unless if someone like say something like about him or about his family or something or like I don't know I saw he said he wanted to go to RAF to go against I think Colby right yeah it would be great how do you think that he's a good grop or he's good wrestler he his background is a wrestling. I mean, Hamzaa two times bigger than him. Yeah.

Hamzad is huge. So it's hard to take him down and, like, with his background to, yeah, Hamzat in a different level. I saw some great videos of you and a little girl. Is that your daughter? No, no, no. Oh, everyone thought it was your daughter. No, no, my friend's daughter. Okay.

She's a very cute little girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say she's a little young to be in the front seat there, though. I feel like she should be in the back seat. Really? Yes. Look how small she is. No, in Armenia, they can sit on the first seats.

She likes a Ferrari. Yeah, you see, she likes Ferrari, yeah. She kind of looks like you a little bit. Yeah, Armenians. Yeah, it's all part of the family. Yeah, sure. And by the way, when you were in the mountains, you were cooking something, Which mountains were those?

Armenia, in Armenia. Oh, that was a man, you got a lot of content, huh? I mean, I train until Saturday morning and Saturday I go straight to the mountains and like spend time there because I don't like to stay in the city. Like you go to restaurant, people like knows you come. So I don't want to, I want to be with my friends. In the mountains, no, and nobody can disrupt you, you know. Okay, yeah, no. it's amazing what kind of meat was that uh that you showed me this one yeah it was in russia

this one exactly was russia okay yeah this was in russia it's uh it's a pork okay pork yeah that's the that's the one i don't eat you don't eat i don't eat pork no me either oh this is a believer really why because it's not uh not kosher no no no i eat pork just in Armenia and that I know like once a year or two times a year I eat barbecue but

in Armenia's pork is so good clean. Okay, okay oh sorry, sorry guys. Too busy, you know? I know, I know, you're busy guy. I'm going to let you go in a second but... Too busy. Everybody's calling me I know, what's it like...

You want to fire here. Come in here. What's it like being you now? It must be unbelievable. to be on my to be me to be you I feel like everyone wants a piece of you yeah it's good it's good to be me

good lifestyle you feel you feel in America you're getting noticed a lot more yeah from the food content mostly I don't know if I mentioned this to you last time but my 11 year old son said to me do you know who Armin Sarukian is he knows nothing about MMA. I say, how do you know? He said, I saw him on YouTube eating food. Yeah, yeah. So

most, on the rock, we were signing something and like one guy came and said, well, I'm a big fun. I don't know about you seeing anything, but you eat a lot. Thank you. It's brilliant. I want to give you props, Armin. You met a little kid and you got him a membership, one year membership at Syndicate. That was incredible. Yeah, it's so easy for me No, but it's a very nice You don't have to do that Yeah, but you see

The kid is training and I'm so happy for him I wish I can meet a lot of A lot of like this kid and help them Do you think that Have you been keeping tabs on him Do you think he's taking it seriously He's showing up, he's training? I asked my

My friend who will take care of him like asking who is in touch with him he said yeah he trains and we are going to send some gears for him okay oh wow amazing um all right so you know tomorrow georgio is going to come on our show tomorrow is there really yeah what do you think of that he got to say thank you so much armand you made make my name bigger is that what you want to say to him is there any message you'd like to say to him I would like to do I would like to grapple with him and then I would like to do

a sparring MMA sparring with him I would like to pay him money and say let's do a sparring filmed or not filmed whatever he wants I just I don't want to do it for hype I just want to do it for me just

kick his ass so bad you might as well get paid for it though no he's gonna pay for that I'm just due for myself just for fun a promoter would probably pay why don't you ask the UFC sign this guy do one fight

no no this bullshit guy I cannot fight I was just no no just just in the gym you know okay okay he's ass in the gym he called you the B word what is that

he said you're a bitch oh I mean he can say whatever he wants a buddy if he's going to sit next to me and we're going to be together you think he's going to say that no i don't know i don't know what he said if you saw him in the back this and that did he say anything i haven't seen him after that no but even before no no no before he was he was good do you i saw the video where you said like oh you've never compete in olympics or d-1 do you think he's a good wrestler he's okay wrestler he was wrestling all his life he compete for

freestyle wrestling, folk style wrestling, but he wasn't beyond the top. But he's doing his own thing and he's promoting wrestling and like, and like he's like,

how do you say? He's like a blogger, bodybuilder, blogger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. Okay. Nobody can take him down. So in conclusion,

you're going to the UFC this weekend you're going to be there front row good seats yeah Donna Donna always gave me good seats okay no trouble no problems

and I don't know about that I never I never start first sure sure the fan he flipped you off yeah

Dan Hooker he looked at you bad Yeah This guy So busy You call me Oh oh You want to do three-way

No no no Maybe they're going to say something you You should hear Okay okay Well let me just ask you So what do you think happens as far as how it plays out Based on your conversations What do you think

Next time we see you in a fight is Uh-oh They're calling again No, no, it's okay, it's okay Okay One more time, question What do you think happens Now based on the intel that you have from the UFC

Next time we see you fight Next time we see my fight as soon as possible No, no What do you think? What do you think? When I'm fighting Yeah, what are you feeling now? We gotta wait for one fight

And see how it's play out Okay, which one? Who keeps calling you? I don't know Hunter probably Hunter, golly he knows you're on the show and he's trying to sabotage my show

Yeah, yeah probably he wants to Don't say anything bad Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay So you think One fight, and what's that fight? Ilya Justin Ilia Justin and one more fight

What's that fight? No, no, I cannot tell it. All right, alright, fine, five, fine. Armin, you're the man. But you can guess, I know, you know. BMF? No, no. I don't know.

Okay, I'll tell. after you tell me. Okay, you're the All right, all right. Okay, guys. Armin, you're the man. Thank you all the best. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Well done on Saturday. When you see this beach, just slept from me, okay? No problem, no problem. Thank you, Armin. Bye-bye. There he is, Armand Truikian joining us. What a guy.

What a guy. I don't know, what is that other fight? Is it BMF? I don't know. What am I missing something? Is there an obvious one? I don't know. He's some...

What is it? I guess not. to pour you the title. He said 145 title. Yeah, Volk. That versus Vogue? Winner of Mosar-Laure? No, stop.

Your Vogue is my Sean Strickton. Volk. And Volk. I think that's like me saying Tuesday. People say that I say it wrong, but it's... You do? No. You're a Wann guy, right?

I'm a Wahn guy. I'm an organization guy. I'm an against guy. That's just my accent. You know, that's just my accent. All right, a couple other news and notes, and then we'll call it a day here. No, no, this is not my fault. By the what?

I thought he came back. No, no, no, no. That was a good one. Well done. Frankie. Frankie, you're back. How many drops does? Armin has to have his own.

He has his own page. Yeah. Armin's got to have a page. We told you about Pratchez JDM. Who's the favorite in that? You know, I actually don't know. What a fault. If we got odds for it. Oh my God, incredible fight. Also, the people of Australia getting a Saturday PM card.

It's a Saturday PM there. Yeah. Saturday morning here, right? 730. Yeah. It's like a 730 AM. Love it. Love it. Love it. Oh, man. We don't have odds for it yet. So, okay, so that is of note. It's a great fight. Love that fight. That is of note. This weekend is unique. It's not MMA's debut on CBS, of course, that was Elite XC back in 2008, but it will be the first UFC card on CBS card, portion of the card, right? It'll be like the back end of the prelims and the front of the main card, which will be super interesting to see how they lay it out. That's going to be interesting. And a sign of things to come, because they also announced that a portion of WrestleMania is going to air on ESPN 2, I believe it is, night one and night

I think we have the graphic and I think it's ESPN 2. Yeah, there it is. First Hour Live, only Saturday. So maybe it's only Saturday or was it both? I don't know. I can't wait. Saturday on ESPN 2, Sunday on ESPN. There it is.

All right. First hour. I can't wait for tomorrow's uncrown wrestling show, which drops every Tuesday. Can't wait to hear what the Solomonster, Jason Solomon has to say about Elimination Chamber and Danhausen's debut. Did you guys catch Downhausen's debut?

No. It was, uh, it was, of all the debuts, it was a debut. Look, I didn't catch it, but I can't wait to hear what the solemn months to say about it. He's the freaking man. Speaking of wrestling, this was better than anything that I saw at Elimination

Chamber. My guy, the snowman, did you guys see Dion Dawkins in the, uh, in the freaking parking lot? This guy, look at, look at this. That's Dion in the black shirt. Look at this. Bang!

Look at the stiff. Yo, okay, that's, I mean, that's a splash. I saw a stiff lariat. Look at that. Dawkins got moves. Look at this camera work right here. Watch this, watch this, watch this. Look this, this.

He's stalking his prey. Kick to the boot. Dawkins got body slam. I don't remember this. What? Reverse. Oh, oh. Knee to the gut.

DDT on the pavement? Suplex on the pavement. What? Oh, you reversed it. Oh, now he's tired. Uh-oh. Oh. Oh.

Man, this was good. I like that. I like that. Brent through outside the gas station McDonald's getting some reps in. This dude's the starting, I think, right guard for the freaking Buffalo Bills.

And he's doing that. Imagine you're just like pulling up. You're like, wait a second. Is that Dion Dawkins? Let me see here real quick. Ian Gary says he's got the fight. Al-Eas says, This guy says that.

All right, I think that's good. I think we'll save the rest for tomorrow's program. I could tell you that tomorrow's program, I'm waiting on one other person. Oh, what's going on here? What's going on here? I could tell you that on tomorrow there's so much going on that I don't want to misspeak.

Tomorrow on the program, we are going to be joined by the aforementioned George Pulas. I hope I'm pronouncing that the right way. pronouncing that the right way? Who's to check? Yeah. We kind of don't know either. Georgio Puyas or Pulas. Yeah, I think it's Pulas. Pulas?

Yeah, Pola. We're going to have to ask him tomorrow. Well, I can't wait to talk to him. I will not be slapping him in the face as Armin. Oh, yeah? No problem, man. For sure. I got you. Yeah, yeah, I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rico Verhoeven will join us and the reigning defending U.S. Bantamway champion

Pyotrion will join us. So I would say we're coming back with a bang. I'm excited about that. On the Nose will be on Wednesday. Did you guys enjoy doing On the Nose? Yeah, I did. It was fun. I thought there were good questions.

I thought most people, no? Didn't love them? I thought most people like understood the assignment. I was worried that they would just send the questions to me. No, yeah. That they got. I felt most of them were towards us. Yeah.

Good. Rick's just a hater, bro. Yeah, what the hell? It's on the voicemails, hates on the questions. That's it.com. I do see some breaking news here regarding the TV work. Frank, what was?

I mean, a bit loud, no? Are you serious right now? That was so loud in my ear. I almost like... Can we rewind the tape where he's like, I need the drops to be super loud. No, no, no.

That, like, on a scale of 1 to 10, that was a 48. We're breaking news here, all right? And breaking eardrumbs. UFC commentators, Megan Olivi, Paul Felder, and Michael Bisping,

re-sign long-term extensions. That just just, came through. I don't remember press releases for commentator extensions, but that's exciting. Mazel Tov to all of them. I'm also seeing Ultimate Fighter Season 34 Remote Casting now open.

So they'll be on Paramount Plus. Ultimate Fighter's Season. 135 and women's straw weight. Men's 135 women's straw weight. Casting will begin today. Anyone want to throw their name in the hat? No, it won't even be watching.

Couldn't be bothered. Can't get down to 135. Produced by Lionsgate Alternative Television. They are not they are not like the longstanding producer of the show. Yeah, but now if you have a production element, you know?

Yeah, the iconic competition series has introduced a wider range and men's bantamway casting. Finalists will be selected by April 3rd. All right, well, there you have it. Tough, never die. and I think that was Oh, here's another one.

MVP having a press conference in New York City on Friday, March 6, Nikisa Baderian, Amanda Serrano, Lisa Baumgardner, Shadija Green, Stephanie Hahn,

Holly Home, Tam Tebow, O'Shea Jones, Tierra Brown, Leanna Cruz, and Ariel Helwaney? Wow.

Talk about a polar bear in Arlington, huh guys? Madison Square Garden this Friday March 6th No All right Sounds good Yeah

What fight is that for I was reading I did a major announcement It's to announce something major Yes Okay so it's not for an already planned fight No Amandast Ronald Alicia Baumgartner

Shadeji Green 70 Ariel Hohaney I'm just there I'm on the list Are you one of the participants Vince, you're not involved in the... Yeah, are you going to be participating in the major announcement?

It's literally those names and me. It's not like hosted by... Yeah, yeah. So... Wow. Wait, you're on the dais, huh? Can I divulge? No.

Unfortunately, I can't. I can't divulge. That's that bullshit. Do you have any super chats, Frankie? We do. Oh. So good to be back. Is it?

Can the USC keep Armin in line or is it easier for all parties to shift? I propose it. trade arm in Fort Dakota. Okay, if you're the UFC, are you doing that trade? No. No, also, like... If you're the PFL, are you doing that trade?

Yes. Yeah, for sure. But, like, also this, like, keep him in line. He fought in November and, like, I guess he had boat a day. Okay, can I just say... Yes. Can I just say, like, let's not pretend that everyone in the UFC are a bunch of, like, you know, Mother Teresa's, all right?

Like, Conno McGarrier got the biggest fight of all time when he took a dolly through a freaking bus. Yeah. This is all good. Exactly. Controversies good. This is all good. This is all good.

As long as there. there's no legal ramifications. This is great for them. This is all. Armine comes off looking like more of a gangster. Yeah, this is all good. This is all good. And I hope they don't hold it against them.

I don't think they will. They'll say, like, nice ground and pound, all right? If anything, head-putting Dan Hooker is much more significant to their business than this, than anything he's doing here. By the way, can I also just say, 100% because I could have called off the fight. Can I also just say,

they, he is putting out the blue that if you're sitting around frustrated, like, go take these fights. Go take these matches. It's an unfortunate reality that they should have to do that, but yes, you are right. Just take, like, he's saying, uh, September, October,

but I'm going to do hype, I'm going to do R-AF, I'll do this, I'll do that. Like, have him show up at UFC BJJ. Anything this guy touches is gold. I was locked in. What else, Frankie? What else? I really enjoyed your Olympics coverage and skiing effort.

wanted your thoughts on Alyssa Lou's explosion and popularity during the games. It's always interesting when you have a few people just kind of break through. There's so many athletes, so many stories. There's so many possibilities. And there's also people who don't live up to the hype. Quad God, obviously being at the top of the list,

Ilya Malinanin. But she was great. I mean, she has the it factor, the hair, the look, obviously the skill, the demeanor, the way she spoke, what she was saying on camera, amazing. Love to see it.

To me, there's a lot of great stories. I don't know if there's one that I like more than Jack Hughes. And I know that he is obviously an NHL player first pick overall, but I feel like the way he has come across and the way he handled. He was so likable in the immediate aftermath of the win. He was so likable in all the stuff that he did afterwards. Even like the, did you guys see him? He was at the nightclub in Miami,

and he's just sitting there with sunglasses on. God knows where he is on Earth. And he's just sitting there where the backwards hat with his sunglasses on. And this guy just scored the golden goal for the U.S. Then he's on SNL

with his brother coming off great. He was great on McAfee, I thought, as well. It's just amazing. Like, this guy played for the New Jersey Devils for the past, what, like five years and no one, I don't want to say no one. Only hardcore hockey fans. Like Rick, had you ever heard of Jack Hughes

before all of this? Nope. Connor? probably uh you know i i frequented devil's game back in my jersey day but like i feel like if this guy walks on the street in new york city everyone stops him right um now yes yeah now now now beforehand no beforehand no he had a a bit of a shine with um tate mccray he was seen like dating her oh wasn't familiar with his game oh yeah yeah yeah who is it now isn't she still dating in an hl player i don't know but they were seen together at a restaurant i was like oh wow jack hughes good for him

um so anyway Love that. Obviously, Eileen Goo got a lot of attention. Some tried to make it negative. I don't know. But yeah, man, the Olympic, I have always been a huge Olympic fan. I've always loved the Olympics ever since I was a kid. And so to work in it

and to be in that bubble, and it's interesting when you're working with people whose lives are the Olympics. Like, everything they do is geared towards the Olympics and then all the competitions leading up. And I just kind of plop in. And you fall in love with these stories, these athletes, these moments, and you're sitting there watching

stuff that, like I said, I make no bones about it. Like, I am not an expert when it comes to moguls or figure skating or a skeleton or a bobsled or anything. And you just, you get immersed in it. And I felt like it was a breath of fresh air for me. And I felt like it was a nice change of pace. And I felt like it was different than fighting, although there are similarities in the personalities. And then I came back re-energized. But I, it was amazing to be in the midst of something that, you know, you're a little bit nervous. I'm in the middle of nowhere. I'm five hours. away from Milan. Like I'm literally in the middle of nor. I'd never heard of Livino before and the place was unbelievable. If you're ever in a spot to go to Livigno in the Italian apps, I could not

recommend it more. The people are more beautiful than the scenery. It's an amazing place. But you're like, you're dropped into this world and you're kind of thinking, am I going to sink or swim here? Am I going to falter? Am I going to fail? What is it like? And then you just, as I talked about before, like you just trust your instincts, you trust what you can do well, your skills. And then you just start getting into it. And now all of a sudden I'm like, how did I not know about these people before? How did I not know about Mick Kingsbury before the King of Moguls and all this? It's just, it's amazing. So all to say, so happy to do it and appreciative and so happy to be back. And yeah, I hope I could do something like that in two years in Los Angeles. I would love to do that.

What else, Frankie? What else? Do we go get a shot at WBC before, Kabay-O? Yeah, I mean, that's what we talked about. it's just it's boxing and if you're going to be mad like Cabayel is not Tom Aspinall I don't think a lot of people were like going crazy

he must have a title shot he must have a title shot right and so I don't think there's that one guy right now there's always going to be someone but I don't think there's that one guy that it's like I can't believe this guy is getting screwed I can't believe this guy is getting looked past I just don't see it I don't see it

And so I think Usik is well within his rights. You want to be mad at someone. Be mad at the WBC for putting the belt on the line. But like the guy's fighting, so you might as well put the belt on the line, is what I say. And if Rico freaking wins, now you got a new champion and all hell breaks loose. Big deal.

What else, Frankie? What else? Ariel, you have one bookmark vaulted of me telling y'all it'll be bones versus boiton, main event White House, never waving or doubting. Get Omar and O'Malley on the show together. Welcome home. Credit me later.

All right, let's see. I don't think O'Meuxie. will be on there against Umar. I would be surprised. I would be extremely surprised. I don't know what he said. Umar and O'Malley, get them on the show together.

He wants a head to head of O'Malley and Umar. Why? On this program. I mean, I'd watch that, but. I mean, sure, but no. Why,

has this guy been saying that it's going to be, uh, is that a hot, is that like a, it's a hot take? I, that was my prediction when we did our prediction show. I don't think this is like a very,

yeah, thing. I think a lot of people could have put that together. Oh, what else, Frankie? What else? Tell Yuri G.C. is still his biggest fan. Hmm. That is true, but there is no need to... Yeah. Don't tell him. We don't need another... I don't know who's more in his...

In his... what is it? Doghouse? Doghouse. You or me? Am I in his dog house? No. I think you are. Okay. At one point, he said something and he was like, everybody just calm down everybody just take it easy

you were saying something I can't remember what he was like everybody's just calm it down I was like this guy loves telling people to calm down despite not being that calm himself you know oh what else Frankie what else

the same gentleman wrote let's go for that yeah I nailed that one yeah he did no what else Frankie what else Ariel and the boys of the back thoughts on the elimination chamber um

I know nothing about it tell me what's going on. Randy Orton won, Rio Ripley won, so they now get to punch their ticket for WrestleMania and get title matches. Wait, what? That's what's on the line at Elimination Chamber? That used to be something else.

That used to be, what was it, money in the bank? No. What was the one where they pointed at the thing? This is it. There's two belts now, right? Yeah. There's the World Heavyweight Championship and the WWE Championship. Okay.

And so. On men's and women's side? Can you let me finish? Wait, on men's and women's, both have two. two belts? Yes. Okay. But they're not called the same. Okay. The point is Royal Rumble is first. That's the one I was thinking. You win Royal Rumble, you

get to choose. Yeah. So let's You see what I mean? Elimination Chamber, you get the remaining. The other guy. Yeah. Ah. So, so, so Roman won Royal Rumble. Did he choose already? He picked punk. Okay. Which is the best match that they could put on right now. There's a history there.

That will main event night two. Yeah. And then there was another there was the other belt which is owned by or being held by Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton won and so it's going to be either Randy versus Drew or there's some

talk that maybe Cody's going to win the belt or maybe they do a three way who the hell knows and now Ria Ripley is going to go up against Jade Cargo which is a great match but the product is lacking right now. The creative is lacking I don't find it very interesting. Now they've been

snake bit the vision has been injured. There's just, it doesn't, like the Danhausen thing was. The box. That's what it was? Yeah. Some people thought it was Jericho. Danhausen comes out. There was just a person in a box. I heard Solomons are talking about the box. There was a person in a box. And they sort of made it seem like the box was there for weeks. And it was Danhausen. And it was Danhausen who's like an indie darling character who then got signed by AW who's a fun character but is more like comedic relief. Not a headliner or anything

like that. And I'm not trying to hit on him. Actually, every single thing that I've seen about him is that, like, he is such a good guy, he helps out others, and he's great to work with, and he shows up, and he's, you know, like, he honors his dates on the indie scene and all that. It just didn't feel, I never viewed him. He's not Brock Lesnar, I get you. It didn't feel like a WD, he never felt to me like a W. Oh, I see, I see. You know what I mean? Because he's like, there's, there's, but I mean, they did have that Mr. Aguana fucking coming out in the, Penta? No.

No, no, the iguana guy. Mr. Aguana is a very popular AAA personality, and they own AAA. AAA is the Mexican promotions.

So now they got Danhusen in there. Did they want that? I don't watch wrestling. I listen to the Uncrown Wrestling. Yeah. What a logo. My favorite part about the Uncrown Wrestling show is the theme song.

It is. How good is the theme? How good is the theme? How good is the outro as well? Outro is great. There may have been a member or two of the team that didn't like the theme when I first, you know, proposed it.

Oh, really? What's alpha? But, yes, I can't wait to hear him talk about it. There's a lot of frustrations with the booking right now. But I always... From the fans or the talent or both? I don't know about from the talent.

They don't really speak on these things, but certainly from the fans. Okay. But I think this is all very cyclical. Like, I don't get too high... It's the same thing with fighting. Like, sometimes the bookings are good, Sometimes they're bad.

They go up, they go down. When they're getting good again? The bookings? Yeah. In wrestling or MMA? MMA. Both. 327 is good, bro.

It's fine. It's not bad. Come on. Not bad. It's fine. 327 is a good card, dude. It's a good card, dude. It's a good card for now.

I think you can make an argument for a great card. It's got two title fights on it. A lot of names that you reckon. A title fight that doesn't feature the guy who actually is the champion in the division? Okay. Excuse me. I thought you were talking 326. No, 326 is a bisbal.

It's not abysmal. That's why I was surprised. I was surprised by your strong take. It's okay. It's okay. 326 is okay. Yeah. Ooh,

327 is great in my mind. I think 327 is deep. It's fun. It's deep. I don't see you all in the pay-a-view. It's a great pay-per-view anymore. Best fighters in that weight class aren't fighting in either of the title fights. I mean,

that's not ideal. I think in this day and age, I think in this day and age, the pro, like, it hasn't, they haven't come out gangbusters, right? Like right now in the new era First two months of Paramount

Have been underwhelming I was sitting there in Italy And I was like yeah I missed out on this card I missed it like I'm not full and get the mouth To weigh in on this You know what I mean? Kind of actually worked out great for me Yeah

Last show was post Sydney I think they did it for you Yeah they were like Let's not book anything that big Well Juanis on you're right We'll give it the boys in the back Apex Valentine's Day nothing Houston

Yeah I appreciate that guys Thank you What else, Frankie? What else? Ali said a big fight for Islam soon. Connor or Ilya? I don't see... I don't think it's Ilya. And Connor against Islam, I mean, I don't know.

Is it Michael Morales? Who's bigger? Michael Morales or Ian Garry? I think they're both equally big, but it would feel weird for Ali to say, like, it's not Ian, but it's a huge fight. Like, those feel equivalent to me. so I don't know what he's kind of angling at. That's nonsense.

Maybe he meant literally. Michael Morales is a massive man. It has to be Ian Gary. Are you kidding me? Ian Gary is... He doesn't seem to think so based on... It's such a bigger fight. No, he's just saying he's not ready, but like,

come on. What are we talking about? What else? What else? Ariel, good to have you back in our lives. My question is, do you know if the fighters on the MVP MMA card will be allowed to wear their own sponsor?

Ooh, you know what? That's a great question. I certainly hope so. I pray that they won't have uniforms. But honestly, I did not ask. I will inquire. I mean, they don't make them wear uniforms for the boxing, so I can't imagine they would for MMA.

I'm so curious about all this. And I'll say, as of right now, all I know is that I'm hosting that press conference, which, by the way, like, as far as press conferences go, I feel like it's going to be must-see TV. Ronda there, Gina there, who knows who else will be there. obviously, you know, my history with the two of them, I can't wait to be a part of it. And on a personal and professional note, I've never got to work on an MMA card.

Like, I've never been in the cage before. You know, I've never done the post-fight interview for an MMA card. It's always been boxing. So I'm really curious to see how the rest of the card looks. You know, say whatever you want about it. I think something a little bit different is fun. I think there are two legends. I saw some people getting into the nitty-gritty of like, this isn't a dream fight.

this isn't a fight that anyone asked for. Well, first of all, like a dream fight is, to me, era versus era. And second of all, there was a time that people were asking for this. I remember it. I remember us talking about it in around 2014 that, oh, should the next person be Rhonda versus Gina? Because at that point, Gina had left five years ago. And so we did talk about it back then. And a dream fight to me can mean a lot of different things.

Gina was the face of women's MMA. She was the first fight on showtime. against Julie Kedsey. She was the first fight on CBS, as far as women's MMA is concerned. And then she had the super fight against Chris. And then she never fought again. It was a very quick, like, year and a half explosion of sorts. And then she went to do her thing.

Her coming back is of interest to me. Rhonda coming back is something I never thought would happen. Never, ever thought Rhonda would come back after WWE and after having kids and all that and her feelings towards MMA. I actually think she's come across really well in like the MVP uncut videos and all this stuff. I'm curious, I'm curious. So, anyway, all to say, I'm curious to see what kind of card they put together.

They're a boxing promotion for all intents and purposes. What's it going to look like? How's it going to look on Netflix? First, MMA card on Netflix. Anyway, from a personal and professional standpoint, I'm excited about it because I'm excited to work the presser and hopefully the event. I think this is good. I think Netflix getting into MMA is good for all of us.

It's good for the sport. It's good for the fighters. It's good for promoters. It's just good. So, what else, Frankie? What else? And lastly, should Big Onk look for a new representation? I feel like he should have been in the conversation for the title, and he's not.

Nah, he's got the best manager in the biz. Hashtag Big Onk. You know, they came up with that one in their own war room. I think he just didn't really, you know, resonate with people. That's all. The UFC in particular. I don't think they're clamoring for Angoliath to get another shot. That's why I had zero tighter defenses.

that too that too I don't think they thought he would win the first time and I think they were okay to move on after the yeah year he's a massive star Carlos is one nine in a row I like this one oh is gonna be an excited

oh is this guy complaining that like Carlos is getting it over Ank he's saying it should have been onk is not even in the conversation when he's the he beat Alex Pereira and he you know no he may have been in the conversation we don't know maybe they were like uh ohk

it's almost like Ulberg versus Brochaska was the fight I mean it's like Like not even a question. Yeah. Sometimes when you do these types of fights, like the interim fight would just, it's like, eh, one half feels like a force, like these were the two guys. And it's not even a question.

Like layup, easy. Sounds like Ank was a question. Yeah, well, at least for this dude. Is that microphone giving you trouble there? I'm just, you know, it's not fitting nicely with this computer. We need to get the computer situation. If you push it back any further, it's going to be completely flat. You get a new computer, man?

No, it's actually not a new computer. You busted into those watermelon ones? I'm going to try it right now. I got to give. Save me one of the, watermelon want to go. I might go one watermelon, one mint. What about Pizzi just throwing in

some people? He cares about people. Don't give him too many compliments. He's got toothpicks busting out his ass. He's got something. He's $1.30 million for the kitchen scrap. Yeah. Every time I see him, he's throwing another pack on to me. What a cool thing, right?

Yeah, having a toothpick is pretty cool. Nah, to have a flavor toothpick? How about the fact that we've gone full circle where we started the day with breaking news regarding Mr. Toothpick himself, Benson Anderson, we end the day with me having a toothpick in my mouth.

Does that not mean we're back? I could actually suck on this like a lollipop. I think you just put it in your mouth like a toothpick. It's actually pretty great. It kind of like satiates a bit of a... The overall fixations of the... The composition. Oh my God. I tell you what.

I tell you what they don't have in Italy. Pineapple on pizza. You tell... Yeah, you... You got... You ask a guy for pineapple on pizza in Italy? Oh, we saw. They look at you like you're...

Like, you've got nine heads. Yeah, of course. They said, we don't do that here. Every place you went, we don't do that. Okay, so I found this one coffee spot. Not bad, but nowhere near as good as ours. Yeah. I'll tell you what I like about their coffee.

The espressoes are nice. Like the one like... Like that? Great. Go quick in and out. Fantastic. The actual, like, cappuccino, flat white, that stuff doesn't hit. The almond.

milk doesn't hit the same. That's how I feel when I'm in Europe. I like an espresso, but I also like a sipper. I like, you know, be able to chill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you say not as good as ours, you're referencing the hidden location in Las Vegas. That's, that's, that's, I mean, is it hidden. Oh, you're saying American coffee. I'm talking about like my usual, like my spots here. New York City coffee, I think is elite. Yeah, New York City coffee is elite. The affogato is offogato is offogato. America can't do afogato like Italy could do an affogato, but they get a little crazy over there with the whipped cream. I don't eat all. that stuff. Just have an affigado for every cup. Just give me a vanilla scoop with an espresso and we're

good. I don't eat all that other stuff. What a total days if you spend in Italy over the last like a lot? I'm kind of an Italian expert now. You guys were joking, but I'm sort of like, I'm that dude, you know? You lost your accent though as soon as you came back. Well, I'm trying not to overdo it. I'm trying not to overdo it. The food is by that. Someone pulled you to the side and was like chill out. No, no, they loved it. I would say bellissimo. They would love it. Are you kidding me? I was such a star over there. They love it. They love it. it. No, but the pizza is elite, the pasta is elite, the ice cream is great, gelato. Didn't have that much because it was so freaking cold. I wore snow pants for two and a half weeks straight. I brought

like 15 pairs of pants. I didn't wear any of them because every day I would wear long johns and snow pants. And I only brought one pair of snow pants. So I had to go buy three other pairs and just rotate through them. I mean, I was legit freezing. There were some nights where we were up to like 1230 recapping curling and I thought I was getting hypothermia but man it was a good time

and I would think about you guys I would put you on and I'd be like man they look so cozy in that studio I feel like they're moving around my toys and stuff but

what about the whole yeah I think we literally moved like the belt and that was it which belt Connor was holding the action the black belt the what was that Frank

Connor was holding one of the action figures oh hornswoggle that's fine yeah I noticed he was like super flexible he was over here and then I moved them over there

oh now over there. Hey, it's a good toy. Oh, wow. I forgot we had this, by the way. WBC? I forgot about this. Yeah, shout out.

Yeah. How relevant is this now? Anyway, time to go. I'm so happy to be back. What, there's more? Yeah, there's three more. Oh, my God. I thought you said that was it.

I believe it was it, and then they wrote more. Oh, jeez. I thought we should read these. All right. So we will not see Illy or Islam until at least August, assuming John and Alex is for the White House at Hamza v. Strickland is in May. Who knows?

I would be I would be doing a disservice if I If I speculate I really don't know There is a pay-per-view or a numbered event in May And then it's June and then it's July Meaning I think it's May May

What is it? It's mid-May and then the other one's June 14th And then July 11th What else? Can we give a shout out to Karen Bryant? Have her as a guest on your show Ariel Okay Shout-out Karen Bryant

She is she is what she's out of the UFC rotation right so I do wish her the best she's been in the business for a very long time formerly of MTV and then MMA Heed and CBS and all that stuff so let's see let's see what happens to her these things happen in the business not really sure what happened there

but I do wish her the best I do wish her the best and she is a pro so I'm sure she'll land on her feet what else Frankie what else? And then lastly before the Manny rematch can we get a readoff between mysterious Frank and Floyd v. Wow, wow, wow. I would pay, I know we don't have to pay for Floyd versus many. I would pay on pay-per-view to watch Frank versus Floyd.

That is crazy word. Honestly. The first chapter of Harry Potter's Sorcerer Stone. I don't think that's fair to Frank. I think you do a great job. I really do. Hey. We agree to disagree.

No, I think you do a great job. And the way you... The words are hard. The way you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, really like, taking the bull by the audio horns, I think it's been, it's been commendable.

Thanks. I was like a proud father watching you just kind of take control there. Damn straight. He's killing it. He's killing it. Nothing about the reading in that commentary, right?

It's not about the reading. They're trying to get him to read this book for a minute, and he keeps saying like, oh, they don't have it at the library. That's not his job. He's an audio engineer. He's not a producer or a reader. I love that.

I love that. But finally, you know what? This has been the best show ever. It's okay. It's all right. It's all right. Anything else, Frankie? That was it. It's Porham tonight, guys.

So we got to get to the Porham celebrations. Anyone familiar with Porim? Uh, heard of it? It's like our... It's our version of Halloween. We dress up. Does anybody bringing some homantoshion? My... Is anybody bringing any in?

Frank, what's going on with the music? I almost had a heart attack there. I haven't pushed that button so long. By the way... I've changed laptops since then. Connor, are you hard of hearing? Is that why... the like what's going on why is the volume so jeez i don't i don't scare you

jeez louise um no uh what were we talking about i forgot oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah poor yeah jordan man uh mess he made the homemaids last year he made hamilton oh yeah i thought i missed yeah no it's uh it's jordan who the fuck is jordan yeah who by the way i think we've got some uh erbas yerba mott yerbas i think we got i'm tracking some i think i'm staring at him right now. I'm barely highly caffeinated. Because they heard that Frankie spilled his and they came through the clutch.

Which is why I got the new laptop. Yeah. Oh, is that why you got the new laptop? That's why I got the new laptop. Is this the laptop that we got you? No, no. This is the laptop that I have the drop sign. It's been replaced it and I haven't gotten to audition the outro song.

How many laptops you have now? Four? Just a check. Wow, wow, wow. I remember when we got Frank a new laptop that he was talking about for years right here. And then I was like, hey, Frank, did you get the laptop? Well, yeah, I got it like three weeks ago.

Never mentioned it. Never mentioned it. Didn't mention it. Didn't mention the thing. Rick took care of it, meaning you bought it using Rick's credit card without his permission. Hey. Hey. Got shit done.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank you very much.