The Ariel Helwani Show - Arnold Allen, Lou DiBella in studio, Phil De Fries, On The Nose, news & notes, more

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with a look at the first faceoff between Jack Della Maddalena and Carlos Prates and a skit from Quillan Salkilld (06:59). Friend of the show Arnold Allen returns to talk about his upcoming fight against Melky Costa, the state of UFC’s featherweight division and who should get the next title shot, running into former opponent Jean Silva, training with Aiemann Zahabi and his prediction for the Sean O'Malley fight, and more (10:05). KSW heavyweight champion Phil De Fries joins to discuss his 14th consecutive title defense and 17th straight win, wanting a superfight against Francis Ngannou, his rituals and superstitions, and more (41:21). Promoter Lou DiBella is back to touch on hot-button boxing topics, including the early days of Zuffa Boxing, Conor Benn’s big money signing, Eddie Hearn’s rivalry with Dana White, Anthony Joshua fighting Kristian Prenga rather than Tyson Fury, the Ali Revival Act making its way through Congress, Jake Paul’s latest moves, the state of the industry, and more (1:05:19). Ariel is joined by The Boys in and Back and Petesy Carroll for On The Nose, with questions about Jiri Prochazka’s recent appearance on the show, Aljamain Sterling’s historical ranking, what’s at stake for Michael Chandler in June, the NBA playoffs, MMA’s intersection with politics, and more (2:10:31). Ariel closes the show with your Super Chats (3:14:26).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the air. On this Tuesday, every to-day-22. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It's great to be here on a Tuesday afternoon in New York City. Everyone in a great mood here in the Big Apple. Massive, massive, massive game five this evening. Oh, how I wish I was going.

Alas, my son is a soccer game, so I won't be able to attend. but you know yourself, Game 5, Madison Square Garden. This is what we live for. This is what we dream about. And I'll be dreaming about it throughout today's program. Although I must say, I must say, I am so excited about today's show. Today's show is going to put me in a very, very good mood. We have three fantastic characters on today's show.

One in studio guests. A lot to get into with all of them. Plus, it's a special Tuesday edition of On the Nose. Why a Tuesday edition, typically it's Wednesday. Not always, but usually, well, tomorrow's show is loaded, not enough time. We wanted to give you all enough time to answer your questions, ask the questions, have a proper discussion surrounding said questions. So the place to be for all the questions, in case you missed the post, ariaholani.substack.com. Perfect way to never miss when the post goes live is to just hit the subscribe, no fee, and it'll come to your inbox, and then you can leave us some questions.

There's already a ton. that back into the program. Prior to on the nose, we're going to be joined by one of our favorite guests, back by popular demand. A lot of people have been asking me for quite some time to have this gentleman in studio to talk about all the things going on, in particular in the world of boxing, but also combat sports, talking about the great Lou Debella, what a mind he is. We got to talk to him about the Alec stuff. We got to talk to him about AJ and Fury and the tune-up fights, all that stuff for more, Zufa boxing, Eddie versus Dana. What about his brand new CarMax Park Stadium for his beloved Richmond Flying Squirrels

that he is also proud about? What about that? It just opened. And I think his team has won 17 of their last 20. He's a minor league baseball owner as well. But we're going to talk a lot of boxing with him. He's always very fired up. Love when Lou visits us and he will do so at about 2 o'clock.

Prior to that, we're going to be joined by Phil and Still DeFries. One of the best nicknames in MMA because all this guy does is win. 14 title defenses, 17 in a row he has won. Rainey defending KSW heavyweight champion. Just won a couple weekends ago. The guy is, I mean, he's unbelievable. He had a up and down run in the UFC and has truly found a home. He has the longest winning streak of anyone in MMA right now as far as the champions are concerned.

And yes, I know it's KSW and it's not the UFC, but it's still pretty damn impressive. He's a teammate and friend of one, Tom Aspenal, so we'll get into it all with Phil and Still. The freeze. And then prior to that, one half of the main event for the UFC card on May 16th at the apex, one of our favorites. He's one of our own. Arnold Allen, he's one of our own. You know, we love to talk to the Almighty one. Arnold Allen, he's fighting Melke Costa, six-fight winning streak for Costa.

Alan coming off the loss to John Silva, January 24th, looking to get back on track. He has dropped three of his last four, and this is actually a very big day for him, because his beloved Ipswich Town Football Club is playing Southampton later in the day, looking to secure their spot in the Premier League. Not everyone could be as good as Nottingham Forest, and so he is going to be. to join us before that and talk about all the fun things going on in his life and in particular his tweets. His tweets are amazing. His tweets are just amazing. We were reading some of them before the show and I was I was crying of laughter just because he his comedic timing, his thoughts, his, his brain,

like just he's second to none. He truly is second to none. So there's the show, looking forward to it. There you have it. And you know, it's a big week. This weekend, as I've said, three massive events. UFC in Perth. JD.M. versus Carlos Prochase. Now, Oia Inouye versus Juntunaketani in Japan. And then we end the day with David Benavides versus Zerdo Ramirez. Lest we forget, Australia is sort of the epicenter of the combat sports world because not only is the UFC in Perth this weekend, matchroom is in Melbourne. Not to be confused with Melbourne. Melbourne, tomorrow. They have an event tomorrow that is headlined by our very own, our good friend, Sky Nicholson, friend of the program. Maybe not our very own, but she's a friend of the show. Headlining her very first matchroom card. It goes down

tomorrow for the WBC interim belt. Here's the face off from earlier today. Yeah, there she is. Sky Nicholson, massive opportunity for her, getting a chance to fight at home. getting a chance to headline at home. She's going up against Maria Turner for the WBC Super Bantamway title. There's the face off. There's the aftermath of the way in earlier today. And the event is going down tomorrow morning here in America, April 29th. Evening time over in Melbourne.

What are the odds for that one, Mr. G.C. What do we got? Do you have a guess? Do you have an attempt at what you think they might be? She's going to be the favorite sky. Of course. Is she going to be as big of a favorite as AJ versus Christian Pranga? I'm going to say, because you know the odds. Yeah, yeah, I'm aware I got on.

I'm going to say not as big. She is not as big. Okay. Still four digits, minus 1,400. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay.

Do we have a prop bet on? via stoppage. We sure do. Okay. Well, what some call the best bet in all of sports, Sky Nicholson by decision, minus 400. The books are becoming attuned to it. Buy K.O. Plus 425.

That's the one. There it is. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. She's in our home country. First time headlining. I'm feeling it. Take it to the bank.

H. Dow. That's plus 425. Fight to just not go the distance, period, is plus 400. Wow. Wow. That's more. I'd as well just take that. Yeah.

Holy smokes. All right. Well, there you have it. Also earlier today in Perth, we got a face off from the aforementioned Jack Delamadalena and Carlos Prachas. And you know what? Struck me here? Prachas, much taller, much bigger looking than Mr. J.D.M.

I know J.D.M not the biggest of Welterweights. But what do you guys think? Kind of surprising, right? I can't wait. What a fight, man. What a freaking fight. I love that fight. It's so good, dude.

I really do love that fight. As I said yesterday, alternate universe, that's a title fight in the year 2026. JDM beats Islam, Carlos beats Leon. That's a title fight. The whole card is a lot of fun. You've got Quillen Salkield on the card as well. I actually saw a video in which fun little skit they did with Quillan over at the UFCHQ. Did you see this video?

Sure did. I didn't see this one. I want to see this one. Okay, this is a fun little skit. Quillan doing a little bit of acting. Yeah, it's time to go. Come on, go. Go on, boy, chill, let me stay. Good for you. Yep.

Cool, working. Good stuff, mate. I love your work. Yeah, like, I wouldn't do that for you, to be honest. Can we pause right there real? Is that the dude who makes the posters, by the way? No, it looks like he was making the fight day graphics where they post the full card. Okay, okay, okay, keep going. Yeah, that guy is spared for now.

Yeah, yeah. This is fun. This is fun. I like this. Shout to UFC HQ. I know this spot very well. Yeah. You're down to go in life today.

How's it going? Hi, mate. Good bless day, mate. Thanks, too, too. Cool is a man. Need the stash back. Did he go alive yet? I'm just going to say we're missing that stash.

How do you work this thing? This is good stuff. I like this. A little original. Oh, Johnny Walker cameo. Come up. Get that in here. Oh, Dana.

Dana? Isn't his office up here somewhere? It's time to go. Come on. Go on, go. I thought that was Roy Nelson on the radio. I got to fight. Was that Edmund that he was wiping down as well?

Edmund Shabazzian? Was it? I think so. I missed it. Vegas guy. I thought that was good work, right? A little personality, Rick? I like it.

I'd like anything that's not the standard shit. More of that? I'm into that. Yeah, more. Just give me more of that. Is it a Christian Prang guy out of five? Is it a two out of five? Is it a...

What is, is... No, he's a three. Is it on a scale of Christian Prangas two five? Yes. No, that's a five out of five. And also, Bullings' acting was... He's not bad. No, it's not bad.

It's a three point five out of five. I like the sensitivity. I like the effort, but I mean... There were a couple of like sloppy edits, right? It was a little slow as well. We could have had more storyline. You guys are being too harsh. Okay.

Sorry, you need more Sopranos edits. Is that what you're asking? No, we definitely don't need that. Okay, good. We'll ship more of those out. We definitely do not need that. Later in the show, we'll show you some more soccer footage from Carl's Parchus. We'll get Pizzi's take on all of that. But for now,

let us move along and say hello to our first guest of the day. Always a delight when we get a chance to speak to this man. He's got a huge fight coming up on the 16th of May. And he's got a big afternoon coming up because his beloved Ipswich Town looking to secure Premier League status for next season as they go up against Southampton. What a nice little showing against man sitting the FAA Cubs semis. You didn't know I knew footy like this, huh? Let's say hello to the pride of Whip Switch, the one and only Arnold Allen. There he is. Hello, Arnold.

How are you? Good, mate. How you did? It's a tremendous day when we get to talk to you. It's always very exciting. What a shirt, by the way, that you're wearing. You're wearing an official Arnold Allen shirt. We saw that on the store.

Oh, this one. Oh, it's incredible. You could buy that. Look, limited edition. Yeah. Yeah, I hope it sells quick because I don't want to see it much more. It's tremendous. It really is.

Did you shave your head like that, by the way? I just kind of thought it was funny. And then people kept... I posted it, and then people get sending me pictures of me bald. And I keep seeing people with profiles as me bald. And I just thought, you know, I'd be funny to put it on a show. Sure. Where are you coming to us from?

Are you in England right now? Yeah, I'm at home. I'm at home. What's fantastic over there? Yeah, the sun's out. It's windy. I'm in the conservatory. And it's kind of like a cat.

house if you see it. What's a conservatory? I don't know what you call it. Is it like a sunroom? Okay, okay. It's nice. Windows. Yeah, we've got this.

We've got the star, the real star of the show. Where is she in an Amazon box? Why? She just likes the box. You think she likes the box or she likes to be in clothes like that and perhaps is just looking for that type of comfort? She's just like, you get a big Amazon box. She just hides in it.

That's like a new place. You can't throw it away. How often do you switch up the box? Well, if it's like a bigger one, she goes to that one. So I ordered something from Amazon recently. It was pretty big. So this one, this one usurps all the other boxes. Okay, it fits.

By the way, how do we feel about the match later today? Ipswich Southampton? You think we'll, you have two games left, two matches left, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I need three, I think three points and we're guaranteed. I'm not super confident about tonight. But, yeah, I know.

I don't know. It's a tough one. I think we beat QPR. Definitely beat QPR the next game. This one is a bit like, I know. Yeah, and if it goes to playoffs, I don't think we get promotion if we go playoffs. You're trying to avoid that, right?

You don't want to go to Wembley. Yeah, yeah. But I think, obviously, you want to win tonight. I'm not sure. The form hasn't really been looking great. I think Southamander the right. But yeah, yeah. I think I'm more like beat QPR in it.

What's it like watching championship football, having a rooting interest? What's it like rooting for a team who's in the championship? It's kind of like, it's the most competitive. competitive league. If you see at the top, there's like, I don't know what it is, but there's a few teams that are all, there's a couple, like, in the brink of being in the playoffs, then there's a couple, like,

trying to get into the number two spot. Everyone's on the same points. It's like, goal difference. It's stressful. And then you, like, you go up, you go down, you go up, you go down. It's like, oh, man. I was just being cheeky because, you know, we are Premier League, you know, for us, I was just being. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with that. but how fun would it be if you're playing Spurs in the championship, huh? What's fun about that? I mean, it's a big club, you know. Nice stadium and they're playing a Millwall, you know. With all due respect to Millwall. It is a nice stadium. Imagine that in the championship.

They've got one of the best stages I've been to recently. And they're in the championship. Stoke City at Spurs in the championship. Catch it. Yeah. Is that done? It's not done, it's not done, but it's not looking great. It's not looking great.

Well, things are looking up for you. You're returning on May 16th. How'd you feel about this booking when it was offered to you? Yeah, I love it. Love it. Love the matchup. Good guys, dangerous. Brings out the best to myself.

Happy to get a quick turnaround after a long layoff. And it's quite funny because usually I kind of sort of geared myself. up, hopefully I get an offer and I'll fight July and I start pushing for that and they came out with May and I was already a little bit heavy just

just because recently I've only been getting off at these sort of long notice fights so yeah I was kind of expecting that again but I was very happy to get a shorter notice than usual and I definitely take nine weeks over like four months or whatever it was usually so I am happy

to be getting active. This is a this is a a very quick turnaround for you, from January to May? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no reason why not. And maybe I built a bit of a name now and they actually want to get me fighting. And I'm not injured, so that's a winner. That's huge. Another main event for you, but this will be the first time that you're in the main event

as the Red Corner, second man to walk out. You're the A side here. I didn't even know that. I didn't even consider it. That's a big deal. Now, did you know about Malki Costa before the offer, six in a row for him? Yeah, of course. Nazi and fight. I always sort of keep an eye on the other guys in the division and watch the fights and stuff. It's good. Man, it's good, really good.

One of the rare times in recent memory where the UFC is going up against another big MMA show, that's the same night as the Netflix card, the Ronda Rousey Gina Carrano card. How do you feel about that? Nah. Couldn't care less. Yeah, I mean, I mean, the fact is me and Melki headlining against them, I don't think the UFC are really trying to compete, right? What do you mean? Put me and Milky Down, but like, let's be real star power. Like, they ain't trying to compete. I think that they had your date booked. I think that you, I feel, when did you, when did you get your, like your, your fight offer, if you will?

About five weeks ago. Okay, so maybe, no, maybe you came after. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I think that's the US is playing it. It's like, they're not going to try and compete with that. I don't think they care. And I know you're going to invest it, interested in it, but like, I don't know what I'd rather watch.

Tell us, which one? Probably me and Melchia. Hell yeah. You should say that. You should say that. Yeah. It's true, right? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't go to talk shit, but, like, let's be real. No, listen. I would have been shocked if you just said the opposite. Actually, if it was you with your self-deprecating humor, I wouldn't have been surprised if you said the opposite, but you should be feeling that way. Yeah, no, for sure. This is two guys, you know, in our primes, the height of MMA.

You know, it's at the matter apex. That kind of blows, but like the fight itself is sick. How did you feel when you found that it was at the apex and not in an arena? It's been a minute since you were, you know, fighting at the apex. Yeah, like going from fighting at the T-Mobile on obviously the first Paramount card, paper, well, not pay-per-view, but first Paramount card, and like the biggest scene to that, it's like

you're headlining it, but you don't really feel like your headlining it, you're just another poster. You get a poster for the room, so that's cool. Yeah. It seems like, so very interesting time at 1.45, as you know, Aljo just fought. We don't really know

where they're going to go. It's, like, you would think it's going to be Mofsar, but it's still kind of open. Everyone's jockeying for position. If it was up to you, who does get the next shot. I mean, it should have been Mosvar after he beat me, really. Yeah. It's got to be Mozvar in it.

It's got to be. Okay. What do you make of Aljo? Did you see his fight on Saturday? Yeah, he looked great. He looked great. Guy showed he's one of the greats. Obviously, he's a great abandon weight.

He looked fantastic. And he's a problem for everyone, I think. I like the idea of Aljo versus John Silva. Yeah, I think that's a... That's a great fight, yeah. Really good fight. And I don't know. I like John, but he seems to get his name in that title hat.

Like, you know, the whole thing, the Paramount, he was facing off with the belt and stuff. Like, no one else was doing that fight. But it's a bit weird. It seemed a bit like they were trying to make a thing there. I don't know. I saw you guys. You were speaking to him, I think, backstage recently. You guys all good now?

Yeah. Never any beef. No, he's cool. He's cool. It seemed like you didn't love the surfboard thing. No, I don't care. It was, I thought it was funny. And it's even funny.

Now people try and like, you know, the Twitter dickheads try and like comment like, oh, you go surf or something. I'm like, mate, shut out. I don't give me. It's just funny. Yeah. Was that at the London event when you saw him? Yeah, yeah, that's it.

What was the vibe there like? Because you've, you know, you've been on London cards, you've been to London cards. It seemed like the fans were a little bit restless that night. What was the vibe in the actual building? Oh, for the fights. Yeah. I didn't go to the fights.

Where did you see him? I saw the video of you with him backstage. Yeah, I did the press conference on the way in, and I was supposed to go to the fights. And then I lived quite far out of London. Then I got this fight, so I was like, oh, I don't want to keep driving in and out. Okay, okay.

Yeah, so I just decided to focus on training and yeah what happened on the way home from the January 24th card you got stuck you had to take a ferry canceled flights a whole mess of a situation yeah

there was a storm I think I got stuck in Chicago their flight was canceled there was a storm up in that sort of way flight got the vote we traveled to Amsterdam because we have cat and you can't fly

directly into the UK with a pet in the cabin. So we fly to Amsterdam and then get the ferry to England because you can do that with the cat. So that's what we do. Golly. So you came with the cat to Vegas? Well, we was in Montreal, so I did the camp there. And because of in Montreal, the cat comes to my wife kind. Yeah, it's a whole thing.

By the way, how cool is it that Amon's on this White House card, huh? Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. That's really cool. I thought, I was hoping he'd get the Shawnee-O-Malley fight, but I didn't think they would put it on the White House car. I thought, to be honest, it kind of made sense to Corey Sanhagen O'Malley, because then you've got American versus American. Sure. I guess it kind of stirs the pot of it having a Canadian there, right?

Yeah, they're very controversial, the Canadians. Yeah, but, you know, I mean, surely, I think, I think Amis going to win it, Like, I've trained him for years. Amon's, I think he wins it in so many different ways. There's so many ways you can win the fight. But, like, surely you're fighting an American on the White House, you're not wanted to win. No.

Like, surely, right? It's like Ilya and Justin in the main event. Yeah, like, it's obvious who they want to win. But I don't know if it's going to go that way for them, at least in the main. No, I don't think so. I think Amon wins too. Yeah. Gosh.

It would be a tough night for America. Yeah, it could be. One of my favorite things to do when you're on the program, Arnold, is to just ask you about some of your banger tweets, because you have so many of them. Arnold, I was crying of laughter at some of these. When we were watching them, we were looking at them beforehand. So I just want to ask you about some of them, okay, if you don't mind.

You wrote about the P-plates on the cars in the UK, which I'm, I don't even know what this is, but this was a, you know. rode just feel like you shouldn't have passed your test if you put a P on your car. What does that mean? I don't even know what that means. So a P, basically a P is like just passed. Basically, if you're a really shit driver, you put a P on your car.

So you'll see some people that have a P on their car, but the P has obviously been on the car for like five, six, seven, eight fucking years. The P is like faded. It's like a red P and it's like faded. It's like you didn't just pass. You were just terrible at driving. It's like you should not pass your test if you have to put a pee on it.

This seemed to have resonated with a lot of people. Yeah, no. It's a big thing in England. Is it? Okay. We don't have that here. It's bad. Well, you took issue with that.

You took issue with the Cadbury eggs as well. What's wrong with the eggs this here? Mechalky Easter eggs are full of shite. Cheers, Cadbury, you bastards. What was it? What was it? Subpar standard? no so actually this was sarcasm so oh was it

everyone was mad because cabrie sold like i think it sold like 10 years ago though like craft or something and the quality went down and everyone's complaining they changed the quality no one's buying their easter eggs so i was oh but i just thought it was funny okay but did you try them was it the same standard no the standard's definitely gone down but yeah not that big a deal not that big it's chocolate in it it's it's going to be shit. What about the turtles on the walls over in the UK? Sorry, May, you can't just draw cocks on all the turtles you see.

People need to be more enraged by the turtle graffiti that's been happening. What's going on here? Honestly, on that one, I think I just saw a total. That came to the way. What do you mean? Who's drawing cocks on the turtles? I don't know. Yeah, no, I don't think there's much more to that one in there.

That's just that. Really? Yeah. Okay. You know who I'm loving these days? The Jimskin lad. Yeah, yeah. He's quality.

He's so good, huh? I love that guy. And like, I love it. There's just nothing, I don't know, I haven't, unless there has been, but I haven't seen anything controversial. Just seems like a nice guy. Makes me laugh. Funny clips.

Brilliant. Have you done the shoulder roll? No, no. I ain't got it like that. move like that. He's so happy all the time, right? He's just so, there's something kind of bro-y about him, but also wholesome at the same time. Yeah, and he's everywhere. I've seen him at all the boxing events. I see him at the Premier League game, Man City, the Arsenal the other day. He was there. He's everywhere. It's amazing. All he does is roll his shoulder and that's it. Sometimes

it's that simple. I think, did he do the deal with DeZone or something? He did, yes. Crazy. Okay, now what about the, uh, the, this, uh, the, the, the electric cars issue that you had here. Let me see this. If you see me rolling around London in a gay electric car, little electric car, mind your eff in business. Kier Stammer said he couldn't risk me looking like a flash bastard in the E39 M5. I'm eyeballing. Go green. You lost me there on the back end. Okay. So basically in the UK, like the only way to have, the most efficient way to have a car through your business tax efficient

it has to be an electric car and so I threw my company I got like an electric car and I hate it I hate it it sucks it just like whizzes away

and my wife laughs except me when I leave the house because all she hears is me going who on the road and I like cars as well I like cars

like cars like I want like a nice big engine but it's something you know E-39 I think that was the EFOTOM-I-M-5.

I think that was the V8-NG biotub. I think it was two turbos. I don't fucking know. All right. Yeah. It sounds good. I don't want it. But basically living in England, you can't afford it.

And if you have it, the government will tax the shit out of you. Speaking of your wife, it seemed like you were talking about her and the fees that you had to pay to get her over. Here's the tweet right over here. will I get money if I accidentally forget to apply for my wife's visa and accidentally call to say she's in illegal just wondering already spent thousands for her to be here. I mean, this is a banger right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a, I'm not the most political guy, but our government, it just seems like

they've gone mad. They were offering money, they were offering money for illegals to leave. But then there were people who were exposing a loophole of it. It's like you could just come here, take money, come back, get paid again, and just keep going. So it's like you could infinitely just come to England and get paid, go home, get paid. I just, yeah, I don't know if they amended that. Brocant-and-ist. Yeah.

But then I figured I could expose it, exploit it, and benefit. I've come illegally. And then she gets paid, goes back to Canada, comes. back. Yeah. Is she a British citizen? Not officially, no, but she has a, she has a visa here, like a, I don't even know, actually.

I don't even know what kind of visa she's on, but she's on something. Are you a Canadian citizen? No way, man. They want way too much tax from me in Quebec. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a mess there. What about, who are you talking about here regarding the mustache? I wasn't sure you said, nah, mate, you can't wear that mustache around here.

Who are you referring to? I just saw a man in my village or a mustache that made me laugh and you needed to get it off your chest Yeah, that's what Twitter's for in it Yeah, we thought you were referring to our very own Pizzi Carroll who's working on a stash himself What do you, what do you reckon?

It's quite a stash, actually, that's nice That's decent Better how I can grow, that's nice I think you could get a good one going there It looks pretty thick It looks it, but it's not No You gave a shout of

to the crew that created the longest tiramisu in the world. Yeah, you see that? I think it was like 400 and something meters. Unbelievable. Congrats to all involved. When I see this on the timeline, I just laugh. I don't know, I can't help myself. I always think they just go into the abyss.

No, no, no, trust me. They come to me. The algorithm sends it to me. And then the other one that made me crack up was you saying that Stone Cold versus Booker T in the supermarket is your favorite fight of all time. I think that's one of the best. That's got to be. What a battle. Yeah, I love it.

I love it. To honest, I don't really know many of the wresters from now. Stone Cold is, he's an all-time favorite, all-time. That era, just the best. Tremendous. And when you say fight, you just mean fight here. You don't mean, like, wrestling match, just an actual battle. Yeah, like, everything.

Yeah, everything. Hagler-Herns, you know, like Bonner Griffin, Stone Cold Booker. That's the one. That's what? Always you say, everybody scans it through the checkout. He scans everybody's like, oh, price check on a jackass or something like that. So good. Is that the way he says, yeah, something like that.

Is that one of those that when it comes through, like if you see it, you stumble upon it, you have to watch it. Yeah, and it's a long scene as well. Every time. I heard him tell a story one time about that, like what they had to do and how much they had to pay in the aftermath. Because it's a real, it's a real supermarket. Oh, they just smashed it a bit. They just smashed, yeah. And then they had to pay them for all the damage.

I love that. That's amazing. Authentic. Yeah, yeah. See, I'd like to do one of those scenes. That would be you and Milky Costa before May 16th? Just go through like a Walmart. We just smash it up.

Nice little skit there. We were showing a skit from Quillen to Kill. You know Quillan. Yeah, not personally, but yeah, no, I do know. But yeah, the skits cool. I like to see more of that stuff, you know, like building, building stars and doing stuff like that, you know? You don't like the AI promos?

See, I use AI. I can't say I don't use AI, but not for artwork and promos and stuff like that. I literally use chat GPT and be like, I'll ask it a question. But like, you know, I don't want to like generate videos and artwork and stuff.

Sure, no, of course. It's totally different. You want to know, like, where's the best coffee shop of the neighborhood is one thing. Putting out content is another, right? right? Yeah, no, I don't like that. I was watching your YouTube channel. Great stuff as always. I saw the Fight Camp Cheat Day, porridge, eggs Benedict and turkey bacon, Nutella on bread,

cookies, yucky with short ribs and garlic knots and brownies all in one in one day. Yeah, yeah, I go in. And the way it's been coming down, so that's good. And this is in the midst of camp. Yeah, and you know what's a real problem? So, One of my main training partners for this camp, his girlfriend bakes, I think I post on the film, ready to crumble. She bakes cookies and cakes, and she trains at the gym. Sometimes she brings them in for people to try. I have a cheat day every Saturday.

So I'll see her and it will just trigger my head. I'm like, oh, can I make an order for Saturday? And I can't not do it. And what is this? What kind of cakes? She does everything. Oh. She makes it.

Yeah, cookies, like brownies, blondies, cakes. It's amazing. And you eat this all on the same day. You have to eat it within that Saturday. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Saturday's the last sparring of the week and have a little rest after. And obviously, I don't cheat before the sparring, but like... Of course.

How many calories do you think you consume on that Saturday? I tracked it one time. I don't do this anymore, but I tracked it one time because my nutritionist wanted me. account and it was about 7,000 and I sent it to him and he was few of me he was like what the fuck you do and then I was a pound lighter the next few days so wow crazy yeah I saw a video where you punched some some geyser in the stomach yeah you see that guy who is this guy oh yeah he's going around the UK taking body shots off people uh but yeah it was a bit I called him out again

because he said people get like a warm-up go they take a few I had two goes and he didn't give me a full full go so yeah what like what percentage were you going there I can't remember it wasn't that hard it was like

that looked hard yeah but I barely pulled but you see the other guys see guys do it like taking a run up and shit oh okay you wanted that no no I didn't want to do that I wanted to drop him without moving too much but uh... did you view it as

as like as a defeat of sorts the fact that you didn't drop him no because I didn't really try super hard okay okay fair enough yeah what do you make of this

AJ Fury stuff do you know what tell me it's a shame it's too late but like who's he finding Christian Pringle or Pringle

pregnant pregnant or something Christian Prenga Pranga I don't yeah I'd never I'll follow boxing a bit I've never seen that guy I don't know if that makes me a casual, but I'd never heard of him.

It's kind of weird with boxing, isn't it? Like, because they announced the other fight. There's no date with it, really. Then they announced this fight quietly. He's kind of, kind of like teeters on like fixed fights, right? Like, it's not a real fight. No one's looking at it as a potential banana skin. It's just, oh, he's fighting fury.

This fight will. I understand through what he's been through. He's going to have a warm-up. I get it. But yeah, just don't announce the Fury fight and just have a warm-up, I think. Couldn't agree more. The warm-up is fine, but to announce the other one first with no date, no venue, no location attached, and just assume that this quote-unquote test or whatever it is is just going to go swimmingly.

And it's just, it's not the way fights should be announced, right? Yeah. Yeah, I hate it. It just, even with the Fury, McMudov fight, it's like, it's good that MacMudov got a payday and all that, but like, I don't know. It just seemed like pantomined to me. When I watched the whole thing, it was like a, it just seemed like a bit of a bit of a drop.

I actually turned it off after round six. Wow. It was just like, you know what? This is bad. And then I see the whole call out after in the ring. It's just, oh, man, this ain't boxing. Why are you a food cook? because when there's good food around I like to see it eating you know what I mean

do you just look at it so this is obviously everyone was saying that pizza are bad but this place does amazing pizzas like vodka sauce pizza is so good love that vodka sauce yeah and uh I don't know just like especially fight week when I'm cutting weight I want to go to like an iHOP or sort of like a Cinnabon and watch people eat pancakes and cakes. We get through the week. You literally just sit there.

Yeah, usually have a coffee. That's by it. Oh, my gosh. What's your, what's your ultimate pizza order? Toppings. What are you getting? Pizza order. See, I've been off the port for a while, so that kind of kills it.

I had dominoes in quite a while. I'm just like, I don't know. I've just been on like a chicken, like chicken pizza. Pizza. Chicken pizza. I've never had chicken pizza. Yeah, it does the job. My go-to, green olives and pineapple, tremendous.

I'm telling you. No, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, the sweet and the salty is incredible. If you're ever back in Montreal, there's a dominoes on Coz-St. Luke Road, not too far from NDG. I don't know where you guys live, but on Coz and Luke Road, the dominoes there is the place every Sunday we would order from there, green olives and pineapple, domino's pizza, I feel it right here, just as I'm talking about it, right here. Actually, yeah, if I tell it road, I think that would be the one I order from when I'm there.

Come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell them you want the Halwani. Is that actually what they know? No, no, they wouldn't know. I was a wee laugh back then. It was like 1999 last time I read. You know, I don't, I've done this thing in my life where I don't eat as much shit food as I used to.

Oh. So I'll have a cheeseburger, but it's a good cheeseburger. Yeah. like a good beef. I'll have pizza. Well, it's like from a proper place or we make it at home. Okay. You've become bourgeois.

Yeah, maybe. I think it's more for health reasons. Sure. Or that. Or that. The last time I had Domino's was after the Silver Fight, actually, in Vegas. You had Domino's in Vegas? Yeah.

Well, I ordered everything. I had Raising Cains, had Domino's. I had five guys. Crumble cookie. all in one sitting. Yeah, I ate a lot. I ate a lot. I just sat back at the Airbnb watching the fights,

just eating my woes away. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, Domino's in the U.S. Not a good choice. It's different in Canada and different in the UK. I think the UK for me is my favorite. It's top tier here. Well, I'm looking forward to having you back.

May 16th. I'll be watching, all right? So don't think, I know you took that little, you took that little zinger there that I'm more invested in the other one. I'm invested in you. You're a guy, all right? You're one of our own.

You're one of our own. Ronald Allen, he's one of our own. That's calling me out. Who's calling you out? No, right. Ronda will probably be, who the fuck is this guy compete in the years?

No, no. You don't want that smoke. You don't know. She was crazy over there. I see her in the presser. Jacked as well. What's going on? She's jacked.

She took some time off and she's back. Always a pleasure. She's coming, I think. What was that? What was that? I think she's been in Pacers covered by the looks of it. Is he going to be there? Yeah, of course, of course.

Of course. Oh, and by the way, documentary, when is it coming out? I don't know, man. I think he's coming to see me soon. He wants to get more clips. I don't know what this guy's doing. It's like a 15-year project. The clips he's putting out are great, but yes, we want the thing.

We want the actual thing, right? Yeah, hopefully I get more of a... I should see him next week, so I'll get more of an insight and don't know what's going on. All right. Well, good luck in the final weeks. Good luck on the fight. Always a pleasure. And good luck later today. Ipswich Town versus Southampton on a Tuesday night. Away or home? Oh, way. Oh, tough one. Thank you so much for plugging the ocean. Yeah, get the shirts right now and the whole merch store. This one is out Thursday. It's out Thursday. It drops. Okay. There's the store. I want it gone as soon as possible because there's loads of them in my house.

I just don't want to see him. There it is. Yeah. And what's the website address? Almightymerch.com. There it is. All right. Thank you, Arnold.

You're the best. It's so good. I'd like to get one myself. Thank you so much. I'll text you after I said you all. Appreciate it. You're the man. Thank you, Arnold.

Good luck to you. There he is. The great Arnold Dallan. Always a pleasure. Always a delight to speak to Arnold Dallan. Let's keep those good vibes rolling. I said at the top of the show. show, our next guest has one of the great nicknames in MMA. His nickname is And Still, and it flows.

Phil and Still de Freeze. He's won 17 fights in a row, 14 straight title defenses. It's the best run as far as any champion is concerned in Major League, MMA right now. He fought two weekends ago, another victory. It's easy work for him these days, and he's kind enough to join us on this Tuesday afternoon. There he is. Big Phil in the house. Hello, Phil. How are you? Hello. Good to see you again, mate. Great to be back on the show. It's always a pleasure.

Thank you so much. I always love seeing your big smiley face. Do you ever get bored of the losing now? I mean, it's become old hat for you. No, well, if you do, if you don't win, you get beat up as well, you know, so I want that to happen. But just keep going, keep going. A few more fights for me yet, I think I'll. Did you ever think you would be in a position where you've won 14 straight title defenses,

title fights, 17 en-roiled. These are insane numbers here, Phil. And it's not like you're winning decisions. Very quick finishes, first-round finishes. It's just so impressive. You're the biggest sure thing in MMA right now. A title victory for Phil DeFries in a title fight, a title defense, a successful one.

Did you ever think you would get to this point in your career? No, I mean, when I got kicked out of UFC, I had no self-belief at all, that I lost on some other shows and stuff. When I fought And the Shack for the title, I honestly thought I was there to get beat. It took me like maybe five or six fights to really start believing of myself, you know?

I still can't believe it now, you know? So we're two years away from ten years. That's the goal now. But I always believe you can lose. You know, when you start thinking you can't lose, that's what you do lose, you know? So no stone and covered, you know, we're going to keep pressing that.

I take everybody seriously. But, yeah, I mean, I know I could lose next one. know, but I hope not. Some fun little facttoids about when you won your first KSW title fight. Tom Aspinall and Ilya hadn't even made their Cage Warriors debut yet, believe it or not. Joshua Van, the UFC Flyway champion, was just 16 years old. Raul Rojas was just 13 years old. Carlos Alberg was 2 in MMA.

Israel Desaania had just made his second UFC appearance, and the PFL was just three events in. That's how long ago it was when you first fought for the KSW title. That's crazy. That's crazy. I know eight years, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, that coincides with the exact time. With the exact time, I beat the anxiety with, with, with the pills, you know? So, just a great sporting, uh, achievements, lots of, lots of joy there.

And I've got, I've got to enjoy my normal life, you know, since then, you know, so no, no, no looking back for me, you know? From afar, it seems to all be going so very well for you. Does the anxiety ever pop up in other way, shapes or forms? Well, I'll tell you what, this week, it really come back to bit me, you know? It was my 40th birthday, so on Saturday I drank like 100 beers. And yesterday, I was, oh, my God, I was like, fool. But that's self-inflicted. It's nothing like what it used to be, you know, like my everyday life was terrible.

And fight day was, I was like walking the great mile. I was like, I hate that. Like I said, I paid them some million times. I don't know why I did it. I don't know. It's kind of my identity, you know. But I'm like the mixed martial arts, the reason I started was to stop getting bullied, you know.

And it worked for that and the fighting came second, you know. But happy as Larry now, good now, good now. Did you really drink 100 beers on your birthday? No, probably 15 drinks, like maybe 10 beers and five doubles and shots and things. I was only at the local cricket club, you know, it wasn't like even a party. It was like just a family affair, you know, but all the other dads,

we're there with the kids, all the other dads were like, oh, we're going home. I was like, we'll drop the kids off, we'll go to town. But luckily, they didn't. Luckily, thank you. Okay, okay.

And by the way, happy birthday to you, the idea of turning 40, does that give you anxiety? No, like I said, like life just keeps on getting better for me, you know, like I live for my kids now and the kids are just getting better and better, more enjoyable.

They're turning into proper little people now. You know, you can have little conversations, proper deep conversations with them. Life this keeps getting better for me, you know? Like, I wouldn't change it for the world. How old is your oldest? Nine, nine. Oh, she's tall as well, you know. She was so good at the martial arts, you know,

when I used to take a training, but then she quit for gymnastics. What are they doing, a girly sport? But gymnastics, it's a great base for everything. If you can do a backflip, you can do anything, you know? I was curious if any of your kids want to follow in your footsteps. Do you foresee that? No, and I really want them to. I want them to.

Like, a lot of people say, oh, they don't want the kids to fight. I mean, I don't know about going all the way and stuff, you know. I would like that. But I would love to teach them something that I'm really good at, you know. But maybe they'll go back one time. Well, when the dream is when I retire, I want to try and get this 10 years champ, maybe he's do a couple more fights. And then the dream is to homeschool the children, you know?

martial arts is going to be in the menu every single day then okay and you can you can dictate that okay so you did recently resign with k s w right yes i signed oh this new deal it's just this is beautiful you know it's just uh it's like it's good like it's good pretty much gonna set me and the family up you know so i'm so happy with it you know i just love kastubly i love poland too it's just the best but we're thinking about moving there when i'm a tie you know i wouldn't do it now because i think my team's the best in the whole world but when mick and tom aren't injured It's the best in the world But eventually that is the dream

Okay, so how many fights did you sign for? Four fights and I've got three more left And you think that's... That'll take me just on the cusp of 10 years So I do this, that's the 10 year Rolex one It's got to be worth double the 5 year Rolex, you know? And do you think you're done after that? Do you think this will be your final contract?

No, I think I'd like to do one more contract Maybe three more after that, you know? then that'll be homeschooling the kids time. I might even do like freak fights and things, but like I am honestly getting better every fight camp, you know, but the wear and tail on my body, like I'm iced myself every day, I'm spending fortunes on recovery.

I'm getting better and better, but the body's kind of saying, come on, Phil, give me a break. When you say freak fights, what do you mean? Like fight two midgets in a phone box or something, you know? You're interested. you find the right midgets, you know,

the point of the right midgets, I'll do it. I thought you were going to say something like, perhaps like an Eddie Hall type of fight. Well, you know,

Eddie Hall called me out in the nicest possible way, you know, he wanted the fight for a legitimate heavyweight title. So what I propose is KSW

put on a super heavyweight bout, so that's a real title, that's a professional MMA title, and I will shake his hand beforehand, and I will promise him, I will not shoot

a single take down the whole fight, you know, to tempt them in, you know, tempt them in. Yes. And that can be my start. Into the freak fight, you know. Have you pitched this to the bosses at KSW? No, this is my pitch now.

You're lifting guys, that's the pitch. That's the pitch. Let's go for it. Gentlemen's agreement on my honor, and I'm a man of honor. I'd like to think so anyway. I won't show any takedowns, you know. But if he falls over, I'm getting on him. And so that would be super heavyweight.

What do you think the size difference would be, the weight difference? Well, I'm one third I cut from 1.30 normally. I think he's like 150. So, but like, I don't think you'd be able to catch us, you know? I think, I don't know how much gas he's got, you know.

So I think I should quite come to be win. Instead, I wouldn't worry about the one. And if he does grab me, I'm an expert grappling, you know, like it's not going to be the difference it is. You know, it's going to like Hoys Grady versus all the big guys when they didn't know how to grapple. For those that don't know, 150 is 330 pounds

130 is around 285 so that's you know 40 45 or so he might be bigger he might be bigger I don't know you know but I don't be slim down for the for the when he's fighting you know I'd love to see that that would be fun would you have any concerns about the size no concerns about the size at all you know like I think it's a hindrance being that big for fighting I don't think you about like he certainly can't if he wants a legitimate title

that's 5-5 just to move around for and I don't that you can do it, you know. But it'll be so much fun for me, you know, to be the striker. And then it'll be, I'm like, I'll just treat that as just fun, you know, because that's the second title if I lose, which I don't think I will. I'm not really losing my title. It's a new title. I just go in there, promote the fight lots.

I just have a good laugh. I think, and Eddie's dead funny with the media thing. It's going to be good for my profile and stuff. Just a lot of fun, you know. That would be fun. Yeah, he was great against Maris Puginovsky. You saw that one, right? Yeah, I was there.

I thought he was going to lose. I thought Eddie, he's not a fighter. I thought Marys has had 15, 20 fights or something, you know. And he smoked him, and I was very impressed with him, you know. But obviously me and Marys were different, but I was very, very impressed. And I think a lot of people counted them out and he shut a lot of people up, you know. Would you be content? It seems like you're very happy.

Would you be content, Phil, if the rest of your career is in KSW, no problem? Yeah, I think, do you know what? I think I would, you know. like, I was hunting for the Engarnu fight for a while and I've signed, I've signed this new deal

and this is perfect like I'm king of the castle KSW is my home, you know? I mean, I'm always gonna have my eye out, you know, keep my eye on stuff

but I think, I think that when the end of my MMA career will come at KSW. When, especially when I get this 10 year mark, I'm obsessed with it, I'm fixated on getting

this 10 year champion, you know, and I've tried not to, I've tried to put the blinkers on, you know, because when you start really caring about something that's when you start it might not work you know I'm big into the

the jinxes and the good luck and the karma and stuff okay and uh as an arctic k s w is uh quite lucky for me hey let me tell you about this little prick are you all right i'm so into the like rituals and bad luck and stuff now you're filling you with the death note uh the death note manga anime oh yes yes yes yes so anyway there's a fan there the fight before this fight and he's got the death note book and he's I only signed my book and I went

I'm not signing that book made like that's a cursed book I'll sign something else here but I'm not signing a cursed book he was like oh really I was like I'm not signing a cursed book okay so the next the last fan zone I'm like I'm like going along the wall

line signing loads of books and he gets some girl to hold the book up and I sign this bloody death notebook and then he grabbed it he goes hey Phil hey Phil he went I've got you with the book I've got you in the book I was like you haven't have you he was like yeah

yeah, yeah, I did, he sent me a picture later, reading out a curse, the curse from the man saying, do will news, this fight, mate, and I'm so into that sort of stuff, I was sitting there and I was like, the curse, like, Fisher and Mick, they all know how I've had curses and look and stuff I have, I was like, sweating, and I was like, you know what, I don't, I don't really care about this curse, you know, they're like, Phil, you need to chill out about the curse of there, who had a videographer there, he was saying, oh, Phil, I've watched the full death mode, uh, cartoon, things. and the curse doesn't work like that.

It has to be legible hands by you. And I was like, oh, right, I was like, so if you're a death note expert, I'll take your advice. Well, well, I'm not an expert. I was like, shut up. I'm an expert. But anyway, I won.

So take that, you dork. Okay. So perhaps this makes you feel less superstitious. Maybe this was a great experiment for you that now you can, like, drop some of these things. You know, I do, I mean, like, like, I also think I'm putting the curse on somebody's bad, bad mojo, but, I do need to get over my fear of luck

and like if I lost like my lucky cat I've got my lucky cat like if I lost that if I lost my lucky gum shield my lucky box I would be quite quite upset but I think that as beat I wouldn't reveal it

if I didn't think this you know because I would like worry about my other opponents putting curses on me you know but I'm glad I beat the curse I'm glad I beat the curse

well he was just a dog anyway you know like yeah what like he was so smug I don't think I was like thinking if I lose I'm gonna be more upset with him

than my opponent you know why do he have it out for you. Why did this guy want you curse? No, mate. He's got everybody in this book. He's got Mick. He got Mick. He got Mick Park and he gets every KSTU fighter. He's got the UFC fighters, mate. He's like he's obviously a sick, sick individual, you know? Well, what about your... Go ahead, go ahead.

He's just cursing people? That's weird. And then rub it in the face, you know? Like, uh, but it's hilarious now. It's finished with. But, you're all good. Honestly, I was very, uh, a bit skisy about it. But everything was going perfectly, you know? I'm like, this is a perfect fight week. It's been good fun. I'm out of the weights coming off nicely, and then, bang, cursed.

Unbelievable. Can I ask about your fight day superstitions? Do you have a certain ritual that you have to follow? Yeah, oh, I've got so many, you know, so many. I do 10 positive affirmations, written affirmations, thought affirmations, spoken affirmations. So it's basically the same, like, oh, Phil, you're a beast, you're a killer, you're the champion, you're so strong, you fit, the world.

So I do that like three times a day. I write my diary. Like positively, oh, this is going to be a good one, blah, blah. Affirming what's going to happen. I got my lucky jock strap, which I've had, I've had this jock strap 15 years. But I've replaced the cup, like 10 knives and the string, like 10 times and it's a different one.

And I've got my lucky gum shields. It's 20 years old. And the girls always make me bracelets. And I need they just send me a letter. And I've got to cut the hair. So I've got to put it in my groin. I think there's probably 10 more like I'm a superstitious character

Wait, you have to cut your your children's hair and put it in your groin protector? Yeah, yes, I've got a bit of bit better with me, you know? Where did you come up with that? You know, they don't like it. You know, they don't like it. Yeah, I don't blame them. I'm like, I'm going to steal it. I go and steal it at night. Where did you come up with this?

Well, what happened? What happened? I used to write the names or something on my gloves and I thought no I want a little piece of them you know so when they were born I thought I wanted a bit of hair with them and I thought I wanted a bit of hair where can I stash the hair and that's why I put it in my gloves before the commissioner was like you can't do that

and I was like sticking it in my box you know so how long have you been in there there's probably like 10 bits of hair in there now how long have you been doing that for maybe I think maybe from the start of the title run I'll be doing it a while

no I think I might have done it I've done it since Bellator when I thought oh he'll fight Benetore I don't be doing good like him Cyberpunk what do you got cyberpunk Mega punk This is a From Pride yeah

Yeah who's what I started yeah James Thompson Yeah James Thompson Yeah James Thompson But So this is an amazing thing. So now you have to wait until they go to sleep and then you do it. Sometimes they give me it, but then they try and bribe me for it.

Oh, give me 10 pounds. I'll give you a head. I go, no, I can't do it. I don't want to bribe you for it. I don't want to steal it because I just have it. And I do get it begrudgingly. But I have stolen maybe three or four times. When they were little, they were more stubborn.

Yeah. But I always get my hair now. How does your wife feel about this? I'm getting a bit scler on us she's fine you know all the kids and the dog and they even me

my dead dog Frankie we all rubbed the lucky cat before I go and then they'll fight they all have to rub the lucky cat and the wife really really worries about me you know and she kind of

at night she sits there rubbing the lucky cat you know like do you wear it out you know don't you and I rub the lucky cat for myself and for fish

and for me and uh but uh it's a lucky cat mate i don't know how many charges it's got so i don't not everybody gets a rub for it you know but it might have infinite charges but if it has i got limited charges they're mainly for me you know this is amazing i i could talk about these things all day i'm fascinated by this i did want to ask you when when francis left the pfel we were sort of trying to come up with like who would be a good matchup for him for this netflix card and we we had mentioned you we thought it would be a lot of fun you've got this great run parnasse on the on the netflix card was there any ever like any sort of consideration about you fighting francis on this card

i mean i was uh i was matched at the time you know so i don't think it was really an option you know but uh it's a stranger like i would like years ago i ought to be in all over that you know but i mean i've still i've still got me eye in it we'll see we'll see how performs and we'll see what's going on and i will keep an eye on it but it's got to be i'm open to offers but it's got for your mega offer you know okay fair enough what about parnoss getting this what's there what what is philip lins getting paid do people know this oh i think he's getting paid pretty well, but exactly, exactly, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, no. Like millions? I wonder if he's getting millions. I'm not sure. Honestly, I'd be speaking

at a turn. But Saladin getting a big opportunity. That's pretty cool, right? I know you're, you're cool with him. Oh, yeah, he's a really cool guy, you know. I mean, I thought he was going to, yeah, there we are. I've always given people kissing on the head. I love kissing on a head, a male forehead. Sure, why not? But yeah, he's a cool guy. I wish him all the look, you know, hopefully, I mean, I'm really rooting for this Netflix thing to take off, you know, the more competition and the better I think, you know? Of course. How's Tom doing?

Is he back at the gym? Is he training yet? I've seen him. I don't know exactly what he's doing, but I know he's had a surgery. I think he got some sort of infection or something, and he's improving, but he's been a big miss for my fight camps, Tom, you know, because I like the hard work. I like that Mick towards bicep as well, so I'll be like my best two guys of being out, you know.

But he is recovering, but I mean, what a shitty situation for it. Tom's been put in, you know. Yeah, and I know they're good friends of yours, training partners, they help you. So not having them for this particular fight, how much did you miss them? I'm a lot, but you know at the same time, my, uh, my biggest thing is I want to be put through my paces, I want the hard work. So I'd be like hunting Tom down, hunting Mick down every round with those guys, you know, when my opponent is nothing like those guys, you know.

So for this fight, I found people the same body type as him, the same kind of fighting style as him, you know, and I still beasted myself. It's just, if you haven't been put through hell, sometimes you get in your head, like, that was too easy, you know? I like being put through hell, but I was still in shape, but I think it might have been a better way to do, you know? Maybe I'll mix

things up a bit, but... Yeah, for sure. It's always nice to have the terrible awful sparring rounds where you're like, this is so hard, you know? I saw you alluded to this earlier, but you posted something on social media about not giving up, about the end of your days in the UFC, and, you know,

know, how how it changed who you are and the message that you wanted to give to people, I felt like dirt in this period of my life, you said, my dream had failed, and I felt like a joke. So many people approached me and told me to walk away as the game was no good for me. So glad I was too stubborn to listen. What would be for someone out there who may feel that way right now? What would you say to them? Let me tell you, let me first. I was so drunk when I posted that.

That top right guy isn't me. I don't think that's me. Oh, my girl was so drunk. I do get soppy, you know, and I'm positive, not me. Yep, yep, yep, that doesn't look like you. That's right. But, yeah, well, I remember

I was walking through the shopping set and when I kicked out the UFC and some random guy came up to me and went, it's no good, you know, once you've been knocked out three times, Cree is over me, and I was like, who the fuck are you, mate? I was like, Jesus, God, and I was depressed and anxious at the time, you know?

Loads people said it, you know? I honestly think maybe my wife, my girl, I might want to me to work away because it was tearing me up inside, you know. It's like, like I said, I'm on cloud nine now, but it's the heartbreak business, you know. But you need your adversity, you know.

I've had my adversity, you know, and I know we can never get that bad again, you know, so I'm happy now, but yeah, but people, and I tell you what, you know, people love to fucking shit in a guy when you have your shot and you fail, you know, people love to shit, you know. What's that thing, Chappelle says,

when the hero stumbles, the cowards rejoice, you know? So your advice to someone feeling that way right now? What would it be? What do you mean? Like feeling down or actually mental health issues and stuff? Feeling down, someone telling you, give up on your dream.

It's not going to amount to anything. You're wasting your time, that sort of thing. No, you always have to chase the dream. I know, you need to be clever, you know. I always, before, even the UFC, I was working. I had my job, but I was still hunting the dream, you know. I think when you give up on your dream

you die a little bit inside and when I gave up and went through the alcoholic spell and the drug abuse fell honestly I was so like I was numb it was the worst you know like

I was going to work just to make men's meat and lend the money on credit cards for the holiday and things you know and like it's just life of a lot of people you know but it doesn't have to be

you know anybody not as fighting anyone like if somebody else could do it you could do it know you can achieve your dreams you can do a little bit extra you know it's like uh but it's hard you know it's it's fucking depressing when like uh you you feel like that and you kind of slogging out at a job you hate and you go home and you think oh should i do should i fucking go spam with some guy

should i work on my dreams or should i just relax and put the telly on have a bottle of wine you know it kind of traps you a bit you know like uh and the but the more you do like i always think hard work and success is accumulative you know the more you work the either the work it becomes, the less you complain about it, you know, the easier it becomes, you know. Tremendous advice, tremendous insight. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Congratulations on all the success. Happy birthday. It's amazing to see longest reigning champion in KSW history, longest reigning champion in MMA today's 17 wins in a row, 14 straight title defenses. You're on top of the world, my friend. Well done, well deserved, well earned. Thank you, Phil. All the best to you and

thanks for joining us. Thank you very much, mate. I appreciate me to the show again. We're 10 years. I'm going to come on just before and beg for the Rolex again, so they have to give me it. Deal, it's a deal. And hopefully you get that Eddie Hall fight as well. I'd love to see that. I know. That's going to be so much for. I really, really, it excites me to be the striker, you know, like to mix

it up a little bit, you know, something new. Yeah, I want to talk. I want to tell. I might even go to Miss Fitzboxer and cause a bit of a scene, you know? Do it. That's not my style. I might go. I might go and get the mic, you know. You're the man, Phil. Take care. All the best to you. There he is. Thank you very much, Jail. Bye-bye.

Phil DeFries, the reigning, defending KSW heavyweight champion. What an energy, right? I love when he looks really deep into the camera there. He gets his face real close, amazing stuff. Very, very, very, very likable guy who's doing amazing things and maybe he doesn't get the attention that he deserves because of the fact that he's fighting over in Poland. But he deserves that attention.

Now, I'm trying to get this thing here. I'm trying to... Frankie gave me a new thing. so we're all set up here. But it works, right? Putting on the earpiece, but no one ever talks to me. Can anyone hear me?

It's Frank. Oh, hey, Frank. How are you? Great. Okay, wonderful. We're good to go. All right. Great stuff, Phil DePrees.

By the way, coming up in about an hour to I am on the nose. Arielholwani. That's substack.com is where you can ask, leave, questions, comments, things of that nature.

As I said at the top of the show, back by popular demand. A lot of people ask me to have Lou DeBella back in because there's a lot going on in the world of combat sports, and in particular, of course, in the world of boxing. Let's not keep him waiting any longer.

Is he here? Sweet Lou? Yeah, there he is. Mr. Lou DeBelle. Back by popular demand. That's nice, man. Requested by a lot of people. Nice to be requested, right? Every time you come in, you're slimmer and slimmer. Well, I am slimmer.

Every time. This time I have. Well, you know what, man, it was a wake-up call a couple of times ago when I was sure. You told us that. I weighed almost 300 pounds. Down to that two four-hundred feet. Oh, that's a nice jacket. it right there. Is that a Mickey Ward?

This was a gift from Mickey Ward. Oh, look at that. Look at that right there. Let's see that. Oh, yeah. Executive fights of the year, a little Mickey Ward and the lining. This was a gift from Mickey. Thank you, Mickey. Oh, what a guy. Yeah, you can put that anywhere. Great to see you, Lou. Please have a seat. We have a lot to talk about, Lou.

I'm waiting to hear which you want to talk. I want to talk about the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Help me with this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what happened here. Okay, how's this? That's good, bro. That works. That works, yeah.

What about, yeah. Well, we, since I was last year, I sold one ball team in Montgomery, Alabama. Yeah. So I sold the Montgomery biscuits are now under a different ownership. What do you get for that? Can you tell us? Quite a bit of mine. There's a lot of mine.

Were you the sole owner? No, no, no. Okay. I was a managing head, like managing partner, managing owner. So we sold the Montgomery. Then we opened CarMax Park in Richmond, Virginia, where the team is now 17 and 3 to start the season. And after the first week of the season, we were number one, and all of my, baseball out of 120 teams in attendance. Right now, we're number one in double A, but I think

we're two or three out of 120 teams in attendance. So baseball is being very good to me right now. Yes. And do you go to the games? I do. It'll be pretty often. Like we're home a week, away a week, home week. Like this week, we're away. Next week I'll probably go to Richmond. You love this. I love baseball, man. Would you ever move to Richmond? I'd get a place there, maybe, but I know. I'm a New Yorker. And this is still AA for the Giants, right? That's like for the Giants. I've been with the Giants since the team was in Connecticut. So we've been, I've been part of the Giants organization through, I got three World Series rings, you know, in 2010, 12 and 14. And we've been a Giants affiliate forever, even going back to when we were in Connecticut.

Now we're in Richmond and we're a Giants affiliate. So right now it's just baseball. It's just as far as... Pretty much. Well, as far as minor league baseball, it's just the squirrels, right? The Flores. Okay. Any ties to boxing?

Yeah, I mean, I still have a few fighters I'm working with more as, like, I want to finish up with. them. I want to place them in the right place. I'm actually having some conversations with TKO about doing something with George Cambosis. Interesting. To fight on their shows? To fight on their shows, potentially. Okay, so let's start there. Zufa boxing now. They've had five or six events. What do you think so far? Too early to judge. It's what I expected. I mean, it's going to be a period of adjustment. I don't think, you know, their show aren't blowing anyone's socks off, but I don't think that the show's coming on to zone from Eddie in the UK or anything else. Any of regular product out there is. I think they are signing more fighters. I think they're making an

effort to have decent matchmaking. Like just watching the shows, I don't think they've been particularly mismatched. It's going to take a while. But honestly, they have a TV deal. They have very smart people, as you saw during those hearings and... Well, we'll get to that. ...front of Congress. What about the product? You know, at the apex... It's, you know, the apex is easy and it's cost-effective. And right now, some of what they're doing is about easy and cost-effective.

I think they'll take them on the road. I would think they would. If they're not, they're missing a great point about what boxing is all about because grassroots boxing means a lot. Traveling boxing through cities where people care about boxing, bringing fighters that have under contract to their hometowns and areas near where they live. That's going to be important for them like it's important for anyone else. If they miss that, they're going to miss a lot of the point.

I don't think in the long run they'll miss that. I think now they're doing some things for expediency and ease. I didn't think they were going to start gangbusters. If you go over our last couple of interviews when we talked about this, I told you I thought it would be a multi-year process, I still do. What about the uniforms and just how the product comes across?

You know, it doesn't matter very much. When you get to the regular, like, when you're in a megafite, they're not going to have that leverage. When fighters grow to the point under TKO that they become true stars, there might be still uniform restrictions, et cetera,

but they're going to make exceptions for sponsorships. They're going to let them get a little bit more creative on their entrances. And I assume certain things will be organically, like, you know, changing. I'm not going to micro-analyze any of that shit. Okay, let me ask you, what do you think of the commentary at the events? I mean, I don't think, but then again, if you asked me what I thought of the commentary across the board right now in general, it was not great.

Okay, so you don't feel like it's over the top for them. It's kind of the same. It's the same shit, but it's the same shit almost like everyone's co-opted right now. We've had this discussion before. I'm not personalizing it to anybody. No, no. But I'm just saying that in general people do what they have to do. And particularly where you have someone creating a UBO, creating a brand, building a brand,

you know, you have to expect you're going to get, you know, you're going to get shilling, whether it's Max Kellerman or anyone else. And to be honest, you know this already. You know, the guys that TKO liked to have things done and expressed their way, and they have the ability to do that. They have a whole lot of leverage. Were you surprised they signed Connor Ben? I mean, you know, he's a big name.

Was I surprised? I don't think he means maybe what they think he does. But again, if they're trying to get inroads into Europe, if the UK is particularly important to them, and they think that he's some kind of locomotive over there, I personally think he's like sort of a cheating, somewhat mediocre. You call him a fraud, I think. I sort of do think he is.

I mean, fraud. I think he's a pedestrian prize fighter with a, you know, famous lineage and a cheater. And frankly, got bigger by cheating, which I don't really like that very much. Same thing happened at Baumgartner. I'm not big fans of it. You cheat, you get bigger, right? It doesn't appeal to me.

But with Connor, some may say the performances haven't been as spectacular. The Connor Ben, the second, excuse me, the Chris Eubank's second fight, he looked great. Here's what I'll say about Connor. Yeah. The bad guy is always good to have under contract. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Like, he's an anti-hero.

Like, I mean, some people. Does he want to be? I don't know if he racist that. I don't know if he races that. to be an anti-hero, but I think he is. Okay. I think he has a following because he's Nigel Ben's kid. Yeah.

And he has a following in the UK where people look past his indiscretions and mediocrity. I think both of them are astounding. I think his mediocrity is astounding and I think his indiscretions have been too. But a lot of people can look past that. But people like me, they want to see him get his ass kicked. Like I'll buy Ryan Garcia and him. I'll watch it because I'm hoping Ryan's going to knock him the hell out. Do you think he wins?

Brian, Ryan? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, if he's right. I think Ryan, I have a great, I have a lot of love for Ryan, even though we don't talk anymore, we at one point did. But I think when Ryan is, his head is together, and he's giving everything to boxing, and he has clarity, and he's not messing around with stuff, I think that he's a very talented kid. And I think he's more talented than counterbat. Why don't you talk anymore?

No, I said some, like, probably things that bothered him when he was going, like, off the rails around the time of the Haney fight. I mean, to be honest with you, the things I was saying were more, really truthfully had a concern and the fact that I always liked the kid. I always thought he was a very self-aware person. I always respected the fact he knew that he had mental health. You know, like I've, in my life, I've dealt with some stuff myself. So I know, you know, I think it takes a lot of courage to talk about that stuff. But then when he really got off the rails, then he started getting the things that, you know,

expressing themselves and saying shit that I knew wasn't really who this kid was. you know, I said some things that were unkind and me and him got into a little bit of a back and forth. I think I made his mother cry in a video or something, too. Really? His mother, like, saw her, has heard some things I said and it got her upset. But, I mean, like, we're not, I mean, like,

I mean, if I saw him, I'd give him a hug. Sure. Like, I have, I got nothing but love for the kid. But I actually think he's very talented. Like, I think when his stuff is together, he's got a tremendous, he's got tremendous leverage in power and his punches.

He's a very exciting fighter to watch. You know, the fact he was able to have that kind of night against Haney, you know, when he was completely a hot mess the whole week of the fight, he was partying, doing everything on earth. And by the way, busted a test afterward, so there was no great honor in that either.

And I talked about that, and I think that upset him. But I actually have a lot of respect for him, and I think a fight with him in Conner Ben's a really quality matchup. Like, I'm pretty sure that Ryan beats him, but I think that's a fight I would watch. What about Shakur, Connor?

Easy work. not even a fight. Despite the, I mean, the step up and weight. You could step up and wait another 20 pounds for a counterback. No problem. Do you think Zufa signed Connor because they were interested in him or to hurt Eddie? Could be a little bit of both. Eddie's certainly trying to hurt them.

I mean, he's certainly saying things trying to hurt them. In what way? I mean, he's just a lot of nonsense. I mean, the back and forth. Who the fuck really wants to hear more about him and Dana fighting each and how they could make $20 or $30 million each? Kiss my Dego S. No one wants to hear that.

That's not good for boxing. It's stupid. Granted, like, I get the back and forth. Eddie is a showman. Eddie, like I've said this too many times, Eddie is skilled guy in a Don King-esque way. He has that PT Barnum-esque, like that persona. He's a big, tall, good-looking dude.

He's got a gift with gab or whatever. But he's hurting the sport. He's hurting himself in some ways. Like, I believe Eddie will survive. Eddie has good fighters under his group. He comes from a billionaire family. They have big sports holdings. They have leverage.

with respect to the Saudis to a degree, I think partially by virtue, they're being partly owned by money in Qatar. Eddie's good at what he does. He's very good at what he does, and he has talent. Joshua Fury is very important to Turkey. It's very important as a big event.

You know, from a re-ed season standpoint, to the extent that which that's still a thing, doesn't get bigger for them than that. You know, they're very Anglo-centric. They're all about England, and you can't make a bigger fight in England. England right now than Fury and Joshua. I wish you didn't have to watch the nonsense to get to that fight.

Like I hate announcing fights when there are fights and long periods of time in between. I hate the fact I'm feeling about Fury, Joshua, very much the way I felt about Mayweather-Pakow. And by the way, I was at Mayweather-Pakiao because I wanted to see it, even though I thought it was five years beyond its shelf life. And Joshua and Fury is longer than five years past its shelf life. But would I still want to see it? Yeah, it's a spectacle. And Great Britain, I mean, these are the two dominant heavyweights of the last generation. So over there, it's a Super Bowl.

Over here, very few people give a fuck. Okay, I want to ask you about that in a moment, but you did say you think he's hurting boxing. How is he hurting boxing? I don't think, like, that is not helping him or boxing. Which part? The Dana and him fighting each other, calling each other pussies and whatever. I mean, that's just nonsense. And then...

Isn't that always a part of boxing? But not too. No one wants to see two fucking promoters fight each other. No, no, no, the arguing. Your brand is better, my brand, you know. Yeah, but to be honest with you, that probably is one of the things that opened the door for Dana and Nick and Ari and their whole crew.

It said, boxing never could get of its own way. All they did was fight one another. There was no semblance of creating unified in a unified way, any kind of way working together to create a media property to go out there and compete with, other major media properties. It's why the door was wide open, and particularly with the Trump administration rolling in, best friends of TKO and the people that run it, perfect opportunity in time to get rid of the Ali Act, perfect time to launch a UFC-type model. You can't have

closer friends to the guys running TKO. They're running the goddamn country. So it was perfect timing at a perfect moment. And boxing put itself in that moment, put itself in that place. And continuing to do things like talk about a promoter fighting another promoter getting $30 million dollars, that doesn't help. I'll give you another thing that doesn't help. Christian Pranga doesn't help when you're out there shitting all over TKO for the mediocrity of their product. You're out there attacking them.

They just started. They're not really doing product much different than the ordinary pedestrian shit you're doing on the zone. And you're out there trying to kill them. But then you just made a guy that you're telling everyone correctly, it's a possible Hall of Famer. I think if Joshua beats Fury, he's sealed. It fills it completely.

Oh, for sure. He's a Hall of Fame right. He's probably a Hall of Fame already. I mean, he's close. I mean, he probably is. I mean, he's certainly shouldn't be in the ring with a doorman. And that's what Christian Prang is. I know him very well.

I tried to sign him multiple times. As an opponent, more as an opponent who sold tickets for Broadway boxing, to fight other pedestrian sort of heavyweights that I thought he wouldn't even be. But he was a ticket seller. He is a very physically strong, just cock strong dude. He's just like a. a doorman, like literally a doorman and a nightclub kind of guy. But you wouldn't want to be hit flushed by him if you weren't looking.

The kick and punch, if you're, if you, he'll be slow. But I mean, if you don't see him and he telegraphs a punch at you and it lands, he might hurt you. But does he belong near? Anthony, it doesn't belong in the same frigging gym. Doesn't belong in the same state or country. It doesn't belong in a sparring session. In fact, the people around Anthony wouldn't really pick him as a sparring partner

against a good heavyweight because he's not going to give you that kind of work you know he had a lot of knockouts on his record he's got a 21-on-one record even though he fought bozo the clowns um is there okay so i understand i had mixed feelings about the announcement yesterday that's not a fight dude no that's in a try is there grace to be had the fact no the accident no why no dude come on man what about the fact that they told us don't fight or why not he's not fighting a tune up Why does he just fight you, man? I'm not an actual fighter. Neither is Pranga.

Yes, he is. He's at pro-fights. No, he's more if you look at his career. He's 35 years old. Yes. Look at his whole career. I'm not defending the fight. No, no.

It's not a fight. It's not even a tune-up. It's not even a tune-up. What are you tuning up? The fuck are you tuning up? How are you getting better fighting a guy that can't fight at all? For the record, I hate the fact that we're not getting Fury Joshua X. No, I don't give me shit about that.

You know what? If he needed, first of all, I don't get the argument that he needed to fight. I get Deont- He didn't need to fight. He just fought Jake Paul. What the fuck does he have to fight? And then he got into a car accident. So what? And he almost died. Well, I mean, that's a little bit... No, I mean, two people in the car. Two people in the car died, but he wasn't seriously hurt. But that's neither here nor there.

Incheway. Does he need it for his confidence? Wait, was his confidence shot because people die? What? Explain to me? No, no, no, come on, man. Stop. What are you talking about? He's fighting a hobo. I don't want to call Pranga a hobo. You know what? Prang is actually, he will go and he will try. If you went to Christian Prang, I actually think Prang is the kind of guy If he was being honest with you, who's so self-aware He knows he just hit the lottery. Of course. What do you think he's getting paid for this by the way? Probably seven figures.

Most of his life? I mean, not even close, right? Dude, he hasn't made boxing? Yeah, yeah, in this one fight, he's getting more... He's getting more... He's getting more than his entire career. What I heard he's getting is what he's getting. It's good deal.

He's made more in one tenth of this purse Will be higher than the entirety he's ever been paid in his career, basically. Wow. Or similar. He actually is the kind of guy, though, that made a couple of, like, small, like, you know, like club show kind of paydays because he's an Albanian kid with a very big following in the Albanian community. Okay. And he would sell some tickets in local shows to Albanian kids. So he would get, like, a percentage of ticket sales.

But in terms of, like, ever getting a real purse, you never got a television purse, probably, I'd be surprised if he ever made more than 10 grand. Okay. Wow. Wow. So now he's going to go to a million bucks. And by the way, because, not because he earned it in any way. Look who he lost to, man. Is the issue that he is fighting AJ, that AJ is fighting anyone, or is it the matchup?

If you're going to fight, like, there's zero purpose to it. No one, if you can't articulate a purpose to me, it shouldn't be happening. There's zero chance of the wrong thing happening unless I don't think AJ shot enough that he's going to close his eyes in the rank. He'd have to not see a punch coming, right? Roll an ankle. I mean, he'd have to get hurt. If he didn't get hurt, he'd have to lose. he'd have to literally

knee buckles look in the other way look in the other direction and something could happen and it would be a miracle it was so much on the line it's not a 1% chance I got you

was so much on the line Netflix involved and whatnot what's the point what's the point? I don't know I you know what I would get it more if he was doing a total gimmick fight

like if he was fighting an Ngano kind of fight or whatever I'd almost get it more because like this is just like an affront that they're gonna charge people for it is it on?

I hope not they haven't said they can't I can't I mean it's on his own So there is a charge just by virtue of the fact that it's not to me because I don't have to zone. Sure. So how do you watch? How do you watch? I mean, my people work for me that have to.

Sure, sure, sure. Okay. If I don't think. If it's behind a pay-per-view paywall, that's absurd. I mean, I don't know. I hope not. I can't imagine who the fuck would watch it. Some hardcore AJ fan.

How do you think DeZone feels about the fact that this fight is going to end up on Netflix if it happens? I don't know. I don't know how they would buy something. Talking to the microphone if you don't want. I'm sorry. I don't really get, this is the thing about quality control today. I don't understand it too. Like, say what you will about DeZone.

I think they have no brand recognition. I don't think there's a streaming service in the world that has less of a chance for long-term survival than DeZone the way it's progressing. Just from my observation, I'm not a management consultant or those kind of guys, but just looking at what I look at, look at the numbers when they come out in their annual reports and what you see, it's hard to see a path for them.

And I don't think they have a lot of recognition. I don't think they're getting a lot of eyeballs for the most part on their regular stuff. I don't think they're building stars are really growing anything. I've said this to you before, but I still feel the same way about it. You know, they're sort of their own little microcosm of a world. But it's not building anything. I actually like, I don't know, Netflix is going, I mean, how would you feel about doing a really shitty fight so that the big one is on someplace else?

I think it's bizarre. I mean, particularly for a streaming service that's actually charging a great deal of money to people? I mean, it's just bad marketing. Dude, I don't want to get into the zone, too, because I've been so, like, you know, I've been consistently negative about what I'm seeing from them, but I don't get it. I used to work in media. I don't get anything I see from them. They're very, very niche and very little brand recognition, very little sizzle to the stake.

You've got this deal with TNT. Did you see that starting this summer? That you should have done from the get-go. Yeah. I didn't understand why all of that wasn't done when DeZone first started and came. Like, you always needed a terrestrial component. you needed something to pump your brand. Because if the only people who are seeing your brand name,

it's either on social media or a subscriber, most of the world's not, I mean, very few of my friends and neighbors know what the hell the zone is. Sure. You know, it really, very few. Were you surprised to see Top Rank sign with them? No, because Top Rank had a sign with whoever was going to give them something right now.

Do you think it's a good deal? I don't know, probably not. But like, I think, no, do I think it's a good deal? I think any deal is a good deal if you don't have a deal. Yeah. I mean, I survived for like a decade and a half when other people are getting exclusive deals, and I have scrambled to keep fighters busy and do my own shows on my own little, you know, Broadway boxing thing because I never had an output deal.

So I mean, having a good roster, though, right? They have a good roster. Some nice young guys, Zias and Vargas? If you had nobody, you can build a roster as TKO is proving pretty quickly. And it's not just hobos that are signing with TKO. If you're now starting to pay attention, they're siding guys that actually have talent. And they're signing some hungry guys from markets and places where they're not getting a lot of opportunity, but certainly can compete at the highest level. It's not going to be very long before they're going to have a roster that compares favorably with every single other promoter.

And it's getting, I mean, for the time being right now, they're doing what they have to do. They have enough of a roster to make competitive matchups that they can put on the apex. As they, you know, sign more guys with name recognition, sign more guys that have market events. value in particular places they can take their show on the road. I expect them to do that. I think Dana gets too much credit for being the brains behind Zufa boxing. I think this is Nick Kahn's baby. I think Nick Kahn is a really smart guy.

I think that, you know, I think that there were people behind Dana that UFC was not only Dana. Sure. I think, look, I think Dana's good at what he does. Dana's a good promoter. Who's a better promoter? Him or Eddie? Very different.

I mean, Dana. I think in terms... Why? I don't think Eddie could... They run a business at UFC. They have a model. They have a business paradigm that's their own. You could complain about it.

You could say it's anti-fighter. You could say the old system was better and the new one's scarier. You could say whatever the fuck you want to say, but they know what they're doing. And to this moment in time, I can't find a surviving member in the boxing industry that I would really say today in 2026 has the wherewithal to know what they're doing and create their own thing. I haven't seen that from Eddie. I haven't seen top rank adapt to 2025 or 26. I've left. I didn't want to do it anymore.

You don't think Eddie, Queensberry, you don't think these guys are surviving in 2020? No, I think they're survivors. They've been around for a long time. I think the old system's dying and dead. I think the old system's heading toward death. The old promotional system is heading toward death. I think Eddie, because of the strength of boxing in the UK

and the strength of matchrooms, sports holdings in general, I'm not only talking about the boxing, the fact that they have a portfolio, the fact that he's capitalized very differently than most people's families. Eddie's family's most of a billionaire, right? So, you know, I don't think Eddie's going away. Do I think Dana has a smarter, more effective, more intelligent, better capitalized, better television-connected thing going on than Eddie does?

It's not even a question. What did you think of the hearing last week? It was exactly what I thought it was going to be. It's why I didn't testify. Did they reach out to it? you. Oh, yeah. Which side? Both. Both sides. Well, whose side are you on? Probably, like, I think it should have been called the TKO Act. I said that on my two previous visits here. I'm not exercised by it. I also said that on my two briefs, because it's hypocrisy. Like, were we using the

Ali Act to protect fighters? Who was enforcing the old Ali Act? I helped write it. No one was enforcing it. Was it helpful yet? It was helpful by prohibiting some of what the new Ali Act's going to allow. However, were fighters protected? Was there health and safety adequately protected by the old system? No. Did the old system, does it make any sense to protect the system that has four weight, four champions of different organizations, and often three champions, if you go super champion, regular champion, interim champion in one weight class with so many champions that people don't know who's a champion, where people, you know, where the judging is connected to the ratings organization and God knows how often you see suspect judging and you know that it's co-opted

by the connection between the ratings organization and the selection of judges. We have an old system not worth protecting. So I spoke privately to the people that are on Ted Cruz's guys and the people on the committee that were the Republicans. I told them exactly what I thought, the truth, like what I thought. I laughed at them thinking it was like, it was called the Ali Act. I told them it should be called the TKO Act. I also told him I wasn't inclined to testify against it.

And I'm not inclined to testify for it, is what it is. By the way, by the way, is, couldn't the WBO or the WBC get together with Eddie one of them and create their own UBO? Yes, but he has said that he's not interested in doing that. Okay, but he's interested in supporting an old system that has four different motherfucking groups giving out fucking belts. And often to three and two people at the top of each weight class. So he wants to support that. See, this is why you ask me who's smarter. Dana's smarter.

Okay? He's smarter. At least Dana and Nick understand something. The old paradigm was intrinsically broken beyond being fixed. What do you think their ultimate goal is, though? To take it over. Take control. A legal monopoly.

When they talk about the safety, the belt. They don't give a fuck about that. They don't give a shit about that stuff. Do you think it's ultimately about not wanting to share with the fighters. The hearing was a mismatch. Like, here, there's a bunch of shills, okay? All the regulatory, shills, there were shills.

There were shills. There were a bunch of fucking shills. The dude sitting up top. Shills, for the most part, okay? You had Nico, who I like. And I know his parents very well. I know I like Nico. I think his grandfather would be proud of him because I think Nico really believed what he said.

And I think he went there of his own desire. It was impressive for a young man. It was impressive because I think he felt that way. And his grandfather would, I know his grandfather would have been proud of that, of the fact that, whatever, even his grandfather would have disagreed, but he wouldn't have. But I think that the fact that he took that step was very cool. Oscar versus Nick Kahn is a mismatch. What did you think of Oscar? I mean, to be honest, he sold fucking Ring Magazine to Turkey.

He said he regrets it now. Okay, whatever. You should regret a lot of things. And the other thing, too, is he should regret the fact that he helped usher in exclusive contracts with television. television, you know, happened around his time. He was looking the same way. He wasn't looking to work with other people. He was looking to stop out other people the same way he feels that. Is there something to be said for at least the fact that he went? He at least went out there. I mean, it was every promoter should have gone. Sure. But he did. He did. Okay, good for him.

I mean, I'm not faulting it for it. And by the way, I'm not saying that he didn't make valid points. I'm not saying his points weren't valid. I'm saying that it was a mismatch. And I'll tell you Why? Now, first of all, if I was there, I could have played with Nick. I could have gone after Nick a little bit. Would have loved to see it just because you're... Yeah, because I'm smarter than the most of the people that anyone that was pretty much up there. And Nick was the smartest guy in the motherfucking room. And that was pretty obvious. But here's one on for Nick. You're sitting there and you have the nerve to talk about the $200 a round minimum being better than the minimums in 40. So I've never paid anyone, $200 a round in any fight in 20,

in 26 years since I became a promoter. I never paid anyone that little. It's an atrocity to like that, but to sit there and act like this bill is protecting fighters. Think about this. Well, actually, someone, you have fact checkers, have someone look this up. I don't think there was a single fighter in the United States of America last year that fought 100 professional rounds. I don't think there was one. I really don't think there was one. And if there was one, it would be really cool, like, a bit of trivia because I don't know who it would be.

Okay. Fighters don't fight 10, 10, 10 round fights in one year. No. Okay. If you're getting $200 a round, before you pay your trainer, your manager, your cost of training, whatever, $200 a round is $20,000 for a hundred rounds, which no one ever fights. $20,000 puts you squarely below the line where you are destitute in the United States. You're a poor person. So to sit there and like, let them eat cake, like, whoa, we're putting a 200 minimum and come, Nick, you were better off not.

But that was a talking point. Sure. See, Nick's talking points were the insurance, the 200 round, because these are all bullshit protections. They're not protections. It's a TKO act. It's going to allow them to create a UBO. It's going to allow the UFC model to be rolled out into boxing. And that was its intent.

I'm just... What I would have asked if I was on the other side was, why don't... If you guys feel so strongly about the minimum per round and the insurance, just do it like you did in the UFC. They've introduced these things in the UFC health insurance. Look, I've always believed... We know what it is. though. So just be honest about it.

There's going to be a collateral benefit from the TKO take over or attempt to take over. It's going to benefit the poor slash middle class fighter. Because in boxing right now, they are destitute. They don't even exist. There are people not paying fighters. There are fighters literally fighting for free. There are fighters fighting in shows that are uninsured. There are fighters fighting on shows for tickets that literally don't make five cents fighting

and are getting brain damage for free. Okay, so there could be an aspect of which the TKO thing helps the guy in the middle. You start a contract with TKO. They're going to live by the contract. You're going to be insured when you train. You can use the apex. You get free meals if you're out west, and you know, you want free meals delivered when you're training. There's certain benefits to it, and they're promising people a couple of fights.

I mean, two fights a year is not much to survive on, but you know what? It's still a commitment, and I believe that they will meet their contractual commitments. So, like, in certain ways it'll help. Where Nick had all the advantages and where the hearing was such an unfair, fucking, like, it was just, like, it was just a mismatch, was how could you possibly protect the status quo in boxing? How could you possibly, like, that's why I wasn't there. I'm not a fucking hypocrite. One of the few things I walk away from this business with after 35 years is I think fairly complete credibility.

I've been fairly consistent about what I believe in what I say. I don't really give much of a shit what you think of me. Or if you disagree with me, you're entitled to, but I don't really hide how I feel about things. I think I try to give an honest assessment of my feelings and opinions on stuff. But how could you possibly defend the four-belt era? How could you possibly defend the ratings organizations? How could you possibly defend the shit show that is health and safety and boxing? The lack of appropriate testing for steroids and everything else.

The lack of appropriate testing for head injury. and things related to that, the co-opting of judges, the connection between sanctioning fees and what a fighter makes, the incentive for ratings organization to protect the Canello Alvarez or a big-ticket guy because he is being taxed against his purses, and you want to see that big-ticket guy continue to win because your sanction fee, in effect, your tax is higher that way. I've been saying the same things for 35 motherfucking years.

In fact, like, literally, I've been saying the thing since I started in boxing. While I was still at HBO, if you went and pulled up my testimony about why we needed a national boxing commission, the same shit I'm saying to you right now. I said in front of McCain and the Senate in the 90s. Does it not feel like when they're up there and Ted Cruz is like, who's the middleweight champion? The whole thing was the shit show, Kangaroo Court goof. And I knew it was going to be. It's Fed accompli, right? And I said it to, it was if it's a fair complete.

So let's move on with it. It's been a Fayette complete before the hearings. It's been a fair complete once Donald got reelected. Right. It's been a fair complete. And you know what, too? Like, you know, this is payoff for a lot of loyal friendship from Dana to this guy, too. I mean, sometimes your personal relationships, it's natural.

You treat your friends well. Your friends treat you well. You know, like I frigging hate Trump. But I respect the fact that this relationship that he's had with these UFC guys that's been sort of transformative and transcendent for years, look at what it's resulting in. These guys are walked into a paramount deal. They're tied into the Ellisons.

Nobody has anything comparable to them in North America in terms of a head start on television, and no one will. No one's going to be able to compete with them in the short term here. That's why I just think they're too smart to really fuck it up. What happens to the WBCs in five years? They're going to have to adopt or become something else. I mean, they're going to have to change.

I don't think all four of them will survive, but I'll give you an example. I could see one of them becoming heavy Eastern Bloc and really doing business, crowning a lot of champions that are the former Soviet Union and out in that world. Uzbekistan, the stands, whatever. I could see one of the organizations getting with, if one of the promoters, whether it's Eddie or Queensbury or Top Rank can emerge. And I think the guy who would be best suited to do it if he didn't think he knew everything would be Eddie.

But if one of them got there and really tried to put together a competing UBO, I think that they have the ability to do that. You think it would behoove him at this point to move in that direction rather than fight for the old guard? The old guard is – fighting for the old guard is dumb. The old guard has failed. I mean, one thing I was 100% right about was prognosticating the failure of the existing system and paradigm for the last five years. I prognosticated this.

There are books out there that interviewed me in it where I said that everything was going to fall apart and that there was going to be a play. I didn't know they would call it TK.O. or Zufa or whatever, but that Dana and Nick and Ari Emanuel were going to make a play. And that it was going to probably succeed because we have done such a poor job of propping up our sport to where to where it needed to be as a medium. property. We failed miserably. And that was one of the, I'm not a hypocrite, right? Like, for me to go out there and say, yeah, we fucked everything up. We left the sport in shambles. We opened the door for you, but I'm here to stand on principle. And this is against the interest of the fighter. Oh, really? Like, us leaving the sport in this condition was in the interest of the fighter? Fuck out of here. Fuck out of here. Did you see what Marvin Hagler's grandson said? Good for him.

I'm not like sitting here rah, ra, Dana. Ra, ra, Nick. I'm not doing that. However, I'm waiting to to see what they do and I'm willing to give them an opportunity to see. They can't fuck it up much worse than we did. They certainly can't fuck it up much worse than... You look, for a long time, it was King and Aram had this control for... And they just sort of ran it downward. And then it just got worse. Then Richard Schaefer got involved with Oscar,

and that was sort of where these exclusive contracts with networks popped in. See, when I was running HBO Swarth, there were no. We had exclusive contracts with a fighter, or the fighter hit a certain star power. But I never gave an output deal to a promoter. Who gives a fuck about the promoter? You think any fan gives a shit who's promoting a guy? This is why the fan people, like, this is why you said,

why do I think some of the Eddie shit hurts? Because no one really gives a fuck if it's Eddie standing in the middle, looking handsome with his fucking belt being held up in the middle and the other two fighters. No one gives a shit. They don't care about who's standing in the middle. People don't care about a promoter. They care about great fights.

In the UFC they do, in the world of MMA they do. This is a certain standard. Well, yeah, but with all due respect, who's the conference? Now, by the way, this is sort of why, you know, these, your boys at MVP are seeing some kind of opening to try to. My boys. Sorry about that. No, that's fine. It's fine.

Yeah. What do you mean? What do you mean? Tell me. Well, I mean, the PFL's certainly not at a high point, right? Sure, no. You agree on that. Oh, you're talking about the MMA.

Right. Yeah. And I think we agree that there's not really right now particularly strong competitor. No. It's wide open. It's wide open. So for that fucking. How do you feel about their moves?

I mean, some of their moves, I think. I understand some of them. I don't know particularly like them. Like what, the women's? Oh, like them as people. I thought the moves. No, some of their moves I like. Also, some of the moves I don't like.

You watch the first show in ESPN? I did. I think they're making a mistake. I think it's a fault of their structure. I respect the roll-up. And clearly, they're creating a UBO at some point, clearly. I mean, they'd be crazy to have all these champions who work with four organizations to be dumb as shit.

but at some point down the line. Yeah. But I think rolling up trying to get all of the women was not a bad concept. I do think it's a really bad concept doing all female shows, show after show after show. Why? Because it's just not great product. It's much better when you have a show that's mixed. Undercard had men.

I mean, undercard, like where on TV? I didn't even watch it. Yeah, it was on ESPN Plus. I don't know. But yes, the main card with women. But my point is the main card should be split. And also it should be two minute rounds for women. I'm not going to get into the health and safety aspects of it,

even though it's completely clear. But I will get into the fact that it's a different pace and a lot more fun pace for the girls. They're not going to be big knockout artists for the most part, whether it's three or two. All you're doing is creating a longer product. There's not a television executive in existence. There is not a sports TV executive alive

that will tell you they are, are seeking longer action programming. They're not. They're looking for more immediate gratification. So, like, it's anti-intuitive to think anyone would want a three-minute round instead of a two-minute round. And all the arguments are incredibly stupid. But I would be mixing up the men and the women on the main cards. Now, right now, they don't have the benefit of having that kind. They have a tremendous stable of women in terms of talent. And not that most people know who they are, they don't. But they do have a tremendous, like just in terms of sheer numbers. And also, they have a lot of talented women. I'm not going to say they don't. They do. Are you surprised Amanda got so big?

No. I mean, but no, I'm not surprised. But also, she got big posturally because Jake moved to Puerto Rico and they operated out of Puerto Rico and they're the ones determining what she got paid. And he's been very good to, like they have the reason that her team are. What does him moving to Puerto Rico have to do with that? A lot. You don't think the company, he became, she became essential to him. He wouldn't have survived that last fucking thing with bad bunny. But that was long after. No, but it doesn't make a difference. He moved his whole operation of Puerto Rico.

She was already, even though not making any money, iconic in Puerto Rico. It was a good mutual move. She served some. Don't think that it's all, but look, Shakespeare, a tremendous benefactor to them in terms of moving their whole needle of her. She has every reason to be grateful. I'm not 100%. but she served great interest for him. You could even, and you even saw that during,

she didn't, like, embrace him outwardly, but she didn't attack him either, but you even saw that with the bad money, bad publicity. Part of the reason it blew over partially was because of the relationship between Serrano and him. I don't know, I have a hard time believing. Like, I don't think there was,

that show was on ESPN. I saw the numbers. It's like 400,000 people, they said, viewers. I don't know. I don't know. I saw a tweet that was in that range. I mean, it was like sort of similar to the, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, that he, that, when Top Reich was doing a

pedestrian show, that was sort of what they did, like, you know, the low end, that's sort of what they did. So it wasn't like it was a mind-boggling, awful kind of rating. People watched. There was some people that watch. You think they want to just have, like, an MVP built? I think they want to, I mean, I don't know if they do or not. I think that they, look, they made a move into women's sports at a time where, even, even in, if the economics don't seem to justify it,

there's a need for sports programming, women's programming is being valued. There's been an elevation in the WNBA kind of stature, and women's sports are, you know, there are now as a pro softball league, you're seeing investment in other women's sports. They are, in this part of the world, they are women's boxing.

And in most of the world right now, they are the dominant force in women's boxing. So they've accomplished that in a fairly short period of time, As much as I might dislike them, you have to give them credit for that. But you also have to sustain eyeballs and give people programming that they're really captivated by. Listening to Baumgartner talk about herself, realizing she only sold 2,500 seats at the theater at Madison Square Garden for her last fight, and she doesn't want to fight anybody because she thinks she's bigger than everybody, this is part of the illusion of Jake Paul World, too. I don't think there's a lot of clamor

in the general public to see Alicia Baumgart to fight anybody. I don't think if you walk down the street or you talk to a combat sports fan, the first thing out of their mouth is I need to see Alicia Baumgartner fight someone, right? And I'll say this.

She fights Michaela Mayer again, I'll probably watch. She fights Tiara Brown, I'll probably watch. Probably a pretty good fight. I watched that too. I think Carolyn Dubois beats her ass, but yeah. You think so?

Yeah. Do you think she's an exciting fighter? No. No. No. Do you think the three minutes is doing her disservice. Yeah, 100%.

Not helping her. She's not knocking anybody out. She's not, she's not scintillating anyone in that extra 60 seconds around. She's not a power... She wants to fight Katie Taylor Amanda Serrano.

Because they're shot. Big games. Big names. Jordan Maldonado's not letting Amanda fight her, and if he did, he'd be crazy, and he's not crazy. I mean, he's protective of Amanda. He's been protective of...

Is Amanda shot? She's old. Of course she's shot. I mean, just look, dude. Katie shot. Yeah, horribly shot. Katie shouldn't even be fighting. You don't think so.

Go listen to an interview. She's got one. Here, I'm going to a challenge to you, Hawaiian listeners. Okay, okay. Hawaii listeners, go back and listen to an interview

of Amanda Serrano five years ago and today. Go listen to an interview of Katie Taylor five years ago and today. The speech? Just the speech. Okay.

And I see that in overwhelming majority of male fighters, like ones that have had those length of careers that have been in wars that are great fighters, particularly,

particularly ones that have rumbled and Amanda's been in rumbed. Katie Taylor too. And Katie, it's even more obvious. I think Amanda's less hitched in the face, but lately it's been hard for me to listen to interviews with Katie. Okay. She just sounds, I mean, I mean, she shouldn't be fighting.

She doesn't need the money. I don't know why she's fighting. By the way, if she's going to fight another time, it should be an easy touch. Let her have a victory lap. Croke Park, they're talking, the big stadium over in Dublin. We'll go do that, and she should fight whoever the fuck she wants. And it shouldn't be about passing a torch.

She's been a great enough fighter. She's entitled to go out on her own terms. She doesn't have to fucking fight Alicia Baumgarner. And who is Alicia Baumgarner to call out Katie Taylor or Amanda Serrano? Go fuck yourself. You're sitting there saying you don't want to fight Michaela. By the way, she ended a career of a woman named Christina Littardinoo that I promoted. And Christina gave her hell.

And then she flashed positive for the Royds after the fight with Christina. Christina's never had a pay day again. This girl's making millions of dollars. She was embraced and let back in. Typical boxing nonsense. She cheated and got bigger. Connor Ben's syndrome. What do you think of Keith Conley, the manager?

He's fucking smart guy. You have a good relationship with him? Very good, but he's a little fuck. He's a Sharpie, man. I goof on him all the time about like, you know, you know, he's taking advantage of the nature of the market in boxing. He knows how to play different players and people.

He knows how to keep lines of communication open in various directions. Say what you will about him. If he's going to do something that's going to piss people off, it's generally in the interest of his fighter. If you're a manager, like, if you want a manager, you're a fucking fighter, you want a manager. You want a motherfucker that's just like takes no prisoners. You want a shark.

You want a killer. Same way, like I just have been in position lately where I had to go out and hire some lawyers for some baseball-related legal matters. And when you're out there hiring a lawyer, you're not, you shouldn't be looking at like, should be looking at who is going to give you the most effective representation. Who do you think is going to have the most gravitas with the people that they're negotiating with, looking across the table at them? It's the same kind of a thought process the fighters should be going through.

And you could think Keith is the biggest prick on earth. And Eddie does right now. And he doesn't want to. He says he won't work with them. Meanwhile, when it was into his vantage to work, well, then he was the first one to kiss Keith's ass. We said he, you know, he didn't play fair. He didn't play nice.

Well, whatever. He doesn't play fair with anybody. Look, he's, if Keith thinks that it's, he's going to play fair to the best advantage of his fighter. And if the best advantage of his fighter means being unfair to an Eddie or a Lou Debella or a Queensberry. These would be the good guys to be in business with now, right? Like, you would say, like, to be in business with now, right?

Like you would say, like to be in business, Berlanga, Hitchens, Ben, these are the guys, TKO, Zufa, that you would want to probably cozy up to. I mean, I got to be honest with. I don't think it really matters. If they're doing things the right way, those guys are largely irrelevant. No one's going to know who Richard. No offense to Richardson, who's a good fighter. Five years, no one's going to give a fuck about Richardson Hedrons. Okay.

And or any of the other couple, in the Burlanga, no one's give a fuck. It doesn't matter. What they're going to be able to do is build their own Berlanga, build their own Richardson, Hitchens, and not have to pay them what. they're paying Berlanga and Richardson Hitchens right now. Maybe no fighter in the history of boxing, and this is a tribute to Keith Connolly, and a little bit of a tribute to Berlanga, and a little bit of tribute to top rank understanding you can take a mediocre fighter and feed him 15 ham sandwiches to knock out, and after the 15 ham sandwiches, he's 15 and 0 with 15 knockouts, right?

So a little bit of tribute to everybody that those guys, Berlang is the most overpaid fighter, one of the most overpaid fighters in the history of boxing. But good for him and good for Keith. And to some degree, that's another silver gold star for top rank that always knew how to build fighters, no matter their level of talent, whether it was mediocrity to greatness. They always had the matchmaker to know how to get that mediocre guy to the same 15 and 0 that they brought the superstar to. Right? And that's, but for the long, in the long run, Africa, Burlanga, they don't matter. What matters is, are they going to be able to create something where they have the expectation of fighters that they're going to fight a tough fight two to three times a year for a reasonable purse that's reflective of the marketplace, quote unquote, not inflated, and stick with the TKO brand, become a ZUFA champion or whatever they're going to call their champions. I don't know if it's a ZUFA.

Yeah. All right, whatever, Zufa champion. And build their own attraction. What do you think of the Gio-O Pataya situation? Because he clearly wants to still be an IBF champion. Yeah, but who gives a fuck about the IB? But he's bothered by this. Yeah, but he's bothered by, he should be more bothered by the fact that...

But he signed up. He knew. They said they didn't want to. Okay, well, then, you know what? He signed up for a reason. He signed up for an economic reason. I know a lot about that market. So how the IBF handled it?

Because they showed up, right? I don't think the IBF was wrong to either. I mean, he signed with TKO. TKOs made its desires and its policies clear. I mean, TK is clearly trying to close these people down. I mean, like, everybody's got to be real on both sides, right? From a giant, Opetai standpoint, you've got to understand something. Like, he's had a hard time making a living.

He's a great fighter. I mean, he's a great fighter. He doesn't mean very much in Australia even. Like, he's not, I don't even necessarily think he's the draw that George Cambosis is, even right now, over there. like George achieved a different level of sort of like crossing over. Sure.

Well, you had the massive win, right. Well, and then a couple of big fights in stadiums. Sure. Yeah, Devin Haney. But he had like,

Opetai's a terrific fighter, you know, but he hasn't fought anyone. It takes two to tango, right? Yeah, but who's like, give me a big name of Cruiser,

right? Well, the one that we wanted to see was Zerto Ramirez. All right, that would have been a big one. Yeah, but so what? I mean,

unification bout. And if Turkey wants to pay for it eventually, it'll happen. What about this weekend, David Benavis is moving up to fight Zerto. This weekend has, in a way, Nakatani in Japan. That's the fight.

That's a fight. That's what I want. No one's talking about it here. Because it's in Japan and it's at 7 o'clock in the morning. Will you wake up for that? No. I watch her when I wake up. I almost went to Japan for it.

Really? Yeah, I'll go to wedding. Why would you go? Just to... I've gone to a number of us. First of all, Mr. Honda, Akahito Honda, who is not his promoter so much anymore, but Honda runs the media for Japan. Okay.

And he has run all the big events for... He invited you? Yeah, he's a close friend. So I've gone there many times to... It's going to be incredible. Oh, it's going to be... Look, Tokyo Dome sold out. Dude, it's spectacular.

I went to Inouye's fight about a year ago. And it was a spectacular... In Japan? Oh, wow. Yeah, it was spectacular. I mean, any one of those big... And also, Nakatani's got a chance. I don't think he's going to win, but he's got a chance.

It's going to be a chance. It's going to be a good. amazing. That to me is to fight. I don't give Zerda much of a chance with... You think Benavides wins? And then what do you think happens? Who do the fuck knows? Maybe fights Better Biev? I don't know. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't give a single fuck about Bertur Biav. I don't give a single

fuck about Bav. I don't know. Why? They're two of the best fights? I don't think either one of them's particularly compelling personality. I don't think they're particularly... Better Biaf. I just thought I am not a, like, I'm not a big fan of... I'm just not. I mean, I would watch. I would like to see, look, Benavides

against... Berturbiev is a hell of a fight. It's a tremendous. And I would certainly watch. Yeah. I'm not belittling it. But I just, you know, those guys have only fought a couple of fights against each other. As a result of that, light heavyweight as a division hasn't developed.

So it's like, I mean, we're sort of recycling the same shit. Like, you know, you and I know who Moisa Sotama is. Most people don't. He's so good, though. But no people know he is. In the UK, they do. A little bit. But like everyone, yeah, yes.

But not here at all. How good is he, though? And by the way, here, people don't care that much about. Don't make any mistake. You think people really care here about Joshua and Fury? Like, do you get a sense, the average sports fan here? It's a stretch. The stretch.

Yeah. By the way, there was a reporter in the UK, Chris McKenna reported today that Fury is going to take another fight. Of course he is. I mean, what are we doing now? But this is how this works. Do you think it ever happens? I don't know.

Probably. Why? Too much money. Not too. Because of Turkey and Netflix? As long as Turkey is. What do you think is going on with Turkey and? and Frank and Eddie, do you feel, you know, there's, if you, if you read the sports,

which I know you follow everything, live is, is sort of fading away. I don't think live, and anyone that's sitting here hoping, and I think, I'm not saying hoping. No, I'm not saying you're hoping, but there are many people who are hoping, as you know. Hoping what? Hoping that the live thing is a precursor possibly to the story's pulling out of boxing. Yeah, what do you think? There are that.

No, I don't necessarily believe that. First of all, I don't believe it for a number of reasons. One, I don't think that TKO and the lawyers and the smart people around them, considering how they handled brilliantly the whole play with the Ali Act, I don't believe they have their money. Composed to the mic, if you don't mind. So I believe they have their money secured. Like, I don't think they would be in a...

They don't need Turkey to survive. No. It's absurd. I bet, I guarantee you, though, they already have the... I guarantee you whatever... I see what you mean. Whatever the Sordy funds investment was, is I would bet in the bank. Got you.

I bet like they don't, they're not going to have to chase their initial seed money. Yeah. Now, if after that seed money runs out, the Saudis would make a decision that they were leaving boxing to some degree, wouldn't that almost be a great result for TKO? You got your seed money. You got, you know, you got a big bag to pay your initial expenses and start you off in this thing, and your partner's going to walk away. Now, I don't think that's going to happen so bad.

Sure. I also think that Turkey is so much. wealthy personally, that he might even be able to ring magazine a little bit of the investment money. Just do it himself. To some degree, I don't like, he might be able to. Do you think there's a chance that he just sticks with those guys and says, I'm not working with you, Eddie, I'm not working with you. Frank and him, you know, they seem to me. I think it's more as complicated for the time being with the zone and the connections and the sortie's own part of the zone. Yeah. But then again, you've got to look at how, you see, you've got to take one step further. Ariel, the, the, the

Sordies and the Qataris, the UAE, they're so invested in American media right now. Ellis and family and Paramount, the people that TKOs deals with, the company's $45% owed by foreign money. And the foreign money is Arab money. It's Saudi money, Qatari money, UAE money. Pieces sort of are connected. It's all intertwine. It's intertwined.

So you don't think he's leaving anytime soon? No, I don't think so. And even if he did, I don't think it would kill. I think that the momentum... This boots fight coming up. People thought it would be like a ring card or something like that. There's no involvement. Yeah, who, is that on the zone?

That's on the zone. That's a paper view. It's top rank and matron. It's top of matrim. There's Dubois. Wardley next week, no involvement. It seems like none of the Queensberry cards have... Well, I also think that, I mean, if you're reading the stuff that may have a degree of

Benavitas. There's been a dial down on how much money the Saudis are spending on re-ed season. They have it. abandoned it, clearly, but there's clearly been a dial-down in what they're spending. That may explain why they're not attached to these particular fights. Do you like that fight? Which one? Which one?

I think I know what's going to happen. What is going to happen? I don't hate the fight because I like... Tickets. I saw the seating chart. Tickets selling. It should. I mean, it should...

What's going to happen, by the way? What? What do you think is going to happen? Boots is going to win. You think so? Yeah. Too soon for Zias? Yeah.

Maybe. I think, well, you know, it's interesting. Because they've both been babyed a little bit. But Zias is so young. Zias is really young. Yeah. And I don't think Zias has the man strength to handle boots. I love Zia's.

I think Zai is a great kid, and I hope he makes it a real fight. And it's not the end of the world if he doesn't win. Sure. If he can show that he can hang with boots and that's a competitive fight, it's not the kind of fight that... It feels a little bit like Garcia Tank. Yeah. Credit you, stepping up, big opportunity. Yes, I agree.

I agree with that. I do agree with that. I think I'm pretty certain that I know what's going to happen. What do you make of what happened with Ortiz and Golden Boy, Virgil? You know, man, I don't know enough about it to make a firm judgment. There's a lot of loyalty is not a big thing in combat sports. You know, it's one of the reasons why that so, you know, I think UFC figured out a long time ago that, you know, when you control the whole thing, you don't need loyalty. Right. Loyalty's never been a big thing. That being said also, I don't know.

Oscar seems to have more than his fair share of disputes with his fighters. You know, they've been a number, you know, they happen fairly often. I don't know enough to make a particular judgment, so I don't want to do that. Okay. If one of your good friends was, let's say, the president of the United States, and you were in a room where you come to find out that an alleged gunman was about to try and shoot him, Would your reaction to that scene be that it was effing awesome and that it was one of the cooler things you've ever experienced in your life? No, but like... Come on.

No, that would not be my reason. It was an absurd reaction. Not to mention the fact that there were secret service people who were putting their lives on the line that people could have died. And you're like, that was awesome. First of all, first of all the freaking roller coaster at six wives. His reaction was exactly the same reaction that seemed to happen with Hexith. If you looked at all the smirks and the humor and everything coming out of all the people around him, Do you hear what he said?

I heard what he said, the happiness, the giddiness. You know, it doesn't... Come on. I don't think, I don't, you think a lot of people there were really afraid of their lives?

Did Trump even look to you like he was afraid for his life? I, I... They took the vice president out before they took Trump out. I mean, I, I'm not going to fault Dana for that. Look, dude, Dana hangs with these people. I hate these motherfucking people.

I can't think of anyone that I probably disagree with more fundamentally on more things than Dana. But I'll say this for Dana. That I have respect for Dana about a lot of shit. I respect the fact his friends that I hate I hate them, but I respect

the fact that he don't give a shit, that those are his friends. No one's going to tell him who his friends are. The same way no one's going to tell me who my friends are. I don't, that doesn't trouble me. I can deal with that. I would never react that way. I'd be under the motherfucking table. But like, dude, he's

the kind of guy that's hanging with, like him and Rogan or hanging with RFK. They're hanging with fucking HECSIF and these people. These are their boys. Why would I expect a different kind of reaction than I would get from the Trump administration? These are their boys. He's entitled to react the way the fuck he wants to.

Of course he's entitled, but if you are so pro, you know, the office. I don't think there's much, like, I don't see the issue of it. Like, what I reacted about? It's just absurd. It's absurd to walk Donald Trump right after fucking people are being shot in the street

when you have an Epstein fucking file scandal all over the war, marching this guy through fucking your, like your events, like he's a hero, and doing a birthday event on the White House Law and all this fucking shit is crazy. However, are they entitled to do it? Yes. Yes. Anyone's... Do I like it? I fucking find it reprehensible.

At the same time, in a weird, perverse way, do I respect the fact they're doing it? Yeah, because he don't give a single fuck. They don't give a single fuck. Sure. They don't give a single fuck. No fucking way. You won't watch it. Fuck that. Some good fights. I'm not watching that. Why? Fuck that. Trump's birthday. Fuck that. I'll be on my boat.

It's in celebration of 250 years. I'll celebrate. Fuck out of here. Stop. I'm not watching that shit. Fuck out of here. When you see him being like sort of paraded down there with the kid rock music and whatnot. Kid rock too.

Like is there a greater atrocity to world music than this fucking guy too? Like the fact I have to see Kid Rock, the fact I'm reading in a motherfucking newspaper today that they're riding the guy around. And like there's hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a like a million. military aircraft and zip Kid Rock around with Hegsef? What kind of alternate universe are we living in? So would you have issues doing business with these people? You say you hate, you know, what they, what they represent, who they associate with? No, because I'm not like, I don't have to vote for him. I wouldn't vote for Dana for president. Yeah, but you want to do business with people that you don't necessarily respect? I've been linked to mutual dislike with Rogan for decades.

Sure, sure. No, I mean, I would do business with them, sure. I mean, like, look, dude, you're entitled to believe what you fucking believe. I'm entitled to think you're out of your fucking mind. You're entitled to worship an orange demagogue who is a piece of human garbage and I'm entitled to say you're out of your fucking mind. That's what America's all about. I don't fault Dana for who his friends are. I don't fault

them in a weird way. Like I said it, it does make me chuckle to a degree how they just double down. You know, as you're accused of your links to these people being so strong, the reaction is yeah, he's my fucking friend and I'm going to march him around wherever the fuck I want him.

No, he got a shudris. There's a hubris there, right? Like, I don't give a crap. You guys can complain all you want. I am who I am. I'm friends with who I. And you know what, man. From my type of code in Allude de Bella world, I have respect for that.

Like, I do. I have respect for the fact that Dana doesn't give a single fuck about. To use a baseball analogy, do you not think that, you know, the fastball has gone down to the 70s? He's no longer throwing 97 anymore. Dana, as a promoter. You said earlier that you think he's better than Eddie. And that's debatable. No, I, I, I didn't necessarily say that.

If I had one event, and I had to make Mo versus Larry. Yeah. And you need a guy. And I got to sell Mo versus Larry. Eddie will do what the fuck ever he needs to do to sell Mo versus Larry. Okay. I thought you were going to go the opposite way there. No, no, no, no.

He will be a fucking clown. He will say the most untrue shit. He will double and triple down on horse shit. He'll do what he needs to do and say what he needs to say. The same way he blew Connor Ben when Connor Ben was still. in the fold and then turned on Connor of Ben like he was Satan when Connor Ben gave him this. So, you know, but for that one kind of thing, Mo versus Larry, yeah. Okay. A bigger picture thing. Executing a plan, having to use your brain, having to have A, B, C, like having to go through

courses of like machinations to get to a result. That's where I think that TKO has, has something. You'll be locked in? What's July 25th? A.J. Pranga? No. Come on. That's your guy. You tried to sign him.

Pranga? Yeah. I will absolutely not be watching that. I will not be watching that. God, I love these chats so much. You know people ask me? Like, when's Lou coming back? No, you know what?

Like, I must get a little bit. You make it hard. You make it hard. I had a couple people of, I mean, I've had offers now about a podcast. Oh, wow. In fact, I have like an offer. I feel like it's because of these experiences. No, no, it's because of this.

And yet you give us such a hard time when I have to ask you. I don't give a hard time. I think, dude, I think you're great entertaining. I think you're incredibly entertaining. Are you going to do it? I may, but like, the one I'm thinking about doing would involve another person that would be like pretty significant. Like it would be like a two of us thing. Okay, okay.

So I have to think about it. I'll be honest with you, though. I'm really overwhelmed by the first season in the new ballpark. So anything I'm going to start would probably not be till late in the year. Also, like, Salida's trying me to do on air, trying to get me to do on air commentary on his fights. And I'm thinking about, I don't know. Right now I'm a little bit overwhelmed by things. So, like, I'm, but you know what?

I have a love for combat sports, and I particularly love for boxing. I don't want to become totally attenuated from it. Like, I love coming on here because it gives me the opportunity to shoot the shit. You know what I mean? And now that I'm not reliant on boxing for one I owed over a living, I truly don't give a shit what I say. Not that I ever did. But now less than I ever have. So I like the ability to go out here and just say what I think, because it's sort of fun.

And you provide that opportunity and I'm very grateful for it. I enjoy it. Let me ask you one last thing before. How does this turn out? This story of the year, the Zufa, TK, you think by the end of the year this bill passes and now we really get to see what they're all about?

Aliak's going to pass. They're going to, the smaller shows that they do are going to be ratcheted up, you know, I think somewhat deliberately. It's not going to be overnight. Like, people have to look at the history of what they did with UFC

and the other properties they've bought. they are methodical a little bit in those early stages of spending money and building something. And they have to be. They have to change, if they can't change the expectations of pay scale on competitive fights between emerging contenders, they can't get to where they want to get to. To some extent, Turkey's spending the insane money playing in a sandbox, making the matchups he wants to say,

by the way, did you see the thing today with Turkey and Dua Lipa? Oh yeah, what's up with that? She has to be at the event? No, if she's not singing at the event, he's not going to Wembley Stadium. What is that all about? I have no idea. You know what?

When you have the money, you can say whatever you can. Sure. When you're controlling the checkbook, you do whatever the fuck you want. You know what I mean? It's one of the fun things about on your baseball team too, by the way. But, you know, not with respect to what's on the field, but you have the ability to make certain decisions.

How about those Savannah bananas, huh? What an incredible concept. Unbelievable. What an incredible concept. See them on ESPN, like 50,000, people are there. Meanwhile, the Flanks Squirrels are 17 and three. The best record. Who are you playing?

Who are you playing? I didn't look. You ever play the Harrisburg Senators? Yeah, we do play them. That was my team. Yeah, we play them. We're 17 and 3 to start the season. It's pretty good.

Well done. Well done. Thank you, Lou. Good to be here. Always a pleasure. There he is. The great Lou Debella, amazing to pick your brain.

As always, we appreciate we'll be back with your questions. On the nose, don't go anywhere. Okay, back on the program. That was BITB on Thursday. That was Lou Debella earlier. 15 or so minutes ago? No, less. Five minutes ago.

that was amazing. Ghaly, do I love Lou. I would listen to a Lou Debella podcast. He is intense. My favorite is when he just starts... Blah! Motherfiger! My apologies to Jake back there,

who's in charge of the Bleep button. Who gives it shit? All right, fine. You said it. Not me. Time not for everyone's favorite. Second one of the week. It is time.

It's time for a relatively rare Tuesday edition. of On the Nose. Tomorrow's going to be a very busy day on the program. I also wanted to let you know May 8th, 830 p.m.

New York City, City Winery, New York City. I'm just blurting it out here. Tickets will be on sale very soon. Myself, Rick, G.C., Frank, Andy, Jordan,

Pizzie and Spirit, all in attendance. Night before UFC in Newark. That's 328. I do. believe 830 live two I believe special guests hello how are you's shake hands it's going to be a great scene we did a show there a couple years ago Cheeto was there Dylan was there action was

there Juliana was there there might have been one other and so let it be known let it be known breaking news frank May 8th ball is in motion bit of a last minute deal here hopefully we'll have the link in the next 24 to 48. City Winery, New York City, Westside, 8.30 p.m. doors open at 8.830 to around 10. After the way-ins, you could come on over. If you're not going to go to the way-ins, all good. If you're in the New York City area, the Jersey area, the Connecticut area, let it be known. Let it be known. We're doing a live show. A lot of you have been asking on this very segment, when's our next live show? Well, now you have it. Please come out one and all. cheap tickets as well, and we are looking forward to it very much.

So that's going down May 8th in New York City. That's next Friday, by the way, the day before UFC 328. Okay. Fucking out. Yeah, it's a pretty big deal. Is Mr. Petey here? Oh, hey, Pete. How are you?

You made an appearance earlier. Sorry, yeah. With Arnold. Yeah, well, you see, I got this text. Matt's Josh Jordan earlier today and he was like, oh, will you send me a selfie? I'm really thinking about growing a mustache and I want to show Jill so like she can see how cool it looks. Straight away, I knew something was up. Telling Jordan.

I was like, hang on a second. Yeah, yeah. I flagged you. But then I saw the picture that you used and I'm like, do you know what? I don't look as good as that today, so I'm very happy with it. No, I thought it was a good one. I like how your chin is out. That's why I say it's very sergeant-slaughtering-slaught-esque.

Yeah, yeah. Attention. What's you're just thinking of a stash today? I like it. I say we go with this. And Arnold seemed like it as well. He loved it. And I said to Elaine, I said, have you noticed that I've been growing a mustache?

She said, no. And I was like, all right. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. What about that PDF filled the freeze, huh? I don't know if you should call him that. Why? I was just going to say, man, is PDF sticking? I don't think it is.

I like PDF. No. On the guess list. It doesn't mean what you think it means, right? You know what I'm saying? What? A PDF file? The regular

The regular, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Oh, The regular, the regular contenders in KSW, they're like your typical word document. No. He's a PDAF. He's the next level.

Breaking news on the program. Yeah. Build a freeze. BDFB. Oh, God. I didn't think that. He's a big man. You know, he can catch boards.

I just love. You notice that when he's talking, he goes like oh yeah yeah give us the full like that you didn't give enough eye there a lot of like raging like the eyes when he talked like wide open oh this is good

I love him he's a jolly giant is he not so such a great guy so animated it's great also all like everything is a good luck charm oh my oh my yeah my my lucky rash guard my daughter's hair The daughter's hair in the cup protector is insanity. You know what we taught us that daughters have to catch boards with their bare hands as well.

That's incredible. Do they do it or he just teaches them? They have done it. They have done it. Here's Jamal 2020 leading us off. G.C., please blind rank these five weekend activities. Okay. Brunch.

I feel like you're a big brunch guy. I love brunch too. Going to the movies. Love the movies. movies, but I'll go three. I got to hold out number one. Apple picking. I'll go five. That's seasonal. I can't do that every weekend. That's once a year tops. Going to the brewery with the boys.

I just don't know what the last one's going to be, so I'm going to go four. I blew it. I blew it. Eating a charcutory board off of Frank's bombs. That's one, actually. I didn't blow it. I nailed it. That's number one. It's been a while since we had a... Yeah, a frank home. Ariel, this is from shake turkey. If Connor fights Max instead of Jorge Mosvedal,

the Mazvedal one is not a thing. He will be on the show tomorrow, so we'll hear from him. I feel when presence real problem while the... Oh, I think he meant one. I feel one presents real problems while the other is extremely winnable. Question is, do you love either of those fights for the legacy...

Oh, Jesus. What? Another mom being? Question is, do you love either? Oh my God. Those fights for the legacy of Frank's Bob's ass. Beep. It was such a serious question.

I was like, why is he losing it? And then we got so good. We got there. It's so good. Back to back. To back there is off. We need like the graphic that they made for Ilya that says Shave's ass, but it's just mysterious Franks

and it's kiss his ass. Left leg cemetery. Go, Connor, please rip a blind ranking of these milestones. Oh, no. Are we going three for three? Is this a triple header? Number one stays open. High school graduation.

Oh, four. First time driving solo. It's a crazy experience when you're in the. the car alone. Three. The day a man becomes a father. I haven't experienced it, but I've heard good things. We'll go too.

Hitting a complete main card parlay. That's a good one. But we'll go five because we know what's coming. And making the decision to join the Bald Beard Brotherhood. Number one. What's your biggest milestone so far? I give us a fucking answer. Career-wise, he asks.

That's a great question. I feel like I can't say it right off. rip, I don't know. You don't have a milestone career-wise? Greatest achievement? Joining the team, man. Joining the team, yeah. That was a lay-up, that's a good one. Game night to this? Making Brady duck him, whooping out his ass on the...

There's a lot to narrow it down. There's so much. Catching that fish. I forgot the Ade one. That was some performance. Bronson Fight Feast. That was a good one. That's a great one. Being on the freaky... You were on the thumb. Were you not? Yeah, sure. That was for fuck, that's delicious. Yeah, shut up. Steve Bouchemi.

What did you guys think of Yuri's fire yesterday? I heard a swear word out of him and calling Ullberg a stripper. Has Uri turned a corner? Is he more amped up than we ever have seen him before? Or is he breaking character and proving Ullberg right? Although I loved it, it did seem a little bit out of character. I don't think so. He seemed appropriately fired up.

He seemed, you know, he wasn't offering excuses. I thought it was a fine performance. I mean, he became a dad, he was happy. Could you imagine the emotions this guy is feeling right now? is so intense about his fighting career. He made a blunder. He acknowledges it. Whether you like the way in which he acknowledged it or not, he acknowledges it. And then he became a father, like two, three days later. That is as wide a range of emotions that a fighter can feel. You lost a UFC title fight, and you become a father for the first time within the span of two, three days. And oh, by the way,

it was one of the most shocking losses in UFC title fight history. So I think he's handling it pretty well, all things considered. Now, we're judging him based on a 20-minute Zoom interview, who knows what's going on behind the scenes. But for the most part, I feel like, I don't know. Did you guys think that he was broken or unhinged or anything like that? It felt like a very yury interview. It didn't feel out of the ordinary at all for me. Like the same level of intensity, the same commitment to returning better than ever.

Like, I don't know. It felt pretty on brand for Yeri, honestly. I agree. Here's Joe who says one for New York, Rick. Please blind rank these iconic Haldi interview moments over the years. Sure. Chale, Nog, horse, bus, carrot. This is the first one up?

Yeah, that's classic. I'm fucked. Two, just because I want to leave one open, yeah. James Tihuna. Three. Machita Sr. drinks his own pee. Oh, fuck. Legendary.

Four. Peacan pie up in this. Five. People like you get slapped. Yeah, perfect. It's not bad. Yeah, I did pretty good on that. here is ace crouton who says hey ariel where does aljimate sterling rank in the greatest of all time

discussion if he becomes a two division champion top 10 top 25 he's a solid fighter but never came to mine back in the day when thinking of guys who can move up and get it done a second time really hope he gets a chance to do it it's a great question if he let's say let's say mozar loses to alex and aljo fights john sylvan wins and then aljo beats Alex, you'd have to, is he top 10? I mean, that's a two-division champion, legit. I don't consider him an illegitimate bantamweight champion. No, I mean, that's stupid.

He fought Jan again. He beat him. He won that fight. Fairly. Fended the title two more times. Yeah. Would you consider him top 10? Two-division champion?

I'm not good at doing the top 10 off the top of my head, but he's in a level of... To me, you're 100% top 20. You're very likely top 15. And I'm open to discussion of top 10. He will remain one of the most underrated fighters ever. 100%. If he does it. Because people will have, they always seem to have some kind of like justification excuse.

If Volcanowski beats Mosar Avloev and Al Jememem, I guarantee the only thing they'll be talking about is how washed Volk is. He is one of those guys who just never gets credit for his wins. But he's already just a fantastic fighter, like one of the top guys we've ever seen to do it in two-way classes the way he's doing it. But yes, that would put him in very special territory. I feel like he doesn't get the respect, but I feel like it's starting to come. No, not at all? No. This is Brett from Nebraska.

Gentlemen, one quick question for each of you, Halwani, Rick, PT, and G.C. Please give Frank a break during this time. Rick, don't lie, how good did it feel when the first day you left, Halwani broke the stream? Were you aware that this was happening? Oh, I was aware. So crazy.

I did not feel good. I was having secondhand, like, panic attack thinking about everybody back here having to react. I was sweating so much. Breaking the stream. No, I didn't do. Nothing.

I fully owned up to it. I explained what happened. Yes, but that doesn't get us back on air. You owning up to it and, like, the funny thing was is that I think we were like 20 minutes. up in the sky, G.C. is probably like, we did it, right? And then I freaking throw this curveball at you. I mean, literally back here, when we got on the air, I was just like, all right,

planes up in the air, we just hit the, ding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cruising altitude. I was like, all right, we're good to chill for the rest of the show. Yeah. It's a little too graphic, that analogy, if I'm being honest. No, no, that's perfect. Mayday, Mayday! Brace for impact! G.C. Is any sporting event better than the truest high-level back-and-forth tennis match? Dude, big tennis guy, yeah. It's tough to beat. I always say at the peak of all peaks, when it's as good as it can possibly get, MMA is my one. But yeah, like if you're going like Sinner versus Alcaraz French Open final last year, that's tough to top.

Ptze, how did you get so handsome? A mustache man myself, as a mustache man myself, as a mustache man myself fair play to you. Yeah, no, it's looks maxing. Oh, yeah. Wow. Well done. I've been face smashing myself. And, you know, just I spent about 16 hours a day, just smashing the shit out on my face. And then I grew a mustache. And that's why I'm now a 10 out of 10. Are we going, like, are we going like Tom Selleck here? Are we going Don Fry?

Listen, mate. What I'm going to deal with this facial hair has never been done before. All right, all right. All right. All right. Halwani, I am waiting on professional news that would be life-changing for me. A different position has opened up, and I'll find out on May 1st about it. Okay, so what is that? May 1st? That's Friday. Unfortunately, it is seniority-based, and so I have no control over if I get it or not.

How do you handle such big moments that is completely out of your control? Wow, that is a great question. Someone once told me, control the controllables, and I know that's somewhat cliche, but you have to say to yourself, whatever will be will be. And you also have to say to yourself, I am blessed. I'm lucky to be feeling these things, to be feeling these nerves, this anxiety, this anticipation. This is a lot better than not having anything.

And so I'm going to put that positivity out there. I'm going to try to attract more positivity. I'm going to be hopeful. I'm going to have an open mind and say, all right, I'm going to accept whatever is coming, but I'm going to put out there that I want this thing, that I want it to happen, when I want it to turn in my favor and ultimately be appreciative that you will. are alive, that you are well, and that you are in the position to, you know, even be in the mix for something like this. And, uh, you hope for the best. And I wish you the best. Did you guys

see that 60 minutes interview? No, I did, yeah. The whole thing. Yeah. The 40 minutes. Yes. God, what an impressive guy. I wish I could remember his name now. Bass, B-A-S-S-S-B-A-S-S-S. Ben Sass. Yeah. Ben Sass. The, uh, former Nebraska, because I was thinking of Brett from Nebraska, who then became president of, I think, University of Florida has months to live. And his perspective, the way in which he was talking about life and death, unbelievable, right? I thought it was amazing. We talked about social media. Did you hear him talk about social media?

Yeah, it's a, it's a, obviously when you hear somebody speaking the way they're speaking, right, you think about your own mortality, you think about, you know, how you're handling your life and things like that. And I couldn't help but just be like, very similar to what you're saying. I'm lucky to be here doing what I'm able to do. Take all this for granted, yeah. Don't take even a second for granted. Could you imagine if you're told you have two months left?

Well, I will say, him handling it that way does make it easier to imagine that scenario, right? Because then you go, I hope I have the grace. I hope I have the ability to handle it in the way he did it. And maybe there's a bit of comfort in that, if I'm being honest. With a smile on his face. Smiling, just optimizing his life that is left. and spreading a message that I think is very positive and encouraging for everybody. The way he talked about social media,

the way he talked about kids being born and the lack of kids being born. And politics is a Republican. He's very critical of the Republican Party and what it's become. The one part about his kids growing up and then, you know, saying that like this is all God's plan. He's okay with that. He's at peace with that. There's no maverick molecules out there.

Highly, highly, highly recommend. It's about 40 or so minutes long. the full interview, tremendous stuff. And I thought the 60 Minutes correspondent did an amazing job as well. Ariel, this is from Islam's flambotomist. Thank you for giving fighters a platform to speak openly about censorship. I'm particularly fascinated when fighters speak on their religion. It seems that many fighters you have on the show have deep-seated religious convictions. And thank you specifically for not being afraid to share your faith. I'm always fascinated when you speak on Passover and different Jewish holidays and customs. Thank you. My question, have you seen the

chosen. It is an extremely well put together show following the life of Jesus, and more specifically, the lives of his disciples. 10 out of 10 show, season five, Jesus's crucifixion is dropping this fall. You can catch the first four seasons on prime. It has given me a deeper understanding of respect for the Jewish faith and shows just how, quote, unquote, Jewish Jesus and his followers were. You know yourself. I have not seen that. Has anyone seen that? No, have not. I was hoping someone would have seen it, but I do appreciate the recommendation. I have never felt uncomfortable. In fact, I enjoy talking to people about religion.

I enjoy talking to people about their different faiths, customs, politics, all these sort of things that they say are sort of taboo. I feel like it's just interesting to hear about other people's takes. I loved hearing Moycano talk about it. I don't agree with everything that he says. I don't agree with a lot of things that a lot of people say on the show. show, but I want to give them an opportunity to speak and explain and discuss, and then you could decide whether you like it or not. I'm not necessarily, at times it gets to that, but like, we're not here to debate necessarily, unless we are specifically here to debate. When I ask

someone to come on, I want to hear about their lives and customs and things like that. And yeah, some people feel like that's weird. Some people get weird when you talk about religion. I've never felt that way. And maybe it's because I grew up around it so much, and it was such a big part of my childhood and school and teachings and all that stuff. I don't know, but I enjoy it. I think it's weird, I think it's weird how religion divides us so much. I think it's weird how so much of the world's problems and conflict has come from religion. I understand why to a degree, but I think it's, it's crazy. It's insane. But partially it's because of the mentality that, like, I'm right and you're wrong. And that's unfortunate. That's unfortunate.

to make it like as simple as possible, to put in the most simplest terms. Big money, Ariel and the Boys. Yesterday's show was great from the interviews, especially Davy, to the group banter and everything in between. Shout out to New Yorkerip, we're having the courage to put on his tinfoil hat,

Frank for his Dana drop remix. I sort of feel like we could have done better, Frank. If I'm being honest, you were so good before the show. Give me a fucking break. And the hilarious AI promo slop breakdown. Seriously, though, what was up with that total piece of garbage?

you're telling me. Thank you for all the consistent entertainment at uncrowned. It is truly unmatched. Peace in love, peace and love, and go Sabres. Right, Frank? How about that? Just a nice comment. No real question.

Frankie's going to the HQ tonight to watch the Sabres. You are. That's right. Hell yeah. What's the series at right now? 3-1. I was waiting for you. No, I was actually waiting to see Frank.

Oh, sorry. Close-out game. Quiet on set. Ariel turns into Dana when Frank reads super chats. I don't know about that. Wait, that's the whole thing? What was that? Yeah, that was it. That's not a bad take.

Oh, that. Okay, I got it. Great point. I got it. I got it. I got it. Cmart 27. Hey, Ariel, with reports coming out recently regarding poor sales for UFC 328 in the previous number of events struggling to fully sell out. I know a lot has been said about the matchmaking,

lack of stars. But how much of this is due to being able to just watch from the comfort of your home without having to pay pay-per-view prices. I mean, 327 was a pretty loaded card from top to bottom. Even with the van fight being removed, is it more likely we see the UFC adjust to all of this by lowering prices for live events or by bringing back the pay-per-view model? Definitely the former. They ain't bringing back the pay-per-view model.

I would be shocked. I'd be shocked if they lower ticket prices, too. I think gradually. Why? The arena being full isn't the objective. At least not anymore. But yes. The arena is selling the most, making the most profits that they can at the gate is the objective.

And so you don't necessarily have to sell out the arena to make more money if the prices are higher. There's a sliding scale there where you can charge much higher prices and have the arena 75% full and make way more money than if you underpriced it and had the arena 100% full. Now, as a fan of the sport, would I rather be in an arena? 100% full, full of rowdy and raucous people all dying for this, you. you know, living for this blood sport that I also love? Sure, but that's not TKO's objective. So I don't know that we'll see a decline because I'm looking around the space and it just seems like entertainment and live events and things in general. The ticket prices are continuing to go up and up and up and up. This is not a UFC specific thing. This is an entertainment thing.

Is there any concern on the UFC front from the 327 gate being low? It was like 6.7 mil. It was the lowest by like 4 million since the Miami return. What was the one before that, though? It was like 11 or something? Wasn't it? It was like 11 or 12. No, who was on it? Last year was Volk, Diego Lopez.

Okay, yeah, maybe there's something to that. I don't imagine ticket prices go down, though, based on that. The wrestling fans are hoping. And they did cut them by 25%. WrestleMania? Yeah, that was like the McAfee tie-in, right? Like if you do the... Joe Schmoe, greetings gang.

if Prachas hypothetically smokes Jadim this weekend, is there any chance he jumps IMG? That's Ian Machada Garrett. I've never heard that one before, IMG. Are you guys into IMG? No. Not PDF. And Morales, or as Islam, IMG basically said,

I don't like Pratchez's odds against Islam, but he checks all the boxes the UFC seems to want. It's not signed. You know, there's a thing now that I'm hearing from people that, and I saw this, Amiz Abhi was telling Sneiko about this on his stream. UFC taking a very long time to send out contracts even after fights are announced and agreed to, like longer than usual. So if you think Ian Gary has a contract, no, he doesn't.

Did you see the video he put out today? Well, that's a good tee-up. I believe we have it. Do we not? Sure do. All right, let's see it together. I saw it's in the chat, but I didn't actually see it, so let's see. Okay, this is something. I just got chills. Does this mean something's happening? I hope so. Between him and getting a lot of something happening. No, this time the phone actually rang. Oh, yes.

Wasn't just him laying around listening to the area of Hawaii show. Got it, got it. The phone actually rang. I think he's got it. I think it will be in August. I don't think Pratchez jumps to queue. But he'll be, you know, pretty damn close. I wonder what they do with Morales.

What do you think they do with Morales? One more. Yeah, but who? Prochis. Whenever Pratchez. But then he's going to wait. He's going to be out for a very long time. right i mean you could

always just wait I'm fighting this weekend and now you got to I know but if if Ian gets that fight there's no telling when he's going to fight again if he wins it Uros Madich UFC Serbia versus Morales

the flights to Belgrade if that's the case big you know big fight oh boy is it like it no Pete how long of a flight is it for you on the PJ or like normal normal three maybe oh it's easy

I'll swing by Dublin pick you up. We're off to Belgrade. Well, I'll get you and go back if you want. Yeah, I'd want that, yeah, man. That sounds good. Yeah, okay, no problem, no problem. Here's a question for PT from Joe Mers. If Mo Farah and Luke Littler

race a half marathon, that's 13 miles, but they have to check out at 501 after every mile. Who wins? That is a fucking brilliant question. That is a crazy question. This was asked. I think someone was asked to us. The same one? Yeah. exact one. That's an insane question.

And we said dude's getting smoked. Let's break it down here, right? How quickly is Moffired doing a mile? It doesn't matter. Wait, so who are you? Who you guys said? He's never... Littler's smoking him because he's not going to be able to close out the... Never closing out. Fast enough. Yeah, he's never closing it out.

Listen, I can't run 13 mile, though. You can if I give you a day. Nice. You're just saying, Luke E Littler isn't looking like he's running a 13 mile to me. Luke, Luke ain't running 13. That's a good point. No, he's got it in the bag. I don't think he does, Rick, and I think

you're being disingenuous. It's so hard to be the dart to do the darts part. The darts part is so much harder than the running. Yeah. So much harder. Can't run the miles.

You don't think just by like virtue of him like chucking him he'll get it at some point? Maybe. And then he'll, I think. I mean, we know what happened in the glimmer man earlier, you know what I mean? So I have to say I've seen miracles happen.

You remember when I walked up there? And your Mark hunted me. Yeah. Mark who? Mark who? He also asks Joe if we could get Dave Allen on the show because he's got one of the best socials in the game. And yes, I would love Dave.

Wait, sorry, he asks as Joe or he asked Joe? Who's Joe? No, Joe Mers. Who's Joe? Like, he asks, comma. Got it, got it. Joe asks. Yeah.

Who's Joe? Joe's again here with us. Oh, Joe, you're talking about the Ilya thing. Yeah. Let's say Ronda beats Gina and firmly acclaims the New York comeback fight of the year. The crazy thing is she may actually win it. fucking teen. She doesn't know it to win, by the way, but yes, keep going.

This is one of the longest term storylines of all time that may actually come to fruition, which is insane. Which fight would be bigger? Kala and the UFC, Cyborg on Netflix. Oh, come on. Kala versus Ronda would be... She'll never do the cyber. No, no. The Cyborg thing...

We heard her talk about Cyborg. There's no chance she would ever fight Cyborg. I don't think she'll do the Kayla either. The one I really want is Cyborg versus Kayla. It's actually easy to make it happen. wait how man just go inside with UFC yeah it does feel

she's only tied to them for one fight she can literally walk across the street we talked about this and wondered is it has she dug her heels into deep right with the anti-UFC rhetoric has she as she planted her flag to a degree no I suggested UFC would still

take her back oh from like a public perception like you'll look like a hypocrite I mean how can you spend this whole time shitting on the UFC and talking about how they don't pay anyone and be like, I'm going to go fight for the UFC. Yeah. I don't know if, I don't think the way that she's talking is aiming for a Kayla Harrison.

No, no, no, no, no. But yes, I do think that could happen. The one I won is Cyborg versus Kayla, but that will also never happen. Ronda Hawley 2. Interested? For sure. There's a story there, right? Oh, yeah.

People will watch, yeah. Interested. And the OSC going to sell the rights to that K.O. though, so they can play it on the promo? You don't need to. That's a K.O. that you put a photo up. You mentioned. it and everybody has it in their head. You don't need the video for that.

Here's Ryan Holland who says, what does a win over a Rufi actually do for Michael Chandler? Where does he go next? And how does Kevin Lee fit into all this? What a throwback. I mean, how big of a dog is Michael Chandler? Let me tell you right now. I'm assuming he is a dog. He is absolutely a dog.

Yeah, Maricio Hofeet minus 600, Michael Chandler plus 450. Who's the biggest dog? on that card, I wonder. That would be... Justin Gajee. Just engage you. Just engage you, right? What is he? It's a 4-800, Justin Gagee

plus 5.50. Chandler's currently 13th. Huffy's 10th. I mean, it would be a gigantic win. It would be... Is it winnable? He could win that fight. Let's see where he's at, no?

No. He is one in five in his last six. He's 40 years old. The title picture is gone. I mean, it seems like Michael Chang's is perpetually in the spot of maybe he can get that second remaining fight on Connor McGregor's

deal, that's about it, you know, like, I don't know what else is left for him. I mean, he's two and five in his UFC. He just celebrated his birthday, too. Happy birthday. Not a bad spot to be in, though, for the McGregor fight, you know what I mean? His name has been linked. It makes sense. By the way, that might be the answer right there. Yeah. You win that

fight, and Connor wins, that's maybe the last fight. The question I'd ask. Maybe they both lose and it makes the same amount of sense. That's a good point. The only rub there in my mind is if Connor McGregor is perceivably, like, going to fight his last fight for the UFC. You want to build his name off. You don't want to put Michael Chandler as the guy in that spot. That might be the Paddy Pimblit spot, right?

That might make sense. Or Ilya Taboria, right? You send him out with that. Carlos Proaches. So, I don't know. It's a tough spot for Chandler. You just got to hope you can rope in a big fight. Matt Chihuihuis says,

Hello, Ariel and crew. Happy National Superhero Day. Hi there. This question is mainly for Frank. Frank, is there a known bug with the Apple podcast streams? I've noticed lately, especially during the last BITD show, that the audio frequently jumps back about 30 seconds, repeating what was just said.

It happens on the AHA occasionally, but it was particularly bad on the last episode. Is anyone else experiencing this, or is it just me? Sometimes, I don't know. Have I experienced that? I don't know. Frank, do you know about this? It's the first I've heard of it, to be honest.

You'll look into it. I will definitely look into it. He says, Q the Darren Till, Keep my... Keep my fucking name out your mouth? That is the one he was talking about. Yes, as always, peace and love.

He also asks, thoughts on Millwall in the premiership. Are they close? Pizzi. I don't fucking know. Millwall wouldn't be my favorite team. No. Oh, Ipswich.

Nil-nil-nil. Where's Mil-Wall? Yeah, they're third. No. Pirals and Jamana beat in Bury Munich, two one. Wow. Semi-a-vinals.

Well, you said you had some Pratchez video footage of him playing football again. I want to give him the... Let's see the breakdown. That's a great... Thank you. Thank you for taking the bull by the horns there. Here's Carlos Pratchez and friends playing a little bit of football yesterday in Perth. Here we go.

Ptzee, break it down for us. Quite the respect being shown here, shaking hands, and you've got to respect it, right? Good volley. He's no problem there. Keeping the ball close to his body. It flew away from his body. Was that Benile there used, or was that? Yeah, that was Benile.

Yeah, that was Benile. Oh, here's Pratchez. okay here we go these are nice oh that's very nice did do a sudden jump cut there I wonder what happened to the ball after it landed

I wouldn't wear sunglasses so we have when I'm playing right okay bit ahead volley here beautiful okay not bad this is

this is decent we're nearly at 10 here no we didn't get the 10 no ball to feet though good pass good pass there to Darius Darius

I finish I mean I'd fancy me chances if I just picked four random lads off the street to beat them in a four of a episode, if I'm being completely honest with you. Hit the post, huh?

Oh, facing off with the Perth Glory Football Club, yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, I think he should stick to the fight and smoking cigarettes, from being honest with you. Can we go back to that clip for a second and pause when Daryush comes up? I'll tell you when to pause whenever we have that re-racked, as they say in the business. Do you guys let me know?

Okay, here we go. Here we go. It's coming. Hello, how are you? Okay, not yet, not yet. I think Daisha's got game here. Okay, pause, pause, pause. What's up with his right eye?

Yeah, it's closed for sure. Yeah. Don't know. We have pink guy? I hope not. I think Ptzee was too harsh on them. I thought they looked great. I thought it was pretty good too.

Do you fight with pink guy? No. You probably can't. We did mention Maricio Hoofi just a second ago. Here's some footage of him training for that fight against one Michael Chandler. He's looking lightning quick. Is this sped off? up here, what's going on?

Oh shit. I will say, Chandler has... It's a wide stance. Who is a BSD, who be a hoofy in the UFC, and just wrestled them to oblivion. Like, that is the style of the be hoofy. It's just that you're going to have to eat all these fucking things first. And they ain't tasty.

As good as they look. They're not going to taste very good. Does his stance in striking style look a little Conner-esque, Circa 2014. Erlea McGregor, yeah. Oh yeah. Stunts. Gerth Brooks says...

What's that? He's not a cellpot, is he? No. No. Aaron Crew, Godanya Mates, Roman Reigns, the return of Shalzzi, Cody wrote,

and maybe even a reason for Curtis 50 Cent Jackson to debut on the MMA hour. Why do people still call it the MMA hour? I saw these guys that were doing a breakdown of the Rick Flair appearance on the show and they were calling it the MMAR.

There's no MMA hour sign anywhere. It's like literally right there on the screen. It says, A-H-O. It's been gone. I guess, I guess-stallia. Nostalgia. Fucking oath, he says. White House card hype and the return of Ronda can kick rocks. How excited are we for these street fighter movie interviews?

Yeah, that'd be great. Oh, yeah, are we going to get a chance to talk to these guys? That'd be nice. We'd love to. Shultzzi. 50-cent would be sad. I told you guys I got the call about that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Did he? Didn't work out. No, no, no, no. About being in the film, Pete, So I'm excited about 50 cent You're saying did he do something or just did he?

Yeah, what's up? Dave. PDF? Ariel, I watched my first apex card in a while and it's not that great, especially when fights go the distance. Do you have any idea how they can make it more entertaining? Maybe Pat McAfee can be in someone's corner

or jelly roll as a guest judge. This guy gets it. Yeah. Brantley. Since you and Rhonda are on better terms with the upcoming Netflix card, have you tried getting her on the program? Yes. I'm sure you still have a million more questions.

You'd love to ask her and I have a feeling after this fight she will disappear again. Very possible. We're trying. We're trying. Hmm. Gang. Ooh, this is fun. From Nikki V.

Please blind rank these five pizza styles. Okay, let's do it together. Chicago Deep Dish. Never had it. Never had it. I love when Andy goes back. to you guys and all of you are like when I walk into my son's room and he's trying to like he's like everyone's like uh huh uh uh things back here man two fuck out of here absolutely not four four

four i like it at two as well two five no okay okay you're going this next one i hear such great things about i feel like connor's the only one that's had it wait so where did we land are we at three because it was like split four yeah let's go three all right three new haven oh i've never had new haven i'd go one as well it's so good What do you what do you compare it to? They say it's like, is it like, where in Italy is the new, it's thin, it's thin. Sicilian, yes, it's very thin. New Haven's in Italy.

That's fantastic. Yeah, I like New Haven Pizza better than New York. New York pizza is better than New York. New York style, too. I'm okay with that, yeah. We'll put it at two now. Is stuff crust on this list? Neapolitan.

So what's Neapolitan? That's the new Italian one. Is that like, is that like when the cheese is, like when the sauce is above the cheese? No. That's the grandma style. What you were describing is this, the New Haven, is the Neopolitan. Okay.

It's good. I'd say four, though. Yeah, I don't know what the distinction is. The Detroit style. Geographical. The Trois style are the squares, right? I'm good. I'm good.

Neapolitan pizza comes from Naples, Eric, by the way. It's also, Neapolitan is not New Haven. Yeah, so what is the, he was asking? Where do I get that? It's a little puffier crust, they feel like. It's a puffier crust, yeah. It's like kind of. That can be a fault.

A pizza. I can break it down for us, Pizzi, please. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, yeah, that's what I was like. The very puffy crust? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. Love that.

It's good. It's quite good. That's the one that I had in Rome, I think. But I actually stick by our rankings. I like New Haven, New York, Chicago, Neapolitan. I would have moved Chicago down and Neapolitan up. You and I need to go get some New Haven. A good.

No. That's not pizza. That's lasagna. It's good. Not lasagna, but like. There's no pasta. There's no pasta. A casserole like can give you.

That was it. That was the one. It's fucking lasagna. It's a cassero. Whatever it is. Whatever it is, you can call it a casserole. Whatever it is, you can call it whatever you want. It's not pizza.

It's not pizza. Whatever it is. You call it whatever you want it. And you are not right. It's a bread bowl that you pour shit into. Why are you so averse to saying it's a cassero? It's a cassero. If you want to have a good Chicago pizza, check out the home run.

Oh, the best. Home running is fantastic. They actually don't do deep dish style. They do the other style. Correct. What's our spot? Frankie? Genos?

No, Daniels on Grove, what's it called? That's the one, yeah. What is it, George? Emmits, Emmitt. Shout to Emmits. No, shout out to Lucius. Well, he's doing Chicago. Lucius is a garbage.

Incredible, yeah. Here's Nick W. says, I watched a few interviews of Nick Con after his congressional testimony, learned in your August 2021 interview of him that Nick Con was your agent. Can you describe?

I love how people, like, if I say anything positive about Nick Con, how many times have I said on this show that he's my agent? But if you don't put it every time you say Nick Kahn. Who can check? So many times that when I hear Nick Kahn, I whisper to myself. Who was once by agent.

So then I wrote a tweet last week, giving him praise, trying to be fair, even though I don't agree with a lot of the things. I think I've made my stance very clear. What happens is unless you put it on Twitter, it doesn't exist. So they forget the fact that you host a four-hour show and not everything that we discuss on the show is on Twitter. And so they say, oh, look at this guy, not mentioned he's just Twitter. So I don't feel like I have to say it in every. single tweet, until when? Until the end of time? Or is it any time I'm, it's like they can't decide. They can't decide. It's like, oh, you're, you're, when you're negative, you're just

anti-TKL. And then when you're positive, it's because he was your agent. Or you're positive because you want to get back. Like, it's just, what are we talking about? Anyway, how do he become my agent? February of 2015, I was in Los Angeles to cover UFC 184, Rondaozy against Ketsangano. I was starting to feel like it was time for me to have an agent. I'd spoken to a few agents. I was very close to signing with one and I didn't get a good feeling about it. I sort of felt like at that point I was doing everything on my own and I felt like I could do it on my own. But I wanted to advance and I really did say to myself, I knew that Nick Con was the number one sports broadcasting agent out there. And I kind of said in the back of my mind like unless I can sign

with him, I wasn't all that interested. And I knew that he also had a great relationship with everyone at ESPN and a lot of his clients were at ESPN. And in the back of my mind, there were dreams of going to ESPN one day and fulfilling that ambition and goal. And so I met with him in February of 2015. There were two other agents there. Another was Matt Olson, who was a younger gentleman and another was Tom, Tom Young, who was an older gentleman, not, I don't know if he was older than Nick, but around the same age as Nick. And Nick's a little bit older than me. And he had some impressive clients like Joe Buck and others. the meeting, felt good about the meeting, and shortly thereafter, I remember calling them.

And one of the things that I liked about the meeting was no contract, no nothing, handshake, we'll do our best for you. And there were some other people that wanted me to sign a million different things and didn't love that. I feel like I'm more of a handshake guy. And yeah, and so he was my agent from February of 2015 to August of 2020 when he took the job at WWE. Now I will say on the day-to-day stuff, he was sort of the boss. On the day-to-day stuff, it was more Matt who was my day-to-day agent, no longer my agent anymore. I'm not with CAA.

But like when it came time for a big thing, for example, when I went to speak at ESPN or when I went to interview at ESPN, like he would help me, you know, this is what you have to know, this is what you should be prepared for. That's what a good agent does. And I don't think I get to ESPN without him.

So I'm very grateful. And then he left in 2020. And that was it. you know, we've obviously stayed in touch. Don't get to interview him on the show like others get to interview him, but we'd love to have him on the show. I'd love to talk to him about all the things that he is doing. And I try to be as fair and unbiased and balance.

I can't erase the fact that we work together, you know, for that five-year stretch. And I've said time and again that he's one of the smartest businessman that I've ever talked to, that he was always three steps ahead. I always say that. and the times that I did get to sit with them, there was one time before a UFC event, I think it was in New York, when we went to lunch.

And I just remember leaving that meeting being like, I feel like I'm 10 times smarter about the state of broadcasting. He would know about every deal. He would know about everything. He would know what was to come. He would know every, it was just a fascinating guy.

So when you see him do his thing and speak as well as he speaks and as as prepared as he is, I'm not surprised by any of it. I had great insight into all of that. And I feel like early on, people weren't catching what he was trying to do. And not in a nefarious way, but just how smart he was.

And now you're starting to understand how smart he is. He's the brains behind Zufa boxing. He's the brains behind WW, in my opinion. Whether you like that or not is up to you. And I'm grateful for the experience. But there's no, I have no ties. I don't work for them. I don't, heck, we don't get them on the show.

We hardly get anyone on the show. So, you know, I'm not. I feel like I keep a real in that regard. Any key lessons you learned from observing him communicate, negotiate. He was just a very smart, tough negotiator, very, very, very smart, very prepared. I always would tell him that I thought that he could host his own show because he has such a presence and a voice, vocabulary. But obviously he had greater aspirations. And I don't think that this is the end for him, like the end goal.

I've also said on this program, I feel like he's going to be like the head of Disney or Marvel. or D.C. He is going to be supremely successful and more successful than any of the people that he ever represented. He's got a great backstory where he was a lawyer. He was actually on Wheel of Fortune. There's a clip of him out there as a young kid on Wheel of Fortune and then he became a lawyer

and then he met Freddie Rocha and Mani Pacquay and he worked on some deals and through those guys is how he got into the world of broadcasting, Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, others. Max Kellerman. Ariel, what do you think about the fouls in the NBA playoffs? Yeah, you know,

I think the playoffs have been great. How about those are Orlando Magic? Magic up 3-1. Obviously, the Nick's series has been entertaining, if not nerve-wracking at times. What other series have I enjoyed? Wolves' Nuggets been great. Wolves Nuggets has been great,

but somewhat like heartbreaking. Dante going down was hard to watch, and Ant going down, hard to watch. Obviously, I feel more invested in the, east. Like, I'm actively rooting for the Sixers to beat the Celtics, not going to happen. I'm actively rooting for the Magic to beat the, the pistons, and I'm actively rooting for the Raptors to beat the Cavs. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to hope that all the, you know, the good teams get out with all due respect. I think the Pistons are in trouble.

They're going to lose. No shit. I mean, the pistons are in trouble. I think the Cavs are going to win. You have to admit, this is a little surprising, right? Not for the Pist. No, not the Pistons. No, no, no, the Caves. No. The fact that it's 2-2 is. surprising. I thought they'd win one in Toronto, and then it would be 3-1, and then they'd close them out at home. They had the same issues every year. No, not at all. The East is not good. Who do you think wins? If the Knicks get by Atlanta, I know it's a big if, do you think they can beat Boston? Can they yes? Will they know? That's what they said last year.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't see Indy coming. I didn't see Indy coming last year, but no, I don't think the Knicks will beat Boston, but I think they can. Do you see how do you feel about game five tonight? Not great. Even when game three was ending, I was saying to myself, I was just like, man, all they have to do is just lose game four and then it's two to, nicks have home court advantage again. It's just like watching the series, to me, the way the teams have won the games, it shows that the Knicks are the superior team. It feels like the hawks sneak by in the two wins they've gotten, where the Knicks have flexed on them in both of their wins and like kind of blown both of the losses. I will, okay, so I'll say two things.

I think, I don't think they're evenly matched, but I think it's been an entertaining series for the most part. I mean, I know the last game wasn't. I was way more nervous before game three than game four, weirdly enough. I had such a supreme confidence that y'all were going to win game four. I was talking to my dormant before who's diehard Knicks fan, and I was just like, think y'all win tonight, and that means you guys are going to win the series.

Yeah, I thought we would lose game three. I originally thought we were going to lose I thought we were going to win one and two lose three and four So I thought we would be two two going into five Now obviously We shouldn't have lost game two I don't subscribe to the notion

That we should have won game three I know it was close we shouldn't have won that game I agree because we were winning essentially the whole thing But for you guys to come back All the way and take the lead Here's what I will say about GC Very impressive I'm impressed with your class

Because I don't I am not a shit talker when it comes to sports. I don't do that. I take it so seriously and personally, and I thought that you would be more of a shit talker. It's the first time our teams have played in the playoffs, I think, since we've known each other. No, I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Because I have people texting me. Like, I got this guy that I just met, CBC guy, who literally, he's a big Raptors fan, so God bless him. But I hardly know the dude. And like, the moment game three ended, I got like a, uh, he's a, you know,

an emoji, like the, like the, uh, like, getting nervous emoji. And I'm like, bro, I don't know, I don't even know the fuck you are and I want to,

I want to take my phone and shove it. The fucking like, ooh, this is looking dicey. You'd worry about your own team. I get so mad. When people text me that are not a, like,

look, you can talk your shit if you want. Your team be my team. That's fine. It's not my style. But if you are not related to this story, you can't talk shit. That's shout and fried, right?

Did I pronounce that correctly? Shut and fry. That was pretty good. I'm a big shit talker when people talk shit to me. I don't like talking shit when it's... It's too personal. There's no point. Also, it's a seven-game series.

I talk shit after we go up to one. Now I think, like, we are not in a good spot to win this series. I would have egg all over my face. I just take it too personally. I'll just be honest. So I don't want anyone to talk shit, and that's why I don't do it to you. I'm not a shit-talker. I have two...

When it comes to sports. Die-hard, die-hard Nick's fans in my life. And I know that it's just like, it's not worth talking shit to them. You and Jake. It's just not fun. I haven't even been talking to him about it. I'm just like, yeah, man. I've been watching the Hops, though.

You can't lie. The fucking, the memes have been. Which memes? Oh, all the NICs memes have been. What memes? What are you talking about? What? You didn't see any of those memes?

You didn't see any of those memes? You guys see the Ben Stiller thing? Yeah, of course. We talked about yesterday. I know. Oh, okay. I was the day late on that one. Hey, crew, can't wait for Kayla not fighting for RAF and Netflix when she is done, competing for the UFC, enjoyed greatness after competition.

I don't know what that is. What does that even mean? Okay, this is an interesting one. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Ireland, crew. Aren't you concerned that you and Pizzi's latest political activism on the AH platform jeopardizes your platform's journalistic integrity? People watch your platforms for MMA stories, but when you try to make a political, it's not about MMA anymore. I watched the crack UFC White House card not political episode, which included long, one-sided

political rants, and then you tried to press the same issue with Ilya. I would make the point that just as Ilya did not see the relevance of your political issues to MMA, your viewers do not. And so after your show, your political colors, sorry, after you show your political colors and try to force them into your MMA reporting, you cover Dana and the UFC negatively on your platform. Some may think it is because of your political bias. and that is where your journalistic integrity is jeopardize.

You can be either a political activist or a genuine reporter. You can't be both. Pete, you want to tackle this one first or do you want me to tackle it? Well, I don't really know what the fuck you want me to do. If they're doing like an event on the lawn of the fucking White House, like what do you want me to talk about? Do you know what the fuck? What is the option there in terms of conversations we can have about that?

Like you're going to have to talk about the fact that's happened at the White House. You're going to have to talk about why it's happening at the White House. I mean, like, the whole fucking thing, like, it's impossible not to talk about politics when it comes to the White House event. So, I mean, I'm not from America. I don't fucking vote for a room.

So, I mean, say it as you see it. That's all I'm doing. Pizzi, it's patently absurd to just go, la, la, la, la, la, la, this has nothing to do with politics. I'm sorry. I don't think any of us has said boycott, it's good, it's bad, it's,

but to not make any sort of, correlation between the place in which this fight card is happening, the event in which it is promoting, the fact that it just so happens to be a Sunday night and not a Saturday and oh by the way, it's Donald Trump's birthday. Are you kidding me? Are you that dumb and naive? No, of course you're not. I'd say this guy's being a snowflake.

No, the thing is, what's absurd about it is like, this guy thinks that I'm letting my political activism get in the way of my question to Ilya. excuse me, Ilya represents the great country of Spain. The president of Spain is not a big fan of the current president of the United States. He is fighting an American on the White House lawn on Trump's birthday in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the United States. I do think it's a fair question to say like, hey, do you think you'll be the bad guy? Are you flying the flag? Are you like, come on.

What are you talking about? It's a sporting event happening on. the White House lawn to say that this has nothing to do with quote-unquote politics, I'm not saying that's good, bad, I couldn't care less. I don't, like I said, I don't get offended by people's politics. That's why I think that, that's why I love our show here. And I'd like to think everyone agrees, like, we'll make fun of each other, we'll say this and that. We don't get offended by it because all of it is somewhat absurd. I think at the end of the day, and I would highly recommend you go back and watch that interview that I'm talking about with a Republican who speaks about

the good and bad of the current political climate that we live in, all this is insane. This isn't like rooting for your favorite sports team. Like, we're humans. And I don't think if we were just to ignore this, like the location and the symbolism, we would not be doing our job. That would be reckless on our part. And so no one on this show or any of the other shows on this channel is saying to boycott this event or that it's to be honest correct me if i'm wrong ptsy anyone said that it's like a

i think it's going to be the best event of the year i said that from what i was fucking announced i'm saying it's a disgrace it's just very unique it's political it is and whether you want to acknowledge that or not is up to you but that's what it is and that's us trying to keep it as real as possible um so if you think that question to ilia like that was the most benign nothing question which I thought it was a fair one. He didn't want to answer it. I moved on. All good.

What do you think Fight Week is going to be like? Could you imagine what Fight Week is going to be like? Dana White has convinced you and tricked you into thinking that none of this is political. Come on, guys, come on. That him speaking at the convention is not political. What? Like, he's tricked you into thinking that. Are you that dumb?

You can't possibly be that dumb. Again, when I say this, When I say this, I'm not saying it's good or bad. He's allowed to go out as an owner of a sports league. He could go out and do whatever the hell he wants. I'm not saying Republicans are bad or Democrats are bad or Democrats are good and Republic. Like, he can do whatever the hell he wants.

But don't insult us by saying that's not political. What does that even mean? By virtue of you standing there, it is a political statement that you are making. You are in favor of one brand over the other, one party over the other, and you have great influence. And the reason why they want you to be there is so that. that their fan base, his fan base, comes over to this side of the fence and votes. That's what they do.

If you watch the Hulk Hogan documentary, and by the way, that's not bad either. That's been happening for decades upon decades upon decades. That's why they have people wanting celebrities to endorse them. If you watch the Hogan documentary, he talks about this. He struggled with this. For the longest time, he didn't want to be political. He wanted to be like Michael Jordan. He believed that Republicans buy sneakers too, the opposite for Hogan.

but you get the point. And then he felt like a hypocrite. He felt like I can't just stay quiet anymore. I want to go out and tell the world how I feel about the current things. And I want to support my guy. And so then he showed up at the last convention and he ripped off his shirt and he said, I'm that dude. And people booed him for it and people didn't like him for it and felt like he ruined his legacy.

And he had to deal with those consequences. But that's political. That's a political decision. What's the most famous fight of all time? It's a rumble in the jungle that ends up here. What's the context of that fight? Without the context of that happened in Zaire, and Mabutu, and the dictatorship he was run,

and I'm not trying to say that I think this is a dictatorship in America, but the context is very important when it comes to events. It makes them big. It makes them special. It makes them talked about for the rest of time. You have to go, this is huge. This is a massive moment. This doesn't happen in other sports.

To simply just blind yourself off from that is crazy. It's not telling the full story. And I don't think that we say you should, be ashamed of yourself or anything like that. But again, who said that? No, no, no, but he's trying to imply that our, and the funny thing is, is that, like, you know, I've said some things over the past year or so regarding politics, and if you even paid attention to any of it, you would see how patently absurd all of this is.

But I have also said that I didn't vote in the previous election because I couldn't bring myself to do that. So, like, I don't know what, you know, I don't know what else we could do. I think we've been very, very, very, I think we've been very fair and honest. I actually think what people want, as we've talked about in the past, they just want the echo chamber. So there are certain channels, there are certain media members that make it very, very clear which side of the fence they're on. I don't think any of us do that. I don't think we do that.

I don't think if you go to our Twitter feeds, you see us retweeting a whole bunch of stuff or commenting on a whole bunch of political things. I think we keep it rather down the middle. And I think that I think most people understand that. I was going to say, when do we say any disparaging comments about either political party? I'm stupid as fuck, man. I don't understand anything about politics. I don't give, I don't like any politicians. That's my, that's my, that's my position.

I don't, where I grew up, no one, we don't like, oh, I love it. No politician. I don't. I don't have any association with any political party. Trump coming down, which, again, I think is absurd. They take that as offense, but that, I'm sorry, you would, you would feel it's absurd. if it was someone that you, like to say you didn't like because you take all this way too seriously.

We're just calling it like it is. Having an entrance for anyone at a UFC event and then having every fighter jump over the cage and kiss their finger and kissed their hand and praised them is absurd. Over and over and over. It's been going on for two years now. It wasn't a one-off, bro.

I mean, it's a show at this point. Like, it is what it is. Yeah. I do see a lot of these comments, though. Like, I'm not trying to say, like, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I think that's on them. If they're watching that and they're going, oh, my God, how dare they say?

Like, I think that's on them. I don't think that's on me. Helweeney says, I used to think you were saying P.T. Carroll, before I was formally introduced to P.T. through on Crown. I like that. I like that at because my neighbor, Carol, God rest her soul, had a car called a PT cruiser. Her license plate was P.T. Carol. I love you, P.T., but you will never be as cool as as Carol and her license plate. Fair. Sounds pretty fucking cool.

Ariel on the team, we're all won. You continue to keep me entertained and informed weekend and week out. Thank you for your hard work. Quick question, am I crazy for thinking in the year 2026, Ronda Rousey would beat Julianna Pena in an MMA fight.

Appreciate all of you. Shout out Frankie. Well, I guess we're about to find out, right? Yeah, we've got to see how she actually looks. It's a little... The answer is no. Yes, I'd say yes. Straight away.

We're about to see the kind of to form that she's in. Helweeney, did Till get any shit for breaking the fight news on your show? No. Just a couple more here. Frank, my mysterious brother, could you please blind rank these five mysterious phenomenons? How a USB only fits on the third try no matter what.

That's a solid five. The 2 a.m. motivation to completely change your life. That's a three. How You Suddenly Forget How to Walk When Someone Says Walk Normally 4 Why One Sok Always Disappears in the washing machine Oh shit, strong two The Bermuda Triangle

One Wow Okay, just a couple more here PT my Commonwealth brother Please blind rank these Irish whiskeys All right, no, no Ireland is not in the Commonwealth Let's get that straight away

Bushmills Five Green Spot two teeling three red breast I'm not a big whizzy I should be told

but I mean I'm trying to green spot we had someone at GZ we were all right I drank a lot of green spot well as in Ireland that was my go-to proper 12 oh one I can't fucking believe

should have gone green spot one man should have gone green spot one it's actually it's actually it's actually Bush Mills proper 12 no problem me yeah oh here's my good breeding out of the Blaine and the guys told me what this was in reference to. Thanks, thanks, thanks,

I appreciate it. Good day. Curious what you guys think. I just went on a five and a half hour road trip last week at the visit family. Had it been an eight hour drive, I would have booked a flight instead. My question is, at what point do you say, how about we just take a round trip flight instead of driving? It's a great question. I actually was talking about this with someone. I feel like seven hours is like the cutoff point. So if I can make it in six hours, I'm good. You know what I mean? Like seven, eight hours is a bit too much. I'm going to make a prediction. Oh, wow, he actually predicts. Hey, Ariel will say anything over a three-hour drive and he's flying?

Absolutely not. I'd rather avoid the flight. So, like, when we go to Montreal, we often drive because it's six-ish hours. G.C. will almost never fly because he likes to stop at local food joints along the way during a road trip. I enjoy getting that quicker. Rick will probably miss the trip altogether because he's sick. He's actually just walked out of the room. because he's sick.

PT will fly no matter the distance just so he can get an airport beer. This is disgraceful. But yes, and I can drive anywhere in Ireland in three hours, three, four hours. You can still have a beer when you drive to him. Yeah. Who's the check?

Hamzaco. That is not a bad job. Frank, I heard you say you buy records. I too am a sick, sad loser. Name your three. Name three of your grailies? Grails? Oh, grails.

All right. I don't know what that is. What is it grails? Grail, like one... Like a holy grail. Yeah. I would say it's Mastodons, crack the sky that's on two LPs,

45 RPM. Genocide Organ's debut album from 1989. And then probably... What? What? And then probably go with a skinny puppy to Dark Park. Okay. Canada's own.

Oh yeah. I was going to say that. I was going to add that. A little skinny puppy. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know. What is a grails? A grail, like the holy grow from the Bible.

The girl and not gets bees of your rails. Also, he wants to know gear check, amp, speakers, receivers. Are you going to go down a whole list of things here? Yeah, we'll do it. No. Bauer and Wilkins, 804. She sent me this earlier.

I know. I have a Rogue Pharaoh 2. I have a RELB1 Britannica Sublifer. Yes. I have Audio Technica LP7 turntable with a orophone 2M black needle. Okay. I have a shit. What?

That's the name of the brand from Austin, Texas. Handbuilt. Got it. Got it. And then a Nuculus 1 from Rune as my streamer. Frank, do you have a JBL Bluetooth speaker. Yeah. We're working on it, Pizzi.

We're working on it. I have a MacBook Pro from 20201. Yeah, man. Is it in color? It's hanging on. And a Vizio from 2015. Yeah, yeah. I was, you know, I was starting to feel some sort of way about my TV yesterday while watching.

You look at it differently now, huh? With like a suspect eye. I can't forget, believe, you're 2015. How old's your TV? Brand new. For real. Always. Must be nice.

Pete actually gets a new one every quarter. Must be nice. You got a Costco near you? Do I have a Costco near me? The answer is no. The answer is no if you don't know. Yeah, I don't have a membership card, eh? No, no.

You can borrow it mine if you want. Yeah, I'd be bothered. I do, you know, I do the private, like they drop it off at your house. Walmart drone delivery? Fresh direct. Preparing fresh direct to Costco's a sin. Frank, do we have any super chats before we go? That's you.

Okay. The first one is the Irish warrior 6014. If Ilya beats Gaichi, Armin, and then beats Islam at 170, then retires, and Alex beats gone. Tom and Jones and retires who goes down as the goat. This is too much. It is a mouthful. George St. Pierre. What else, Frank?

What else? Next step is in BU 90. Gina Carrano said you are on top of your game in an interview, and you said, I don't think so. Seems like you're crushing with MVP events, Olympics 40K plus. subscribers, all without UFC support. Is there a point in the past or goal you are chasing? Well, I do appreciate that. I mean, as I've said time and again, what's so funny over there, by the way?

It says 400K plus views, and he said 40K plus subscribers. Yeah. The 40K can't read. And they are subscribers, the 400K. Yeah, I think he was right for editorialized. He met subscribers, but he changed it to 40K. There's a reason for that. Anyway, I've often said...

crushing it. If this is the end, yes, I'm disappointed. There's much more that we want to do. There's much more that we want to accomplish. I don't feel like I'm on top of my game. I don't feel like I'm at the mountaintop or something like that. So I appreciate it.

But you never will. Wait, but feeling on top of your game doesn't mean you're at the final form. You can be on top of your game now and continuing to get better. I don't feel it. I don't feel it. It's part to his fucking game. Do you feel like you have ever been better previously? Oh, that's a great question.

question, Rick. That is fucking great. Yeah, sure. You do. What? You don't feel like this is the peak right now. Wow. The top of the ballics, O'Ani. That's fair enough. You don't feel like you're top of your game. Awani washed rumors. I feel like your top of your game.

I don't know. I feel like I could do better. I feel like I could do better. That's not the question. No, it's a great question. Have you been better? You know, he's caught your boy to ball. I know, I know. I know. I feel like I'm coming into my own. It's a confidence thing, right?

You can sit here and do the show time and again. It's also a reps thing, by the way. We're doing more than we've ever done before. So the more you do something, the better you are at it. Yeah, I think we're sharpening the tools. I think we're best we've been. I don't feel like a lot of top of my game. To me, on top of my game is not, is this the best I've ever been?

Top of my game is, is this the best I ever will be? That's the way I view top of your game. I view those differently, but that's fair enough. We don't know the peak, though. We can't know what that is. No, this is my peak. I'm pretty sure. PTS is only going down from you.

I'll be disappointed if this is your peak. What else, Frankie? What else? Digitabatirc dash 1 840. That quillin skit reminded me of those old ESPN commercials where they are in the offices. Pull those up. I do remember the one for the Y2K. That was my favorite one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they had to like show what ESPN would look like afterwards. Well, you have the tie around the head. There we go. I think it was Charlie Steiner with the tie. Yeah, yeah. The George St. Pierre one was great, too. There was a lot of great ones back of the day.

Rich Eisen and Dan Patrick and. and Stu Scott, Keith Oberman, they were amazing. Did you know our old boss featured in one of those? Glenn Jacob. For a moment there, I forgot that you were here because I was like, who else would know this reference? And of course, Mr. ESS. Oh, I thought you meant just because we got so used to Dan. I forget he's here too. No, no, no. I forgot, you know, it's taking some time. I missed Don to remember that.

Same. Jordan was in the mix. Don? Who's Don? No. The Gator 117. Oh, yeah. Paramount to post the full cards. Yes, yes, yes, we talked about this.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're working on it. I believe Jordan has an update. Yeah, we do have a bit of an update. There's no full broadcast. That is correct. Apparently, due to a licensing of the music, so they had to pull the package.

Oh, that's annoying. You can get a bunch of different versions. You know, watch it live. What do you want to tell you? Yeah. Pull up the pit. Yeah. Watch it live.

Exactly. What else, Frankie? What else? Philly 737. Any chance we get could get soon to be two-time NBA finals winning coach Joe Mazula on this offseason. He's a big combat sportsman and an interesting cat.

Not during the playoffs. It's too personal. I will say, I have a lot of respect for him and I think he should be the coach of the year. What he's done with that team this year is nothing short of amazing. So I got respect and love for the guy, but I hope we beat their ass and not during the playoffs. Maybe like in September, October, it could be fun after we beat them.

It probably would have been more fun this off-sense. season after we did beat him at six. This is going to be so personal for Jason Tatum. Again, if I'm not, I'm not overlooking the Hawks, and obviously they have to beat the Sixers, but it's going to be so personal for Jason Tatum, it's a little terrifying. What else, Frankie? What else? All I do is UFC.

Ariel, I emailed my review wrestling with shadows as a war to the goat Rick. Hopefully he passes it to you. You're familiar with 80s NJPWS star Ricky Choshu. Is that New Jersey? Koshu. All I do is UFC actually. asked a similar type of bread heart question, and I skipped over it, so I'm going to do the same. Rick, are you going to pass along his work?

Yeah, I will. And what else, Frank? Zombie Slayers, been watching since AOL days. Thanks, Ariel and team. Love you. You're welcome. What else, Frank? What else?

Jake from Wendy City. The World Cup is looking to be a nightmare. Yeah. Telgating banned, insane price gouging. $150 train tickets in New Jersey. This is worse than TKO FIFA is a. scam. Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer, but I think it will all come back down to Earth.

I mean, there's like a month and a half to go, so they've got to figure this out. Gotta do something. Yeah. Do all the football fans in the world be like, I can't believe they're bringing this up. This is terrible. Oh, yeah, they're going to get very, very offended by this. Yes, of course. What else, Frankie? What else? Fated perspective, does anyone else miss the UI from the ESPN app?

I pop in late to the Paramount cards, and I can't see any of the fight results are current. That was a good thing. Yes. I did like that. It had real-time stats. I like that a lot. That was a nice little feature. Is that what he means by U.I, by the way? Yeah. He's talking about urinary tract. Wow. Well, that would be UTI.

Yeah, that would be UTI. What else, Frank? What else? Banana Breakdown. What the fuck, Frankie? Where is the brother drop? Brother. Oh, God. This is too much. What else, Frankie? What else? Dinoa Hum, 1984, sends a two for in.

I'm legit worried about trying to attend the White House card fights because of how crazy everything is lately. Rick's hard take on the shooting being fake is muscle emoji hashtag Frank DTF. Wait, is that what I said? I don't remember that. No, but I said that. I have bad news for this gentleman. He probably is not going to be attending regardless, so he doesn't have to worry about it. Maybe he's talking about the Oculus thing or the ellipse. The lips. It's like Brown-Brand.

All I said was, you know, build the ballroom. That's all. That's my stance. Why do you got to bring politics into me? Yeah, fucks a good. What else, Frank? That's what I do. Ain't that what journalism is? Yeah. Victus films.

Can you get Craig Jones on? Haven't heard about C.J.I.3. Oh, yeah. He's a bit of an elusive one. I'm not going to lie, so we'll work on that. What else, Frank? What else? Jay Rollins 529.

Frank, you get my dog every time with the doorbell. I don't even have a bell. Which one? Yeah, that's another. Also, is that his dog in the profile picture? I think so. I also just like to say, the dog likes the show. What are we going to do?

What else, Frank? What else? Connor McGregor, tweet replyer 5-8-3-4. Frank, are you catching any of the Panchenco tour this year? Saw them live in Pensacola a couple weeks ago. They were insanely good live. I have to be quite honest, I am unfamiliar with your game. Connor McGregor, tweet, Replyer, 5-8-3-4.

I will look into it, and I did happen to see that they're in Anaheim in a few weeks. Maybe I could check it out. Wow. I couldn't have guessed that from the pronunciation of Panchiko. We know I can't read. Could we just like pull that up for a second? So Frank has trouble reading, but he can read this long-ass username, no issues. Yeah, that is wild.

Jordan, don't you have paternity leave to go there? What of my favorite Frank bits was when Frank was doing bunch of letters, bunch of numbers, just to like shorten the username? That was fucking good. I like that. Shout out to Pensacola. Frank, I believe we have one last one. I was getting so bored of these superchats It's one of the rare times

That I actually went up to the Superchat channel And I was like, when is this gonna end? I'm just not... These are people paying good money Anyone dropping like 99 cents We have to read this? I mean, it's... About Canadian 2 from the City Life Project?

What else, Frank? What else? Lastly, the City Life Project If Phil DeFries wins his next four Better Than Fidel? Already. Already. Already, yeah. He's already better. No, I mean, level.

of competition, not the same. I did want to mention, I saw this, this, this, this clip of Mike Perry's face. What's going on here? Yeah, we, it is bizarre.

Looks maxing? No, no, no. It's quite the opposite. Maybe, maybe a hammer involved, Pizzi, because it looks like, I'm going incredible. My training partners have been putting in that heat on,

and I've returned the favor. How about this song playing in the background? We are 100, or actually 1,100% ready. I'm ready for my fight to continue to show.

eye for over a month and have been healed platinum pressure incoming. Jesus. Is there a video of that or we just have the screen grab? It was a video but maybe the music, right? All right. Or something, but, uh. Like in the video, you could. Yeah, here we go.

Yeah. That is bad, huh? That is fucking bad. I would be devastated if that fight. Is it possible there's concern about getting... This is old? Is this possible this is after one of his, no, it seems too fresh, right? The rest of his face is fine.

He was fine when he was in here. Yeah. Okay. How long do we have? What? How many weeks? Two. Less.

No, two. No, over two. A little over two. He might be all right. What's going on here with Kyle Boholio and DDP? What do we have here? Caio Bohalio is saying to DDP pull up. We have a video here.

Let's watch it together. Hey, brother. I have a question. Where is Drikus? You know where he is? No. No words from him? Yeah.

I was in Brazil. You know, we're here. for Drickus and he joined his group in South Africa looking for him and I just cannot find no response. Do you show up? Are you sure? Okay, thank you sir. Thank you. That's a statue of Nelson Mandela, the great one. Here's Drickas. Come to his gym, CIT Performance Institute. Then we spar. We can record it if you want. Brick says, see you Friday nerd. Kayo says, stop being a little kid, just sign the contract, bro. Kayo says, what contract?

You actually think you're in the conversation? Come to the gym. I'm like 30-minute drive from you. Let's see if you are at least man enough to show up. We start at 9 a.m. Jesus. That's fun. I like that he called his bluff on this.

I got to be honest. GDP is different, man. DDP is different. You're looking for me? Here I am. Because we just saw the version of this with Sean Strickland and Hamza, right? Sean's like, I'm in your town. You're supposed to hit me up.

Hamza didn't do it, obviously, because why would you? That's crazy. DDP is like, no, I'm going to do it. Oh, you're here? Let's record it. Let's record this. I also like that he pushed back on the sign the contract talk. Because they always say that and there's like no contract.

There's nowhere, there's nothing near a contract. I mean, I hope there's a contract now. I'd watch that fight. The idea of the contract sitting on a table at DDP's house and I'm just being like, I don't think I can sign it, guys. It's just like, ridiculous. You should tell Kayo sign the waiver at the gym. Let's do this thing.

I just loved that he called this bluff. Honestly, Friday 9 a.m. I hope he posts something on his story. I hope. That would be sick. Rafael Fiziv says that he's fighting at UFC Baku. So that's going to be in June, yes, in Azerbaijan. Shout out to him.

And we did get some news regarding WWNXT. They announced that their premium live events are going to be on G.C.'s former home. CW. Yes, sir. Shout out. So that's very exciting. That's the premium live events, sort of like their paper views, PLEs, Great American Bash, Deadline Vengeance on the CW.

How about that? Still going strong. And finally, a hearty mazzletove, a big congratulations to the Olivares who got engaged. Truth be told, I think we all thought they were already married. But Charles and his beautiful partner are now going to get married. Fair play. Pan, advance. Yeah, 10,000 percent.

He was... Yeah. Bad a business. Congratulations. Tomorrow on the program, my friends, we've got a loaded day for all of you. We will be joined by the one and only, the American gangster Chal Sunnan.

And I have to say, I did not plan this, but Jorge Mosvado will also be on the show. I did not plan this, but they'll both be on the show. Oh, crossover? We're also going to be joined by Marabda Wally-Schvili, the now former UFC Bantamway champion,

and the great Matt Hardy is going to be joining us in studio, one half of the legendary. Twist of Fate. I believe Twist of Fate was Jeff Hardy. No, Swanton Bomb was fucking Jeff Hardy. God, you know what? Good on you. Thank you, mate.

There's two things that I love so much about you, PT, among the many things. It's when you react to the videos that we've all seen, but you haven't seen them. And also when you react to the lineup when I, it makes me feel good. Yeah, it makes me feel good. Did you like Lou today?

day on the show. True be told. Didn't watch. Didn't shout enough. Okay. I was a bit disappointed. In a couple moments there. He had some great points though.

I mean, I like when he weighs in on things. I think he ruffles feathers and I quite enjoy him. I quite enjoy listening to talking. I didn't like what he said about Katie Taylor. Yeah. Yeah. Greatest female fighter of all time. She always spoke like that, Lou.

Okay. Yeah, fair play, fair play. All right. Hopefully, we will see you all tomorrow. God willing, God bless. Remember, May 8th, put it on the calendar. No ticket to speak of just yet, but hopefully we'll see as many of you there. We know there's a few diehards in New York who always come to the live events in this area.

So hopefully see you all there. Do you want to buy ad space on the crack that day? I'll plug it for you if you want. That would be nice if you can give us the late push there, you know, for the walk-ups. Big venue. talk chatter after this and then see if we can. Frank, you could take us home here. Usually by now you...

I felt like you had something important to say. No, I haven't nothing. Here's Muhammad Mikhail who says, Heard UFC is looking for an opponent from a Nel Kapp in Baku. I ain't young kid anymore when I fought him back two years ago. You'll see much upgraded Mokkaev.

What do you guys say? You guys want to see that? No, it's a tough. That's a tough sell for me. It was not a good... The fight was bad. We don't need to see it. Oh, was that it?

Yeah. You were at it, right? Was that in the middle of the night? No, that was in... It was. Oh. It was tough. That was tough.

That was tough. It was tough. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's Ryan Garcia. What's he saying? I'm still going to read the news and notes as we do this. Ryan Garcia says that the Devin Chakor fight is not happening.

There's no way Devin is going to... to fight Shakur or vice versa? I'd bet whatever on that. Is that the fight that Shakur was referring to? Now, Shakur... There was a lot of talk about the fight. Yeah, Shakur has weighed in on this. What is he said? I know fans like to get excited and they could play with y'all heads and manipulate y'all easily, but the rumor is capped for the second time. I haven't heard one word about that. I don't know what they're trying to cover up or disguise, but for me and my team, we haven't

heard S-H-I-T. And what about Israel-Des-Syne? J-Sy-N-Yed. J-Gy. J-N-W-N-Goking about the UFC-Z-S-Ging. joking about the UFC 6 cover. He says he's now been on the cover three times because yes, that is, in fact, his shoulder in the shot right over there. Congratulations, Mr. Stylebender. Thank you very much all our guests today. Arnold Allen, Phil DeFries, Lou DeBelle.

Thanks to you, thanks to that, back tomorrow, say type by this is a piece of out here. Brother.