The Ariel Helwani Show - Artem Lobov, CSAC Executive Director Andy Foster, Bryan Battle, rankings debate, PFL vs. ONE?

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with a quick review of Tapology’s latest update and rankings (03:59).Andy Foster, Executive Director of the California State Athletic Commission, joins to discuss proposed clarifications to the MMA scoring criteria, his feelings on the The Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, GFL’s canceled California events, and to review some recent controversial decisions by referees and judges (10:34).Bryan Battle is up next, touching on his move to middleweight, the heat around his UFC 319 showdown with Nursulton Ruziboev, the back and forth with Ruziboev’s fans from Uzbekistan, and a review of the latest WWE storylines (50:47).Ariel and The Boys in the Back discuss Donn Davis' proposal of a PFL vs. ONE Championship showdown of titleholders, before further diving into Tapology's new UFC rankings (1:15:30).Friend of the show Artem Lobov returns to talk about coming out of retirement for his long-awaited fight against rival Zubaira Tukhogov, his fractured relationship with Conor McGregor and their pending lawsuit, training with Paul Hughes, being interested in influencer boxing, and more (2:07:36).Ariel wraps up the show with some news and notes, before answering your Super Chats (2:52:53)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Eriya-Hawaii show. Back in your life! Much better on this Tuesday, August 5th, 2000. And 25, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be back here on a two-for- Tuesday. You know, we play two round these parts on Tuesday. We got this show, and then the Ariel Nade program at 5 p.m. Eastern over on the DeZone channel.

Do check us out there. Two great guests on that show later today, the pride of Puerto Rico, the brand new champion, the youngest male champion in boxing right now. Zander Zayez is going to be joining us, looking forward to that. Also, Sky Nicholson, going to be joining us as well. Always love talking to her, and looking forward to talking to Xander for the first time, and talking all things, boxing with the one and only Adiola Depot. That's at 5, but on today's program, much to discuss. Yesterday

was a lot of fun. Hanato Moikana was great. Enjoyed that conversation very much. All the guests were great. I felt like crap. I actually will humbly say that I think it was my worst show ever. In all my years of doing this program, dating back to

June of 2009, when the show was first called, what? What was it first called? What? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

I feel like Rick knows the answer. The M.M.A. B. Serious. No. You know the answer, right? Anyone. No one knows the answer? How long are we going to go on with this one?

Anyone. Rick can't hear a word you're saying right now. Anyone. What is it? Jerry Park Live? Fanhouse? Oh, close. What was the question?

What was the question? What was the question? What was the question? hour? Oh, fan house radio. No! HBO documentary series. Fight House Radio. Fighthouse radio. First three episodes. Then we got the notification

that apparently there was a gym in New York City called Fight House. We had to change it to the MMAB. No. Fuck, you know. Great show though. Should we bring it back? Yeah. We had a great logo. Great set

as well. Love the set. Fantastic set. Anyway. miss that floor oh my god the wood was phenomenal don't get me started on the wood lighting so yesterday was great i felt like crap but it was still great happy to say feel a little better today and tomorrow will feel even better than that we have a great show plan though a lot to get into no time to waste back into the show the goat is back yes artem lobob is back and he's fighting again for the first time in seven years he'll be fighting in MMA against his bitter rival

Zubaira Tujov. Remember their whole thing back in 2018? That was actually the last time that Ardham fought that year 2018 in, you know what? You'll love this, G.C. Do you know what's the place where Arden last fought?

In M.MA? Like which city? Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City? Close. Des Moines, Iowa. What about that Gene just hating all over boardwalk Hall? You were really trying to like get him to compliment the city yeah we were there last year and we shit all over it yeah it's not a great

spot it's not a great spot uh anyway it was i'm just confirming here munkton new brunswick ardom lobov versus michael johnson co-main event ufcc fight night 138 that was his last mhmmafay fight ufc't night monkton monkey that's what we need more of we need more montden event center and you know do you know how i have confirmed this by the way do you have have any idea how I conferred? I do. I don't know if you want me to say it. Because yesterday on the program, I was lamenting the fact that my favorite website,

other than uncrown.com, Tapology.com, doesn't have a certain feature that I need in moments like this to confirm where Artem Lobov's last flight took place. I would have to go to Wikipedia or I have to go to Sherdog. I want it all in one little need package. And then my friend Gregory over at Tapology sent me an email and said, no, no, it's all there. You're just not looking in the right place. And I have to tell you, since then, my mind has been blown. It's like I got a new shiny toy.

It's like I got a brand new car, a brand new home, a brand new kitchen. That's how I feel here. I can't stop playing with it. Because let me show you guys this. Tapology.com is the best MMA database there is. And dare I say, as far as combat sports concern, box rack, not even close. Wikipedia, not even close. Whatever the one for wrestling is, I think it's like cage match or something, something weird.

yet, not even close. Take a look at this. We have done a screen record for all of you. Don't go too fast. Oh, no, no, there it is. Can we just pause it for a second? I just want to set this up. I just want to set this up if we can. Just like show me the first frame and then don't press play just yet. Yeah, here it is. Okay. So this is Anthony Hernandez's page, right? All right. So you see there, you see he's about to fight Roman DeLite. That's this coming Saturday. You see the last fight against Brandon Allen. We shut up ahead. That's the page, right? You guys know it. So when I would want to learn more about these fights, all the way to the right is that plus sign next to the UFC. You see all the way to the right? Okay, that wasn't giving me enough.

Then I would look at the expand all details, which is right under MMA fight record to the left. That wasn't giving me enough. Oh, it was nice to have the little ribbon there for the performance bonuses. But I wasn't getting odds. I wasn't getting weight. I wasn't getting location. I wasn't getting any of these things. and then I was shown the light if you click on odds see there odds now you get the odds

look pause it right there minus 310 moderate favorite going up against Roman he was a minus 320 against Brandon Allen he was a minus I think that's a minus 135 going up against Pereira wow okay

now we want to know where are these fights happening remember yesterday to Turahira how many times has he fought at the apex all you do is now click on location and all of a sudden, look, Vegas, see that? Under the American flag, all the way to the right next to the plus, UFC Apex, go to the Allen fight. See that?

Seattle, Washington, all the way to the right. Climate Paragia Arena, go to the prayer fight. See that, Vegas, all the way to the right, Apex, padda fight, supposed to be at the sphere. The Lise fight, supposed to be at Prudential. This is Eric Ariel's producer. This is incredible. Oh, hi, Eric, I hear you. I was like, is Eric trying to tell me something?

Then you click on wait. Oh, he's bounced around. So you click on wait, and it's all right there. You see that? 185, 185, 185, 185, 185. Okay, no bouncing around. But you get the point. I was thinking of Brian Battle

when I was talking about the bouncing around because he's gone 170, 185, he's back. This is a game changer right here. Did you guys know about this? Why did anyone tell me about this? I live on tapology and I didn't know this. It's truly incredible, except for on-air Jordan played us with the... You guys didn't know this?

Yeah, yeah. You guys didn't know this about technology? I'm really shocked that you guys did not know this. Yeah. I've been using this for like two weeks. No, no, no. I can't... All I'm doing now is just clicking through that thing over and over again.

And by the way, the last one is opponent, which then tells you about the opponent. So, like, I'm looking at Arnhob's page. His last fight was against Dennis Branchick, who at the time was 33 from the Ukraine, 5'7, tells you that like this is unbelievable this is a game changer right here it really is incredible I'm very excited about the goat I'm very excited

anyway so I wanted to apologize to them because I did not see this small detail and I think you should all know about it because I think it will improve your user experience and later in the program we will talk about their new ranking system which I'm very excited about

as well I think they're the best it's a pleasure and they're doing more boxing and they have some bare knuckle and all that stuff one-stop shop well done to our friends at that apology by the way we don't work with them we have no investment in them i'm just doing this because i want you all to know that i think that they are the best um so arnam lobubov will join us back into the show prior to that we'll be joined by brian battle who is returning to action at ufc 319 that's the card in chicago next weekend united center headline by drichs du plasey versus chamsat shamaev for the ufc middleweight title

he'll be going up against Nerseltan Ruzibov of Uzbekistan and he has been saying on social media that he's being flooded with hate from all the Uzbek fans Brian Battles a great character unbeaten in his last five but moving up to 185 for this fight

you'll recall he had some trouble making weight in his last fight against Randy Brown when I say trouble he missed weight quite considerably and so he is fighting at 185 we'll find out if he was four to move up or if this is his new home. So we'll talk about that and so much more. But wanted to get to our first guest of the day, who I'm very excited to speak to because I have said

time and again on this program, he is the very best of what he does in combat sports. He's the executive director of the California State Athletic Commission. And not only is he the very best of what he does in combat sports, he is also the most transparent. And it's very rare to be the best and the most transparent. Usually when you're the best, you're not as transparent or maybe even the least transparent. But to have someone in his position, by the way, he is also the chairman of the Rules Committee of the Association of Boxing Commissions. And right now, he is at the Association of Boxing Commission's annual conference with some exciting things happening over there. Usually, when you're in this type of position, you're the least transparent.

That's what we are used to in combat sports. I lament the fact always that we can't hear from judges, we can't hear from referees, but to have this kind of access to essentially their boss when it comes to MMA and boxing in particular is a massive, massive privilege. And so without further ado, let's go all the way to New Orleans now, where the annual conference is taking place and say hello to the California State Athletic Commission Executive Director, the one and only Andy Foster. Kind enough to join us on this Tuesday afternoon.

Hello, Andy. How are you? Hi, Ariel. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure, as always. And like I said, we don't take this for granted. Your transparency, your willingness to come on and talk about things, especially right now, there's some really interesting things going on. We very much appreciate. So thank you so much. And I know it's a busy day over there for you in New Orleans. By the way, for those that may not know, this annual conference, what are the type of things that you and your fellow commissioners and everyone involved in regulation as far as combat sports are concerned? What are the type of things that you guys cover? And how long does it lasts? It lasts like four days. And then the train is another three days. So I guess it's almost like a week. But today they're talking a lot about concussions and they're doing a lot of the medical stuff at the beginning of the day. We talked about drug testing this morning for a long, long time. But after lunch, we're getting into more of the rules type stuff. But the unified rules, this is where they're made or broke at this conference. And this is where they come. And we work on them all year and then bring them. And we've not really had a change. We don't really have a change this year, Ariel, but the scoring criteria is being updated and clarified. And that's

sort of what I wanted to address with you. Please. And so the floor is yours. This is, like I said, you're the chairman of the Rules Committee, so this would fall under your jurisdiction. What are, what are the modifications that are being made to the scoring criteria? So it's a slight modification, it's important for the public to understand. To get a 10-8 in mixed martial arts is now going to require significant damage. I understand the way that it's being scored right now. The judge is already scoring that way, but this is actually going to be in if it's accepted by the body. And that's a relatively important change because it's going to actually put the word damage in the document. We've talked about.

about it for a long time, but damage is the number one scoring criteria through effective striking and effective grappling. You've heard these other terms, effective aggressiveness, effective cage control. These things we never get to, Ariel, people, the public does not need to ever use the term effective aggressiveness or effective cage control, really, in the context of scoring. The only thing that matters is how the techniques, who striking or grappling have impacted their opponent. That's the way this is scored. And a 10-9, we're putting out the language.

A 10-8, we're putting out the language, and then a 10-7. Okay. And this is actually a very interesting time for this to come up, I think, and I don't think it's happening because of this, but that fight that we had two weekends ago in Abu Dhabi, the Stephen Wend fight against Mohamed Yaya, I believe the first round was scored a 10-8. There was a record amount of knockdowns,

that fight and obviously an incredible amount of damage as well under these new you know i don't want to say rules but this clarification this modification should that have been scored or that will that be scored differently would that be perhaps even a 10-7 should have been a 10-7 under the current crop here like we're not doing we're not really changing anything um but um but yes uh it'll be it'll make it more it'll make it easier for the judge to understand what to score. And the hope is it'll be easier for the public and the commentators to understand. What prompted this? Well, I mean, this is something Jeff Mullen from Nevada has been interested in for a long time.

And Jaron Belal and the judges, Derek and Sal, have been trying to get this so that there's more clarity, more consistency on the way the judges are scoring. now the top level judges are scoring pretty consistent right now but consistency is the key in boxing you know if you have a knockdown you're almost always that objective indicator that rounds almost always a 10-8 okay that does not exist in mixed martial arts and we can't provide that objective indicator but having a document that says it requires significant damage to get a 10-8 that's probably as close as we're going to be able to get the committee got together and we've looked at all kind of things. But to have that, that is a requirement to get a 10-8, whether it be through cumulative or immediate, but the immediate having the more impact, I think that's important for the public to get.

And that's the reason I wanted to convey that. I think it's a clarification, but I think it's more of like just makes it easier to understand. For sure. And I think, correct me if you feel otherwise, it is a lot easier as a viewer, as a media member, to pinpoint a 10-8 in boxing as opposed to to MMA. Hopefully, modifications like this will help.

Has there ever in recent years, months, et cetera, been any talk of a new scoring system for MMA that isn't the 10-point must system? Because as you know, that was always a boxing model first. We have tried, we have looked at all kinds of things, Ariel, And this 10-point must system is what we have. It's what we have. It's what's codified.

And this is the attempt to try to make it easier and better. But we're not moving to the half points. Although we are putting close, moderate, decisive on our boxing scorecards, and that came, and that may end up on the mixed martial arts scorecards as well. but it's still going to be a 10 and a 9. The winner gets 10 points, the loser gets 9 or less. The three main criteria still are damage, dominance, and duration.

Damage being the most important, right? That's correct. And it's a requirement now for a 10-8 round. Okay. What about a 10-10? Should we be seen more of those? No, no. Look, man, if you watch a 10-10,

to fight for five minutes, Ariel, and you can't tell me who won that fight. And they're fighting in earnest. I'll find another judge. Okay. What about in boxing? Three men around, sometimes for women's two minutes. Sometimes there's just not a lot of activity. I need a winner picked. You need somebody. So you're not a fan of 10-10? Well, it'll mess the scoring criteria. It'll mess the end of the result up because you need to pick a winner. And if people start putting down 10-10s, you're going to have lack of consistency in the scoring. Fighters should have some degree of consistency that if they win the round or they work real hard and tried, they're going to get 10 points. The loser of that round is going to get

nine points. Ten-10 rounds are important when it comes to like scoring partial rounds, when no action occurred. These are when these things come into play. But if you have an entire three minutes in boxing or five minutes in mixed martial arts fault, you should be able to pick a winner if you're a discerning judge. Okay, I bring that up because I remember first round of this recent Katie Taylor-Mandisarano fight at MSG. There wasn't a lot of activity and some were wondering if that should have been a 10-10. By the way, one thing that I was I was always wanting to ask you about was, you know, in MMA, the number of rounds, whether it's a championship fight or non-champi chip is an odd number, right? Five or three. Boxing, it's typically 12, 10, and then

we go down, but it's always an even number, which would increase the amount of draws, right? 5566, 4.4. Why is that? Like in MMA, we are trying to, we, we're trying to stop the amount of draws, but in boxing, that increases the amount potentially. Yeah, that's, I can't tell you historically while that's been done, but in boxing, boxing runs even, and MMA runs odd. Kickboxing runs odd a lot as well. Makes more sense to be odd, no? It does. I mean, if you want to avoid draws,

but a four-rounder 12 minutes of fighting and a regular MMA fights, 15 minutes of fighting. So I think there's some similarities there between the four and the six-rounding boxing. Whereas 25 minutes is a title fight in MMA versus, you know, the 36 minutes in boxing. Mm-hmm. So going back to that fight last weekend in Abu Dhab, you said that should have been a 10-7, but that's obviously an extreme five knockdowns in one round. How can a judge discern the difference between a 10-8 and a 10-7? Well, I mean, 10-7s are incredibly rare, okay? But that was an incredibly rare fight. And I think there were six knockdowns. I think the counter got that got that first one wrong. I agree with you. I agree. Let's just go that there's six knockdowns in that run.

round. Look, the first three knockdowns weren't that bad, Ariel. I mean, I'm not saying that they're great, but they, they were, I think that fourth and fifth one, it was starting to get real concerning, okay? And at that point, after you get three or four knockdowns, I think up to that point, the Kalil Roundtree fight with Eric Anders was the only time we'd had four knockdowns, if I recall correctly, in a, in a round. Now we have like six real knockdowns, the counter missed, missed one. So you have six knockdowns in a round. I think, look, and I know you're showing the eye, but that was in round two. I think in this particular round, the judges could have got to seven, probably after the end of that fifth or certainly that six knockdown, they should have got there.

That's what I think. And hopefully this criteria will make that easier for them to get there. I talked about this last week, and I prefaced it by saying that I think Jason Herzog is one of the best referees in the game. That was a tough night at the office for him, to put it mildly. Can I ask your opinion on it and what should have happened? When should that fight have been stopped? Well, I mean, I think that I would have probably hoped that fight would have been stopped after probably the fifth knockdown.

Certainly, I would have had no issues after the fourth knockdown. But if you want to give the guy every opportunity after the first knockdown, fifth knocked down. If you're not going to stop it then, after the sixth knocked down, if you're going to try to use the clappers, which you shouldn't and to make it to the end of the round, for goodness sakes, did you say, I don't know if you saw, but he had to have some assistance back to the corner. I think it should have been, there's a lot of places that it could have been stopped, but two places in particular, and then certainly you bring the doctor in, you have him looked at, and I don't believe that we, you know, I would not have,

felt comfortable sending him out in California for the second round. Okay. That wasn't a fighting California, obviously, so not under your jurisdiction. But given your position in the sport, your stature, your relationship with Jason, do you speak to him after something like that? I did. Could you tell us about that? I mean, look, you know, Jason Herzog is one of the best referees in the world.

so it's a little bit, it's a difficult conversation, Ariel, but look, man, I have to have those kind of conversations with anybody, even if it's Jason Herzog or whoever, and I, the hope is he can learn from this and not let this happen again, and I understand it's rough on Jason right now, but hopefully every referee in the country and every referee in the world will learn from this and not let this happen. I think six knockdowns, and that's a little bit more than obviously it's the quality of the knock down the whole thing. But when you're talking about boxing, we do 10-6s. It's allowed, but the only time that, I mean, that does not work out that much.

What is it? Marquez, Pachial 1, I think that's the one, or around 1, that might have worked out then, but it doesn't work out that often. So I understand they're a little bit different of sports and more knockdowns occur, but those four, five, and six were pretty significant knockdowns, and I would argue that with anyone. Did he recognize that in the aftermath? I think he did. I think he did. I think I'm not going to try to convey what he was thinking, but I think that he has looked at the fight, and I think he understands moving forward.

and I have total confidence in Jason Herzog moving forward. He's on an upcoming fight in California that I have him on. And, you know, he, I think that any time you do this many fights and do all these things, everybody's entitled or you can make mistakes from time to time. And I think that I think that I have total confidence in him. we're going to continue to utilize him. And I don't believe Jason would make this mistake in the future. And I don't think probably a lot of the referees will make this mistake in the future.

So we have to learn from these things. Two things that were brought up in the aftermath of this was number one, should there be a three knockdown rule in MMA? What do you think of this? No, I'm definitely in disagreement with that. Like I said, the first three knockdowns were not, what I would be calling significant, okay? But now, I think John Annick had mentioned a five-knockout rule.

He said something about that, or at least I read that more, I think. And I'm not in favor of that either, but like, really, in practicality, that's a pretty good number. That's a pretty good gauge, I think. But you've got to look at, there's so many factors that are going into it. but if they're actually concussive knockdowns where you're getting hit, your brain's getting rattled, and you're falling down, look, man, it's not just Jason. We knocked Jason the corner.

There's a lot of things that could have went on here that didn't. And it's just the only thing to do from this is to learn from it. That's the thing, because Jason's a good referee, but Jason shouldn't take all this heat on himself. I mean, the corner could have stopped the fight. Couldn't agree more. Why do you think there are way more corner stoppages in boxing than there are in MMA? I have a personal opinion on that.

I don't know this to be sure, but MMA is much younger of a sport. And I think that what I think is boxing's older, so you have a lot of the older guys who have saw more and saw more information. and they're much more wise and savvy to it. And so they'll save their fighter for another day or whatever, whereas in MMA, a lot of these guys train together or you train with them and you're tough and you can probably make it out. And I think that it's just not,

it's kind of a different kind of a thing. But boxing trainers will stop fights quicker than mixed martial arts trainers. doubt about it. Do you think we'll ever see a time where there are more than three judges, ringside or cage side? Yeah, I mean, it's possible. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not against that idea. I think that's possible, but that real estate ringside where the judges sit, it's pretty, pretty crowded when you talk about TV fights and these type of things. So obviously, getting the score rights, the most important thing for the, for the fighter, but I would have to work the logistics of that out. So regarding the scoring criteria modification, what happens

now? How do you pass this? Well, I mean, it'll be presented today to the body. And then tomorrow it will go for a vote. And if it goes for a vote, it'll be accepted and put into the unified rules. Okay. And so I would imagine you're pretty confident. This isn't a radical change. I remember last year, there were two maybe, I don't want to say radical, but like big changes that were that were brought to a vote, one where the grounded opponent definition rule, rule definition, I should say, and then the 12-6 elbow, since it's been rolled out, we're about, you know, several months past, a year past, do you think it's been executed correctly? I do, and I think it worked out just fine. I think it worked out more than fine. In fact,

like, think about over the last year and all the fights that you saw, all the fights that I've saw, that game where the fighter would put their hand down and yank it back up have you noticed that game has by and large disappeared yes sir we're not playing that anymore yeah um because you'll get you'll get knead in the head or whatever it's not great so uh that's gone um and then the 126 elbow rule was that that that's just income that never should have been that that didn't work anyway so it's fine it's like that wasn't really a change we just wrote it down um or took it away, rather. I wanted to ask you about a couple of other things, things that have come up very recently as well. There was, in the main event of that Abu Dhabi card, Robert Whitaker gets RDR. He, Robert Whitaker, is very close to finishing RDR.

It appears, I think, in the third round, and RDR very clearly is holding on to his gloves. Nothing really happens other than some conversation from the referee, but there's no, you know, it's one of those things, and you hear some photos right here, in the in the in the flow of the fight i'm somewhat reminded of lessner mere one with steve mazegadhi where you have to make the call do you stop the action and and penalize the fighter or do you just kind of chalk it up to this is something that's happening in the flow of the fight should there

have been a penalty there should that have been an infraction on on rdr no i i agree with the way the referee handled that okay yeah because sometimes as you know like you get hit in the back of the head because the guy's moving it's very clearly in the back of the head but it's like was it intentional was it not intentional was he you know what i mean it's it's sometimes hard to determine what exactly is a foul and what isn't arrell i think that any time you disrupt i think there should be an effort not to disrupt the natural flow of the fight okay if i try to come to its natural conclusion with with as as least referee involvement as possible that's that now We don't always get there, but the less the referee needs to be involved.

I just want the fighters to basically figure out who's the better martial artist using the techniques that are allowed. Okay. And so in that Derek Lewis versus Towson to Chera fight, did you see that one a couple of weeks ago? Because that was brought up in the aftermath of this Stephen Wen, Mohamed Yaya fight, because Jason Herzog was the referee in that one, and that one ended what seemed to be quick. But then we saw that he was holding on to Cher was holding on to the cage. And so it was unclear, was the fight called off because it was viewed as the cage was helping him up? Do you know the fight I'm talking about?

I do know, but I have not asked Jason about that. But I don't mean to go back. But to your point before, one of the techniques that the referees can often use is they can take a point. And if they need to take a point, and I'm not suggesting it was necessary in that situation, but they can take the point on the fly and just raise their hand, and the judges get it. scoring table will get it the public gets it but there doesn't have to be an um you don't have to break the action up and take away the wow and that's then that we're we're starting to teach more and more john mccarthy and herb and the guys are starting to i love that i don't know if i've

ever actually seen that yeah but you're going to see it soon you see it in boxing quite often you see it in bare knuckle you're going to start to see it mixed martial arts more okay interesting what What about that, Savage? What did you think of that one? The Tashara Lewis one? Did you think that one was just? I would need to watch that again. I saw it, but I would need to watch that again. I would need to watch it again. Okay. Yeah. I often say that I feel like the first warning should be in the locker room, and then the moment there's an infraction, forget about the warning in the cage, there should be some sort of punishment. Is that too harsh?

Well, I mean, look, I don't know if you've been back with us, but I mean, you were at the fights the other day with Chavez and Jake Paul and all the referees say, okay, you're warning's right here, and they all say that. And when you get out there, I can't remember any kind of infraction in that fight, maybe, but when they get out there,

they still warn them again. It almost always happens. I've watched this hundreds of times. So I think if the referee, I think, Ariel, I really think it's important if the state or the commission does not have to get involved in taking points from these fighters. Sometimes we do. Sometimes it happens. But if the fighters can just figure it out with the fight itself under the rules. But the main thing is to make the level playing field.

So if you have violations that are so egregious or impact on the other fighter's ability, then yes, you should take points. I think that point deductions should be rare. That's my opinion, especially in a 3.5. Think about it. You've essentially taken that round away from the fighter. Now they have to win the other two. Right. You know, a couple months ago,

when we found out that GFL's first event was going to be in California, it gave us some hope that this was going to take off because you were involved in the end, never happened, and they seemed to be dead on arrival. Can I ask about your experience? dealing with that promotion and what ultimately led to them having to cancel those events in late May? Well, I mean, I asked, I mean, we required, we wanted to see certain, certain financial things.

And I mean, look, Ariel, I'm not going to go into a fight and not be sure that the fighters can be paid. or at least that's the hope. I mean, I've had it happen a few times where things didn't work out, but there were a lot of extenuating circumstances with that. But I'm not going to have a brand new promotion coming to California with talking about major money, money that's way above what I would consider to the market rate and not try to put some checks and balances in.

I think some of the fighters got frustrated with me for 30 minutes or so until they figured it out. But I think it's important to have the money in place if you're going to have a big show. I hope that answers your question. Okay. Yes, 100%. And obviously, the event never came to fruition.

You did introduce the MMA retirement fund in early 2024. Can I ask how that's going? And have you seen any interest from other commissions wanting to do something similar? Well, I've not saw the interest with. with the other commissions, but the funds going well. And interestingly enough, we're really, really close to having the license plate like up for sale. It got approved by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

So we've got the digital, the digital prints actually came back yesterday. So I'm going to be working with Consumer Affairs to get all the ducks in a row. But we should be able to start taking pre-orders on that plate, which would go partially to the boxing pension fund and sum to the MMA pension fund with the proceeds. So that's exciting for us. We're really excited about that because the idea is, is to have,

I mean, look, we're doing the tickets, and so we're getting stuff. And look, Marco Antonio Barrera, I know that's a boxer, but he just made his claim. I believe that's who it was. And he's got a nice payout coming from, say, California. But we're trying to do other things to try to make sure that these fighters have more at the end of this. That's the idea. And California is uniquely

positioned. We have 39 million cars. So we're going to, the commission has decided to try this approach. And we're going to see if I can get 7,500 pre-orders, then DMV will make it. Love it. Love it. I know it's not necessarily your jurisdiction, but sort of along the same lines, this, this antitrust lawsuit that was settled recently in the fighters getting some, some back pay, if you will. How do you feel about how all? that played out. I don't know enough about that one way or the other. I didn't read the complaints. I looked at the, I only read the news clips in that type of stuff. So I try to stay away from like commenting on litigation or that type of thing. Fair enough. I did hear you say recently that

you think that if TKO gets involved in boxing, you think this would be great. Given their history, I would imagine, with UFC and W.W.E. The power players involved. Can I ask you to expand on that. Why do you think that this would be good? Because there are some people who are worried about this, you know, modification to the Ali Act that it could ultimately, you know, you've heard I'm sure Oscar Delahoya pushback, Eddie Hearn has pushed back, other boxing promoters, Bob Aram as well. So when you say that, are you referring to that or are you referring to just their history of being promoters? I mean, look, anytime you get a big corporation that has as well-financed, it's got good broadcast deals and all that.

That's good for fathers. And I don't know exactly what is planned, but if TKO boxing gets into the space, I expect there'll be a broadcast deal with that. I expect it'll be televised. I expect that it'll be good for American boxers, and I expect that it will make stars out of people that we ordinarily wouldn't have solved. At the same time, I think that the space is open. And I think that they've done such a good job in my view.

I mean, look, go back to 2004 or five. I forget when the ultimate fighter first came out. I'm talking about with Forrest and the late Stefan Bonner, when they did their thing with, I think Chris was on the show. and go back to the end and look how it's progressed. For sure. And if they can do even a fraction, 5% of that, they would greatly improve. But boxing's a worldwide sport, and they took MMA, which was a thing,

and they've made it a worldwide brand with their UFC brand. They've done very good with that. And I think that boxing will be benefited if they get in the space. Do you have any reservations or not regarding the modification? they're trying to make to the Ali Act? I've read the bill, of course, and I'll tell you this. I've wrote a lot of arbitration decisions in New York, and a lot of times the Ali Act

is cited by boxers that are making a lot of money, seven-figure boxers. I mean, this happens. This bill does something, Ariel, I'm not sure you're aware of this, but there's a lot of boxers in this country that are not getting paid very much money, okay? Bill sets a national minimum.

This bill sets national minimum insurance requirements. This bill sets national minimum medical requirements. In my view, these are good things that will help low-income boxers. The other side of it, that's business stuff that I don't want to comment too much on other than the fact that I think the UFC has done a really good job, and I think if they get involved, they'll do a real good job. in boxing. But things that are absolutely substantial to help every boxer in this country, at least on their debut, is you set minimums. And California, I'm proud to say, has the highest

minimum in the country at $200 around. And that was passed last year by the legislature, and Governor Newsom signed it. And that's in place. But beyond that, there's only, I think, five or six other commissions that have a minimum, none of which is $150. So I think $600 for a four-round fight being a minimum pay is, I think that's more than reasonable. I don't think that puts anybody out of business. And if it does, that's people should be able to make 150 a round or more on a professional boxing match. And they should be able to have some insurance if they get hurt. This should happen.

Okay. Appreciate that response. Do you have time for a couple more? Sure. Okay, so I know you're very busy over there. Speaking of the UFC, the last event in California, I think was the one in January of this past year, right? 311. And there was a story that came out in the aftermath.

Am I wrong about that? I think so, right? In Englewood? Well, I mean, it was the one where, I forget his name, but he couldn't fight the week of the fight. And let's see. Arm and Sarukin. Yes, yes, he couldn't fight the week of the fight. back pain, I think.

Back pain, right? Because Dana White said in a press conference he missed weight and this caused like some sort of controversy, but I think he, I think he misspoke. I think he meant to say back pain, right? Your understanding was it was due to a back issue and he never actually made, or at least attempted to make weight? Right. I don't think he ever, I mean, not that I know of, I think he hurt his back.

But I got, yeah, that's, that was, I think that's right. In the aftermath, Marab de Wallyshevili, the Bantamweight champion, talked about a story where you kind of hit a leg injury where he showed the same leg twice. Do you remember this? Of course. Yes. Yeah, we were very aware of that. I mean, yes, we were absolutely aware of that.

We had talked about this, I think, Hunter or Mark, somebody called me about this way, way, way in advance a long time and says, hey, this is the thing. And I said, we're looking at it. I said, okay, I'll have the doctors take a look at it. Doctors knew about it going in. And we, I mean, we had had conversations about this particular thing well in advance. So, yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know what to say about that other than just, yeah, we knew. He thought he pulled a fast one on you guys. You're saying you were well aware and there was no fast one pulled.

Right. That's, that's right. I mean, that's folklore. Okay, fair enough. Have you had a power slap event yet in California? I'm not as up to speed. No. Are there any on the books?

No. Do you plan on having one? Do you want to have one? They've not asked. Okay. They've not asked to have one. If they do, will you be open to it? They have the provision for the one event.

Right. But they've not done it. But they can have an event in California. The commission approved it. Have you been monitoring it? Do you feel comfortable still with having an event there? I've watched it. I don't watch it much.

I have my own stuff, I own things in California watch. Right. We have a lot of events. But I think Jeff in Nevada does it. The Nevada Commission does it. And so I know a lot of the officials that do it. But yeah, they've not approached me about having one yet. Okay.

I did see courtesy of MMA Junkie. There's a new executive director of the ABC. Timothy Shipman of Florida, no longer Mike Mazzuli. Is that accurate? Yeah, and let me tell you about that. I'm going to tell you about that, Ariel. Mike was termed out. Okay, I don't know if you remember.

We put in term limits, I don't know, 8, 10 years ago, something like that. And so Mike couldn't run again. And I'm pretty sure Mike had the votes to change the bylaws if he had wanted to stay. But he came to me and he says, you know what? I think I'm going to step away. I'll do the past president. I'll still help, but we're going to have somebody else do it.

And you got credit to Mike Mazzuli for doing that because he literally could have stayed if he'd have wanted to, but he didn't. And I made the motion to have Tim Shipman do it, and he accepted it. And everybody voted for, I mean, he doesn't have any opposition. Okay. Amazing. Well, good on Mike. Congratulations, Tim Shipman. Yes, of course. One last one I wanted to ask you about. There was a PFL card in New Jersey this past week, Friday night, to be exact. There was a submission that went on a little bit too long. Are you familiar with this fight? Yes. Yes.

Do you want us to show, I just wanted to ask you if, if, like, I know you do these Zoom calls with the referees and the officials and you guys, you're very good at, you know, going over things. And, and I wish more commissions would do this but I just wanted to know could the referee in question have done anything differently because it was very clear that the fighter who was out Nathan Kelly was out long before the fight

was stopped. I think he tapped. Yes, that's what the broadcast said. You don't actually see it in this angle, but they showed it afterwards. Well, you need to be in the right position. I'm not, look, I'm not trying to play second guest to the referee, but

I would be in the position where the offense is happening so you can see where the choke is applied. Does that make sense? Sure, sure. So it was just an out of position situation. I mean, I think that the guy, I think for everybody I've talked to, he tapped. Yes. and you know i think that you have to make sure um these are these are these are all learning things and i don't know that referee but i bet that referee doesn't let that happen again yeah uh it's tough

i think mMA officials have the toughest job in sports there's there's a lot of quick calls that have to make some subjective um and so i'm not trying to play monday morning quarterback here but obviously there's people's you know lives and health at stake ariel it is hard I'll just leave you with this. It is hard. Refereeing and judging mixed martial arts. I mean, Derek and Sal do this every week, and there's a lot of pressure on those guys to get the scores right.

And, I mean, I don't know how many fights that they've done. And look, John stepped away. Herb does it all the time. Jason does it all the time. Mike Beltran does it all the time. These are guys that are just doing it all the time. But it's a really dynamic sport with a lot of things that can happen. And it's five minutes with no objective criteria

like in boxing, I think these guys do a good job regulating this, and every now and then they make a mistake, and we try to help them along, and some mistakes are bigger than others. But by and large, the guys that do it all the time that you see every week in Nevada, every week, you know, wherever you're seeing them, those guys are doing a good job. I agree. I agree. We scrutinize and pinpoint, you know, one, but when you think about it's one among a hundred, you know, over the course of, I don't know, a month of the major events, it's a pretty good ratio. Last thing, so you're doing this modification.

You talked to us about how it's going to go through the vote tomorrow and whatnot. What's the next thing you'd like to introduce or modify? What's next on the rules agenda, so to speak? Well, I want to take a step back from doing any type of rule changes. And I know that shouldn't be like a change, but that's, I do not want any further changes. for a while. Oh. And until we get something that's just cart, like very obvious, like the

grounded fighter thing, that was a long time coming. The 12-6 elbow, that should have been gone a long time ago. You know, but when we talk about things that we, that we are wanting to do with the sport of mixed martial arts, I would like to see even more of the high-level guys start to do the teaching. For example, for a long time, we've had the referees to a lot of the judging classes and all this. And I would like to see some of the judges step up and actually start teaching some of the other judges, because this is a different kind of skill.

John McCarthy can do both, of course, and some of them can do both. But I think that everybody has skill sets and there's different skill sets. And I think it's important. That's one thing that I would like to see done. Love these chats, Andy. Thank you so much. Really appreciate the time. Appreciate the candor and the transparency.

keep up the great work and good luck out there in New Orleans. Thank you, Ariel. All right, there he is. The executive director of the California State Athletic Commission, also chairman of the Rules Committee of the Association of Boxing Commissions. Always great to talk to Andy Foster. So there you have a damage, dominance, duration, some clarification to what should be a 10-8 round, a 10-7 round.

Not a fan of the 10-10s. Not a lot of people are. I know our friend Casey Leiden is always a big proponent of the 10-10. But interesting to hear his thoughts, certainly after that controversial fight in Abu Dhabi. I still think the gloves, the holding, it's tough, you know, it's a tough one. But what about that little nugget there? He wants to see more, and he says that we will see more point deductions, but point deductions that will not stop the flow of the fight.

I think that's incredible. Now, sometimes someone gets hit below the belt, the fight's just going to stop naturally, poked in the eye, naturally. But if something's happening in the flow, we're just going to lift up a finger and we'll keep going? So maybe Lesnar Mier the fight keeps going was to the back of the head. Anyway, that's interesting. I haven't seen that in boxing, to be honest, but he says we're going to see more of it in MMA and boxing. So look out for that. Appreciate him very much and appreciate him coming on. All right. Now let's talk to our next guest. He returns to action next weekend. UFC 319,

Chicago, Illinois, United Center, Duplessi, Shamaev, middleweight fight. It's a middleweight showcase Last show yesterday, we had Michael Vennepage on staying at middleweight, choosing to go back to back, fought Shire bullet at 185 in Saudi Arabia, is sticking around at 185 to fight Jared Kennanier. Well, our next guest is moving up to 185, unbeaten in his last five, but has decided to have his next fight at 185. Is it because of what happened prior to his last fight against Randy Brown? Let us find out.

Here he is The Butcher himself, Brian Battle, kind enough to join us. Hello, Brian, how are you? I'm doing well, brother, but yourself. I'm doing great. Great to have you back on. Appreciate it very much. Your big fight coming up in some 11 days or so, and it's at 185, not 170, where you've had great success as of late, but obviously we know about the mishap on the scales before

the Randy Brown fight. Why is this fight at middleweight? I mean, the biggest thing was I really wanted to fight. You know, I'd love to go back down to World Trade. I feel like I have an unfinished business down there, but, you know, I'm a fighter, you know what I'm saying? So when this opportunity popped up, you know, I just took it, you know what I mean? Was this their idea? Like, did they come to you with a middleweight fight and that let your decision?

In other words, were you planning on sticking around at 170 before this was brought to you? Yeah, no, I was definitely trying to stay at Walter Waite, but, you know, once again, you know, I'm trying to fight people. So, you know, whether it's 170, 185, you know what I'm saying? Wait is wait. You know what I'm saying? Let's get in there and make it happen. If you look great, feel great in this fight. Any chance you stay at 185?

Maybe. Maybe, you know what I'm saying? I'm not opposed to it. But you prefer 170. It's just tough because it's like, like you said, I mean, you know, I've had all these fights at 170. You know, there's definitely people I've been. looking forward to fighting one day so um i have no problem with staying at 180 185 but um you know there is like i do feel like there's unfinished business at 170 so i'm not too pressed either

way you know what i mean if i get more opportunities at 185 then i'll take those opportunities at 185 but um if i get to go back to 170 um i'll do that in the heartbeat isn't life so much more enjoyable and i would imagine next week even more enjoyable you don't have to cut that extra weight. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, you know, sometimes that, uh, that, that, that, that pain, that suffering makes it, uh, even more enjoyable at the end of it. But now with that being said, it has undoubtedly been like a fight game where it's just easy to focus on the fight, you know what I'm saying? I don't have to be super stressed about doing this, that, and the other, doing things just for the sake of losing weight, you know.

So on that hand, it is kind of cool. You know what I'm saying? It has been kind of nice. But like I said, I mean, there's just people I want to fight at welterweight, man. You know what I'm saying? So whether it's comfortable or not comfortable, you know, if I get the opportunity to go back, I'll go back. But, you know, with that being said, it has been kind of nice. So, you know, I'm not opposed to staying up here either.

Eight months between fights, why? that's just when I got off for the fight, man. You know what I'm saying? I was ready to go earlier. You know what I'm saying? I was trying to fight a lot earlier, but, you know,

but you guys got to take opportunities when they come. And so this is an opportunity that popped up. You know, it took a little bit longer to get there, but we're here now, so I'm going to make the most of it. Has that been frustrating?

You say you're ready to go, and this will be the longest layoff of your UFC run. Of course, you know, there's frustrating moments to it, but, you know, on the bright side, it's just giving me that much more time to grow and fill in gaps. You know what I'm saying?

It's giving me that much more time to, you know, check my resolve. You know, I feel like I'm a better fighter regardless. So, yeah, you know, of course, it's always frustrating. You know, this is how we get paid. But in the larger scheme of things, you know, I believe this will work out in my favor. All right. So your opponent is from Uzbekistan. Are you getting a lot of hate from the Uzbek from Derseltan's Army?

What's going on? Oh, my goodness. What's happening? Like, every time I get on Instagram, there's 100 new comments, but probably more. It's just, I think that's as many as Instagram can let me know there is at any given time. But now, I'd be like one dude leaving 20 comments, you know what I'm saying, just like the Uzbekistan flag. You know, these, there's a lot of guys with like no life out there in Uzbekistan, I guess, man. You know what I'm saying?

What are they saying? Well, one, you know, Instagram can't translate their language. Oh, damn. I don't know what they're saying. If they say something to their language, Instagram can't translate. I try to keep on hitting the translate. Instagram can't translate their language.

So there's a lot of flags, a lot of gifts of Nerselton, and like a bunch of words I can't get translated. So I have no idea what anyone's saying, for real, for real. Well, this is helping out your engagement. Maybe this is good for you. The way I look at this is I got a bunch

of new fans, you know what I'm saying? All those guys, are my fans. They're taking time out of their day to leave comments under my post. You know, they're my fans, man. You know what I'm saying? Boosting my activity and whatnot. And so did you say anything about Uzbekistan or about Nersetan to prompt all of this? Dude, I don't think I did, but maybe I did. You know what I'm saying? You do so many podcasts. I know there was one interview I did that once again,

I keep on getting tagged and it's a person talking in like Uzbekistan or how. I was that, whatever you call the language. And I don't know what they're saying, but I know it made a lot of people mad. Oh. I mean, I don't, but I don't remember. I felt like I was pretty cordial. Yeah.

I'm saying everything crazy. Like, yeah, I'm going to win the fight, but I didn't say, I didn't go out of my way to say anything nasty or anything like that. But, um, you know. But, yo, we saw you cut that mad promo on, on the French people. Might as well just go full heel and cut a promo on the usebacks.

Man, I might. you got something you got something for us what do you know about Uzbekistan I know I'm about to whoop up on their boy that's what I know for right now that's what I know for sure you know what I'm saying I'm about a fight a dude from Uzbekistan I'm about to beat them up

that's what I know right now but besides that you know what I'm saying they got loyal fans you know what I'm saying I don't know what the population is I don't know I don't know hardly nothing about Uzbekistan to be honest um but they should know a lot about me yeah they're my new fans so uh i'll be the i'll be the king of Uzbekistan it'll be okay

you know what i'm saying what about nirselton i'll represent them after i wolf nirseltine it'll be okay you'll take their flag i like that i'll take them so make you know what i'm saying what'd you know about uh nirseltown when you were offered him uh he's been in the game for a while 36, 9, and 2. Really, the biggest thing I remembered about him was his fight with Joaquin. But besides that, you know, I knew he was a big dude, you know what I'm saying? Big guy, kind of ugly looking, you know what I mean? Aggressive, you know what I'm saying?

And, you know, I can't wait to get in there with him, you know what I mean? Do you feel like you have something to prove in this fight after the whole ranking? Andy Brown situation from the weight to the to the scoring to everything well I mean I feel like I'm not proven too much with the weight in this fight you know what I'm saying but you know you know I go out there be professional yeah wait you know what I'm saying so from that end sure um but I just mean like because I felt like there was a bit of a bull's eye on you in the aftermath of that because you miss weight because of the controversy if you will surrounding the scoring so you go in there you make the weight you do something spectacular now

everyone's back to loving you again nah i mean like i can't lie if you're saying do i feel i got something to prove a little bit yeah a little bit but you know at the same time i'm not going out and doing anything extra i'm just being me you know what i'm saying like when i go out and fight i'm not looking i'm not looking for anything out of the ordinary to me like that if something spectacular happens that's just that's just average butcher activity you know what i'm saying so um do i guess on the proof for sure but um you know i'm just going to go out there and do what i do regardless you know what i'm saying you look at most of my fights you know what i'm saying if i have a good dance partner you know what i'm saying the fight's crazy you know i mean but i'm a

win regardless always so whatever it takes to win that's what i'm going to do i know it's happening in mid-august but are you hoping for at least two this year what's the plan you were so active last year, are you hoping to make up for lost time? Well, I mean, that's what, when people ask me if I'm going to stay at 185, probably at least for one more more this year, because I do want to fight one more time this year. So from that, um, um, um, from that, uh, optic, it kind of does make more sense to stay at 185, but I would like to get one more before the end of the year, ideally, you know what I'm saying?

And, you know, maybe, maybe be a little bit more active than next year. You know what I'm saying? We'll see, we'll see how things play out. but at the at the moment I mean August 16 is all I'm worried about I can't be worried about October, November, December

until I get through August 1st you know what I mean I got you I know what you're saying you know what I'm saying I know what I'm saying I know you know what I'm saying baby Has anyone ever told you you say that a lot

Come on man I don't know I don't know And they put it on the t-shirt dog everybody tells me i say it a lot and it's bad because it's almost like um the more they tell me the the more i can't it's like subconsciously being like wired into my brain i hate it you know what i'm saying i don't want to say it anymore i can't stop saying it though it's all right it's your gimmick everyone needs a gimmick this is your gimmick no man that's not my gimmick man my gimmick's the butcher dog okay yeah my bad my bad my bad i did i saw you at you were at rest of

Mania, right? Hell yeah, man. You were rocking the WrestleMania 2000 shirt. Both nights of WrestleMania and the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania. That shit was fire. Sick. Did you get tickets from TK.O.? Nah.

You got your own ticket. What do you mean? You're one of them. You work for the company. Well, one, it was like a last minute decision, but it was, it was funny because, you know, you get a little couple jacket hoaxing you, you know, you start telling the people who are sitting around you, you're a C-fire or whatever. Yeah.

And then they're showing all these other UFC fighters on the screen. And the people are looking at you, like, why don't you on the screen? Like, damn, I bought my own tickets. People are. But, you know, maybe next year. Maybe next year. You know what I mean? I'm me and my boy, Ryder, we're trying to go to the Big Four.

Oh, hell yeah. I was at SummerSlam night one on Saturday. Do you watch? Night one. Night one was the better night. Seth showed up. Yeah. Were you surprised or did you know?

Did you read the dirt sheets? Dude, I didn't even read the dirt sheets. As soon as I saw CM Punk become the number one contender, I was like, man, that'd be crazy. That'd be crazy. Seth said he wasn't going to let him get the belt. Yeah. And I can't lie. When he came out and he had the crutches on, I was like, okay, all right, maybe it was genuine.

Then he started walking away. And the way, it wasn't just that he threw the crutches down. the way that he threw the crutches down it was so dramatic you know what I was saying like that shit was iconic dude I fucking look

I've watched him probably drop the crutches and run into the ring like probably like at least five times maybe more you know what I'm so good he's so good I saw some people

some people just they can't enjoy it they can't suspend disbelief they're like well see him puck he's such an idiot why did he stand there why didn't he just run out of the rings

with the belt that's not what you do man you fight you fight you defend that's not story you know what I'm saying that's not captivating you know seeing punk is not a coward you know what I'm saying um but yeah no that shit was fire you know what I mean um what did you think of Brock coming back um um so I'm kind of curious about that you know what I mean

um you know I'm kind of um I haven't heard anything else uh I didn't think they would bring them back while the lawsuit was still like yeah But, you know, like me personally, I don't got any problems with Brock Lesnar, you know what I'm saying? I just, you know, very curious to, but I know, the WWE's not used to, not unused to doing controversial things. So, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about it, you know. What about them? What about them reversing course on the Sina heel turn? Like, they pretty much pulled the plug on it.

Yeah, without Cody Rhodes turning to heal. That was kind of a. I was interesting, but I think it's just people, I think they, they kind of messed up with Sena's heel turn. You know what I'm saying? They gave him a heel that was kind of disingenuine, and everyone kind of knew who was disingenient. Like, he can be a heel and still have fucking energy.

You know what I'm saying? I don't know why he had energy to be a heel, you know? So I think it was just like, hey, you know, I'm going to have fun for the last. This heel turn probably wasn't. He probably was thinking he was going to have. have fun turning heel and then wasn't having fun because he was having to be this character that he clearly isn't you know what I mean he was like yo it's the last couple months I want to

have fun I want to have fun with this shit um so by the way speaking of fun you know which which match I loved I love jelly roll that was fun I enjoyed that wasn't bad that wasn't bad he took his he took his bumps yes Logan Paul sold his ass off dude yes you know I'm saying every time jelly roll it hit him you thought he got hit by a fucking bat like um Logan was great that one wasn't bad at all I wasn't, that's what I was saying night one hit every, I feel like every match night one kind of delivered.

It was night two that was kind of like, you know what I mean? How do you feel about the two nights for SummerSlam? Man, do it every time. You don't mind. Are you watching everything? Are you watching all the PLEs, Ross, Smackdown, NXT, everything?

I don't watch NXT. You know, there's a certain Smackdown, like, The PLEs, well, all the PLEs getting watched. Like Saturday Night Main Events, all that shit is getting watched. Okay, okay. Monday Night Raw is getting watched every week. Smackdown is if I got time, you know what I'm saying?

Smackdown. The weekend tends to get kind of crazy, so I might have to watch this little recap. Yeah. I try to stay informed on what happened, whether I watch it or not. And, yeah, NXT, I wish I, I wish I get a lot. I feel like a lot of cool stuff happens in the next day, but I just don't, I can't, I don't have the time, you know what I mean? What about AEW?

AEDU is another one. I kind of wish. Yeah, it's just a lot. It's just, and there's a lot going on in AEW, you know what I'm saying? They got like a shit ton of belts, you know what I mean? They got stories, they got to cross-promotion, you know what I'm saying? They got all the belts represented in there. It's a lot going on to AW, but I would love to get into AW, you know what I'm saying?

I feel like they got, they really have the best wrestling, but, you know. Okay, one more. What do you think of Unreal? Have you watched that on Netflix? Not yet, but I'm going to. It's great. Is it fire? I loved it.

Okay. All these, some of these, like, OG guys are mad about it because they say, like, it exposes the business and all this nonsense. It really doesn't. It almost just explains the business. to people. And for like hardcore fans, like you and I, it's fun because it's a little peak behind the curtain. It's a little more than we usually get. But I think some of it is a work in that they're, they're talking in front of the cameras and then the real shit is happening

off camera. You hardly see people go like, all right, so I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Like you're not getting the true exposing of the business, but it is showing to the casuals who these people are outside of TV behind the scenes. And I think it's only going to make them into bigger stars and make people more emotionally invested in them. You know what I mean? Well, no. I mean, what I say is what I became, as an adult, when I was able to get back into

wrestling, it was when I watched, like, a bio-documentary, or, yeah, it was like a docie series on the Montreal Screwjob. Wrestling with shadows? Wrestling with shadows? It might have been wrestling with shadows. It's the greatest talk ever. It was an older one? Yeah, yeah, from the 90s. About Brett Hardin and everything.

Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah, okay. I was, okay. I was, watched that and wrestling became more real to me after watching that like you know what i mean like i was like like even though it's kind of like had more the back scenes stuff in it it helped you appreciate what was real what isn't real you know what i'm saying it's like yeah this shit there's more to more to it than meets the eye you know what i mean so uh that's actually i think showing just a little bit not too much of the behind the scenes but a little bit of behind scenes can kind of like you say for um someone who's like oh oh it's fake you know what i'm saying

kind of give them an idea of like well you know it you know it's a little fake but it's not all the way fake you know what i'm saying um yeah just help you appreciate the game you know what i mean yes and end the game triple h uh by the way did you ever consider trying out for pro wrestling um no no i never like not seriously but um you know A, hey, triple H. Yo. Chapal. Trip.

Big trips. Hey, baby. You know what I'm saying? If you ever need the butcher to come, you know, kill somebody. I'm in for it. You know what I'm saying? I'll be a referee.

No, no. I'll come to be security. I'll be security. You know what I mean? Run down to the ring, break up a fight. You know, hey, you got to get your toes west somehow. You know what I'm saying? I'm not expecting to come in like Rhonda.

You know what I mean? I've got to come in and be a. superstar off the roof. I'll climb up. I feel that. But I need UFC 319, if all goes your way. Like, can we get an old school butcher promo? Like, I need, I need that, I need that Paris vibe. Like, that was, that was unmatched. It's still one of the greatest post-fight promos of all time. We need that back. We need that energy back. A magician can't, like, reveal his tricks, man. I can't tell you. No, I'm not asking you to reveal, but can you just, like, can you, can you have something in your back pocket?

I guess I'll know about that. Okay. All right. I'll start. Talking and used back. I got something in my back pocket, man. Hell, yeah. No, I'm gonna, um, yeah, we're gonna win this fight emphatically, you know what I'm saying? And, uh, we're gonna pop off in every way, you know what I'm saying? We gotta remind people, what's up? All right.

And by the way, shout it to the Fight Degenerate podcast. What's going on over there? What's going on over there? Um, we're actually, because, uh, just life's been crazy. I had to move, but, um, my boy writer, he's, uh, he's out out here in North Carolina. He's going to quarrel me for this fight. So we're actually getting ready to go record another episode later this week. So we'll be back on top of it, getting episodes out.

I appreciate the love on that. Yeah, for sure. And your boy, O'Day Osborne, got a fight this weekend. Yeah, my man, O'Day. Oh, my God, dude. O'Day, last time I saw Ode, we went and did a wine podcast. I saw that in Napa Valley, right? Yeah, Napa Valley, man.

I drank a lot of wine before that podcast. Holy shit. I remember I was out there for probably like 48 hours. I think I remember maybe like 12, 16 hours of that trip. Like, holy, that was a... Wine is a trip, though. You know what I'm saying? You can't sleep on that wine.

That wine not have you fucked up. Red or white? Or both? All the above. Okay. Amazing. Yeah, the answer is yes. You're the man, Brian.

Good luck next week. Looking forward to it. Welcome back. And thanks, as always for the time. Always great to have you on. Hey, we're going to have to do this after I win so I can chug some more outlook around your shirt. No problem, no problem.

It's a date. Appreciate it, man. Looking forward to it. There he is. Brian Battle, returning to action. UFC 319 on the 16th of August. Frank, I think we might have a new drop contender there. That laugh?

He sounds like, he sounds like. like Count Dracula. It's a beautiful laugh. It's incredible. Oh, I can't do anything close to that. That is something. Watching a lot of vampire movies lately? Yeah.

What is it? Hotel Transylvania. That's a solid one. You I saw a thing on Instagram. You see, they're just listening to us. They said Big Daddy 2 is coming out next year. And then I did a deep dive and I found that it was fake. Who's they?

I don't know. Like an algorithm? It had like, oh yeah, yeah. Oh, they're all listening to us. You don't think so? I do think so. I'm just wondering who you perceive as they. Like, who is the big they?

Big brother. Big tech, big tech, all of them. Big tech. Oh, you sound like him now. That laugh. That laugh is incredible. Me and Brian Battle. I always find it crazy when the UFC fighters are such big WWE fans.

There's like something endearing about it. I don't know. I like it. It's fun. But why? I feel like that's in line, no? Like so many of them care about the promo. aspect of showmanship. Brian, obviously, that incredible promo could come from no other place

but that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think it's fun. I think it's fun. But they should show him love and get him some damn tickets. I mean, D.C., you know? Of course. DC, when I was driving home after the event on Saturday, he was like, oh my God, Seth, because there's that famous video. Remember? Of him freaking out. Yeah, yeah. When he cashed in 2015. I was kind of out at that point. Wait, so this was like similar to that. This was literally 10 years later, the same thing. thing, yeah. Yeah, he cashes. Oh, wow.

I didn't even put two and two together on that. Yes, he's the one. He kind of made the money in the bank into a thing. All right, chill out. There was money in the bank. No, no, no.

Like, it was like, wow. No. Did it on the grandest stage at wrestling. There were people carrying that suitcase around for like years. No. Who was the first person to cash in the money in the... You think he was the first one?

The first one to like make it famous. On that kind of stage? Yeah, Maybe on that stage, but there's been people who cashed them in. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, come on, right. Yo, do you know about pro wrestling? What's wrong with you, man?

No, no, no, wait, wait, edge cashed in immediately. Let me put you on game. Let me educate you about this pro wrestling. Why did it feel so big when Seth did it? Because it was, it was definitely the biggest, like, before that, I don't even know who it was. I know Dolv Ziegler was carrying it around forever and stuff like that. Nobody had cashed it in on that scale. That part you're right about.

Nobody did it that big like Seth did it. Jeez, Jack Swagger, 2010. geez yeah come on punk 2009 gosh I was kind of out at this point you're bugging I was going to NXT events and I was like making fun of you listen you remember that listen you remember that I'm early of course I remember that edge

2007 holy shit yeah you you were off on the timeline yeah I was off I was off my bad it was a big moment though okay but you had another one okay to my credit yeah I'm looking at wait wait wait wait wait wait okay to my credit www.com ranked the greatest

cashions of all time Oh, it's got to be number one. What's number one? Yeah. So it's Seth, 2015. So that's, that was my mistake. But why is that number one? The first cash should to happen at WrestleMania.

Yeah, big. It was big. The first cash should to happen in the main event of WrestleMania. Well, yeah, I mean, if it was the first cash to happen. Yeah, that's true. Well, this, I'm reading how they were. First cash should to happen in the middle of any match. Oh, now that's interesting.

I didn't think about that. Heist of the century. It happened in the middle before they even rang the bell. Yeah, that's kind of cool. Yeah, that's pretty great. Shout out Seth Rollins. Yeah, he's the man. Is he technically Mr. Money in the Bank, like, because of this?

Like, he's the forever money in the bank guy. No, but I think he has the two probably most famous ones. He's got the two biggest ones. Yeah, at this point. Impressive by Seth. Well, there you have it. All right, some things to get to here. Is PT there?

Hey, I'm here. Hi, Pete. Hey, my, his boys. There is a great chat. It's out of Money in the Bank there. You don't like that? You didn't watch SummerSlam, Petey? I watched SummerSlam, GC, as you know.

No, I didn't know. Money in the bank hit me in a way that other things happened. So, I mean, I think you're right about Seth Rollins. I'm completely crazy. All right, thank you. Appreciate that. Pizzi,

while we have you, the goat, Aram Lobov coming up in some 50 minutes. How do you feel about this? The return and not just the return, but against Zubaira of all people. Like I am shocked. I may have been privy to this information a few days ago.

And I was like, like, you know, I expected Artenham to be done after that, he had that bare and uncle fight with the Olympic boxer. Yeah, serious, serious. Silver medalist, Berenshik was. And he fought him in Russia. And every time I saw Artem, I just, I always thought he was done. You know, he didn't really want to, he never really made those kind of sounds. Yeah, every time he'd been interviewed since 2018,

and he had always said, I believe he said to you many times, like he would come back if Zubaira took hug off, if that fight presented itself. For free. Yeah, he has said that many times. So here's the thing, right? A lot of people, obviously that situation stems right back to the Habib and Connor situation, which we remember.

Dana White described as the darkest situation that ever occurred in in MMA that of course in April when McGregor attacked a bus full of people after Artem got into a situation with Habib and his teammates. There later booked Artem v. Zubairauerre, I then booked for a fight in October, late October, October 27th, I believe it was, 2018. Connor fights Habib early October, correct me of wrong, October 7th. for UFC 229 Ariel? Yeah, 7th, 8, something like that, yep. So they fight, Zubaira,

Habib wins the fight, Habib scales the fence. Next of all, Narmaga Madoffs are in the cage, attacking McGregor, Zubbira Togov gets a shot off, and then subsequently, before the October 27 showdown with Artem, that fight is pulled.

Now, I think a lot of people in the Western, world don't really understand how dark that kind of went. And I genuinely only remembered at the time and I went back and I had a look at a few media clippings from it because it's not talked about an awful lot. But two days before that date where they were meant to me and the fight was already scrapped, as I said, it was like to 25th of October. Suburber took Hugoff and pops up on Instagram with Chechen dictator Ramazan Kadirov. And suddenly they're saying, come to Grosinian and fight here. Artem and Zubair are contracted

to UFC at this time. Artem replies and he says, look, we're contracted the UFC. Zubair himself has contracted the UFC. If he leaves, we can do it. Now, you know, Kateroff is a guy who's been talked about for a long time in MMA. Karim Zadhan, et cetera, has wrote many lengthy

pieces about him. He has appeared on many human rights watch lists like amnesty, all this kind of stuff. You know, he has been panned for his regime in Chechnya by many, many people. So that kind of took a very dark turn there.

And as I said, every time Artaen's been interviewed since then, it's been like, if this fight happens, it's gonna, it's gonna, like, I would take this fight over anything else in the world. I don't, what I fear, I'll tell you, Ariel, is I, I detested the fact that Paul Hughes

the Usman of Magamadeoff was billed as this Dagestan the Ireland thing. Nobody in Ireland has any malice towards anyone in Dagestan. No one has been walking around since October 2018 and going, when are we going to get one back on those Dagestan guys? Nobody had ever done that.

And then the promotion pushed this kind of thing. There was a bit of a skirmish at the Wayans. And everyone back here was like, if this goes off now, because lads suddenly feel like there's this beef between Dagestan and Ireland, we'll be very pissed off. Luckily, it didn't.

As we saw, there was massive respect shown between the Nagram Adolf camp and Paul Hughes's team FAA in the aftermath of that fight in January. And I think, like, that's one thing. I think people shouldn't get confused here. This is not Artem Loboff coming back to settle a score with all of these guys. I think it's a very personal thing between him and Zubaira. And I just, that would be my one fear that this would take on a similar kind of narrative

that the first meeting between Hughes and Armaghamadoff did. Very great backstory. Thank you for that, Intel. the irony is if we want to use that word for lack of a better word is Artem and Connor are no longer friends right and well put it lightly yes they're currently at odds at legal odds

which has been played out in the media as well and back in 2018 like how unfathomable was that result right like they were thick as thieves I remember I remember being in the in the lobby of the Vodara Hotel the night before

Mayweather McGregor and Artem shows up he was somewhere in the world and couldn't be there earlier and he said like there was no way I was gonna miss this like they were

I think it would be fair to classify them as like genuine good friends right like they were close they were they were teammates they were training far beyond yeah yeah yeah

I think I think Artham and Connor I think he was closer to Artham than he was anyone in that camp right they traveled the world together you remember them famous pictures with the

they were at so the money vault they were reenacting that Muhammad Ali picture from the 70s and Artem and Connor were posting and these guys went

all around the world Brazil, Russia, everywhere together. I personally don't think there was anyone more loyal to Connor throughout his career

up until they definitely fell out but when they were together Artem Lobo was a loyalist guy they ever meet and look he got plenty of benefits from being Connor McGregor's friend as well, his opportunity

with the UFC when he was on the ultimate for order, second chance to, uh, to fight and he fought his way into a UFC contract. So it was a mutually beneficial situation, but they were as thick as thieves. Yeah. And, um, it has come to my understanding. We're going to ask him about this. I believe he's training at SBG for this fight. Did you hear that? Um, like, I mean, I'd see him training like, you know, I'm talking about on Instagram and stuff like this. I'd see him training often, like with like Sir Richie Smullen,

who's a obviously been in the UFC, being in Bellator. He is fighting in Octagon now. He has a fight coming up, I believe, in October himself. So, yeah, he's been training with those guys as far as I know. I mean, he's a beloved member of the team. He is a, one of the most part of the guys. I thought maybe that this would create some sort of fraction, but apparently not. Not that I'm aware of. You'll have to ask Artem about that.

Obviously, John and Connor are very close as well. So I don't know how that goes off, to be honest with you. Sure. All right. Well, we'll talk to Artem at about 305 Eastern and about 40 minutes time. I wanted to talk about this Tapology rankings because as I've told you, I think Tapology are the best in the business and now they're getting into the rankings business. Now they've had like fan rankings as well, but this is one step further. They came out

with this press release yesterday. Tapology, the most used combat sports website in the world is proud to announce the release of its brand new Tapology UFC rankings, a proprietary algorithm-based system for providing rankings for every fighter. on the UFC roster, the rankings are available immediately at Tapology.com. The new system uses no human polling whatsoever. Instead, it analyzes the results of every bout in modern UFC history and evaluates the quality of each fighter's resume based on a custom built scoring algorithm that was years in the making, with UFC fighters sometimes competing only once or twice a year. It was necessary to design a custom architecture that differs from

rating systems such as ELO-based models. What's ELO-based? I don't know. And by removing the influence of individual opinions. The algorithm avoids the biases and knowledge gaps that can affect traditional media voted rankings. Also of note, Tapology UFC rankings are not limited to just top 10 or top 15 in each weight class. Every fighter currently on the UFC roster is included from champions and title contenders to newcomers with just one appearance. While a preview of the top athletes in each division is visible to all visitors. Full rankings access is available to users who register for free for a Tapology account. And so they've put this out.

If you go on the website right here and now, and you go to rankings at the very top, they have them, they have the top five, or top six, top seven, top eight, you can kind of see eight, and then you have to just sign up to see the rest. But I wonder if this is a preview of what's to come.

Now, one thing that, oh, what's ELO system here? ELO is a system for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games like chess. It's a dynamic rating system that adjusts a player's score after each game based on the outcome and the difference in ratings between the players. All right. It's more straightforward, simple, mathematical. It works very well in systems like chess. Well, let's take a look. Here's their heavyweight top five.

And by the way, one thing that I love right off the bat, the champion is number one. as I've often said the champion should be number one he's the best it should be champion than number one yes Tom Sergei Pavlov

wait is that to imply that you think every champion is the best fighter in every weight class interesting so then okay that's even

but by the way I completely disagree but by the way no no no because what I'm saying okay it's a great point by the way but then

include the champion in the ranking yes championship I don't like how the UFC ranking is champion and then one two three four five

So if the champion is included, let's just say more often than not they're number one. But if they're not, then yeah, let's see them third. Love it. So even more reason. We're on the same page. Yeah, yeah. But that's a good point. Okay, so Tom 1, Pavlovich 2, Volkov 3, Cyril Gan 4, Almeida 5.

Six is blades. No problems there. No real gripes for me. Pavlovich, two spots up on Cyrilgan who's getting the title shot. Again, not a gripe for me. One winning in three flights Walthor-Cortez-A-Costa 7? He's coming.

He's coming. Okay, okay, what about light heavyweight? Magumet 1, Pereira 2, Yeri 3, Jamal 4, Albert 5 Round 3 6 Those all make sense to me as well. No issues with that top 6. I feel like Haleo should be above

Jamal Hill now. Same here. Beat him. Just beat him. Just beat him. Yeah. small hill is also lost his last three slots down i would i would almost i would make i would make a strong case that it should be magamette perere erie roundtree ulberg hill yeah or at the very least round tree hill alberg right but yes okay so that's the first shall we say infraction to me i don't i don't think it's that big an infraction

I think he just beat the guy. Yeah, but head-to-head win can't be the only thing. Again, this doesn't exist in a vacuum. I mean, Jamal Hill's also on a three-fight losing streak. Against the best of the best, but he's still. Against the higher level of competition, though. Two fights ago. You've got to take the guy's spot if you're that close.

Where's Dominic Reyes and his three-foot win streak, huh? Where is he? Top five. Dominic race is eighth. Oh, fair enough. Okay, okay, what about middleweight? DDP, Imov, Shimeev, Shem, Shem, Strickland Izzy

Kyle Yes Rick's No I don't have a problem If you have a problem There's No because Well this

The activity Yeah this could be This could be the one Where you could say Oh I think Shibai was better But I thought that was for sure What Rick was talking about

Honestly No I don't I don't have much of a problem With this one either By the way Do you know what the two implies What do you mean?

The two Defences Sorry I was just sitting he's the first one that has one of those under his flag by the time's blank like empty like he hasn't yeah yeah yeah now I dig it I can see some people saying

imavov too high imov yeah Habshamoy effing before him exactly maybe but I mean sort of nip picky okay Walterway Jdm Bala Leon Usman Buckley don't hate that but we're

Shavkot, though. Where's Shafkot? Where is Shafkot? 7th. Where is Ian Garry? Shavkot is 7th? Well, if Shavkot's low, you have to expect that Gary's also low, right? Ian Gary is 10th.

Well, not if 205 has anything to say about it, Rick? Ian Gary is 10th. Behind Carlos Prochis. A joke. A fucking joke. Wait, behind Carlos Purchase is 9th on this rank. Ah, come on, lads. I think we do have to understand just based on what I'm seeing here already, like,

head-to-head win is not the be-all end-all. It does not mean you automatically are better, which I think is an argument to be made. But even in this case, you talked about the level of competition for Jamal Hill, like, and Gary's losses to Shafcott Rockmanoff. Who's only number seven? He's fighting the tougher competition

than Carlos Bratjianz and he has a head to have one over him. He lost to that number seven. I can't believe how much you're defending these, Apologies, computer rankings. I'm understanding of it. By the way, Shafcott. Cobby Covington is 8 7th

And what's and what's Gary? 10 Harry is 10 Yeah This one's all over the gap boys Sorry First one I'm saying it Well to wait

This one's focused Sean Brady at 6 And John Colby Covington is 8 Yeah that makes no sense Come on lad I don't think Leon I think it's because

of Colby's previous wins Well yeah 2020 or whatever Horway in 2020 That's what I think A lot of this is Like if I'm looking Do you think

Okay Have we found some sort of issue here, PET. Okay, let's look at lightweight. I do not love these Welterweight rankings. Okay, Walterweight's the biggest mess. Most offensive at the moment. That's the most egregious so far. Light heavyweight, there was a small, I definitely think Roundtree should be above. I think

he just beat the guy. And they're that close. If it's, if it's like, but it has to mean something. If it's like Dustin beating BSD two versus 11, I don't think BSD becomes two. But if it's two guys that close, you have to be above that guy. But he would in the UFC rankings.

He would be a, he'd be a 100%. But that's because it's some Jemot who works for KX-O-N in San Diego. This computer's starting to sound a little bit like... That's an interesting thing you said, right?

Do you want to do with the top of the division for us because of something to just say about what you just said there? With lightweight? Yes. Okay, here's lightweight. Ilya 1, Islam 2, Armin 3, Max 4, Charles 5.

Now this, I can see that being very controversial. I have a major issue with this one. This is the first one. I have the biggest issue is that we can see lightweight and featherway right now and you still have Max Holloway at featherway you still have Ilya featherway Forget having Ilya there

How is Islam not number one If Ilya has one win in the division That makes no fucking sense In my opinion wipe them out They've left the division for now To I apologize I love you But this is a big problem right here If Islam is going to be included in 155

He has to be one If he's not included Then I'm totally okay with it Everyone gets bumped up Ilya Armin Max Charles that it's perfect, right? Well, I think what we're finding out right now

is Rick's take on, like, the champion is not always the best fighter in the division. It feels like this computer or tapology or someone is just slating the champion in his number one, no matter what. You said earlier, Ariel, that you, like, say if someone fought two, fought 11, like you don't want to, I think 11 becomes 2. I'm just looking, and I've gone pretty deep here.

32 Rebeske who fought Chris Duncan Duncan moves up nine places he's in 41st place and Rebeske is in 32nd how do we feel about that I mean at that point what you're getting into the 40s and 30s is kind of tough no

well it's important well the whole reason they said I read the interview they did with Ben folks the whole reason they're doing this is to give fighters value I get it Chris Duncan's moving up nine spots from 50 to 41 and the guy he beat out of every round is at 32, what are we doing here? I think it's going to have to... It's going to be a shock to the system,

but I understand it. Head-to-head win does not mean you move ahead of that person. It just... Let's say he beat somebody else, Ptze. Maybe he only moves up five spots, right? There is a logic to the idea that, like, yes, he's not going to pass him. Maybe with another win,

maybe with a win over somebody who's even higher ranked and all of a sudden he climbs past him very quickly. But I understand, like, head-to-head win does not... mean you automatically move in front of the other person. I think maybe the most disrespectful part of 155 is if you scroll down to like the 13 to 15 range. What are we got?

You see Dustin the Diamond Porier? No number next to his name. It's a person with a cane and it says retired from M.M. That is. The cane is. Okay. I'm looking at some FAQs on Tapology's website. It does say in regards to retirement, because there are a lot of instances of retirement.

and unretiring, aside from the disrespectful logo that they might have used there. No, I like the logo. The fighter will remain displayed for 60 days in the position where they would have been ranked if they were still eligible, and then after 60 days of retirement, they will be removed. Similar

with the different weight classes, so it takes into effect their two most recent UFC fights, so Islam's most recent fights were not at welterweight, so he's going to remain at lightweight until he has two fights

in another division. So he's only having one fight at lightweight. He is now in both, same with the guys. He has the greatest lightweight. By the way, does Jones have the same little logo next to his name. He does, he does. Okay, so let's talk about featherweight for a second here. I just want to go through them all quickly.

Alex Volcanovsky 1. Taporia 2. So I think what we're seeing is the champion is being slotted because... Champions is number 1. Right? Which is a problem. the problem. How was the problem? It is a problem. He couldn't be. Yeah. You're going to keep him in there. He has a win

for Volk. Now, Matt, Evloaf. By the way, by the way, in the featherweight rankings, two out of the top three guys aren't featherweights anymore. Correct, which I also have an issue with. Yes. I was Movesar behind. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Okay, featherweight a bit of a problem. Look, we can't just shower tapology with love, all right? We've been giving them a lot

of love, but we've got to work through the... I love topology, by the way. I use it every, every day. Absolutely. A little bit. Are these comprehensive? Is this every organization? No, this is just UFC. I did ask my friend Gregory

over at Tapology about that. He said we can offline about this, but they already had them, though? They already had the... It was fan. It was fan, I don't know. What were they? Okay, Bantamweight. Rob.

At Featherweight, the computer loves Melchie Costa, number 12, and Pat Sabatini number 14. Shout out. Damn. Computer loves. Okay, here's Bantam. Wait.

Marab one. O'Malley, two, Umar three, Corey four, Song Yadong five, Henry Sehudo, six. Any issues with that?

I don't, I don't hate that. Is Sehudo still like? No, Peter Yon, uh? Hirion coming in at 7th. I feel like he should be above.

Well, do consider, though, the last one is Marcus McGee, who's probably ranked quite a bit lower, like. you don't song who he beat is that before that was figgy and and you don't song

okay flyweight pentosia one brandon royville two Moreno three Josh fan four Urseg 5 Tyra 6

now I did see on the Tapology X account last night that they were talking about this Josh fan ranking I think a lot of people were upset about it apparently let me

Let me read it real quickly here. Okay, here it is. Here's some context for Joshua Vann's ranking of number four compared to Brandon Royville at number two, since many people are finding this confusing or maddening. Joshua Vand, fantastic fight against Royville, breaks him into the top five. Will he do the same against other contenders at Flyweight? Our system has seen many fighters over the years have a fantastic breakout fight only to struggle once other elite fighters develop a game plan for shutting the person down.

But there are other fighters who follow up a breakout fight. by winning the title next which one is van the tapology algorithm stacks up what it is seen from van against every other fight in the division and here it is basically saying it does not see him having as proven uh doesn't see him as having proven it as completely as royville has styles make fights was this uh just a bad night for royville who was champion and has competed against basically every top guy at 125 roovo was never champion that's correct or is royville the casual the algorithm is casual or is royville about to go on a slide our system of course doesn't uh no but in summary it scores royville's recent overall resume as being stronger this is why those well it this justifies right this explains the head-to-head win does not mean you move in ahead of them automatically right if you've been facing a higher level competition you might keep your spot even though van has the the head-to-head win now if van wins against a top contender or obviously the champion in Pantosha, who is the number one,

certainly you expect that he would have a massive jump. He'd definitely jump ahead of Royville, probably, I don't know the algorithm itself, but I'd imagine he'd jump to number one, since he's only coming from four, but... I hate that word so much. You need to... I'm tired of algorithm.

Jumping? Oh. Algorithm, algorithm, algorithm. It's proprietary. They invented it. No, I know. I'll say the FAQ is pretty lengthy, so I'm trying to parse through it, but they do have a section on if Fighter A, Beat Fighter B,

why did they not move ahead and it just is like there's no rule uh they earn points based on their last six fights and if that total is higher than the fighter than they beat then they'll move above okay so it's only based on the last six that's what they show the they only show the results from the last six interesting like eric said i have a problem with with van being below roi vol i'm i have a problem with yon being below the yon one is pretty rough i've got a lot of problems okay okay let's just finish this um women's band Phantom weight, no women's featherweight, big issue with that, just kidding. Harrison, Peña, Pennington, Vieira, Dumont, Chesson.

Yeah. I'm cool with that. Yeah. I think that's right. That's fine. Flyweight, Shevchenko, Blanchfield, Furo. Hmm. Furo should be above Blanchfield.

No. What? She beat her. Why is the... I think we're getting too bogged down in the... Raso. We may be doing. Wait, wait, Grasso Silva.

Yeah. That's a problem, too. No. She beat her. It's not a problem. Okay. How could it not be a problem? If it's based on the last six fights, it's six and oh.

Yes. Okay, this was college football, and Texas A&M was five, and Georgia Tech was six. It's not a binary system. Go back to the BCS, man. This argument, like, Minone's only loss is to Valentina Shvchenko, and if you want to play that game with Alexi Grasso, like, why is she ahead of Natalia Silva here? Because she has fought higher-level competition. in those six last six fights.

It turns out that any fucking rankings will have lads arguing. Well, this is the question. Well, this is actually... No, not me. I'm ready to be honest. I think the FACCA rankings don't make mistakes like this.

So this is the question. This whole exercise will get to the last, to straw weight. This whole exercise, though, raises the important question, which is, is it better to have humans with biases and opinion? Or is it better to have a mathematical system

where every time somebody looks at this and goes, well, that person beat that person? God, I can't believe this shit. I want to sit down for a cup of coffee with this algorithm. I need to see his bias. He's starting to seem like a bit of a gibronom.

Wasn't Mark Zuckerberg supposed to fix this whole thing? That's the U.S. Rackings. And that'll be an algorithm too. And then we'll be complaining when one person doesn't pass one another person. Could you imagine what annoying this algorithm is? The rankings mean nothing. I feel like P.C. and Connor want to take the algorithm

them in a back room somewhere and okay let's just finish this out could you imagine if that was a real conversation you're having with this if this was a person and you were like oh why do you have van below Roy Valony's like well hypothetically I was thinking about it and you know that's one fight that he's had I think

his potential hasn't actually shown me that he can mitigate such assaults from higher level fighters in the future like come on me taphology should hire Pizzi to be the voice of the algorithm it was like Robert De Niro ask there would be great what did it the computer see in the Blanchefield

Fioro fight. There's five other fights. There's five other fights. It's not just the one fight. Imagine they had to sort of like chat cheap function and you can ask why is, and then it would give you that breakdown. That would actually be brilliant. Can they work on that? That would be brilliant. Hey, why is Brandon Royville ranked above Joshua Van by two slots if he just beat him a month ago? Well, according to it would require a little bit of revealing the algorithm and I don't know if that

maybe that's their long term plan. But in order to know the points, they would have to tell you exactly how it's calculated. And I don't know if they're prepared to do that, because then it's not proprietary. Okay, one more straw weight. Zhang Wei, Yan Shaunan, Virna, Carlos Sparza, Tatiana Suarez. Now, Asparza's been

retired for a minute. Does she have the little thing next? Crazy how quickly they updated the Dust Memorial, but as far as... Wait, does the Sparza not have it if you cook on her? The little retirement guy? Yeah, that's crazy. That's insane. Do you remember Floydweight back in the day? when they were going to scrap it on Neil Ciri

after being retired for two years, popped up at number 13. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great. By the way, that made me think, like, 60 days doesn't feel like the right number. Like, people come out of retirement, like, six months later. You know, it's not like, like, 60 days doesn't really do anything. You might as well just retire.

Or if you're John Jones, seven days later. But is he back? Blah, about five years later, or whatever. Really back? Chris Curtis, same night. All right, so overall, what are we giving this? And by the way, I do want to let you know over at Ungemoner, crown.com, our very own Ben

folks, has a whole story on this new ranking system. Well, that's what I was talking about earlier. Yes, I know, and I mentioned at the top the show, too. Tapology's new system ranks every single UFC fighter, which may be welcome news for some, but not for others. They have it. And he spoke to the aforementioned Gregory Sacks. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to say his last name,

but he is the founder of Tapology. Great guy. Legend. Met him. Never met him. And this is a great story that it explains a lot of the thinking behind what they've done and addresses the potential criticism that is to come. But I think it will kind of sort itself out. I do too. I think this is good.

Like it's an innovation within the sport and we should be all behind this. We will shit on it, obviously, as I just have. But fair play, Lance. But God forbid they have Chris Duncan behind somebody that he beat. But like they don't. I mean, like nine spots behind a guy that is. Thank you. Thank you.

What about his last six fights? sensible thing. He's five and one and he goes four and two in the fucking UFC. All right? Higher level of competition. Oh,

higher level of competition. The most agree. Name Rebecca's last six fights. Rubeski, I believe it's pronounced based on the broadcast. Tapology is incredible, but like we don't even use

the UFC rankings. So like the topology rankings obviously are never going to get used. The only one that I really care about. Thanks for all the hard work guys. The only one that I really care about are the, the uncrowned pound for pound

rankings. Speaking of all of this mesh Gus, not really speaking of it. But our good friend Don Davis, the founder of the PFL, put out a very interesting tweet guys. Did you happen to see this tweet? Interesting. Guess what? We offered. PFL MMA offered one championship to co-stage. He loves the co. Champs versus champs. Super event. Chatri turned it down. He said no. Laughing emoji. Obviously, it's because PFLMMA would win almost all the fights, eight-way classes, PFL wins, 7 to 1.

I wonder what the one is. I wonder what one he's like, we lost. I wonder what, I mean, maybe he can, by the way. Do you believe that this actually happened? Probably, yeah. Yeah. Don talks about challenging promotion X, Y, Z all the time. So, yeah, I'd expect that they actually did this.

By the way, Don, please call in on Thursday and let us know who was the one that you thought was. We also don't know how advanced these talks got. Like, it wasn't like they brought like contracts to a table. It could have just been Don. David's called up Shatri and was like, what do you think of this? And he's just like, no. Can I, can I be honest?

I'm actually happy Chachari said no. If only because all the years that we've asked for like two to battle three, this would have been the most depressing version of that. You know what I mean? Like, there's no demand whatsoever for a co-promotion between one championship and PFL. In fact, we wanted to break it down for all of you and let you know the matches that would have come to fruition had Chachie said.

Yes, over at heavyweight, you would have gotten maybe the most fun fight of them all, Francis Inganu versus Rugg-Rug. Now, we should be clear. Francis Inganu won that like Hanon-Ferara Francis-Nanu fight. We don't actually know who's a champion. No, we don't. So we should be clear. We have no way to be clear.

Yeah, who is the champion. There's actually one. We're using an algorithm to establish who the champion of the NFL. There's only one champion in PFL, and it's Costel Van Stenis. Yes. The Van Stina series here, baby. Okay, so who's winning that fight? Who's winning that fight?

Yeah, Francis. I'll take France. Okay, so that's not the one. I mean, that one's kind of fun, though. God, that belt is fucking huge. Watch the fuck out of it. I would watch that fight. The belt is off of the B. Cameroon.

Come on. Yeah, I'm watching that for sure. You've got in Africa. All right, all right. Light heavyweight. Anatoly Malkin versus Dovlett Yakshi Muradov. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. The world will stop. Yes. There are multiple. There are multiple ones here. Because we're not sure. Well, because... Is it Anatoly Malkin versus Corey Anderson?

Yeah, or is it Cori Anderson? Man, look at that old PFL belt, though, that thing. Throwback. That's vintage. I'm going... I'm going Malkaneh. Against both? I think... If you're Pf...

Jokshamurdav would be a fun fight. Which one are you offering up? I'm going with Corey. Yeah, we'll do Corey Anderson for the name by you. I feel like the name is there. Yaksha Mardom... And I'm picking Corey if that happens, because Corey's bad, motherfucker. Okay, so...

So so far, it's 2-0 for PFL. Yeah. What is it, Mulca? I like Malkin. Oh, you're going Malkin over Corey? Yeah, I think so. Oh, okay. All right.

I think that'd be a good fight, though. If Corey can get him down, like it's going to be a problem, but. Gets everyone down, Rick. It's them all down. Yeah, ever since he's joined the old PFL there, Bellator slash whatever it's called. All right, all right. Here's where it gets interesting.

After that fight, Malkin makes the walk again because he's the middleweight champion. Money in the bank. Oh, sorry, okay. Oh. Going up against Costello. Hold on, hold on. I might have messed up the Photoshop here. Oh, fuck.

Oh, no. Is he not? No, I might have Christian Lee on the Photoshop. Oh, that's just imagine. Let's just imagine it is. Christian Lee fighting CBS. Okay, well, point is, show it, but pretend that it's, uh,

let's see it. And I was going to Malkin on the left. Pretend it's Malkin. Gosh, could you imagine? Christian Lee moving up. Wait, let me make sure I did the other ones. Oh, Jesus. I don't all these very quickly this morning.

Okay, well, anyway, Costello Vancinas versus Anatoly Malkin. at middle way they're not another banger yeah that's a banger that's a really good fight i'm taking milken again you're taking i'm going malcolm okay so maybe don davis was a little too confident we do that on the same that could be the one though that could be the one that could be the one yeah yeah yeah all right uh hold on hold on hold on i don't just keep going let's roll off i just go i'm just going it's perfect for how how crazy all this is uh i think it's welterweight christian lee the aforementioned that's right against now this is another one where

I think. Oh, wait, I was right. Okay, sorry. I had it right. Christian Lee is technically, he is the 185 pound champion. So that was right. It's Christian Lee versus. The problem is the reason Anatoly Malkin is not on there twice is because he's the,

they have like a cruiserweight division in one that he is the champion of. Their light heavyweight is 225, but he's also the middleweight champion, which is 205. So Christian Lee is the lightweight, welterweight, and middleweight champion? No, no. He's the welterweight and lightweight, but. in one, that's 185 and 170. This is what the event didn't happen. They sat down to try and saw it

and they went, fuck this now. No, no, it's not. This is how the conversations went and then they just hung up on it. No, all right. The graphics are right. I thought I fucked up. All right. Anyway, so it was Van Tienis versus Malkin. I mean, versus Christian Lee. And then Christian Lee versus

that gene potentially as well. Now we're going with that. Well, I made another one as well. Yes. That new belt looks great. Because it could also be Ramazon. It could also be Ramazan. It could also be Shemil Maasai. It could also he's the least, I think he has the least case for it, because that

is a newer tournament winner, but he's undefeated. If he was in the tournament, he might have won it. But he did it. I'm picking Christian Lee against none of these guys, by the way. That is a good point. Probably not. That is a good point. By the way, you know, it's so crazy, like boxing is trying to eliminate the splintering of the belts, and

they're just introducing so many belts to each weight class. You know what I mean? There's the tournament winner. And the champion series winner and the last year winner. It is bad for the brand. It's awful. It is horrible for the brand. What it is is like they thought these things would stay in isolation, right?

They thought it would be like, okay, well, this guy won the tournament and then he'll fight the champion. But then sometimes they don't. And now all of a sudden you've got this cue. Now you have a tournament winner who didn't fight the champion. Plus you've got a new tournament winner in that gene. It kind of got really messy in this division in particular. But Christian Lee versus Dad Gene could be. Could be a hell of a scrap, actually.

Okay, it's a busy night potentially for Christian Lee because he could qualify at lightweight and go up against Usman and Magamadov? No, he's the, he is, his belts are at, his belts are at, what you wrote for me. No, no, his belts are at 70 and 85. Okay, so who's Usman fighting? Usman would be fighting. You wrote L.W. Christian Lee? Oh, yeah.

No, it's a Tung Kai. Oh, Kai. Okay. Usman. Yeah, let me take Usman. Can we see the picture here. third belt we've seen from the PFL side, Bellator belt, yeah.

Fuck it out. Tournament champion belt, old PFL belt, and now. Oh, you know what? That's on B. That's on me. I misread it. Yeah. I totally misread it. Did you imagine trying to play in this event? It'd be an absolute nightmare. Did you change this on the fly? Because I get a shot, you motherfucker. You motherfucker. I was like, I could have a score.

I wrote Christian Lee, but it's tanker. Because I was like, wait a second. Am I actually losing my mind here? Is it a different color, by the way? What do you mean? The belt? The tank high. It's a link.

It's a link. I just copy and paste it. Mother ever. Okay. Usman's winning that. Yeah, yeah. Featherweight, Probecian drudge. Movelid, high boilev. Yeah, Moveli.

Yeah, we're going to take Movli. Movli is winning that one. Movley don't lose. Movley just don't lose. I mean, could we just agree, like, there's no box office here, right? No. There's nothing. I'd watch the fuck.

I would watch Frue and fucking Francis and Gano get me out of bed I'll tell you that's the main event and you could sell it on that.

Yu Yuwakamatsu at Bantamate against we don't know who the bantam weight we don't know who the PFL didn't have bantam weight this is their tournament

this year so there's two different finalists sure is that the next one that might be on the next car Alves Wetzel yeah

Alves or Wetzel Yeah it's a big one I'll be there for that There's some fun ones, honestly. Okay, so is it seven, is it seven for PFL? Yeah. Who, nah, it's like Malkin?

Who's the one? I wonder who the one is. Is the one a division that PFL doesn't have? Now all the, now all the Malkin versus anybody are going to be walking around the PFL offices on, on pins and needles, because they think they might be the one. Why can't they figure it out? Why can't they just be like somewhat organized?

An organization being organized? It's just, I don't know, just like, just be somewhat normal. They should today. You have something there. Right now, this moment, just be like, we are naming our champions, and this is it. And just go with that moving forward. No more. Just don't bother with this shit anymore.

The Shotri call happened, and Shotri was like, all right, who's going to fight who? And Don was just like, Kiselo Van Steenis. That's all. That's it. He's just fighting everyone? I've got Casillo Van Stenis. Online too, right? On comers.

I see a tweet here from someone named Abdul-Actor that the Roy Royval Van already got an AI summary. Did you see this? He said this to you, Connor? Yeah. Brandon Royvo is ranked above Joshua Van on Tapology due to a combination of resume strength

and past performance, even though Van recently defeated Royville while Van's victory of Royval was impressive. Tapology's ranking system likely still reflects Royval overall body of work, including his wins over topping tenders like Moreno and Kaikar, France, and the title fight against Pantoja. I'm just going to have a quick look at these rankings.

You know what I mean? I don't have time to sit here and read fucking war and peace. No, this is an AI overview of an AI algorithm. It's not an AI algorithm, by the way. I know we're having silly goose time over here, but just to be clear, there is a specific formula that they've created proprietary that determines these rankings and assigns points. There is not AI in this conversation 18 times.

It means that they came up with it and is protected by them having it and nobody else having it. They have a specific formula. There is no AI. It is not some kind of like a learning process. The system is the same. No, I don't know who hates this conversation more than anyone. Who's that?

The guy that made the topology. No, I think he appreciates me, but he probably hates all over. Oh, he hates them. You've given them like 60 minutes of publicity today. I know, but in his head he's explained. He's explaining to his computer screen right now why it actually works. It was like 20 minutes of praise and 40 minutes are just like

No, that's not fair. But by the way, so let's answer the question though. Ariel, you even said it earlier. In a serious moment, you were like, look, sometimes like the UFC rankings don't even mess this part up, right? There's a certain, would you prefer to have people subjectively

and potentially with bias voting or a points based purely mathematical system? I think honestly people you'd rather have the people people who are smart people yeah because I think people who are smart people

aren't making these mistakes it just all comes back to the rankings don't matter well actually I think rankings do matter if they're actually being respected like rankings matter in in college football right rankings matter in college basketball because they are respected

they aren't respected in combat sports in boxing they're a lot more respected rankings matter like the IBF will say hey Like, look at the Crocker-Donovan fight. Hey, these two guys are the top two guys. They should fight for the vacant title. And that is done by panelists. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's not computer. It's not AI. It's just the UFC rankings aren't respected. The pound for pound, that's the one that doesn't matter. But if we lived in a world, Rick, do you remember, and Pizzi as well, do you remember WAMA back in the day? Yeah.

They tried to do WAMA with Fedor as the champion and affliction. Like, they tried to do it. It died on the vine because the UFC didn't acknowledge it. And I think the sport is too far down the road to, like, in our lifetime, this will never happen. The sport is the sport. The structure, the foundation, the base is already in place. Anyone who wants to make these kinds of radical changes where it's like, oh, there's going to be an independent ranking system and all this stuff. Like, I don't think it's going to happen because the UFC is too big of a powerhouse, just like the WWE is too big of a powerhouse.

And even there, some people have been able to nip at their heels. No one has even come close in the last 10, 15 years to the UFC. F.C. It would be cool. Like, I would love if these rankings had Costel Evans. They can't, though. Yeah, I know, because they're not fighting the same people. You're not fighting the same pool of people and the points are assigned. But ultimately,

if you got, like, the 10 best media members, like the 10 most respected... Is 10 enough? Is 10 enough? I think so. You don't think so? Why can you combine it with their algorithm that they, and one is just weighted heavier? You wait them differently? You could potentially do that. Ultimately, if you got the 10,

15. I don't think you need more than that. Most respected people in the sport. Are there even 10, 15? Do the 10 or 15 most respected people in the sport want to be subject to voting on this and then be criticized for the vote? I'm not saying, I'm not saying subjected or not. I'm not saying they want to do it or not, blah, blah, blah. But I'm just saying I would, I would, that would favor that over this. Yeah. Yeah. Now, those people aren't signing up for this. Yeah. Because I don't know if you guys would agree, like maybe I would be included in that. I don't want to do it. Yeah.

You know what I mean? You would definitely be included in that and you. Do you want to do that? No. You know what I mean? Yeah. By the way, this goes back to when the UFC introduced their rankings. Yeah.

I think it was 2013 if my memory serves me, correct. When you started to, like initially I was like, okay, this is interesting. But when you started to realize that like people's livelihoods were going to be attached to this initially, right? When they were going to say like, oh, the guy who's ranked number one is getting, who wants that burden? You know what I mean? especially when you can be held accountable for it, right?

Where did you rank me, Ariel? Yeah. You cost me X. That's a heavy burden to take on. It seems to work in boxing, though. Like the boxing writers are voting on these things. Yeah. The boxing one is not perfect either.

Like you'll go to the rankings. There will never be perfect one. That's the problem. You go to the top 10 welterweights in the IBF and it's 10 completely different people in the WBA. I'm like, how is this even possible? Yep. How is it even possible? Yeah, it's a flawed system and it just isn't going to get.

That's why I ultimately do favor the math version. You would favor the AI. But this is the first version of what we're seeing as well. It's not AI. You said AI. It's not fucking AI. Oh, whatever. Algorithmic system, it's all right.

Does the A in AI stand for algorithm? No. Artificial intelligence. Okay, you're right. Did me best. Try it. But I favor the math version because there is more reliability and predictability. It's also like I'm a bit of a robot, so I kind of like identify with it.

But college football tried this. Do you not remember BCS and everyone was up in arms? I don't watch college sports. I don't care. Everyone was up in arms. Because the rankings were flawed because the computer was taking into effect. One team was better than another. And then it was just the top two teams.

And then team number five, everyone that was a human voting had them at number one. And they didn't get to. Yeah, it was a failed system. I would argue. I would argue. Or I imagine they would have argued or in the case of topology would argue that they got the formula they got the equation wrong not the intention right if if the formula gave that incorrectly you can tweak the formula i believe i read in ben's article uh on uncrown.com

um that they had been working on this on this format for many many years so like you might have to just tweak the system not necessarily scrap the idea of having it be mathematical and sax even said right he said like there was two versions of it that didn't work well at all Yeah. Like we're not, we're not saying, like, we're here, we're scrutinizing this and we're picking out the flaws of it. But like, it's not like a total right off here. That's, like, nowhere near it. Like, you know, we, we went through all the divisions. We got to 155 before we had a real issue with it. And even then, like it's this champion situation. There is some flaws to it. But I expect it like anything. We'll, hopefully it will keep improving. And you have to, you have to give them credit for the innovation. Like, this is what all sports needs. From the fan point of view, from a media point of you, from a media point. of view every part of it needs to be innovated and topology are trying to do it so fair play yeah he told ben that it was five years in the making

he said quote we want the system to be consistent and unemotional that sounds a little bit boring and robotic but it is we think the best thing when you're talking about rankings you would have won vibes to control which NFL teams make the playoffs and which one has home team advantage it has to be a robotic

system that says these are the rules we don't care how excited the Eagles fans are by how they looked last weekend I get that, but ultimately it doesn't fix the issue of this guy beat that guy, and yet this guy is ranked two slots below that guy. The only pushback I would give on that is, is that a flaw? Is that incorrect? I don't necessarily know that to be true.

For Hill and Khalil, it feels incorrect. As a human being, if I'm sitting down and ranking the best 10 light weights or light heavy weights, I'm putting Roundtree over Jamal Hill. I understand it, but I. We got to do it. determine on that night who was the better fighter. I don't think it is universally true. Yeah, no, I get that.

Stiles make fights. Okay, so ultimately you're... I'm in favor more of the math version. Because I think the human version, the subjective version, is always going to be inherently flawed because there are other things that we are factoring in other than the math. In this, we know what the system is. The system is this mathematical equation that they've come up with that provides the points for each thing.

Is it going to be wrong? Are you going to disagree with it at times? Yes. But is it ever going to not do what it's supposed to do? No, it will always do what it's supposed to do. Whereas I don't trust humans to always do what they're supposed to do. G.C., humans, math. Yeah, I guess humans.

I guess humans. Because I do just go back to how, like, you mentioned, the rankings are just disrespected by the UFC. And, like, they're the ones that make them. So it feels like they're never going to get to a point where they're actually respecting them and they're just going to make the matchups that they want to make. Humans math. pizza? Look, in a perfect world, if we had a situation like you, you're talking about where

it's the 10 best media members in the world doing rankings, of course, you'd say, let those lads out of it, you know, but that isn't the situation we have. I'm not going to write this off, as I said. I'm not either. I'm not either. By the way, I still, I love what they're doing. I love what they're attempting. Yeah, I'm just saying overall. Right now, I'm still on the human side, but I'm open to being convinced. I like how this is like maybe potentially, come a war for our like humanity like you guys are with the human resistance and I'm with the bots that are just going to take over that's okay uncrowned bots doing the rankings from here on four I'm with it I'm with it by the way just for fun I'm in chat GPT right now who are the

10 best light heavyweights they had Ily elitifi and at the last time I'm I checked no light heavy weights you see yeah illi latifi oh illi latifi okay here it is Maghamed 1, Pereira 2, Uri 3, Ulberg 4, Roundtree 5, Jan Bajovic 6, Jamal Hill 7, Rockich 8, Reyes 9, Ozdemier 10. ChatGBT, GBT, Nailing it. Yeah. By the way, chat GPD didn't have an opinion on that. It sourced other sources. Oh, no, I understand.

With excellent results. I see it, I see it. With excellent results. ESPN.com, yard barker. Gardner Marker Marshall their

If a Fokin of Crown is in there I'm going to We don't do Divisional rating 580 WAAFM

No but by the way But but to their credit Round Tree 5 Hill 7 Yeah They even know Listen

The voters They are And To its credit And Marshall Whatever it was They got it What was the

other one we had an issue with Was a flyway? Jodaryon not being in the top six Yotter Yon being behind Songyidong and Henry

Siddh. Illia being worn and Islam not being there. That was a big one for me. That was the one for me. I'm like, what the fun. That's the one that got you, Rick. You're like, hang on a second.

Okay, here we go. Here's their top ten bantam weights. Marab, Sean. Wait, are these according to the UFC? They might have just taken. Ah, yeah. Lazy bastard.

They just copy paste. They just copy paste. Careful slinging these insults around to the robots. Who are the top 10? Flyways in the UFC. Come on, don't just give me the UFC rankings. I'd just go to that website. Come on, give me your,

oh, here, okay, flywates. Oh, they had Patosia listed as champion, not even one. Jesus. But by the way, Joshua Van won, Moreno, two, Royville three. Abazi, four, Kikar, France, five, Pyrr, six.

No, no, for Bantamweight, they just copy, paste it. Oh, okay. Six, Tyra, Manel, seven. Does I consider building an algorithm to sort this kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that could go really well.

I like that idea, Pete. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. Would it be proprietary or not? Well, I only like the proprietary kind. It's the only ones I use. Well, there you have it. Overall, constructive criticism. Overall, I would say, glowing praise for the most part

of the brand new Tapology website. And most importantly, that little button there where you can toggle through location, Odds, opponent. What is it? Yeah, this one right here. Odds, location. What's the other one?

What's the other one? I think it's a opponent. Wait, wait, that's a good one. This is a game changer. This is a game changer. Shout out to our friends over at Tapology. Shout out to Ben Folks who wrote a great article on all of this.

Spoke to Gregory Sachs on Uncrown.com and perhaps you can speak to him about it on the crack on Friday. For now, though, let us move along to our next guest. So very exciting to talk to this man. It has been, as the kids say, a minute since we last spoke to him. It's been several years, to be exact. And quite frankly, when I started the week,

didn't think that he'd be on this Tuesday. But then we woke up on Monday and saw a post that he was returning to MMA for the first time in seven years fighting this October under the PFL umbrella in Abu Dhabi against his old bitter rival, Zubaira, Tehugov. It is the goat himself, the pride of both Russia and Ireland. The Russian hammer himself, Artem Lobov, is he actually here? I don't believe it. There he is. Artem. Yes, boys. Welcome back. Thank you so much. It's good to be back and great to see you, Ariel.

It's wonderful to see you. Thank you so much, Artem. It's so great to have you back. It's so great to talk to you again. And so is this in fact true? You essentially broke the news. Is this true? Are you coming back in October. Yeah, absolutely. Well, when I was signing the contract with Mike Cogan, you know, he told me that, look, Artem, you can start, you know, promoting the fight. You know, this is a big fight for us. We want to, you know, see you promote it the way you can, you know, get it all out there.

So I said, look, as soon as I send my contract, I'm going to announce it and start promoting it, which is what I done. You know, I signed the contract and straight away, I pumped it out there and let the world know that this fight is finally happening. Yeah. And I can't wait to get my hands on him finally. Okay. And so are you coming back, Artem, because it's Zubaira? Or were you always planning on coming back and they were able to make this fight? You know, if you recall the last time, the last interview I've ever done, it was with you, you know, when I was retiring. And I told you, you asked me, Artem, is there any way you will come back? Is this going to be a fake retirement like

many that we see, you know, is this a real retirement? Are you going to be back very soon? And I told you, Ariel, there's only two things that can get me back. If I get offered seven figures or it's a fight against Tjof. And I said that the fight against him is definitely going to happen. He said, no matter what, I'm going to make that fight happen. It's going to take place and we're going to settle the score. So this is exactly what happened here. You know, I felt this was the right time. You know, I'm not getting any younger. And I didn't want to wait any longer because then it just would be ridiculous, you know, two lots in a

wheelchair, you know, trying to fight. Yeah. So I said, right, let me do it, you know. But, you know, I have been in talks with different promotions, especially from Russia, you know, I've had a few offers, but I just didn't really, you know, it didn't ignite the fire in me and the offers weren't big enough, so I was turning them down.

However, once I realized there's a possibility for me to fight the hook off, I was, you know, the fire was lit up again and I was ready to go. So we last spoke, January 5th, 2022. That's your last interview? Yeah, yeah.

Wow. I was it. I just done an interview with you and that was it. I did not do any more interviews. I didn't do any media. That was it. I just kind of, you know. So what have you been doing the last three and a half years?

Yeah. So when I retired, I knew already I was going to be working with my friend in the UK. You know, he's got a construction company. He's always kind of support me throughout my fighting career. And I knew there was a job for me with him, you know, when I retired. tired, so that's, I've just been normal, you know, wage life, you know, which is, which isn't good in some sense, you know, it's a lot quieter, it's a lot more kind of stable, but I'm not going to lie, you know, I did find it a little boring sometimes, and I did struggle, you know,

I'd be watching the events and, you know, I'm not going to lie, I did definitely miss fighting. So once this fight was announced, you know, once I saw that I can fight again, I'm not even joking, like something just, you know, inside me just changed, you know, I feel this, burn again, this fire, this excitement, a little nervous, you know. But, you know, I feel alive again. It's honestly, it's good that I've decided to do it. You know, I think if I haven't done it, I would always be regretting it. And, yeah, I can't wait to put on a good show for the fans and, you know, get my hands on

Tugof and finally, you know, show him what can happen when it's just one-on-one, me against him. And so are you leaving that job, or are you just taking a break and then returning after this? Just going to take a break now for, you know, obviously camp. I'm taking this camp very seriously, so I'm not going to be doing any work. I'm just going to be, you know, fully concentrated on the camp, training twice a day, doing loads of sparring, planning to go up to Belfast to Spar Paul Hughes and the boys there. They've been kind enough to give me an invite, you know. So I've got a lot of good sparring partners here as well, Riches-Mullin, obviously, you know,

as BG Ireland, my home, be doing a lot of training there as well. So, yeah, no, I'm going to leave no stone and turned. Don't be distracted by a few gray hairs and my beard and mustache. You know, the hammer is still ready to go. And, you know, my testosterone is as high as ever. I love it. I love it. And so are you coming back for just one fight? Is it just this one and then you're done?

Or are you open to others? You know, I'm not really sure, to be honest, in terms of professional MMA, potentially maybe one and done. but I wouldn't mind, you know, getting into some of them celebrity boxing, you know, shows that Jake Paul and the misfits have been organizing, you know, the money seems to be really good there. The events are always massive, a lot of viewership, you know, big numbers, always sold out events. So I wouldn't mind, you know, doing something like this, potentially. You know, also I'm planning to have a bigger family now. You know, we're hoping to have another kid soon, trying for another baby, so I need a bigger house. Love it, love it. So definitely, definitely, I think I'm going to have another one or two fights. But this is first.

You know, I got to get to Hougov out of the way. It's been bothering me all this years. It's a fight that I've been thinking about so much. And I just have to do it. You know, I can't, I feel I can't move on otherwise. I need this fight to be able to move on in my life. Okay, so the whole incident between the two of you happened seven years ago, right? More than seven years ago at this point.

Yeah. Why does it still bother you so much? Why is there still this animosity? Well, if you remember, you know, initially Kabib approached me alone. It was just him. And me and him spoke and we sort of everything. You know, he said to me, listen, why are you talking shit about me? I said, look, you know, if somebody called, you know, your friend, the names that you've been calling, you know, Conrad chicken and all this, which I told you before in Russian, it's a lot more severe.

I said, listen, if somebody was calling your friend that, you for sure would respond. So what do you think I'm going to do? you leave me no choice by talking like this, especially we've been so friendly with him all the time, you know, meeting at different events, always shaking hands, you know, Conan never went at Khabib. You know, Khab was the one that initiated this. You know, so I said, I had to reply. He said, wow, whatever, just don't say anything else. And he walked off. That was it. But then he came back with a gang of people and suddenly she had the exact same question again. And I was a bit confused, like, what's going on? Me and you just sorted it. Two of us one on one. And now with the 10 guys, we do you, suddenly. have more questions for me. And of course, if you recall, the Hugov was there very vocal, you know, he was screaming at me, saying, oh, why don't you say it now to my face? So, well, let's go to Hugov, one-on-one, and I will say to your face, you know. Obviously, as you know, you know, to Hugov outside of the cage, you know, you're not going to mess with him too much because as he himself many times mentioned, he's a relative of the Chechen president,

Branson Kadirv, you know, and this man is not to be messed with. He is very well respected and feared, you know, in Russia and across the globe, you know. So of course, you know, I can't, there's nothing I can do outside, you know, and to be honest, I don't want to live that life, you know, messing outside, you know, fuck up your life, end up in prison or in hospital. Who wants that? So let's do it like real man, one-on-one, you know, because he talked a big game, but when I watched at his fights, he doesn't look that brave in his fights, you know, a lot of the time he backs off, looks for wrestling all the time, you know, he taps out. You're talking to a man that never tapped out, talking to a man that never pulled out of a fight, you know, and I accepted

the fight against anyone, any time, any place. So, you know, I said, let's, let's get in the cage and settle it like professional fighters that we are. And you were supposed to fight in October of 2018, right? Just a few weeks after Conner's fight against Habib, and then it got, it got canceled. And that was because of the whole melee that happened afterwards, right? That was the UFC decision. Exactly, exactly. Right. And that's another reason. You know what I mean? Just even there, you know what is he doing you know to hook off like you're jumping into the cage of a fighter that just had a fight is exhausted you know uh and you're jumping with a big gang of you and you're so brave and you know attacking him you know come on that's that's not a way to behave you know uh you know

you want to jump like this and be aggressive well let's go we're going to fight no one-on-one and let's see how aggressive he will be i bet you he'll be wrestling from the from the changing rooms you know he'll be just holding me down and he won't want to fight he won't want to engage but this is your chance you know you came in with punches at corner well let's see you come and punches at me no were there any other um talks opportunities brought your attention about fighting him since then since that fight that got canceled since you left the ufc was this ever close to happening in the past seven years no no there hasn't been because obviously if you recall he was in the ufc still but he was suspended for a year yeah yeah he decided to remain in the

UFC, and for me, I was like, I just had a kid on the way, and I needed to be making money. You know, I wasn't sure what's going to happen with the UFC. Are they going to want a going to give me another fight? And I had a massive bare-knuckle contract on my table. So I said, look, I'm not waiting a year for him. And I wasn't even sure if he was going to be allowed to fight back. You know, I didn't know what was going to happen. So I left the UFC, when bare-knuckle, he stayed in the UFC.

So then that was not possible, you know. Yeah. Is this fight happening at one? Yeah, so I said, listen, I'll accept any terms. I said, for me, I won that fight, no matter what. So they came back with 165. I said, no problem. Make it 175 if you want, 185.

I don't care. Yeah, so it's 165. Yeah, I remember you telling me that you would fight him even for free. I hope you're getting paid for this. Yeah, to be honest, that's how the conversation went with Mike. Mike said, what do you want? What do you want? Listen, Mike, I don't care.

No. I don't care about this, you know. But he was saying, look, I can't do it free. You know, it has to be some person. He's giving me some person. I didn't negotiate at all. Just whatever. But, you know, the good thing I will be able to pay my team, you know,

obviously my coaches are going to do good work. So, you know, I'll be able to pay them. And I'll make a nice donation as well to a kid's charity, you know. So it's, you know, some good will come off of it for sure. Okay. And have you seen him ever in any sort of like event? street like have you guys locked eyes on each other since 2018 not really no no i have not seen them at all anywhere none of them really not not cabib not not the barren none of them any any concern about

fight week um what do they say you know just to make sure that nothing happens between the two of you before the fight right there's a lot of animosity here clearly what are they saying as far as security and preventing things from happening uh we didn't really talk with bfl about that but you know obviously let's let's do it in the cage you know what i mean any any attempt to try and jeopardize the fight you know to me i see what this is you know trying to get out of the fight come on make it to the cage and let's go you can be as aggressive as you want in there you can do whatever you want in there you know let's go uh you know this this is your chance well what is there need to jump outside the cage and then say something when we have a fight scheduled you know

i'm ready to fight you i'm showing up you know just show up and that's it one fight deal with pfl Yeah, one fight deal. Okay, wow. In Dubai. Yeah. In Dubai, yeah. To be honest, Dubai is sounds like a good location, you know, to fight. I've been there before just for a holiday.

It's a beautiful, beautiful place, you know, and it's going to be good. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of, you know, Russian fans. There's going to be a lot of Irish fans. So it's funny. It's going to be more pros, Dubaira. I think over there might be 50-50, because obviously, you know, Paul Hughes is also on the card. And Kailn Loughlin as well is on the card.

So, you know, there's going to be a lot of Irish fans for them also there, who I think would support me. There's going to be a lot of Russian people supporting me as well. So I'd say it's going to be even off. I don't know. But that's kind of my, just my kind of thoughts on that. Okay. And as far as training is concerned, you mentioned SBG, your old mates.

Are you still being trained by John Kavanaugh? Well, John is not really, he doesn't really coach as much anymore, you know, you really, you know, he's not as much there. There's different coaching now for MMA team. But I definitely will be doing work with, you know, Nairios there who is a jiu-jitsu coach there. He's excellent, you know, David Jones, you know, my boxing coach is definitely going to be doing work with him in SBG. Dan, actually, my good old friend, Johnny Dargan, is back as well. So he said he's going to help me out, you know, working with some. of my kicks, you know, and surprised those

Zubaira with a couple of, you know, tricks up my sleeve. And as I mentioned, you know, I'm hoping to go up to Belfast, you know, for some good sparring with the boys up there, you know, they have a really, really good team now. They're very strong fighters. I mean, they've always had, but I think they've kind of peaked now, you know, they're at the top now. So it will be very good to mix in with them and, you know,

sharpen the tools, you know, against the top level guys. I've seen how Paul Hughes done against their Magamara in the last fight, you know, it was very close fight, but in my opinion, and Paul 1, you know. So for sure, this is high, high level, you know, a high, high level fighter. And, you know, that's exactly the kind of fighter that I want to work with, you know. So we were talking a few minutes ago with your old friend P.C. Carol as well,

Ardham, who you know very well, about the history of this feud. And obviously, a lot of it centered around what happened between Connor and Habib. And an unfortunate, you know, the byproduct of all of this is that, you know, Unfortunately, you and Connor aren't as close as you once were. And we were sort of talking and reminiscing about how close you used to be, how you were the best of friends, training partners, how you always supported him, and he always supported you. And it was really, it really felt like a loving and genuine friendship that you had.

I remember seeing you at Maymax showing up the night before, like you said, you wouldn't have missed it for the world. And not wanting to relitigate everything that happened between you two, but it is sad to see. I think a lot of your fans and his fans would say that. could you tell us where do you think stand between you and Connor from a personal and a legal standpoint because it has spilled into the the courts so to speak? Yeah. Unfortunately, obviously things are not good between me and Connor.

You know, as you said, we always had each other's back. You know, I feel I showed him unmatched loyalty, you know. I would dare for him to name anyone from all of his mates now before, whenever, who was more loyal to him than I was. I did everything for him. Whenever we would do camps, I was the only one to never accept a cent from him. You know, there would always be money paid to everybody that done the camps.

And rightfully so, you know, because it was hard work. But I would always turn it down and say, Connor, I'm not taking this. You know, you're my brother and I'm not taking, you know, money for training for you.

The agreement has always been that if I help him, you know, with business, I help him make money, well then he's going to give me my cut. And in the past, when I've done deals for him, like,

for example, I've done a deal with him with match TV. and he was based on our agreement he was meant to pay me six grand and he actually paid me 20,000 you know he always looked after me there's never been an issue you know with money with us and for this you know deal as well whiskey deal it was so you know this was such a massive deal for me such an important you know deal for me because you know people think oh whiskey what's whiskey just you know drink but not at all if you look historically Irish whiskey has been such an important product for Ireland you know

Back in the day, they used to, during the prohibition era, they would sell Irish whiskey to U.S. in exchange for weapons so they could fight for their freedom. Imagine how notorious is that. And even back in the day also, you know, when Ireland was, England was suppressing them all the time and destroying them and, you know, they didn't have anything, but they never gave up. And whiskey was helping them fight that fight, you know, because they had no medication here, no nothing. That's why it was called the water of life, because if you get a cut or something, you know, you can die from. infection, but you use whiskey, you disinfect yourself, food poisoning, you drink a little whiskey, it will help settle the stomach. If you got high fever, you know, you spread whiskey all over you, and as it evaporates, it cools down the body, you know, and also when they were

sitting, you know, around fire, no 800 years of war, no chance of winning this massive enemy, you know, they would drink a little bit of whiskey, it would warm the heart, sing a few ballads, you know, and get the power to continue the fight, you know, to not give up and earn their freedom, you know. So when I told this to Connor, you know, he told me to go on and see what can I get, you know, and I did not leave a single stone and turn it. At the time when I put the whiskey together, there was actually only six companies that were able to produce their own whiskey, you know, and I could see the potential in it because Irish whiskey sales were fast approaching Scotch whiskey sales. However, there was only six factors making, six distiller is making Irish whiskey and 144 distillers making Scotch whiskey. So I could, could clearly see there was a massive, massive gap in the market, you know. And most importantly, when I tried to do the whiskey, at the time, despite being such a big gap, entry-level whiskeys did not perform well at all on the market. It was only the higher-level whiskeys, you know, the top shelf, as you want to call them.

So whenever I was approaching all this industry experts and different distilleries, they all pushed for Conrad to do an expensive whiskey. However, I understood Conner's fund base. I understood that it needs to be entry-level whiskey, you know, and it took a lot of convincing from my part to make sure that we do an entry-level whiskey. And what you get with entry-level whiskey is, number one, you get the volume, because entry-level whiskey is what gets used to in cocktails, in, you know, if you mix or whiskey in coke or whatever, so you get the volume.

And that's where the price of the company comes from. That's why right now it is valued at nearly $2 billion, you know. And with the entry-level whiskey, it gives you an opportunity to build on that. If you release an expensive whiskey, you can ever then release a cheaper one, say, oh, look, we have this cheaper. However, if you start entry level, you can then release 8-year-old, 10-year-old, 12-year-old, and build it into standalone, successful company. And that is exactly what happened, you know. And it's unfortunate that, you know, this situation happened like this with me and Connor.

You know, I have a feeling that, you know, my personal opinion is that the manager had something to do there as well, because at the time they were trying to get Connor to sign this option, as we all know, that Connor does know the whiskey now, and I was very much against it. Because what an option means is that if the whiskey fails, that means Connor gets nothing. If, however, is massive success as it is, his profits are limited to what the strike price is on the option. And I was so against that. I was like, why would you do that? That's a lose, loose situation for Connor.

He's the A side in this. And I said, if we are going to sign an option, well, then let's at least do it for a market rate. Why is the strike price on the option below the market rate? Like, that makes no sense. Why do you want to agree right now before it's even launched to sell it in a few years' time below the market rate, especially when we already had pre-orders for the whiskey before it even launched? You know, so obviously I was fighting for every cent for Conor.

You know, I was so, so, you know, angry with Audi, you know, for proposing this bad deal for Conor, you know. And I feel that's where our, you know, relationship. and failed, you know, and unfortunately, yes, I did get fucked over on this deal, even though Connor shook my hand and promised me 5% no matter what, but I guarantee you, I can't wait to be in court and show that Connor was actually proper fucked on this deal, you know, and this is why I have to go to court. I cannot leave this like this, you know, this is too big of a story to just let it die out in the, you know, obscurity. I need to shine light on this and show who was a true and loyal

friend and who was actually a snake. And you, and I appreciate that response. I appreciate the backstories. Well, thank you for that, Artem. Your perspective is appreciated. You're asking for 5%, right? That's what you want. Your 5% share. Yeah, because... And what is that equal to, in your opinion? Is it 6 million? I think it's, yes, I think 6.5 million or 7 million. The thing is, because now when I launched this, you know, I also a lot, I found a lot of staff online and there was actually a guy involved in this deal as well. He was the guy,

responsible for preparing the label for the bottle that was shown at the Mayweather fight Sean Pierce's names and this guy misspelled the word whiskey on it so this guy can't even spell fucking whiskey and now I know that that guy sued Audi that guy got paid four and a half million and said that he was promised another five so he sued Audi for another five so you're telling me that some lad that can't even spell whiskey got was promised 10 million but me Connor's brother the guy that brought this deal to the table you know and was always loyal, never took a cent from Connor. And he wouldn't pay me my share.

You know, as was promised, I put the biggest piece of meat on Connor's table. And he wouldn't cut me a tiny little slice so my family could eat too. And so I saw recently, can you explain this to me? I'm not a legal expert. There was a ruling about three or so weeks ago where the court said you now have to pay for the legal cost because of a mistake in the date of when the interaction happened. So what happened was I found. more evidence that I really wanted to submit that obviously was helping my case.

Connest team tried to block that evidence because it was too close to trial, you know, but so I had to go into court and my lawyers had to fight his lawyers and I was allowed to accept evidence because the judge could see that this is real evidence. This is not some fake stuff. This is real and just unfortunate that I found it so close to the trial, you know. So I got a new trial date. But the costs all reserved till trial. You know, so the costs, you know, I don't have to pay any cost until the trial. And when does the trial commence? 9th of December.

9th of December. Okay. And have there been any talks of settling out of court trying to avoid going to trial? Not yet, though. Not yet. Are you open to that? But for me, I won't listen. Money, whatever money, I want my recognition, you know, I'm, I'm, listen, this whiskey never

happens without Connor, of course. that's why it was made for him, you know, but I'm also one of the co-founders, you know, and that's what I want to show in this court. I want to show all my work. You know, the amount of work I had to do for this, for this whiskey, you know, to go to market. It is just incredible. And I had some very unique know-how, you know, that as I said to you, the even industry experts, you know, didn't see the potential in entry-level whiskey. Because at the time, any entry-level whiskey that was launch was flopping because Jameson was just taking up all the market share. But I could see, based on Conor's fans, I could see, you know, how he relates to the funds.

I could see his marketing power. And I knew that entry-level whiskey was the way to go. And I was absolutely right. And it didn't really matter in the end, ultimately, which whiskey we went with. Because if you recall, when it first launched, the whiskey got sold out immediately. And people were trading on eBay empty bottles of whiskey. So they just cared about Connor and his name and his image and everything else, not really so much what's inside the bottle.

So would that suggest that you are not open to settling? You want this to go to court. You want to be vindicated. Listen, there could be, but I would like some kind of acknowledgement. Sure. Like, listen, we can. I want, you know, because what really goes, you know, if you recall, I was going to do a book, you know, I wanted to do a book because they literally just pushed me to

the side, no recognition for me, no money, no nothing. So I just wanted to do a book and write in the book everything, you know, that kind of went on and how I did the deal and how I did the deal. all happened. So then once this I announced the book, Connor contacted me and she was just saying to me oh, you had nothing to do with the whiskey, what the fuck have you even done? You know,

just completely turning me, telling me all these things that I've never heard from him before. You know, as you've seen the messages I shared before, he was so always kind to me and saying, Artem, you know, you're my brother, you always have my back with this whiskey and with this fight, you know, I'm going to look after you. So then he's telling me

you have nothing to do with this, you didn't do any of the whiskey. And I was like, hold on a second. all my work. My work is all over this. How can you say this? How can you do this to me? And I was still going to proceed with the book. However, when I met the lawyers to get some legal advice about the book, I was told straight away, listen, this book is never going to see, you know, the light of day. They're just going to, his lawyers, you know, and their lawyers are just going to, you know, bring you to court and you'll be fighting, fighting. You're going to spend an absolute fortune on legal fees. And, you know, the book is not going to come out for many, many years. And they're just

going to basically destroy you. The only way for, you to be able to do the book and be able to tell the full story of what actually happened is to go to trial in the high court because all the evidence that I give there is going to be protected, you know, and I will be able to do a book if I want to or whatever else afterwards, you know? So that's why I ended up in court. Other than that conversation that you just spoke of, have you had any sort of interaction with Connor? Have there been any attempts to try to fix this just between the two of you, two old friends? No, and that's another reason which tells me that he knows that, you know what I mean,

that I'm in the right and he fucked me over because he went on Twitter, slayed me but never even sent one text or just a call saying, hey, what's going on? Let's sort of because he knows, you know, what can he tell me? He knows I've done it. He knows how much work I have put it. He knows he shook my hand and promised me 5%

no matter what. You know, so that's why he never tried to contact me. He just went on Twitter and slayed me, you know what I mean, publicly. Try to, you know, basically bully me out of court or whatever else he was trying to do there with that. You know, but you know, he should know that I don't tap you know and that's that's one of the reasons why he was my such a good friend and why he

respected me for those exact qualities you know so how does he now expect me to to just you know back down here and he himself was then you know giving out to me for kind of backing down against kabib you know and i said listen that was a mistake of mine you know i i will never allow that to happen again you know and i stay by my word so how did you want me to back down this time no i told him myself i would never back down again and i'm sticking to my war, you know, I have to fight till the end. I'm not a guy to tap. And so going back to the training camp, going back to SBG, are there any sort of interactions with him? Has this caused any sort of rift for you at the gym? No, I mean, at the gym, we just kind of, you know, I train

at the gym, you know, I don't really see him at the gym, you know, he's not really as much there. He's traveling or, you know, trains at the house as well. He's got his own gym in the house, you know, we don't really see, but, you know, I don't really see, they don't really see each other, but it hasn't really created any issues in the gym, no, everyone just kind of, because listen, you know, obviously everyone is his friend, but they're also all of my friends, you know, they know that I'm not, I'm not a guy that, you know, ever, you know, was after money or whatever, you know, everybody knows that I'm a guy that never took a cent from him, that I always had his back, even the situation with Khabib, why did I end up in that

situation? Because there was an interview in Russian, and they were asking me about some of the horrible stuff that Khabib said about Connor, you know, and this was in Russian. I could have very easily just said something, you know, nice and just, oh, whatever. Connor would have never seen it. It's in Russian, but not a chance. If you're my brother, I have your back, whether you see it or not. You never have to question my loyalty. I will never allow anybody to go at you, you know, and that's what happened there, you know,

and I would do the same hundred times over, even after everything that's happened to me as a result, you know, he had my back and I always had his. A lot has obviously happened with Connor over the last few. years and he's making this push now to be to be elected to be a part of the the next elections in ireland what do you make of this i mean going on always after those kind of you know crazy achievements but in my mind he needs to just stop all the messing all the partying get back in the gym and just get fit you know just real training you know fuck all this you know pretend training or whatever yeah do a little bit of this a little bit of that just to show

some training no let's do real fucking training and to me i think the way forward is grappling you know he should start with grappling just grapple you know because grappling is fun and it will get your body your ligaments everything ready for fight again his his body is not fight ready anymore you know it's just all the ligaments all the little muscles everything in your body you know it's it needs to be fight ready and i think jiu jitsu will allow you to do that in a safe environment because jiu jiu jitsu is very safe in terms of injuries you know it's fun you know and that And to me, he should spend a few weeks first just grappling, you know, start with five, five-fives, grappling five days a week, then build it up slowly up to ten fives a day, you know, and then from there, I guarantee you, once the fitness come back to him, then he will start, the law for fighting will come back to him, and he will want to be in the gym, and he will want to add the sparring, he will want to add the wrestling, and everything else. So that's what I would like to see him do, not fuck all this presidential runs and all.

be done down the line, you know. But right now, he just needs to get his mojo back, get his confidence back, remove the doubt, because doubt is only removed by action, action of training hard, you know, sparring the best guys out there. You know, when I was there in his camp, that was always, there was not a chance Connor could have gotten away with being unfit, you know. Not that I'm something special or whatever, but it's just because I was never going to take it easy with him, and he knew that. So once he enters to spar me, he has to be on point, he has to be in shape. Yeah, you know, so I hope to see him back in shape.

You know what's so fascinating about this, Artem? Even when you were talking about him getting back on track, you said the word we. Even as you're talking about him here, and obviously there's a lot of people criticizing him and he has given people reasons to criticize him, you take no shots at him. You don't hit him below the belt. It almost seems genuine in that you want to see him get back to his old self, or at least attempt to get back to his old self, despite everything that's happened between. you to, it doesn't feel like there's any real animosity from you to him, or at least you're

doing a great job of not letting it show here, because I don't feel that. I feel genuine warmth from you as you talk about him, despite this legal battle that you've been involved in that's lasted a couple of years now. Yeah, I feel that if this was corner of before, you know, the guy that I know, we wouldn't have falling out, you know, and now it's completely different corner. I don't recognize him. Just even to remind you, when he fought, Mendez for the for the belt you know he he messed up in in the documentary they didn't actually show the full truth because he messed up his knee with training with rory macdonald i was there in in canada you know when it happened when rory connor took him down and rory jumped

a caesar you know sweep right on his knee and the crack was so loud you know i was there when professor elitrash rang us and said connor you're not fighting you need another year potentially two years and another surgery and Conner just said no, fuck this, I'm fighting and put the phone down. We couldn't even train for the camp. He was just doing rehab the whole time. And then in the documentary, the show

when his knee went, that's actually the second knee. That's actually the good knee that went. So his ACL was missed up with non-knee and one knee and as we were training doing grappling with like three or four weeks left to the fight, he messed up his other knee. His MCL and meniscus went

in his other knee. So now he was on legs, you know, he had zero legs. He was on one leg and not suddenly on zero legs. Then Mendez gets put in against, rather than Aldo, a wrestler. We couldn't wrestle at all in camp. So this was just the worst fight you could possibly imagine. And what does he do? I'm fighting. I don't give a fuck. And now what? The corner, what? He didn't even make it to the press conference with a sore toe. That's not the same corner. This is not the guy that I know. I want to see the old one back. You know what I mean? And then I feel everything would be sweet between us as well, you know, and we could get, you know, the band back together.

I would love to see him come back because I feel that if he was at 100%, we would be able to bring Kabib back as well. I think that Kabib would come back for that fight if Conner was 100% and fit and, you know, making, making real, you know, moves, making real fights, you know, he would just need one fight, knock the guy out, and then the whole world will be, you know, talking to Khabib and getting him to come back. And then we would do a real, you know, a, you know, comeback fight. That would be a fight for the ages, you know, I can see, I know that

that fight Barras Corner, because he didn't train at all for that fight. Twice a week he was training for Kabib, you know, and I tried to get him into Vegas. I said to him, Connor, come on, let's go to Vegas, man. We have to do it. Come on, brother. He said, no, fuck off, you just want to go on a halt. You just didn't want to do it. You know, he was on the wrong mindset.

He was in a party mindset. You know, he was training twice a week. That's it. So when I saw the fight, I was like, oh my God, if only you trained four times, a week. You know, you probably would have beaten him. But imagine him with full camp, the corner that fought Alvarez, you know, imagine that corner fighting Kabib. That's what I want to see. Two last quick things, Ardum, brilliant stuff. Any interest in going back to Bear Knuckle? He's now a part of that as well. Well, actually, funny, you say this now,

Ariel, you know, there could be an opportunity for me to come back for Bear Knuckle, but, you know, Bear Knuckle still owe me money. You know, my fight with Poli Malinagi. I never got my pay-per-view money. What? You know. What do you mean? Feldman announced that it made 200,000 paper views. And, you know, he told me first, look, you have to wait for the pay per view, you know, eight months or whatever before we pay you. So I waited that. Then I was messaging, messaging, messaging, he was like, oh, I'm yeah, yeah, sorry, we just forgot. We're going to pay you. Then I finally got my legal team to contact him. And what he said to my legal team was, look, we love our team. You know, of course we're going to

pay him. Unfortunately, at this time, we've reinvesting all the money back into bare knuckle. we want to make it, you know, as big as possible. We're really riding a good wave, so we need to continue reinvest. Once we're finally able to get some money out of it, of course, we're going to pay him. So I'm waiting for this. You know, I think, you know, Dave is a man of his worth. I think he will pay me. It's about $300,000 that they owe me.

It's not that big money, but it's pretty big. You know, once they settle that with me, of course, we can do a fight, no problem. Okay, wow. And that was from what, 2019, 20, 20? 2019. Yeah. Do you think that they are going to settle it? Do you, I mean, like...

Well, that's what he said. You know, I'm taking him by his word. You know, when he was talking to me, he was like, yes, I'm sorry, sorry. When I got my legal team to contact him, he said what I just told you. Yeah. He said, I've put everything into this, you know, and it's been, he says, I've seen the results. And I see that myself. They're doing good.

And I understand how, what it takes to build the business, you know? So I was like, okay, no problem. I will wait, reinvest the money, but don't forget about me. You know, I made a difference for that company. You know, I definitely put them on the map. You know, and this is something that we agree on. It's in my contract, and I hope that, you know, Dave, you know, is a man of his word and pays me my pay-per-view money.

October 3rd, Dubai, finally, after all these years, Artem Lobov, the return against Zubaira to Hugov. What is the message to Zubaira? After all these years, Artem, what do you want to say to this man as you are getting ready to fight him? Zubair, I hope you're as brave in there as you are when there's a gang of you against one. You know, I hope you bring the same energy. Let's not start the cuddle party. You know what I mean?

I don't want to be cuddling around the cage holding down. Let's fight. Mess up this face. Come on. This is bare-knuckle king you're talking to here. I'm not afraid of punches. I'm not afraid of blood. So let's bleed.

Let's have a proper fight. and look, if we get a real fight in, we shake hands afterwards, you know. But it has to be a real fight. Love it. Freaking love it. Welcome back, Ardham. You're the man. They call you the goat.

You are the freaking goat. Incredible stuff. You know, not doing those interviews for three and a half years, you built up incredible energy, and you saved it all for this moment, and you knocked it out of the park, my friend. So happy to see you back. All the best you. Good luck in training. And I can't wait to see you in there on October 3rd.

Thank you again, Arnd. I'm really appreciated and good luck to you so much, Ariel, and watch out for me. Choo-choo-choo motherfuckers. Yeah, there he is. Art of Lobov, Choo-choo-choo motherfuckers. We got it. We got it. That's incredible stuff right there.

What a surprise. I got to tell you, when I started the week, I didn't think that we'd be talking to Aram Lobov on a Tuesday afternoon at 3.45 about a fight happening in October against Zubarak but here we are. Well done, Mike Hogan, PFL. Look, we got to give credit where it's due. There's going to be interested in this fight. It's a nice little fight to have on a card in Dubai.

I don't hate it. It struck me while talking to Ardham and going through the whole history. This is all pre-GC and MMA, right? Do you have any idea what he's talking about? No, I don't. Yes, it is pre-GC. What a time, right? Where is he? Where is he right now?

Don't worry about it. What a time, though. Great to see Ardum then. Whiskers and all. Yeah, the energy was. was high. Yeah, he was... It looks great.

Yeah. Oh, hey, what's up, man? Where are you that? They could have just said your mic wasn't working. Things got to be done back here, man. Yeah, uh, all this is new to you, right?

Artem Lobov? Just like the history of 2018. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the deep lore of it. Yeah. Oh my God. The choo-choo-choo motherfuckers.

I pop big for that. You're motherfucker. Fucking hell. What a guy. What a time. It took me back to those times. Like, man, the roar. I forgot about the Rory thing.

I forgot about Rory thing. I forgot about Rory. injuring, like, that's one of those things where I don't even know if anyone's ever asked Rory about that or Connor. Like, did they ever actually reveal that it was Rory probably? I mean, this is 10 years ago now. Why did they call him the goat? He's the freaking man.

It was one of those internet things. Yeah, it was one of those internet things. And the thing was, in reality, like Connor and Kavanaugh in particular, like they big up. Remember there was one time, it might have been around the time that Connor was fighting Mendez or at least in the immediate aftermath of the Mendez fight. And Arden was trying to get on a card short notice and he joined us in the robe. He was from a hotel in Vegas

because he was helping Connor who I think was coaching the ultimate fighter against Yerai Faber at the time. Artem wasn't in the UFC just yet. And like he was just such a great character and they did a great job of bigging him up and he was always around them and that team was, you know,

from a popularity standpoint at an all-time high. so people just enjoyed him and how do you know i love him he's got that like irish slash russian accent which is very i don't know admirable so great times well done he made me nostalgic because i feel like he's nostalgic right yes he is he is hopeful of this like connor's return to form of that which is bizarre because they're in a he's suing him but it seems like he's also still very clearly like a fan of the man and and and what he accomplish But then, you know, in his mind, he has this idea that like Connor is going to come back, get refocused, win a fight, and then it's Habib. He is very like optimistic about that part of it and nostalgic about what Connor was able to do when he is describing like this guy who ruins his knee and then ruins his other knee and he's going in there and beating Chad Mendez. Like you can feel the affinity even though he is suing. Which is very admirable. By the way, in case you're wondering, Zubairra's last. fight was on February 11,

2023 on the Asamahatcha versus Alex Wokinovsky card. I remember that one. Lost for a split decision. Two? It was someone making their debut? Elves Brenner? No.

Fucking hell, yes. That legit right there. It's too good. Yeah, he wasn't looking at any time. Wow, great job. Incredible job. $2.84? Perfect. 284, yes.

And by the way, as I click on my little button here, Tapology, he was a huge favorite going into that fight. Minus 625. That's why I remember it, because my dumb ass parlayed him up, I think. But wasn't Brenner, like, getting his ass beat and then turned it around? Wasn't that the story? It was a great scrap. Was that the one where

Brenner, like, was all bloodied up? I think so. Yeah, he was supposed to fight Joel Alvarez on that card. And, uh, yeah. He dodged one there. Yes, yes. Um, all right, so great stuff there. Wish him all the best. That's October 3rd in Dubai. A couple things before we go. Hard out.

353. I do have the DeZone show coming up at 5. Zander Zaya, Skye Nicholson, going to be joining us. Tomorrow's show is turning out to be an all-timer, my friends. Tomorrow's show. Do you want to hear who's on tomorrow's show, guys? Yeah, I'd love to, man. We're going old

school, old school, the Dean Amin, Keith Jardine, in studio. If you're an old school fan, in studio, the Dean Amin, Keith Jardine beat Chuck Ledele UFC 76. Not out what a time that was in studio now turned actor the dean of mean uh keep jardine

that's number one i actually you guys don't need i didn't even tell you like you guys don't actually know who's on the show right no clue okay i thought you were playing this up um you never told us guest number two also joining us in studio man who's been involved in uh a little bit of controversy as of late i still think future face of american boxing kishan davis going to be joining us in studio. A lot to discuss. Missed Wait, had the incident backstage with his brothers, Kishon Davis, coming in studio to clear the air on everything that happened in his last fight. First time he talked to him since. First time anyone's talked to him. Yeah, he's been silent. Yeah. Guest number three, joining us not in studio, the reigning, defending UFC,

middleweight champion the pride of South Africa the one and only Drickus Duplice on the program joining us from Chicago, Illinois. Oh, he's already there. Is he there?

Yes, yes, he's already there. He was at the Man United game a couple days ago at Soldier Field. And guest number four. Oh, there's a four. Breaking news, Frank. on this floor, in this building, there was a very memorable interview in August, I do believe, of 2010, might have been July, but I do believe it was August of 2010, in which one of the most

brilliant men that I've ever met in my entire life, one of the smartest, shrewdest, savvious men that have ever met in my entire life, came into the studio to talk about a victory by one Brock Lesner over Shane Carwin at UFC 116. He came in with a coffee mug yay high and sat down and shot on the entire business.

WWTNA ECW 15 years later back in this building on this floor the Oracle himself, the wise man Paul Heyman in studio tomorrow

on the heels of Summer Slam on the heels of Seth Rollins pulling off the ruse of the century on the heels of Brock Lesnar returning on Sunday night on the heels of Monday Night, Brooklyn. The great Paul Heyman in studio once again. Wow. Just to go back over that. We got Paul Heyman in studio, Keith Jardine in studio, Kishon Davis Johnson. Davis? Just kidding. I'm only kidding. And then

DDP. It from Chicago. All time day. Bangor. All time day. Is it Wednesday yet? I need to drink my fluids. Time now for Super Chats. Before we go. Hard out, 354.

Still Frank. Pick up the pace. Pick up the face. Pick up the face. Ariel, got topology to add leg reach. Get typology to add leg reach. It's provided by UFC, but they told me not enough work to do it. It would greatly impact how we gauge matchups.

Okay. Well, they're watching because they've commented a few times on our breakings. breakdown of the ranking so uh from your fingertips to their ears what out micha we need you unc i love more NFL talk i root for the bills as my distant second team go boys go bills f the chiefs and f the birds and don't love the boy stuff but who's micah by the way micha parson oh geez again with this um he requested a trade yeah yeah yeah he did uh bills hard knocks tonight can't wait HBO max uh we love the bills around these parts as you can see uh James let's figure it out. Actually, someone just sent me a

tweet from Adam Schaefter. Is it about James? Oh, no. It's just about hard knocks. Damn it. Okay, what else? What else? Do you think the location had to do with Herzog not stopping the Yaya fight with him being the hometown guy? Oh, wow. What's that last part? Sincerely on Air Jordan's biggest hater.

Jesus. Didn't know that was possible. It's not because I am. So I don't know how he could possibly. It might be the same guy. It's a good gimme. I actually went back to different guy. Wow. I've made it. What was the other one? He said,

if I didn't have any haters, he'd be dead. Yeah. If Honor Jordan has no haters. That's so good. That's so good. And by the way, never change on Air Jordan's mic.

It's just so perfect to his conversation. I love when people comment on it, and they're like, why does it sound like he's trying to land a 757? No, it's perfect. It's perfect. We're at 10,000 feet, and I appreciate you choosing to fly with us.

Anyway, going back to that, I've seen people say it. I don't think so. I think that's crazy. I mean, Jason Herzog is not some, like, Johnny Come Lately, Ref. So, no, my opinion, no. My opinion, no. What else?

What up? I think a point system makes the most sense for rankings. Reward points for how you win and have point decay for too much in activity. Now we're getting into the PFL. Yeah, it's come. Points, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out.

But appreciate the super chat. What else? What else? Lastly, will there be challenge spoilers on this week's Boys in the Back? I can't watch until Thursday night, so I got to know ahead. It's shout out to Ben the Bain Goat episode. We haven't really discussed how we're going to handle that. I mean, you are going to watch the season.

It airs on Wednesdays, though, right? I feel like we should have a two or three minute reaction. I do think we have to talk about it. So if you are a watcher, you will have to skip the challenge section. But you know what we'll do? Ahead of that, we will go, spoiler alert. Yeah, we're going to talk about the challenge. We'll give a warning and then we'll go.

Who the fuck is we? Yeah, who the fuck is we? We, me and Connor. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this right here. It's me and Rick. Look at this right here.

You guys see this? Yeah. See that? What are you showing exactly? Look at that. That's good. I'm not sure what you're going on. That's incredibly impressive.

Are you supposed to be squeezing it and they pop out? Is that it? Because you're tossing it up. Look at the athleticism. By the way, so you guys were talking about voices of the back? Is the real world back as well or is it just this challenge thing? It never left, by the way. No, it's not back.

It will still watch this. Religious. It is the best show that television has ever created. Are you talking shit right now? You see how it twists. Okay. How the ball twists? No, I actually don't understand what you're doing.

For all those who are just now tuning in, he's been doing this for the last three hours. This is called a schloiter. A schlider. A slitter. And this is how Randy Johnson throws. Yeah. This is how Tim Wakefield throws. Knuckleball.

Yeah. And this is how Pedro Martinez throws. I always just love those, like, instructional videos with the pictures like well you put the two figures here yeah you put it over the scene here and you really grip it when they've got like like they got like it's just there's something so cool about it you guys you guys agree school baseball is cool there's something romantic about it i quite like this week in baseball once they'll love watching that back in the day sunday mornings da da da da da da da da da da da da you guys don't time about no no mine was uh my sunday

was the sports reporter. Did they do that exercise that you were just doing with the... Oh, they would show you this, they would show you that? No, no, not that, but what about like popping it up? Hey, uh, great show today, Artem Lobov, Brian Battle, Andy Foster, tomorrow, tomorrow will be cinema. At a show coming up on the Zone 5. Back on Wednesday, say, that.