The Ariel Helwani Show - Ben Askren, Demetrious Johnson, Diego Lopes, Dana White's hypocritical 60 Minutes interview, massive weekend recap

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Ariel Helwani is back and kicks off the show with some news and notes, including his time in Montreal for Most Valuable Promotions’ Prospects 15 card (07:33), Zuffa Boxing’s deal with Paramount (10:09), Dana White’s "60 Minutes" interview (15:56), fallout from UFC Perth and its impact on UFC 320 (33:01), Wanderlei Silva getting knocked out after his fight (48:33), and more.Demetrious Johnson returns to discuss training with UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili, break down Merab’s fight against Cory Sandhagen, predict whether Merab could have beaten prime Dominick Cruz, react to Ronda Rousey’s potential comeback, and more (59:35).Ariel and The Boys in the back rank Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson’s movies (1:23:47), before discussing Alexander Volkanovski’s next opponent (1:33:36), and who will headline the December card (1:36:16).Diego Lopes recaps his huge win over Jean Silva, before talking about the bad blood between his camp and the Fighting Nerds, the viral video of him throwing up after the fight, offering to fight Charles Oliveira on short notice, feeling like he might get the next title shot, and more (1:40:18).Ben Askren open ups about his double lung transplant and recovery, including his initial symptoms, going into the hospital and his experience there, how his family is dealing with everything, inspiring others through his journey, his long-term prognosis, the support he’s received, and more (1:59:44).Finally, Ariel and The Boys touch on Ronda Rousey (2:41:18), Conor McGregor’s White House demands (2:46:07), Terence Crawford’s run-in with police (3:00:22), and more.

Ladies and gentlemen, now, welcome to the Eria, Hawaii Show. Back in your life on this Monday, September 29, 2000. And 25, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It's been a minute. It's been a minute, an impromptu hiatus, if you will. I was away, yes, I was in La Belle Provence. I was in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, my hometown.

I was there for Rosh Hashanah. If you're out there celebrating, happy New Year. If you're going to be fasting on Thursday, Gmarh Khatima Tova. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay because none of you are sinners out there. You don't need to fast, but I need to atone for all of your sins. So I'll be doing that on Thursday.

It was great to be home. I will talk to you about all. that, what I did over there. But first, I do want to say, I missed you all very much. Our last show was some 10 or so days ago. Feels like it's been a month. I missed this place. I missed this desk. I miss my chotchkes. Shout to the bills, 4-0. Shout out to the Blue Jays. ALE's champs. Sorry, Jordan. Sorry, Pat. Them's the brakes. Shout out to the crew in the back, way over there, because they really did have to pick up the slack. Of course, boys in the back. on a rare Monday alongside Ally Quinta in studio.

How great was that? Tremendous stuff. Two shows for the BITB. In fact, they did float the idea since they had to double it up last week of taking this Monday off. Who the fuck is we? But I can't confirm that they are in attendance on this Monday. I do know that we were shorthanded last week. Frank was actually solo because Andy was away.

jk was sick boys in the back were here frank you were all by your lonesome back there huh is this the new thing you just speak in uh in drops you're officially fred norris you guys a d1 glazer man um how was your weekend frank it was really good i was hoping you have one for me wow uh well you did a great job back there i mean sure i noticed a few hiccups but like you're literally cutting the show you're you're acting as director but also as the engineer, the audio producer, the A1, the AP, the PA, you did a great job. And the hardest part, a good friend. You miss.

So we couldn't have done it. I thought you were going to say you missed the camaraderie, missed the friendship. Yeah, there was definitely something missing. But I don't want to, you know, Sal, Derek, Brad, they all did a great job. They all pulled their weight. They stepped in. They filled the gaps, filled the holes very amicably. So shout it to everyone.

What a team. What a unit we have here. And then, of course, we had the lookback show on Wednesday classic interviews. MMA beat got a great reaction, and I'm very, very happy to see that. Some seem to think it's going to be a weekly thing, because I know the old MMA beat was weekly for now, no, but who knows? Who knows where we'll go with it? We will do more of it. And the reason why we're calling it the beat, I was pushing for the beat reporters but in the end we uh we landed on the beat because you know we'll do a boxing version the boxing beat the wrestling beat the uh the bare knuckle beat the uh the bjj beat uh the what else

what's the other kickboxing beat we could do is i mean the the world is literally our oyster as my israel destiny and damien lillard guy falls down i mean it's a bit of a lot of people move my stuff i mean let's not get into it it's not really necessary to get into it right now frank Anyway, great to be here. Thank you very much to everyone who stepped up. I missed you all. Thank you for all the queries. We are doing well. And we've got a great show, an amazing show. You know, we always like to come back strong. And I'm delighted. I'm over the moon. I'm so, so happy to say that Ben Ascran is going to be on the show today. Of course, over the summer, we, you know, we were following the story. We were nervous. We were scared. We were heartbroken. And he's made an incredible recovery. He's doing well seemingly. And this is going to be a an opportunity to check in with him, find out what happened, find out how he's doing, where he goes from here, what life is like, all those questions and more shall be discussed and answered by the one and only funky band. How great is that? Prior to that, we'll be joined by Diego Lopez. Is Diego Lopez the number one contender at 145? Is Diego Lopez's next fight

going to be for the belt? It's all very much up in the air right now. I'm curious to see how this plays out, but we'll talk to him about the winner of a John Silva main event, Noce, UFC. That was weekends ago. Always great to check in with him one of the more popular fighters in the UFC right now, dare I say. And then at two o'clock, old friend of the show who's absolutely killing it on his channel, the one and only Demetrius Johnson will join us to talk about everything that he's been doing, including training with Marab Duolish Fili, recently. Did a little training sesh with the reigning defending UFC Bantamway champion. We'll get his thoughts on rolling around with Marab. And of course, this is Marab Fight Week, UFC

320 going down this Saturday at T-Mobile. Incredible weekend coming up. You've got the UFC 320 event, Pereira on Kalayev, who I think have both done a tremendous job in selling this fight, this rematch. There seems to be a lot of heat, some drama, some run-ins. We'll get into that as well. Marab versus Corey Sanhagen is a really, really great. I mean, that's an amazing Bantamweight title fight. Yiri versus Khalil, you know how we feel about that and there's a bit of pressure on these guys now. We'll get into that as well coming off the

UFC Perth card this past weekend. Josh Emmett, Yusuf Sulal. Zalal is one of the great stories. We've talked to him a couple of times on the show. That's a big time fight for him. And one of G.C.'s favorites, Abus Mago Medov against Joe Pife.

Er. Joey Pife. Er. It's actually the G.C. you declare. Yes, that's right. Two of my favorites. Abis,

Manga Madov and Joe Pfe. Yes. No, that's Joe Pife. Listen, Matt. Jordan feels bad enough back here and now you just... We kept it up there. Usually when there's a typo,

you get rid of it real quick. We just left it. We left it hanging. It was a bit. He told me that's what he likes to be called. That's fucking bullshit. Anyway, it's a great

card. But not only that, earlier in the day, you're getting the bare and knuckle card on his own pay-per-view, and that's the one hand-lied by Mike Perry versus Jeremy Stevens. So, I mean, that's back-to-back. They're not going to go head-to-head, by the way. They're hoping to end that card by the time the UFC 320 pay-per-view starts.

So there will be a little bit of a back-to-back. But the 320 prelim's not as great as the main card. So not the worst thing, although do you want to buy two paper-fews? Anyway, that's up to you. Day before, you've got the PFL event in the UAE in Dubai, to be exact, and that's a great one. That's the rematch between Usband and Marga Madoff and Paul Hughes. So a really, really great weekend coming up. Lots to get into. Lots to discuss. Lots to dissect. Lots to talk about. But let us start with perhaps the most recent news, woke up this morning, got the official

announcement of perhaps the... You know what? Before we get into that, let me just say, really enjoyed the week. I knew I had forgotten something. Let me just say, really enjoyed my my time in Montreal. I got to work the MVP prospect show number 15 in Montreal at the famed Teatro Saint-Denie, which was built in 1915. Guys, would you believe back in 1924, the great Jack Johnson fought in that venue. He defeated Homer Smith. They had a bunch of boxing fights in this theater. They hadn't had one since 1961, but it was, I posted a picture of the ring, The ring was quite small. It was on a stage, but not a very big stage, and it was just theater seating.

There was nothing behind it. And I was wondering how it would look, what it would feel like. And in the end, it was a great crowd. About 18 or so 100 people, wasn't the biggest venue of all time, but they got there early. There were a lot of local fighters. Main event had a local feel to it. Kim Kloval, who's a very popular fighter in Montreal in the Quebec area.

Tam Tebow fighting in the co-main event, winning in 54 seconds. I keep saying it. I kept joking with Adi on our now deceased program, the Ireland Adet show. I get a lot of questions about the state of that show. The show is gone. It is no more. And yes, these things happen in the world of combat sports. Anyway, she's going to be a superstar. She's now 4-0. She wins in 54 seconds. Her opponent's corner throws in the towel. A fight with Clarissa Shields. I know it's not happening tomorrow, but that might be the biggest one of them all for Clarissa. She still's got work to do. I'm not getting crazy. She's only been a pro for a year. But she's a big girl who hits really hard, has a great back story, Olympian, two-time

Olympian, all that stuff and more. Anyway, I enjoyed it. It was great to be at an event. It was great to be at an event in Montreal. It was great to flex some of my French. Did you guys hear some of the French? Did you see, I was, I was flexing out there. A few, you know, errors, grammatical, a few stumbles. But I wanted to show, you know, the locals that I'm one of them. If I want, you comprehend? I can't speak in French. And I wanted the fighters

to feel comfortable, and it was a fun opportunity. I really, really enjoyed it. So the Montreal fight scene alive and well, the boxing scene alive and well, and I appreciate the opportunity. I enjoyed it very much.

Speaking of boxing, the news of the day is that the worst kept secret in boxing, in combat sports, in sports media, became official. And that's Zufa Boxing.

is headed to Paramount Plus. This had first been reported by Ryan Glassbeagle of front office sports right after the UFC Paramount deal was announced. And today we got the official announcement. 12 shows in 2026. Terms, in terms of like the money was not announced. They didn't officially announce the years, but front office sports did announce that it's a five-year deal.

So not bad. Not as long as the UFC deal, but close. This is for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. No word on the U.K. Got some questions about the U.K. 12 shows, but they still have the ability for the mega shows to be on other platforms. So, like, this doesn't preclude them.

If they get a mega show, and they continue to talk about the 12 shows, you know, contender series, building people up, 50-50 fights, But this wouldn't be like a Terrence Crawford type of event. Those could still go on Netflix. So it's a nice little deal for them. I actually think it's really good for American boxing. I don't think it's good that every promotion is on one platform, DeZone. I don't think that's good.

We like DeZone. It's great. But you can't have eight different promotions on there because it gets a little bit lost in the shuffle. So here's Paramount getting into boxing as well as MMA, of course. And let's see what the show. shows are. Dana White did an interview with Brian Campbell of CBS Sports, didn't give up too much information regarding how many fighters. He's talked about, you know, 450. I don't know how you can have that many with just 12 shows. I doubt that will be the final number. Talked about,

you know, the weight classes. Did say he's going to, he's going to have female fighters on his cards, but the details are very, very, very limited right now. SETA will start. in January. Obviously, you know, UFC deal starts in January as well. In that interview, though, there were two really interesting sections, I thought. The first one being, he was asked about the Ali Act, and he said, we're not changing a word of the Ali Act, we're just making it better. All right. And then he did say that, like, you could either choose, if you're a fighter, you could choose to fight under the Ali Act, or you could choose to fight with us. under our version.

And I'm not quite sure, I'm not a politician, anyone who deals with legislation and things like that, but I'm not quite sure it works like that. I don't think you can pick and choose under what rules you fight under. And I'm not talking about rules

in terms of like three minute rounds. I'm talking about like, you know, government legislation. That's what the Ali Act is. So let's see how this all plays out. I think that the TKO folks are very smart, very savvy, very powerful, and they have very smart, savvy, powerful people in government.

I think they will get whatever they want. What that means, they continue to say, we're making it better, we're adding to it, it's going to be better for the fighters. That remains to be seen. You've even seen, you know, people who aren't necessarily Zufa friends, Nikisa Badarian, one name that comes to mind who has said,

like, he doesn't necessarily think this is a bad thing. Now, does he have his own ideas as to what this could do for him and his company? MVP? Who knows? But I thought that it was just a really interesting way of framing it. You could choose to fight under the old Ali actor, the new. I don't know if that's accurate. If I'm being honest. The other interesting thing was he was asked about working with others, working with other promotions and promoters. He brought up Eddie Hearn. He brought out some of the others. Didn't say them by name, but did mention Eddie. Hearn. Well, I think Brian mentioned Hearn first. Point is, he said, you know, these guys, these other promotions, they don't think big. And then he did the thing that Eddie does, which is, I like Eddie Hearn, but I saw all of a sudden he switched up, but he became Oscar Delahoya.

And, you know, I know he was doing it for attention and stuff like that. And it just keeps feeling like we're inching closer and closer to something. There's always a preface. There's always I like but. And then, you know, we get into the. whatever, whatever, the backhanded compliment or the little dig. So I think that's definitely a story to watch. But ultimately, this I think is very good for them. I think it's good for boxing in the United States.

I mean, if you look at top rank, top rank still doesn't have a deal. Golda Boy has their DeZone deal. MVP has their deal with DeZone and the big events on Netflix. Let's see what happens to them in 2026. they obviously have the women's league that they're that they're building as well with all the women's fighters there needs to be other places ESPN is out of the business there continues to be talk of of maybe WBD maybe TNT maybe HBO Max but other places showing combat sports and in this case boxing I think is good I think it's good for business good for the sport so finally

after all these years 2017 talking about Zoufa boxing here we are end of 2025. It is real, and we'll see what it translates into. Dana did do an interview with 60 minutes recently, and the story aired last night. At the beginning of the story, I want to talk about this real quickly, at the beginning of the piece. So you guys have seen 60 minutes, I'm assuming, in some way, shape, or form. It's one of the longest running news magazine shows in American broadcasting history. It's well respected. It usually starts off like this. Tonight on six.

That was pretty good, right? Yeah, that's class. Tonight on 60 minutes. And then it's like, and then it goes, I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Mike Wallace. Those stories, plus Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 minutes. I knew we're on air, right?

Yeah, yeah. I always used to love the Andy Rooney bits where he's like, you ever notice when you're in a bookstore. And it's just an absolute legend. Anyway, they did a story. This was John Wertheim. John Wertheim was the correspondent who have tremendous respect for longtime Sports Illustrated writer,

also a tennis pundit as well. He's the sports guy. He did the story. And at the very beginning, when they're sitting on the chair and it's the black room and they've got the little, like, magazine book open thing. And it's a very nice, you know, it's iconic.

He says that they had been working on this story for quite some time. I know that to be true. So this wasn't necessarily like, hey, we just signed the UFC to this big deal, Paramount, Paramount, Own CBS, Skydance, all this thing. Like, let's do a story on Dana Way. No, it is true that they had been looking at him and considering doing a feature on him long before all of this. That is true.

Now, it does air, and the interview was conducted. post-paramount deal. So their intentions prior and their intentions afterwards could very well have changed. 13 or so minute piece, that's kind of how long these pieces are. And I've seen some people call it fluff.

I've seen some people call it, you know, just a puff piece, whatever you want to call it softballs. Look, that piece is not for you or the other person watching or me or, you know, like someone watching this show, that piece wasn't for you. That piece was for like the 65-year-old, 56-year-old, mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather,

casual sports fan, news watcher who's watching 60 minutes after football, who watches it every week, regardless of what the story is, who just likes to learn about people. This is a guy who's interesting. This is a guy who marches to the beat of his own drum. This is a guy who's very good friends with the president of the United States. the guy who runs his sports league, different than all the other sports where anything could be said and you wear ripped jeans and you drop F bombs. It wasn't really for us. And so I wasn't expecting

much. And overall, I could see a 56-year-old guy watch that be like, you know what? I like this guy. This guy's talking about the wussification of America. I like this guy. This guy's talking about toxin masculinity, not really being a thing. I like this guy. I like the way he, I like the way he conducts himself. I like what he believes in. And, you know, it's a bit of the Trump backstory and he says, you know, Biden would be invited or Obama would be invited and Obama congratulated him on his success at the inauguration. Like, it was just all there. Did they go deep into controversies? No. Did they go deep into transgressions? No. Did I expect that? No. Did ask about fighter pay. And Dana did the thing like, can I sit here right now and tell you it's

going to go up times two because our rights deal went up? times two? No. Again, the right deal came out now. It's been at least a month and a half. I would like to think he has some sort of idea. And I know for a fact that some of the champions, because they're starting to build these cards, like January is approaching

that they've made some amendments to the deal, especially when it comes to champions who get paper viewpoints. So he does know. He does know. He's playing coy. And that's fine. He doesn't have to tell us right now. And he may never tell us. It'll be up to the fighters to tell us or their managers.

to tell us. You know, and it's the classic scenes of him gambling and being down 700K and being down 1.2 million and then getting it up. And I see people saying, oh, you know, how could you, how could you do that while you're, you know, not paying your fighters enough? But that's his personal money. Like, he could do it. Like, Dana White doesn't pay fighters out of his Dana White bank account. So ultimately, that's a larger at this point, TKO discussion. But there were two things. that I thought were really interesting and, you know, just kind of speaks to the walking contradiction that he is, and some might say hypocrite. I might be one of those people.

He loves to talk about freedom of speech, and he'll say freedom of speech is very important here, and then he'll say the most important type of speech to protect is hate speech. Now, why is that? Why is hate speech the most important thing? I don't know. that I don't quite understand. Why is it more important to protect hate speech than just speech in general, all kinds of speech? And then the obvious follow-up, which I wish was asked in the piece if I'm being honest, maybe it was and it was cut out, is if freedom of speech is so important and freedom of hate speech is so important, then why isn't freedom of press important as well? Because as we know, and let's not even talk about myself long before I came

on the scene, there were issues between, you know, Dana White and the press. And of course, my situation is probably the most notable one. But why don't you feel the same way about the press? If you feel so strongly about freedom of speech and freedom of hate speech, surely you should feel strongly about freedom of press, especially when the press isn't even being critical in any way, shape, or form, you just want a certain type of press. That's a to me is a is a contradiction if you're if you're if you're about the constitution if you're about amendments and if you're about doing things the right way the american way why why does freedom of spretch freedom excuse me freedom of spread freedom of press not get that same type of

respect also he says you know i don't believe in destroying people's lives i don't believe even destroying people's lives if they make a singular mistake. I mean, I sit here today. He has tried actively to destroy my life because, what, I reported some news, some fight news. Again, Dana White didn't dislike me because I was critical of the UFC. They didn't like me because I was reporting, you know, fight announcements. I was reporting this before they were ready to get it out or that I would ask fighters about Bellator or free agency. So, if you, you know, if you If you don't know these things, I can understand why you would sit there and be like, you know what, I like this guy.

I like his vibe. But if you know, when you lived it and you've watched him and you've covered him, you know that this whole thing now that like, you know, freedom of this, freedom of that, freedom of that is a little hypocritical. Did anyone else see the piece back there? Yeah, I did. What do you think, Rick? I think that the mission to have a real discourse about Dana White, the UFC, ventures into boxing is not going to be best served by a company that is producing content that is on the network that he has partnered with.

Like, that's just the reality of it. It is not, this was not going to be incisive. This was not going to be exploratory in a major way. there were questions that still needed to be asked and it should be transparently like I didn't expect that going in right like I did not expect that this would be that and so I'm ultimately not like let down or disappointed or anything like that because my expectations of this were that it would ultimately kind of be what the end product ended up being but if anybody had expectations beyond that that this was going to be some kind of massive revelation and and you know Dana white

bear is all conversation I feel it would have been. been a little bit misguided. Because that was not where I landed ultimately. Petey, what do you think? I thought I kind of presented him exactly the way he'd want to be presented. And I could see, as you said, I could see a lot of people watching and go,

geez, this guy's a really cool dude. Yeah. This is the kind of guy, this is the kind of guy I want to be on his team. I also saw that 60 Minutes posted a piece that, the first piece they did about the USC, I believe it was 2006, 2007.

And I know we say it all the time in this show and people often forget we do but it is crazy saying how far this company has come i believe on the first segment with 60 minutes he was asked um you know you bought this company for two million with the fatata's how much is it worth now and he's like oh i don't know and they're like 100 million and he's like the tv deals are something for 7.7 billion now um his status as a guy who's uh to the right hand of the president of the united states um it's pretty astronomical what they've done but all in all I agree with you and Rick I think this is exactly how he would have

want to be presented and I wonder how different it is based on your note at the starting show and their note at the top of the segment about how long they're pursuing this I wonder how different it might have been had this deal not been in place G.C. You see it? Oh yeah. I saw it because my dad

texted me about it. Dad was watching it. That's the power of CBS right there. To me it as someone that sees all the press conferences that sees pretty much any interviews that he does. It was nothing new for like a diehard fan of the sport. It was the same questions. Do you think

the fighters are paid fairly? Tell us about the White House card. Tell us about this deal. It felt like things that he's been asked in some way, shape, or form in different settings before this. Yeah, and again, it wasn't for us. I think very calculated, like that little moment at the beginning, like, ask me whatever you want.

You know, like these things are very calculated. Spider-paying a double? It's going to be good. Ask whatever you want. answers TVD. Can I ask you something, G. Yes. No, G.C. Oh, G.C.

Did your dad have thoughts on it? Because his opinion is the one I'd actually want the most. You know, I probably should have... I probably should have followed up. I just said, thanks, watching now. Check it in. We never had any follow up. Let's call them up right now.

Dad, you're live on the air. I'm curious what the person sitting at home who's familiar with UFC, familiar with Dana White, but not really like engrossed in it in the way that we are felt, right? Did Pizzi said it perfectly? like do you come away thinking like this guy's a rock star i'll i'll follow whatever he's doing i would bet you do yeah i'm curious the one word that comes to mind loyal you're a bully yeah i could live with that because i want to went like you was happy if you know nothing about this guy what was that pt

he seemed quite happy he was he was happy yeah as happy with the loyalty line as he was with the bully line he's like yes correct that is also what you know nothing about him you walk away from that being like this guy is the it's and again the same story that we've heard for 15 or so years The antithesis of Roger Goodell, the antithesis of Adam Silver or Gary Betman or even like your typical sports owner, you know, he's just... He even said a piece. He was like, the deal that I have would make Roger Goodell or Adam Silver jealous. Also, not for nothing. Them falling him into the casino and like when they show up, they got the whiskey and the cigars ready to go. And then he goes down 1.2 mill. And then he ends up 700K. And he walks away with bands of cash. Yeah, it's hard to not think. someone is cool when they're able to do that.

Ultimately, you can ask yourself like, hey, now that you're in business, maybe you shouldn't, maybe 60 minutes shouldn't do this story. But the flip side of that is, no, now you're in business, now you want to be in the business of telling the Dana White story. Right now, now it actually makes a lot more sense, sort of like the type of quote-unquote journalism that ESPN wanted to do when they were in business with ESPN. And that's just the way like society is this is nothing new. When a sports entity signs up to this type of deal with an outlet, with a with a broadcasting giant, it is now in their best interest to shine a light and to shine a positive light. This is not a unique UFC thing, phenomenon. They are now interested

in promoting the UFC. There's commercials during events. You see it during football now. and so there was no part of me that was disappointed there was no part of me that was like damn I wish they would have asked this or that it's just when you sit there

and hear him talk the freedom of hate speech is just such a funny thing like why is it more important to protect freedom of hate speech why is this such a big deal to you and of course then you start thinking like

well it was once not important you actually let people go and we could talk about this ad nauseum but anyway a good piece of press can I ask you one more thing yeah this one is for you Ariel

does it make you change how you view 60 minutes. Because you now have seen a piece. You know how the sausage is made a little bit more. Is 60 minutes different in your eyes? No, because 60 minutes isn't doing stories on the regular about

things that they're in business with, right? Now, let's say next week they're doing a story on the NFL and it's a very rosy story like, yeah, no, maybe they shouldn't be doing stories on things that they're in business with. But then, of course, you go a step further and then there's the sky dance thing

and then there's the Trump thing and there's the Colbert thing, and you know what I mean? And so I guess we have to find out what is CBS News in the year 2025 and 26, right, in this new era, this new skydance era. But 60 minutes is still 60 minutes, at least for now. And so as long, once stories start to come out of, oh, we couldn't talk about this or we had to edit that, then the opinion will change. But I think it's maybe a little bit too soon. But again, and this is probably a discussion for a different day, but all of this is fascinating to me. The Jimmy Kimmel thing is fascinating to me, and this is all freedom of speech, right?

So if Jimmy Kimmel, gosh, we're going down a whole freaking thing. We don't have to. I don't want to get into it. I don't have to. I just want to understand one quick thing. Yes, please. If Jimmy Kimmel said something that was offensive, right? Because that's ultimately what he's being accused of.

Is that considered hate speech? But. And just want to understand. And if it is considered hate speech, isn't that the most important thing to protect? As it relates to this conversation, it's, seems like Dana White did disagree with that and said it should be protected. That's my only thing for that. Dana White said that. You know what? Now that I'm thinking about it, he did say it, fair play to him. He said, I don't want people to be canceled on both sides. He does disagree with

this. So all of this is fascinating. Yes. That's only as it relates to this conversation. Actually, I think there's other ways to call. I agree with him on that. I hate cancel culture. Obviously, I do believe that there should be, forget about cancel culture as a word, I do believe that there should be repercussions right for stupid actions if you say something stupid or if you do something stupid or if you do something criminal or if you do something whatever but um yeah people losing their job off of tweets and things like that he's effectively cancelled you though like he's effectively canceled you well he tried to i mean it's still yeah ptcgs i know but like he he he tried to oh 100% oh he didn't just i mean he he actively tries till this day yeah there's things

that people don't know about you know till this day But that's why I laugh when I hear him say. And by the way, just to be very clear, because I can almost see it now. Oh, here's Ariel, you know, labeling himself as a victim. I'm not a victim. Life is great. As I said to you two weeks ago, I am totally fine with how things played out. I was actually talking to a very good friend of mine who you all know this morning about this.

Like, he doesn't realize how life has played out and how he's helped me every step of the way indirectly. But yes, he has tried. I'm not a victim at all. But when you hear him say, you know, I don't like. people having their lives ruined for a mistake. I'm like, you actively try to ruin people's lives for things that you perceive to be wrong or a mistake. So, G.C.'s dad doesn't know any of this, so I can almost guarantee you, you ask him after, he says, yeah, I mean, interesting guy, interesting guy, like the way he maneuvers or, you know, it's a, what a story, something like

that. Anyway, let's talk about this past weekend, some things to discuss. When I was going through UFC 320, I said the spotlight and the pressure is now on Prochaska versus Roundtree. Why did I say that? Because Carlos Elberg went out there and knocked out Dominic Reyes in very impressive fashion, a beautiful one-two. The guy is on an absolute tear right now. He's marketable. He's fun. He's a finisher. He's got the look. He's got everything. I believe that if Prochaska a roundtree ends up being essentially what Roundtree Hill was, let's just say, even if it's a dominant three to nothing win for Roundtree, and, you know, there's a couple of moments there, but nothing spectacular. I think Alberg is next. Now, Brandon Fitzgerald, when he made the call, he said,

he said, what do you say? He said, title shot next. I don't know if that's a done deal, but I do believe, like, if this was tennis, like, Alberg held serve, he's now the guy, and it's up to them to do something better. Does anyone think otherwise? In other words, does anyone think there is no discussion to be had? He is the guy and what Fitzgerald said was accurate. No, I think there is still part of this to be unveiled for sure. Like, there could be a better performance. There could be one reason or another. We have law, there are no clear number one contenders anymore and that has been proven over and over and over again in the UFC, right? Like every time we say this person, surely, I have

to get a title shot off the strength of that. I don't think it ever happens, right? Like, we have been sitting here talking about this forever. Lerone, Mavsar, Lerone, just in that division alone. Shavkat has to be next, but it's Sean Brady, but it's I'm a Machado Gary. There's every time somebody fights, there's a new number one contender. I don't think that there is a guarantee there, but he has put himself in an incredible position. P.C. won't say something?

No, I'm not good. I agree. I think it's a what have you done for me lately, sport. And as great as Ullberg was, these guys are fighting after him. They have a great opportunity with the title fight being at the top of this card to make a big impression. And I also think, and I don't think you can put this squarely on Oberg, but all the reports of like, oh, this event isn't selling well, stuff like that. He's the headline guy. I don't know if that played against him. I think he did everything that he could have possibly done the main event. That was as good as it could have went.

But there's a lot of different things at play here. That's what I was going to say, Pete, is the Star Factor does play into it. The fact that Yuri Prakashka is a fan favorite, he is a big name. He's been a champion before in his career. If he goes out, puts on an incredible performance, finish his Roundtree, and it is Anka Lyev that retains the belt, he could certainly be next to him. I do think there's a couple of scenarios at play. For example, if Anklayev wins, obviously they're not going to do it a third time with Pereira.

And now everyone's at play, right? Prakhaska, Ankolaev, Roundtree, Anklayev, Elberg, Ankelaev, are all four. fresh matchups. If Pereira wins, I doubt they're going to run a back with Ankleyev, but Pereira has wins over Roundtree, tremendous fight, one of my favorite fights of 2024, and has two wins over Pachaska. I think it might be tough to give Prakaska the third crack. Roundtree, I could see them giving him another crack, especially if it's a great win, and then, of course, Elberg is the fresh opponent. So I think you almost have to wait and see what happens in the main event as well. Like even once Prochaska Roundtree fight will still have to wait

until the end of the night to really have a good sense. I think that I think that they would like to give Elberg a crack. Like I would put him in pole position right now. Certainly if Pereira wins. If Ankaliev wins, everything changes. But I think he's in a great spot. I really do think he's in a great spot. I don't put the I don't put the ticket sales thing on him. I mean, he's not, you know, someone that they've really pushed in this spot. He's won nine in a row. And, you know, he's had some, some big cards that he's fought on. He's fought here in New York, Madison Square Garden. But, you know, he's not exactly a household name just yet. Also, he's from New Zealand. He's fighting in Australia. But the rest of the card wasn't good at all. I don't, I don't really think

it's necessarily on him. But he did what he had to do. He really did his post-fight interview. You know, he's not a big talker as well. He doesn't really puff his chest out and promote himself, but I thought he did everything that he had to do, and I love the fact that he put the pressure on Prakaska and Roundtree, and it sounds like he's coming to Las Vegas, which I think is a very smart move on his part. I'm really curious to see how this plays out. Do you guys agree? Pereira and Uncle Live, with those videos that have emerged, the run-ins and the trash, I think they've done- Google Translate Trash Talk? Yeah, I think they've done a really good job of selling this. I agree. I feel like it was- It feels big and important. It was-

was DOA for a long time, and now it is really like, there's new life in it. Now, don't get me wrong, like, this is not like the most thrilling version of promotion that I've ever seen, but it's doing a hell of a lot more than the first time. It's doing a hell of a lot more than the intermediary period where this rematch was announced and everybody was just kind of like, okay, so it has helped in leaps and bounds to me because we're at least seeing a little bit of Magamed, you know, outside of what we see on Twitter, which I still maintain is not him, despite what he has himself tweeted and we see a little bit of Alex

like Alex seems to be more fired up for this than any of his other recent kind of opponent I feel a little spark in him right? Yes and so it's doing something it's definitely working for me a little bit them having to go through the phone and waiting by is tough for me it's not doing a bunch for me

I think it was actually kind of cute in a weird way I don't know I found it Funny, like Ali, obviously, you know, we think he's been handling these tweets for so long. Ankleuiof gets chatGBT and through the roof his numbers all of a sudden, you know what I mean? Just let me break this down, do a bit of Google translate chat CBT, and suddenly everyone's like, he is selling the shit out of this thing. So fair play, Muhammad Big Ang. Oh, yeah. Fair play for, 18.6 gave you.

Yeah. I will turn off his electricity this week. I like that. You know yourself. Listen, those top three fights. and Marab and Sanhagan have have an appeal. I'm excited for 320. Oh my God, I can't wait. Are you kidding me?

A teeva? Come on. You got a Poetan fight. You got Marab, Corey, and you got a Uri fight. Like, what more can you want? And Magu Medov against... Abis Magus Magh v. Pfe? Yeah. And Josh. Shut up Pife. Yeah. Josh Amit, Yusuf Salal. All right, so that's

the main event of UFC Perth and how it ties into this weekend's main event. Other, you know, and again, there were some nice performances. It just felt like the card was a little underwhelming. Jimmy Crute with a rear naked choke win in the first round. Jimmy Crute with tremendous hair. Really great haircut. And it seems like he's been in the UFC for like 15 years now. We've seen him since he was a young cub in the biz. Jack Jenkins with a solid unanimous decision win. Can we talk about Neil Magny versus Jake Matthews? And ultimately, what is the take here? Because it did seem as though Jake Matthews was about to win via submission

in the first round, right? That's what it seemed like. And then the referee whose name was, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, Jim Perdios seemed to stop it because right there when Magni's arm went up, I guess he thought that it went limp. But then he seemed to imply that he stopped it because the round was over, but there were still clearly like three or four seconds left before he stopped it. And then they have to, you know, restart the fight. And then eventually Neil Magni wins the fight via submission in the third round, a beautiful dars choke.

But afterwards, Jake Matthews says, you know, you think you won the fight. Your energy goes down. your mindset changes and they're looking into some sort of investigation whether or not they can overturn the result Pizzi, did you see this? Yeah, absolutely.

And I think the referee did stop the fight. I think he thought he was out. Yeah, right? I think different to a situation we were in London when Michael Bisping fought Anderson Silva and it was a hit on the bell. And this is very different to that as far as I'm concerned. You know, there was mass confusion.

Anderson Silver ran off celebrating because it was on the bell. I think Herb Dean's situation there was he hadn't touched the other guy, it was far more open, you know, to be like, is this fight continuing? Is it over? I think the referee had more legs to stand on here, but this referee did stop the fight as far as I'm concerned. I understand where Matthew was coming from, like the adrenaline dump of the relief. Just being like, oh my God, I did it. And then you're like, oh, no, you're fighting again. I saw the clip of him saying, like, at the start of the second round, I was like, I can't fucking believe we're still doing this. Right. And. I fail for him. Fair play to Magni, a very nail Magny performance, you'd have to say. And a beautiful technique to get the finishing the tour, but Jake Matthews absolutely every reason to feel hard

done by it. I think it's an error on the referees, Mark. I hate to disagree with you too, because, as you know, I love to take the same side as you guys. But Ariel, you saying it seems like, and Pizzi, you saying, I think, there is no seams, there is no think. It's on wax. It's on tape. That fight was stopped.

Jake Matthews won that fight. There is debate. There's no conversation about this for me. And Jake Matthews submitted Neil Magne and the referee stopped that fight. There's nothing to even discuss in my opinion. The fight continuing is just a dereliction of duty by the commission and by the referee himself and whoever else is involved. And Neil Magny, shout out to him. I mean, what a gamer to actually go through that fight and then in the third round pull that off. But that fight was over with two or whatever seconds to go in the first round. There's no conversation about this for me. I think it was a double error. Him stopping the fight. Obviously, Neil Magny was saying that he wasn't out,

and then them continuing the fight. He stopped the fight. It should have been over there. He's using the time as a bailout, but you see him dive in with two seconds left on the clock. It's not like he heard the horn. And the fact that he tells Jake Matthews to get off, get off, get off, and then he's standing over Neil Magny as if he is a referee checking in on a fighter that just got finished to make sure that he's okay. The excuse becomes null and void. Look at this picture right here. You're telling me, Jake Matthews, lost this fight? Like, this looks like he just finished him. This is insane.

Yeah, just massive errors. If this becomes a no contest, it will be criminal. It would be an absolute shame. Jake Matthews, by submission, is the proper ruling for this fight. There's no alternative. Yeah, other than Jake Matthews, like, I feel very strongly. Winning later in the fight and being like, oh, man, he dodged the bullet.

The ref was fucked on this one. Because, to your point, you see, like, you can't, you can't be like, oh, yeah, I just stopped it a little. little bit early there. I meant to say that the, I mean, I thought the round was over, so that's why I was talking. Like, no, you stopped and you fucked up. But if

you fuck up, you fuck up. Now, these would be the perfect times to hear from the referees, some sort of explanation from them, but you get nothing. Well, hear nothing. Yeah. Do we need to get these guys earpieces, IFBs with the round horn? Like, what was it a couple weeks ago where they missed it by like four or five seconds? But that was like, because it was super loud.

That's what I'm saying. Get him an IFB. When you put his arm up, he 100% thought that, The horn is not the problem here because he stopped the fight before the horn. It wouldn't have mattered if he heard it perfectly or didn't hear it at all. He stopped that fight because he picked up Neil Magny's arm and thought that he went limp and called it a submission and ended the fight. The problem here is that by allowing it to continue, now you've built up this sympathy for Neil Magny, right? It would feel bad to take a win away from Neil Magne at this point because of what he was able to accomplish. Not fair.

And it's unfortunate. But that is all due to the initial error. No, I'm saying it's not fair to Jake. It's not fair to Jake. Not fair to both guys. But that's the unfortunate scenario is, right? We don't want either of these guys to lose. We want Neil Magny's third round submission to be incredible.

We want to celebrate that moment. But it only happens because the referee decided to restart a fight with two seconds left after the end of the first round, left in the first round, rather. And that is not in the rule book. That is not something you can do. It just doesn't exist. He messed this up and now created a scenario where we're going to be taking something away from Neil Magni, which we shouldn't have even been in the first place. Go to the tape. It's over, and Jake

Matthews wins by submission. It's the easiest call in history. If Jake Matthews is on the show win model, I hope they give him the win. I hope they pay Magny a hell of a lot too. And I hope they give Magny because Magny did nothing wrong. I mean, he did not tap. He did not go out. And then he ended up getting a beautiful sub. But yeah, that was just a critical error, a critical error. And this is what happens. This is what happens. We've been talking about this since. I mean, day one, when you go into these smaller areas that don't have shows every single week and the local guy gets an opportunity to fight on the big stage, they end up making a lot of mistakes.

And by the way, it's not just the local guy. A lot of the regulars make mistakes too. It's a very tough sport to officiate. I get that. But this just was a huge mistake. And probably, I don't know, the most fair thing to do is to just run it back. I don't know. Is that something that usually?

overturn it, overturn it and give Jake his win. That's the only fair outcome. But do you think that's possible because we see these. Yes, we don't like to do that because then it's like egg on the face of the ref. I know that, but there is egg on the face of the ref. There's video. Like, we're acting like this is like some kind of subjective. You can watch the video and see the fight end.

I saw it clear as day. The referee tells him to stop. It's not just like, like it was like, oh, did he touch him? Was there a glance? Did he almost tell him to him to him? He literally stopped the fight as clear as. day. It's the most obvious thing. In such a mental sport,

obviously Jake Matthews mentality after that is messed up because he thought he won the fight now. He's having to go back out there. There's no telling how the fight would have gone had he not stopped it, and the round had just ended. There's no telling how that fight proceeds. I don't think it proceeds the exact same way. I'm okay if they give Jake a win and still

run it back, right? If you're Jake Matthews and you go, I want to do it better this time, I want to show you and you're Neil McGee and you're like, hey, I've seen it, let's do it. I'm okay with that too. But on the records, this has to be a win for Jake Matthews. No debate. Tom Nolan via Rear Naked Choke, Navajo Sterling, unanimous decision. Camaroaston, with a solid first-round win as well, Jamie Malarkey, unanimous decision. Colby Thickness, unanimous decision. Michelle Montague, a good friend of

one Kayla Harrison, moving up to 7-0 now. Brando Perichich with the first-round win, early in the card and Alexia Tynara with the curtain jerker victory as well so you know overall some performances a lot of Ozzie's won

shout out to them and the UFC turns to attention to UFC 320 by the end of the night though on Saturday everyone was talking about Vandrelea Silva so Vandrelea Silva the axe murder was a part of an event

called Spatton fight night Two, you may recall Spatten Fight Night 1, showcased Anderson Silva versus Chil Sondon in a very clearly worked boxing match. And so Anderson Silva this time around was fighting a former boxer-turned Brazilian politician named Asolino Freitas in a boxing match. It was on a very large television network over in Brazil and Latin America. And it turned. turned into an absolute mess. A brawl broke out after a headbutt, and this is the aftermath of it.

After there was a brawl in the ring, we can't show you all of it, but that's Van der Leis Silva getting knocked out cold in the midst of the brawl and then getting dragged. His carcass being dragged to the corner in a very, very scary scene. This is Van der Le Silva, who, by the way, probably shouldn't have been fighting, period. who, you know, was a part of the class action lawsuit and gave testimony saying that, you know, he's dealing with all kinds of brain issues and he posted a video on Sunday

reacting to all of this and he looks absolutely awful. I have a lot of headaches. I will take tests here in Curitiba to determine, identify, what if I have any serious head injury or not, Look at his eye. This was the damage caused yesterday.

Look there. Oh, Jesus. Head bouncing. On the canvas. It's great to be able to count on friends in times like these. Legend. Axe murder. Van der Lees-Silva looking like that after this brawl.

The great Guillermo Cruz, the Brazilian Beast, our good friend over at MMA fighting, had a good threat about this. Crazy roller coaster over the last. last 36 hours or so, Van Ulai Silva and Salino Freida is boxed live on Latin America's largest TV network and all hell breaks loose. Combat sports go viral in Brazil like never before as both teams brawl inside the ring. Spadden Fight Night is a black tie event promoted by Spadon a company part of the world's largest beer manufacturer group, Ambev. Several statements and videos

posted by both camps since showing different angles of the brawl and pointing fingers at each other. Forty-nine-year-old Silva suffered a broken nose, seven stitches around his eye after being caoed by Fratis' son, Raphael. In his words, Vandrele's words, quote, a cowardly assault, end quote. Silva has made concerning comments with CT in the past. He might sue Hafeu Hafeel for borderline attempted murderer, Asalino, for allegedly inciting as well. Hafeel Freitas deleted his IG on Sunday and later apologized to Silva. He claimed legitimate defense. Fabrice Redume claims, who's friends with Vandolay and was a part of his team, claims Asolino premeditated the attacks, an audio message to the boxer allegedly saying,

when one gets beat, everyone gets beat. Fradis will undergo surgery, Monday for a broken hand. He says the audio messages were manipulated to make him look bad. Fradis criticized Silva's coach Andre Dita, legendary Andre Dita for hitting him with two left hands during the brawl, saying his brother Luis Claudio saved him from the worst. And also, interestingly, Guillermo writes, Spatant 2 happened 28 years to the date of Pentagon combat when a riot led to the ban of Vali Tuto in Rio. Vali Tuto was the name of essentially of MMA back then in Brazil. I don't expect something similar to happen in 2025, but wonder what changes it brings to

the fight businesses with brands like Spotten and Global involved, Global being the network. So not a great look, not a great scene. a scary scene. And at first I was like, is this real? Is this not, if only because I remembered the Chales-Sunnan

Anderson Silva fight, which was very much not a real fight. I was like, are they just creating a moment here? But then when you see the punch, you see the slow-mo, you see the aftermath,

this is a mess of a situation. It's horrific. Yeah, really, really bad. Like Van de Silva as well. Like, this is the thing we fear every time we hear a guy coming out of retirement. You know, obviously don't fear that this type of situation would unfold after a fight. But to see a guy lifeless basically getting dragged to another sort of the ring, it's really,

really bad. And, you know, Fandale obviously looking so bad in this post that you just showed. And he's talking about, like, look, all of my friends are, like, you know, are there for me and all this kind of stuff. If your friends are there for you, they should be telling you not to fight now. Like, as we said, during the class action lawsuit, there was. him citing brain issues all that stuff what what is he doing in there um really really sad scenes and i particularly have a soft spot for vandalay he was basically my gateway drug to mama back in the

early 2000s so to see i remember you talking about this yeah to see him like that really really horrific i just woke up on sunday morning i saw and i just like instantly day round you know horrible stuff can i read that what ptze he talked about in the antitrust this is this is what was in the 24 letter i fear that during my career, I've suffered traumatic brain injury, TBI, and I'm noticing symptoms common with TBI and CTE, including depression, mood swings, and irritability. I suffer from sleep apnea and have difficulty sleeping and breathing that I can recall. I have had four surgeries on my nose, one on my face, two on my left knee, one on my right knee, and one of my elbow. So certainly like

post career, this man has been through the ringer and is in a place of suffering. To Pizzi's point, the fact that he was even allowed to get in the ring at that point is probably negligent to a very high degree for the people around him but then the fact that he is through the fight and the impact, the injury comes after the fact, like there is no reason that this man needs to be around

the game at this point in time, especially after having re-read what he is talking about suffering from at the end of his career. It's just a really nasty kind of thing that this was even all happening. You know what I fear. I fear that there, you know, a lot of these guys

are older, his crew, and I fear they're going to try to use this into having more fights. A promotion for the next one. Yeah. Oh, God. Please. I hope not. I mean, a lot of these guys were a part of the GFL. Yeah, we're good. We're good. We talked about that at the time. We're doing was another guy

who was citing brain issues during the class action suit. Like, it's you know, these lads need to be protected from themselves. Honestly, it's, it's, and it's sad that you know, fucking, Verdum, the heavyweight champion of the world, Van der Le Silva, like, pride, middleweight champion. and unbelievable, one of the greatest furors of all time.

It's sad that they're in situations where they're going back to fight. And I'm not saying that's unique. We see it in boxing. We see it with boxers who've earned hundreds of millions in their careers. Like Mike Tyson coming back to do this, it's not unique to MMA, but it still doesn't feel good to see it. But you can even see the justification now, right? If you're Van der Leyen team, like, it wasn't a fight. Like, I can still fight.

This guy sucker punched me, so it's different. You can see, I can see the justification happening already. Like, it's guaranteed. So 50-year-old man getting his body, his completely unconscious body, dragged across the ring. 100%. Uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable to watch.

I had asked the guys maybe a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about the smashing machine film, which comes out later this week, Friday, to be exact, can't wait. In fact, we'll have the director

of the film, Benny Safdi on the show tomorrow, which I'm really, really excited about. And we were talking about whether we should watch the documentary before seeing the movie or after. I even spoke to Rick about this.

In typical Helwani fashion, and I did not listen to the advice and I watched the documentary last night after I was told I should not. And it did strike me that in one particular scene Vanderlays in the back, honestly, I forgot the vast majority of it. So I'm actually really happy that I watched it.

I think it's a good primer. But seeing Prime Vanderlea, like 1999-2000 Vandirley in the back, hours after seeing that, made me very sad. Because he was, he was at the time, in his prime, one of the most terrifying and also talented fighters in the world.

He was the BMF at that time, right? He was the guy who when you walked in the room, and that's why the Crazy Horace Bennett story got so much traction because of how nuts that kind of became. But he was the guy. He was the guy in the ring, doing the hand thing, in the locker room. Just when he walked into a room,

you knew that you were dealing with the BMF. And he was that guy. He was the epitome of that. And that's to Pizzi's point. That's the thing that got so many, people hooked on MMA. You know, him and Shogun at that time and so many others. Crowe Cop, Fadour.

It was just an era of those type of guys, but he was, he was the epitome of it. He was the epitome of it. When they would shoot him up close and like, oh yeah, the hands? With him like this. Oh, yeah. It was fucking incredible. That pride final conflict, go and watch that, that pride, the 2003, I believe it was, that tournament where him and Rampage are in the, I think, in the final against each other.

And he, I think he hits him with 16 unanswered. knees in the clinch in this ring and it's just drops them over the ropes yeah it's nasty shit like he he was that guy yeah so to see this is uh the most fared for it very very sad at the time yeah yeah 100% it's very weird to me this spattin thing just in the sense that it's a black tie event you see everyone who's attending the event they're wearing tuxedos like the feels fucked up the spectators and and and you're putting on this type of fight and this happens like the ugliest of the ugly as far as combat sports is concerned was it even broadcast it

anywhere? Yeah, Global. Global. Global is like ESPN, right? Bigger than that. It's non-sports

as well. Like they used to have the UFC deal. They had Combate, which was their like sports fight channel, but Globo is like Fox or CBS.

Crazy. And this happens. And fight sports and MMA in particular, like UFC had to deal with Globo, which was really big for them, but they're no longer there.

I think they're on Fight Pass in Brazil. That really messed them up in Brazil as well, getting off global. Like, that was a huge situation. So I'm saying, like, it's kind of gone down. This, this can help. You know what I mean? Very sad. Very sad.

So we do wish Van der Leis Silver the best, and we also kind of hope that this doesn't lead to him saying, like, let's run it back. You know, something like that. Or have Verdoom fight the sun in some fight. But, you know, here we are. Who are we to tell a 49 or 50-year-old man that, you know, you can't earn a living. This is all they know in many respects. All right. Still to come, we're going to speak

to Diego Lopez. We're going to speak to the great Ben Ascran. And it only occurred to me after the whole show was put together. Actually, it was our great editor-in-Chaheim Al-Shadi, who noted this, that we have Ben and DJ on the same show, the two men involved in the only real trade in mixed martial arts history. How about that? Who scripted that? Certainly not I. It was the MMA gods who did it. Let's say hello to Demetrius Johnson. Who I do believe is traveling on this Monday, kind enough to join us. Look at this guy. Biggest YouTube channel in the game, rolling with all the big dogs, used to join us from like a really nice setup. Now he's like, yeah, I'll squeeze you in in between my 10-minute ride to the airport. Must be nice, DJ.

Hey, life is good, brother. Life is good. Anytime you need me, I'll drive us to be here for you. Thank you so much. Where are we off to? Can you tell us, or is it a top secret mission? we're in LA with my wife or date night we're going to go see the smashing machine LA premiere so wow wait wait wait you flew to LA just for the for the premiere that's it yep and it's been at my wife most your wife who was a one of our favorite guests of 2025 who you still haven't had on your YouTube channel despite her big breakout appearance on the program what happened it's coming it's coming all right fair enough by the way did you see that vandalay silver clip

oh dude you know the first thing i saw it i was like man can our legends just relax and not compete can it just enjoy retirement and not try to fight and box and i saw the clip it's very unfortunate sad but yeah i mean that's the biggest thing i see it's like when i see guys like v tour those guys coming out what a box it's like guys just show the blacks you know There's other guys other even box but I don't know his situation

but yeah it sounds the juxtaposition of like where those guys are at and where you're at is very stark but would you not say

that like to get to this point it has to be years of work in advance right? Like you have to make a lot of the right moves

and the right decisions before we get to 49 so that you're not stuck in this spot. Yeah, 100%. Before I retired I was starting to train it I mean that's a YouTube space

but the content creation space for 10 years before I was okay, I'm going to start fully, you know, focusing on this before I retired. And now when it comes to shooting in the game, like I know how to train the eye. So I do all the stuff, sit stuff. I'm going to go to work with a lot,

so I can basically take my mighty cast or my YouTube on the road by myself. Obviously, it's always amazing to have my forward make the team with me, but for some reason, if I need to shoot all that on my own, I can't. And I have before. So this, I've been trying to set myself up

Even when I was in the game as a Lord Champion But yeah, I agree About athletes, wait for the first hand I started to think about what they're going to do But it's way better to do it while you're in the game That way when you do exit It's not a hard like, hey, I'm 49, I didn't get a fight It's like when I was trying to Barat

He was like, he played down like the Barack He was like, he played down like the Barathele and I was like What you're trying to do that? Barathe goes, come on, let's go and I was like I'm 39, Doc, I don't need a concussion I'm good. I scoot it in across that boy. I loved it.

I love the footage of you guys training together because for a moment you're like, oh, this is DJ. I almost feel like you're playing. You're trying to make the casual person who's watching this feel like, oh, this is what it would be like if I rolled with Murab. Excuse me, you're Demetrius Johnson, arguably the greatest fighter of all time. But I feel like you kind of, you let your counterpart feel good about himself. Are you going like 50% so that he's able to showcase his skills here

and you're letting him tap you? Because I feel like if you were going 100%, you'd be able to hang with Murab. I think the thing is when I do the body journey and I create this content, my goal is to go out there and try to compete in, like, see if I'm better than somebody, right? I get tapped all the time in a gym.

Like, I want somebody to be a speechist, and she was giving me a hard time. I went to, like, yeah, I've done with so many people that get me a hard time. So when I was Rob, Robb is really good. like he knows what he's doing he has the style that he like sampled it um he surprised me when he jumped my heart and got that uh neck great rib blowout what i're going to call it but like i'm not in this space of like proven i'm the best in it like i did it for six years

so i think i have this luxury where i can go and train with everybody and see how they feel what they feel like if i'm trying john mallee thousand break you know training session train with Tim Welch and I'm blessed and grateful that I'm still healthy enough that I can still move with these guys So what impressed you most about Marab?

Tim's trying to blame and just you know the train No stretching, no nothing? I mean were you doing for so long like you don't stretch and you know like a lot of people out there like I don't really stretch

when I did mix martial training I just go in there and start warming up and hitting pads just move. And then at the very end of training, I would stretch. But, you know, all things aside, I think that they are the best about Marab is his game and ship. Like, he's very game. Like, he doesn't, like, he'll put himself in bad positions. Um, he has no ego. Um, you know, he's trained with a lot of killers. I've seen him train with attack your brothers. Uh, and those guys are really, really good. But Marab is very game. And he knows what he needs to do to win.

and he's very, very competitive. That sequence there where he seems to have tapped you, was that something that you had never felt before where you felt like he was pressing on your ribs? You said you couldn't breathe? And that's somewhere from that size. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Like, he's extremely strong, and I felt like the first thing he didn't use most of his. You know, because we're not, I mean, people got to realize, like we're not trying to kill each other, but trying to vibe out and just work and move to see how he feels, how he feel. And when he got that head and arm,

and, like, you know, even there, like, I get his back, and I was just playing, I was like, I told him, I'm in a mighty whiz barred you. I didn't have to tell him that. I could just screw him up and try to get it used 100% percent effort. But that's not what this is about. That's not about me getting me to arm bar and going home. Man, I just aren't bar, bar, like, I can give, like,

that's not something I'm trying to seek out into. based on what you now know about Marab getting to feel him getting to train with him do you think Corey can beat him I think anybody can be beat to you here's the thing

I think Corey has unique skill set where he makes it hard for people to hold him down like if you go back and look at the Umar-Nagamatta fight like Corey has been a good job of like moving

trying to be very hard and beat given him our part time here. But this time Umar came to the Grappelin exchange, Umar was doing a good job of taking his post away and do a good job about going to his place. Now, when you look at Marab,

Maraub is very good about hovering in certain positions and now lose a position. You know, I saw Maraub posted saying that he's going to spin the fight on his feet. He might have bite this on his feet. But I think Maraub's strong to take people in a bad position way for them to make a mistake and capitalize on. If you look at Rob's second fight with Sean O'Malley once, you know,

Rob took it down multiple times. Sean decided to rustle up once he wrestled up. He got him in a geek, you know, the Darski team neck crank kind of, you know, assimilation and end up tapping Sean and Molly. So even when we grapple, he got me into the same thing. Like I wrestled up. I came in to a butterfly guard and he got me in it. And I was like, you're strong as fuck, man.

So, but we'll see. I mean, anybody can, you know, fighting. Anything can happen. I still believe Dominic Cruz is the greatest bantam weight of all time And Murab doesn't have the title defenses Cruz doesn't have a ton just like you because he had the injuries But he had to beat so many guys to get to the title as well Morab in his prime D.C., Dominic Cruz in his prime

Who do you like? I got it. You know, the thing is Kind of hard That's a hard one You know, because Marab is so good about what he does I think with Dom Dom is a very good trickster

Not trickster, excuse me, he's free Dom has a very high IQ Not saying Rob doesn't Dom is big I just don't know if Mara can take him down You know, I didn't think Rob's going to be able to out-ristle He'll receive him across the cage like that

But you know Just for how many champions for Rob Has beaten, I'm going to have to go for Rob Like not saying that Dom can't beat him but I think you know Barov is just a different animal like you take

he's able to implement the same style against everybody you take out Josie Addo you put in Sean Amali to save Barov you take out Sean Amale you put in Hiramale

he has a certain style like he implements against everybody it's like Barov hasn't had he hasn't had to be forced to stay on his feet at all

Like, Maraub is a dictate where the fight takes place, if that makes sense. Like, he has a fight, and he's a striker with great wrestling and great taked-down events. That's, that will be taken down if that makes sense. But Marab has a great striking as well. So that's where Marab, I put Maraub over Dom. But Dom has great striking, but his track is more about forcing you to convince where Maraub just walk across an void and force that fist fight. And then, you know, he's gained a debt where Doc's like, I don't want to be hit. I'm going to move.

You miss, I hit you. I move. When you're moving like that, your feet are planted to go, boom, to, like, drop the weight and hurt somebody. So I feel morale would take that risk in order to, like, man, and I got shot. But that's just my theory. By the way, in terms of content creation, what do you enjoy more? Shoots like that or when you do the interviews? Hmm.

to be honest with you it just all depends because for me I'm more focused on like just vibing out and then Michael and Nick are on the side of like packaging it well for the viewers

so for me like yeah I like both of them I was going to go into detail like how we navigate stuff but for me I like you don't want to give up the secret sauce

well here's an example. Like for me, when I do the training, the training vlogs and mighty journey, I just wanted to be realistic, realistic as possible. Like, we go in a gym, we're taking the class, we're going through rounds, we're drilling, we have a music blasting. I love all that because that's the actual environment that the app is getting ready in to compete. But when you do that, you have to, you know, silence the music. You can't hear the competition just like, going up between me and Rob, you can't, you know, you've got a, the centered span of a person who's watching their content is very short. They want action, action, action, action. So for me,

I don't mind watching, you know, like I say, there's a training log of John Jones and Gable Steve's, so I just threw that out there. And let's say it goes from, from A, Gable shows up, John shows up at his house, it was that, da, da, da, they're talking, and then they go to the gym, And they start drilling and all that stuff. And it from joint, it goes from this, X, Y, Z. I am comfortable. I would like to watch all of that. There's a lot of people out there who don't want to watch all that.

So you have to cut so much stuff out where, for me, I'm like, just let that shit run. Like, let it run. Like, I have that. And they tell you, if you build it, they will come. So if you, if you, this is my experience training from Rob from me walking in the gym to the very last, the very last round. I mean, there's so much stuff that you guys didn't get to. see that we just take it up because people just like, ah, I don't want to see anymore, turn

it off. So there's got to be a secret sauce of it. So for me, I like just going in there, the music's blasting, and everybody's having a good time. I go, I mean, I went to Andre Philly, like, and him got, like, around it. And that was great time too. So, like, there's so much stuff that people don't get to see because we're trying to navigate, you know, that, that sweet spot for you guys. Have you ever been in a position? I know you're just kind of starting this sort of this type of content for your channel where you felt like someone was aware of the fact that they're being filmed that they're up against DJ and they were going a little bit too hard has that happened yet or are these all guys that you like and

respect and are pretty much friends with these are guys like respect and friends with and I'm very passive like if somebody wants to get on camera and you know they beat me I'll let them have it I'm not I'm not to worry about it yeah well we did see you at the IB J.JF, which you had the rematch against the dude that you beat last year, right? And you showed that he beat you, which I thought was a great, great thing on your part, and there's a great lesson to be learned there for many different reasons. But you, I think you injured yourself in the match, right? But didn't injure. I felt two pops. And then once he went back to the same position, I was like, uh-uh, it ain't happening. I just, I just passed. And it was funny because when I got by

calm, me and my professor were talking, and he goes, why didn't you just turn your knee? I was like, you know what, I should have just turned my knee because I would have been out of the knee bar position, like the knee crane. And then I stuck my hand in there to help, not help, but tried to avoid him going after my Achilles. And that kind of wedged my arm in there, so I couldn't turn my knee. But I caught before I got injured. And so what are the ramifications? Like what kind of an injury did you actually sustain? How are you feeling now?

Oh, no injuries. Nothing. Nothing. No. It just hurt two pops. And I was like, oh. Oh, and then he would have went from him. I said, okay, I'm still good.

And then he went back to that position. And right when he got back to, he's about to start, you know, pressing his hips into it, and I felt the burning sensation. I was like, I said, ah, I was like, nah, I ain't happened a dog. So luckily I'm blessed that. No injuries. I'm able to play football my kids. I'm still grappling, left and weights.

We're good. Noguchi. How's the ego after that? Like, are you pissed? Does the old competitor come out or, like, not bothered at all? Not, dude. I trained two days, though. I grapple two days a week and then I do a live open that on Fridays.

So I'm training three days a week where these guys, you know, they're training five, six days a week, five, two days, two times a day. Like, I am, I can't have an ego when I'm not putting the work in when somebody else is putting more work in than I am. That makes sense. Right. Like, I know what I'm going against. That's why it's a challenge, essentially, right? so no no ego I'm happy I'm able to still be healthy enough to to compete and travel

and yeah they're a healthy life what what about a trilogy do you do you want to get this guy back if if our past cross again yeah absolutely I think it'll be fun like at the day I think it's fun and a lot of people always ask me it was like man why'd you post you losing and that revenge arc and I was like I read a book it's called the psychology and money and a lot of people always post there are Ws or Ws or Ws or Ws or Ws or when they're doing well on Instagram and YouTube or whatever and for me, Warren Buffett

is an idol of mine. I really look up to him, like the way he invests in it. They make a lot of money. He says, well, in the book, it was talking about like, you never hear about Warren Buffett's a loss, but he's lost probably millions of dollars along the way to become the Oracle of

the Oracle that he is. And for me, I think it's important that, like, hey, I train, I went in there, I competed against this guy. He submitted me, and I think it's important that people see the losses of somebody who's navigating a new journey to try to become the best version of himself. So that's why I really enjoyed that in case. We did.

I think it's very important, very important. You may not want to answer this question, but just curious, like in terms of being able to roll with anyone out there, is there a dream partner for you, someone that you would die to get on the mat with? I say GSP, but he's bigger than me. I think he's kind of cool to wrap with him to see how well he is. Like we're going to try to set up a mighty journey with him for a long time. Oh, that would be sick.

You know, conflict, not conflict, but just scheduling, you know, issues. So I want to do him because for him, he's, what, 44, 45, he's in his mid-40s. He looks better than half the Walter weights on the roster. Let's start there. He still is a healthy lifestyle. He still moves good. And that's inspiring to me. Where, you know, when I went to syndicate, they're like, are you sure you're not going to come back a fight?

I was like, no, I don't want to. And I was like, well, the way you're moving, how you still look fit, you shit. I was like, isn't that the whole point? It's to be like a martial artist still live a healthy lifestyle and like live that like mindset. Like that's what GSP does. And I think it would be great, mighty journey and a mighty cast and sit there talking about his life after fighting. How is he able to navigate his career? I mean, it'll be cinema.

Oh, that would be incredible. He actually recently said that you were one of his inspirations when he was champion. Did you see this? I did. I did. And the feelings were mutual. Man, what a time that was. Also, a champ during that era was Ronda Rousey.

I feel like something's happening here, DJ. I never thought in a million years she would come back to M.A. and show any sort of interest. I feel like she's seriously considering that you don't post that stuff unless you're considering something. I'm talking about this stuff here and her evolution. What do you think? Yeah, if you wanted to cut back, I think she'll be fine. Like, when I look at the woman's band-in-weight division,

I don't feel like the, I don't feel like the generation has really moved past her skill set. Like, I think the only hole she had her game was going to get somebody super athletic, like a men of Nunes and somebody who's, like, not got a lot of her to use her judo, right? And I think some of the things about her, like, I fault her career, amazing career, I read it things about like I remember she said she got kicked in the face and her jaw was like this place whatever for like two or three weeks and she couldn't eat apple and I was like that's a normal thing for me like when I would train like I'll get locked in the gym I'm like I can't eat apple I was like oh shit it it is what it is but it is so um but yeah I think she come back I think you make a lot of money and I think you know thorough ass on the white house card you ever like five million and she got up and as I said again you want on that card too DJ is that what you're saying God no I don't want on that card I'm going to watch them make content on there.

I suppose they should check out the YouTube channel because we're doing all the breakdowns for that White House car. You know, Conro Biggers out there

talking some crazy shit. He wants a hundred million and some visas. Well, do you fault me. I don't know where he's getting that talk at. Not only that.

He wants 100 golden visas too. You got to love Connor. He's amazing. Okay, I don't want to keep you much longer, but let me ask you this. You usually make picks. Have you made your pick for the main event?

Pereira and Kalaya of 2 yet. you, that's an interesting one. You know, I do price fits, okay? So it's either more or less. Okay, okay, okay. When I'm looking at that, I like less for the takedowns from Uncle Life because he had 12 attempts on the first time they fight.

He couldn't get it down once. So they haven't had one and a half, you know, takedown. So I went less with Uncle Life for the takedowns. But I think the fight, I feel Alex Pahed, he's in a different mindset where, you know, I felt like he carried. a lot of the momentum of the UFC in 2024 with

the fights, the Yuri Prohasta, the Clear Roundtree, just he was always fighting and always traveling. Like he was where in Australia, it was faring before he fought on Kaliath. I think we might see a different version of Alex Paheda

coming into this fight because he's refreshed, he's had some time to sit down and relax and enjoy the fruits of his labor all by traveling and making all that money. So we'll see. But if I had to roll the dice, Uncle I'm so good, though. Uncle Life, Uncle Life has been submitted,

but Alex Bejada doesn't grapple. So it's like, you know, if Alex Bejada can get to that, that flow state, then I think he can get Uncle Life trouble, but Uncle Life's so good about keeping the range, that crossing the void, that overextended the void,

going shots of the body, thrown two, and also if he can address that outside leg kick from Alex Bejada earlier, then I think he can survive longer. So it just all depends who shows up with fights, and who's willing to go out there and just, like, fight.

So we'll see. But I like less on a takedown. Okay, that's the pick. Although an actual winner you're abstaining from announcing. Yeah. Yeah. It's just too hard because Uncle Life still pushover and either is out to pick it up. Like, even like if the Cori and Marab, like, that means anybody can win.

Like, it's, it's very, very, where you see me, Alexis is he's going to win. Like, that's how he should win. Like, I can give, like, if he does this, he should win. Okay. To say, oh, he's going to win, like, yeah, it's very hard. What about Yeri Roundtree? Do you have a strong feeling about that one? Oh, I lost you there.

What'd you say? What'd you say? Oh, I got clear roundtree. Oh, there's a reason why. Okay, okay. Because Khalil comes from a Muay Thai background, and when he was able to do Shemal Hill, I believe he did the exact same thing to Yeru Pajasca, meaning that Uri Pajasca does a lot of things that aren't fundamentally sound, and that's why he's able to beat people. But when Yeripahasa keeps his pants down, you know, throw a high kick. He has to either block it or he's going to get hit by it or he's going to do a takedown.

And Yeripa has a hit just approaching a fight that I think somebody. who has, you know, good down easily. It's, it shouldn't be hard. And I think Khalil understands that. And when I saw Kalil, he looks fucking phenomenal in Vegas. So I'm going to go clear roundtree for that one. Because he makes your pros, but there's so many different things where I'm like,

that shouldn't be working right now. Have you seen the Smashing Machine documentary? That's what I'm here in LAT to see. No, no, you're here to see the movie. But have you seen the, did you see the doc from 2000? no I did not okay because you know that this is based on a documentary yes sir of Mark Kerr which I didn't really follow his career as much because it was before my time but yes I know it's based on the documentary Dwayne Johnson's playing

him yeah I'm excited to see because I'm a big fan of Dwayne Johnson and his active career and a hot take his best movie's been doing going at me okay all right well enjoy it thank you so much for for for jumping on really appreciate you have fun tonight with your lovely wife at the premiere and everyone go check out the channel. They don't need to hear from me. You're killing it over there. Congrats to you on all the success once again. And the best is when you go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, blah, now we know that you're really fun.

When you give us the, that's the best DJ. Love you, DJ. Thank you so much. And I appreciate you. Hey, I still love this stuff. Even though I don't fight, I'm very passionate about fighting. So peace out. Very clear.

There he is. The great Demetrius Johnson, the one and only Mighty Mouse. When he comes on and he starts giving the Brubon, da, da, da. By the way, what about my timing there? It seems like his ride was over and I was done with the interview. How about that?

That's good stuff. A smashing machine. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone's very excited about it. Have you guys seen it yet? No. Have not seen it. Not about it's on theaters yet.

What about that hot take about Doom? Did he say Doom was his best movie? Yeah, the 2005 thriller. Never heard of it. You've heard of the video game though, yes? Okay, I was just about to ask. I don't remember the Rock being in a movie called Doom. Yeah, he plays the main character.

Was it good? Yeah, Carl Urban Sussie Mixed He had a great sound show Best rock movie The Game Plan Uh Red One

Walking Tall was pretty good What about Scorpion King No Not bad, the Mummy The Mummy returns Yeah I don't think he's in either of this Was he in?

No, no, he was in the mummy A sequel, yeah I was thinking Brendan Fraser there What about the crew No no he's not the main character He's the Scorpion King In the Mummy You guys know he's not

he's in, like, the best film franchise of all time. Oh, duh. Okay. Fast five, yeah. Duh. Thank you, Jordan. Wow. I actually really enjoyed Jumanji.

What about the cruise one? Oh, Jungle Cruise. Jungle Cruise. Yeah. Minimally Blunner, always in the same movies together. Oh, she's in that, too? I didn't see that one. But I remember there was a lot of buzz about it because it was during the pandemic that it came out

and everyone was excited about that. Bawanna? Fast five. For sure. I was going to say Moana, I think is the best one. No, no, Fast five. Fast five. He makes a cameo in the other guys, which is,

a great movie. The other guys. Central Intelligence with Kevin Hart. Where's the fat guy? I enjoyed walking tall. Oh, you know? That was a good movie. One that's actually serious. Pain and Gain with Mark Wahlberg. The other guy was good. It's actually pretty damn good.

It's pretty crazy. Number one, as far as the tomato meter is concerned. Do you know what that is? Yeah, we really don't, we don't really abide by that, but yeah. Why, why, why? Yeah, you know, more of an IMPB guy. Moana is number one.

Yeah, it makes sense. Can I tell you something that's actually shocking to me? There's two movies that you would probably think I 100% would have seen already. Number one, uncut gems. Yes. Never seen it. Which I'm shocked that I've never seen it. By the way, isn't that a Benny Safdi movie?

It is. I need to see that before tomorrow. Number two, fighting with my family. Oh, you never saw the page movie. Never saw it. Oh, I saw it. That's like a pro wrestling movie. Yeah, it was pretty good.

Have you seen that one you see? No, I've never even heard of it Fighting with my family Is that the one with Florence Pugh? Yes, Florence Pugh is the main character in that That's great Okay, so that's number two on the tomato meter Yeah, it's a pretty great movie

He plays the rock obviously Like it's not It's not a huge like acting left It's got a 93% It's a great movie It's a really good movie How have I not? Stephen Merchants in it

Yeah, yeah How have I not seen this? You should see it It's Florence Pugh with black hair Yeah, because the character She's playing, yeah, from WWE Later known as Soraya Furious 7 is number 3

The other guy's number 4 Fast 5 number 5 5 is number 1 Gemongi 6 And Jamongi 7 Shout to Jamongi 7 Shout out to Jamai Fast Furious is number 8

I mean how many Fast Fieries Central Intelligence All of them Every single one of them Oh the rundown The rundown was a good I remember I actually saw the rundown in theaters

Way back in the day You see all these ones that I wouldn't expect And then you skip the This was back when I was very lonely I think in Syracuse The Rundown came out right Did you guys watch the TV show Young Runents?

Rock? Oh, you know what? I actually liked it. Wow. I actually thought it was fun. Oh, Baywatch also wasn't bad. Him and F Ron? Oh, yeah, Baywatch. No, I think Baywatch was actually a bomb. Was it not? No, yeah. He's critically maybe. He's typically in like some... It wasn't bad. It wasn't a bad move. Anyway, is it possible

is the best one yet? Absolutely possible, yeah. I mean, I'm starting to hear the Oscar... Can I break the fourth wall? Break it. Can I break the fourth wall? Slam through it. Uh-oh. There's going to be a team viewing of the smashing machine later today.

So what did you ask if we've seen it if you were going to break the fourth wall? Well, first I was wondering if we were I'd get to break the world. Have you guys seen it yet? The movie that hasn't hit theaters? Well, it's possible you went to one of the many premieres that have happened.

You don't think we'd share that. Listen, you guys go to things. You know, you go to the Alamos steakhouse. You go to this. The Alamos steakhouse. DJ just out there going to a premiere in L.A. I don't know. I don't see how those things are related, but yeah.

Who brought snacks? I brought the Sour Patch kids. My wife actually, my wife, Pac, this popcorn to pop. You're actually serious, Jordan? I'm dead serious. I was just going to say, I'm going to go. You guys bought popcorn for the movie?

I said, I guess so. She said, here you go. Wow. Rick is getting a soup dumplings. Mench, yeah. Are you looking forward to that, Ariel? Very much so. You know what I love?

I go with the popcorn with the Eminem's in the popcorn. Oh, yeah, a little monster bunch or whatever. So I don't actually do that. I think it's very weird that people do this. What? Isn't the incurb your enthusiast? I've seen this recently.

Weird how? Salty and sweet is such a great comment. I don't know. never heard us like a chocolate colored pretzel yeah no I do

I do like these things I just never knew people did them oh hell yeah sour patch kids you know what I love at a movie

what's the one the chocolate with the caramel the hard yellow box oh milk tuds tremendous yeah

what terrible candy this guy's over here I didn't know those are crazy the weirdos with the popcorn and M&Ms

but I love milk thuds how do you chew through it for real you guys is this a joke right now What do you have like three of them in a two-hour movie?

If you get chewing, if you get milk duds on Halloween, that's an auto throwout. That's an auto garbage. Yo, I go through my kids' candy just to take the milk duds. Yeah, and they're like, take it, Dad. My mom took stickers. Here's all the better scotch do. I love it. I love the hard consistency.

Yeah, okay. Like my teeth are kind of tingling. Apparently they get stuck to your teeth. I didn't know this until I went to the dentist and they were like, what is this, Frank? I'm like, oh, that's a milk dud. Well, serious? No, I don't know. I'm very excited to see this movie.

Same. A lot of people say that I'm on a movie buff or a movie connoisseur, but I've heard such great things. And tomorrow we'll talk to Benny Safdi about it, so I'm looking forward to it. Still to come. Diego Lopez, we'll stop by, and then we'll round out the interviews with Ben Ascran. I mean, I can't wait to talk to Ben. What a story.

I didn't want to talk about some more news and notes since we last spoke. Yesterday we got the big news that the November 8th Apex card, that's a UFC Apex card by the way, is going to be headlined by Gabriel Bonfins versus Randy Brown. And last week we found out that the November 1st Apex card is going to be headlined by Steve Garcia versus David O'Nama, not to be confused with the former Man United goalkeeper Andre O'Nana. Anyway, those two main events sandwiched in between the UFC 321 card in Abu Dhabi, Tom Asperl against Sorrel Gan, McKinsey Dernsey, versus Virna Jan Joruba,

and then of course the November 15th, Madison Square Garden Carding, which is an all-timer, Isamachathe versus JDM, Zhang Wiley versus Valentina Shivchenko. How do we feel about this Tupac of Apex Delights? between the it's tough it's tough man I love Randy Brown I love Steve Garcia

but it is it's tough do you think the UFC is kind of throwing in the towel as far as the ESPN deal is concerned or is this just

the state of the roster this seems to happen right around this time of year every year we it's always like October November you get the Ladd Dumas yeah

of the world you get the Marina Rodriguez McKenzie Dern made events you get these cards that aren't necessarily the highest quality Alexa Grasso, Viviana Arrujo main event a couple years ago. It's always around this time, but yeah.

By the way, I just want to note that the three examples you gave were all women's main events. Well, you know, that's just the nature of the game because I'm also shitting on these main events and their men main events. I mean, I look forward to Steve Garcia fights. I look forward to Randy Brown fights, but maybe not necessarily the name value to be UFC main eventers just yet.

I think we finally, it has happened, and it may not have happened today. It may have happened a while ago. There is no such thing as a UFC main event anymore. They are all equal. There is no quality. There is no minimum threshold. There is no, this could not be a main event. Anything is liable to now be a main event.

And that's okay. We're there. They will have fans that will defend this to, their day's end, that this is a quality main event and a quality card and that we're getting fights every weekend so we can't complain. But yeah, it's just, it's to go from, for them to be sandwiched in between the Abu Dhabi card and the MSG card, they're going to feel very different from each other. I remember there was once a time where Rashad Evans versus Michael Bisping headlining UFC

78 was like a real controversial one, or Chuck Liddell versus Keith Jardine headlining UFC was really controversial. And so to see how far we have come is remarkable. But yes, look, you're getting 321 and 322 with four title fights on those cards. The big question, of course, is, well, first of all, like, there's always going to be like a negative byproduct to that when you have stacked shows that. There are three pay-per-views within the span of a month and a half. So cards are going to be light in between. I still do wonder what's going to headline the December card because now, recently, Alex Volcanowski doing some media around the Perth card, has said we were thinking it was going to be December, but now it looks

like it's not going to be December. And I think he said, did he say February? I think he might have said that there was some sort of like Nanner. Did you guys see this? It might be a spanner. What is this? Oh, yeah, a spanner. What is a spanner? Something to bridge the gap, right? Like something to span the, the, the, the media. When I first heard it, I thought he said Spaniard, and he was referring to Ily at the poor. But says there might be a Spanner in the works? It's hard. I thought I was going to be, Lorone.

What does? Spanner is Australian and British English slang. A wrench. Yeah, a tool used to turn nuts and both. So like a wrench. There's a wrench in the plan. Based off some of those tweets from Lorone, it does feel like maybe Lorone is coming to the conclusion that he is not next. and so then the two questions are who would be next

if it's not lorone it has to be Diego lopez right I mean who else is there UFC rankings I suppose algebra would be the only only other name you could throw out in mowsaw there it is is it possible that they're going to bypass lorone and then the other question is

if volk isn't fighting in December who's headlining December because we know it's going to be pantosia van are they going to close out the ESPN era with Pantosiavana's the main event of the pay-per-view? Why not? I mean...

Just do it. Just do it. You're already looking forward to your new girlfriend. Leave the ex behind. Just throw them that Pantosia vans. You're already doing, you know, puff pieces on 60 minutes. We're officially stamping that puff piece? I did get my dad's thoughts. Oh, yes, please. Here we go. Here we go.

He's done a lot for the sport and a self-made success, like that he treats former presidents, in parentheses Obama. With respect, although that may have just been to broaden his audience. Interesting. Those are the official thoughts. You know what I liked when he talked about being at the inaugurations?

He's like, Obama was the only president to come up to me. But I'm pretty sure, okay, so Clinton was there, Bush was there. Is there another former president who's living? Who would be, like, Reagan wasn't there. George Sr. wasn't there. I think it's just Clinton, Bush, and Obama, right? it's not like there's like a litany of former president's just walking around. Yeah.

Am I wrong about this? I think it's just Clinton and W. Yeah. Anyway, thank you for that. It can't be Bantam White. Let's just say featherweight isn't available. I think Ily and Patty are going to be on one of the first Paramount shows, maybe in January, maybe in California.

It just seems like it's too big of a fight to close out the ESPN deal with. You've got to save that for the new year. Jack Della, obviously not. Hamza turned around in December, I guess, maybe, but against two. Naserdin, I mean, you might ask him to turn it around, okay, fine. Magomed at Light Heavyweight, no. Tom will have fought in October. Valentina and Zhang are fighting in November, and then maybe it's Kayla Amanda.

So it's either Kayla Amanda, Hamzat, or just end the ESPN era with Pantosha Van. I think Marab said he wants to get the win this weekend and then turn around. Turn around at 135 and fight who? I don't know. Find someone. No, I don't think they'll do Hamzat. I think they'll save him to the beginning of this paramount. I just can't imagine they're going to end the ESPN deal with a Hamzat fight.

I could see them doing both those. Maybe Kayla Amanda with Pantoja, Van, and the co-man. Would you be surprised if they leapfrogged Leroma? Murphy? I guess technically it's on leapfrog because he's he's ranked fourth, but I honestly thought Lorone Murphy was a shoe in. I'd like to see Loramon Murphy get the title shot. If it ends up going to Diego Lopez, all respect to him, man, an unbelievable performance, but we did just see him fight Volcanovsky. Is he coming on right now? Yeah, he's actually framing up. I was like, oh, God, I got to get this out. Real fast, real fast. Also, he's still got the stash. It looks sick.

Oh, my God. Hair too, hair too? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Legendary. We did find out that the main event for the October 11th card in Rio is, in fact, going to be Charles Olivera versus Montailles Gamrod. All the other guys spoke about this. This happened, I think, on Wednesday. So that was one of the big stories. And Gamrod's going to join us tomorrow to talk about getting that opportunity. There was a great clip of him reacting and getting very emotional. This is the opportunity that he's really been waiting for. So credit to him and credit to Charles for taking the fight on short notice after Fiziev was forced to pull out. So still to come is going to be the one and only Ben Ascran. That will be at around 3 o'clock. And in a matter of moments,

Diego Lopez, who is coming off of that incredible win over John Silva, which at this point is in the discussion for fight of the year. It was a very, very fun back and forth affair, a frenetic fight that ended in a Diego Lopez. has win in the second round. That was the headliner for Noce UFC, which happened two weekends ago. Same day as Connell Crawford. If you recall, I did hear in that interview with Brian Campbell that Dana White said that he was at the Noce UFC event and then got on a plane and flew to Las Vegas

to get to Canell Crawford in time for the main and co-main, which I didn't see him in attendance, but maybe I missed it. And I didn't see him do any media or anything like that. But, I mean, it's conceivable that he could have flown to Texas, San Antonio, from Vegas, and then flew back. Obviously, throughout Fight Week, he was in Vegas doing all the media, the press conference, and all the bells and whistles for Canello Crawford. So I thought that was interesting because people were talking about him not giving Nocha UFC the love that he usually would have, you know, given a Nocha UFC card. the last two, the sphere card of last year, and then the first one headline by Alexa Grasso versus Valentina Shvchenko. So in a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by Diego Lopez.

I think we're still waiting for his interpreter, who is going to join us any moment now. Okay. And so they are ready to go. Are they both ready to go? All right. So without further ado, let us talk to the man who defeated John Silva two weekends ago in a tremendous battle, frenetic fight, entertaining bout, the one and only Diego Lopez, who had an incredible showing

in San Antonio. He's kind enough to join us with Edgar. Hello, Diego. How are you, my friend? Good to see you. Good, good. I like that. He kept the mustache.

Yeah, only two weeks. How do you think? I think it's fantastic. I think you need to keep it. I think so. I think so. Well, I love it. And congratulations on the amazing win

two weekends ago. there's so much that I want to ask you about the fight but one of my favorite things was the reaction that you received from the crowd when you walked out you were a superstar in San Antonio were you surprised at how much they loved you? Bro, it's crazy. The people, the crowd, the energy is amazing for me.

You know, it's amazing. I feel this energy in the face of I know, in this time, I know in the crowd the people stay myself too. but I am a little bit scared because the people know I'm from Brazil but I live in Mexico, I represent Mexico, it's not UFC, where I say put the coins in me for representing Mexico for the North UFC. I am a little bit scared for the people, but I think after my song starts to sing,

the people are crazy in the crowd, no, the people stay in my side, the people love me this night. And when you say you were a little bit scared, you mean you were a little bit nervous before the fight? No, no, no, no nervous, but I'm a little bit scared for the people, you know, because these two guys from Brazil represented in the red line for the card from Mexico, you know? There was a lot of emotion and, you know, some tension between you and John before the fight,

and I felt like throughout the fight you didn't really take the bait. You didn't try to engage in this stuff with him, but then it all came out in the fight and in the aftermath of the fight was that something that you worked on let me not take the bait let me not get too emotional and let me prove my point

in the actual fight during the same thing during the time of the play John did you did say things during the month for that you knowhars and you all the semester you knowerast basically

and in the octagon I did your job and then you took to all the emotions that was your plan during the whole week Yeah, no, I think only in the week, I think whole training camp, you know, this guy tried talk a lot in the training camp, it's like in the interview,

how interview this guy talks shit about it for me. And it's okay, I'm staying calm, I'm still calm, I'm still calm, but after the fight, okay, it's my time for talk, you know? I think this happened after the fight. At any point did you feel like he crossed the line that he made this personal with you? I think it's not cross the line, but, bro, this is not my personality, you know. Like, I'm so, so calm.

I'm never there expecting nothing. It's okay you start a trow stalk with the people like this, you know? The people build your career in place with this. But if I build my career, my career only put a great fight in the octagon, you know? And even after you finished him with that incredible space. winning backable, he was bloody, was unbelievable. He did push you, and we've seen sometimes fighters get punished for this.

Do you think, and maybe it was more of a punch to the back than a push, whatever it was, there was, you know, there was some tension there, and there was a push of some kind, some violence. Do you think that he should be punished for this? Ah, me does that diga? Yes. Despite of the play, all we've seen that John

you put, more than you pego, a little bit of the head and many there are that if they're that they're

they're they're they're they're to be there should be to penalize to

John about that I think this is a UFs decision

you know this I know I know I don't have nothing for talking

about this but is you know bro it's Texas Texas Commission no

yeah I think this is in Vegas I think okay maybe this guy

has a consequence for for this no I saw a great photo

afterwards After you won, you were on top of the cage, and you were giving the middle fingers. And this has been turned into a T-shirt, I do believe. There it is. Incredible. Who were you flipping off there? Bro, it's like, okay, I mean, I'm walking for the Octagon. The coachman put the Vaseline in my face.

You teammates stay in the fish line in the seats. this guy started talking a lot of shit you know it's like you die today this guy killed you your socks like he

bad bad words you know it's like I'm not not like this it's okay in my head so okay after I finish

this fight I'm back with you guys don't worry this is the for this is the photo amazing you like that photo look

this time I have a lot of emotion you know like this time I have a lot of emotion I know in my head it's like I know

I don't think two times for show my things for these guys but I'm no approving my attitude

but it's okay yes it's okay is that the most emotional that you've been in a fight I think

I think so because this guy talking too much you know you team talk too much try try try

try take my my my patience no patienceia patience idea? Yeah.

Patience. Yeah. And because of that, and the pace, I talked about the frenetic pace. Are you happy with the performance? Obviously, you got the win, you got the finish. But I know you're a coach as well, and so you're probably very critical of the way in which you fought. Do you wish that it was maybe a cleaner fight? I wish that?

Yes. As you're coach, being your, you know, what you think? As a total, obviously, it's very well, but as a coach, having it more technically you're feeling with your like coach I know I'm not happy 100% with my performance

I know I need more but but like a fire I'm happy bro I love a fire you know I think I'm I'm a best coach

compared I'm a fire you know I think every time I try my my students I make the job perfect job you know but at this time for me it's like about me

I think I need to fix many things too I asked you before the fight if you thought maybe the fighting nerds were overrated and of course afterwards

John lost and everyone is now saying they're overrated and sort of dancing on their graves celebrating their losses what do you think of the team now now that you've actually

fought one of the guys I think now your team have a lot of materials for keeping work, you know, because you stay only one your career, your ego is like it's high, no, you think you

you don't need more things your training company, but I think now this guy having money things for fixing the training company, maybe this guy, you back strong, you know? You think they can come back? Get back on track? Yeah, I think so. I think so. It's, bro, yeah, okay, this guy well

this is factors know the the team in fact nerds are making

a great job in the like two years maybe or one

in UFC the the the four guys like only having

one lost UFC you know okay so we'll see how

they regroup I did see an interview with you backstage after the

fight and you threw up you you know this interview this one right here

with Carlos Leggopsy, you threw up. What happened there? Has this happened to you before? Yeah, bro, you know, the adrenaline line is like, I'm so happy. After the fight, I mean, welcome to the backstage, I mean, ask you for gatorade or coke or water. This guy sent me the gatorade and the coke.

I mean, drink this are too fast, you know. I'm starting to make like four, five interviews. I feel uncomfortable in my belly I tell the girl from the website so yeah I think I'm sitting a little bit a little bit

because I feel in course for my belly the girl say me okay don't worry take your time I'm in sit for

five minutes okay I'm okay I mean I think I'm keeping going for the interviews no I'm starting the interview with Carlos

okay I'm vomiting oh gosh well you seem to be okay afterwards and then drank more Gatorade after throwing up

oh yeah yeah Because, okay, I take my time after the, after I'm born, I'm breathed, I'm taking Gatorade, okay, I'm better, I feel better now. Is it true that you offer to step in and fight Charles Olvera on October 11th after Fizia pulled out? Oh, yeah, look, it's the guy asking me, no, the, I make the one interview, this guy asking me, oh, you think if you have said, offers the fight for you with the Charlie's in really? you accept it. So, yeah, why not? You know? No, it's like I, I build my career for the fights, you know. I think I'm healthy. I'm not having jewels. I mean, stay in my way, stay good. And the UFC, I don't know, if you have said, call me, okay, let's do it. Okay, well, obviously that's not happening because Gamrod is fighting Olivera. But what about you?

Do you have any sort of insight as to what this wind did for you and who might be next for you? Bro, I told you before the fight, I needed a great win for put my name again for the table with the title, no. I think I make a great job

in not UFC. I think now UFC, UFC have a big problem for the next for the title, no? I went for for, I waited for very much with Vogue. I think now I'm much better

the fight of the last time. I think I want the rematch with Vogue. That's what you want next. You want the title shot next? I hope. I hope. And do you think there is a chance that they give it to you? I think so. I think so. Because it's like I mean, people love you watch me.

People love you watch me. Lose or win, the people love you watch me. And I think now in the division in the top five the most satisfied for Vogue it's me you know the reason I'm asking you this is because I thought that they were going to

maybe do you versus Al Jermaine you versus Mofsar and give it to Lerone but now I'm starting to see some interviews and tweets from Lerone from Vogue and now I'm starting to feel like they're going in your direction like it's going to be you versus Volkanowski are you getting

that same feeling is that what you're Yeah, I think the feel is this, no, because I make a great job, great knockout, UFC, like my style too. I think now I have a, I have a lot, a possibility for the fight, the title again. How do you think that plays out? If you do fight Volcanovsky, maybe in February, January, February, how do you think this plays out for you? any place for me it's okay any place it's okay

don't worry for this no I mean stay here for the fight I feel better now I think I'm better fighter of the last time I'm okay January I'm okay February I'm okay

March I'm okay it's like December I'm waiting for the same too it's like in all that place you have said once I mean wait but in terms of the

the lessons that you learn from fighting him in April that you will try to you know do better if you get this rematch what are some of the things that you'll try to do differently this time around that you learn from that fight in miami oh yeah i told this too a lot a lot a lot of things in the last fight with evoke now i have more confidence in myself too i fix money things i have a new space only for me i have the cage i have my coach like 25 hours with me too um yeah have a lot of things different now if if they do go in

in the direction of you fighting Volkanowski. What do you think about the rest of the division? Can I ask, like, who do you think Lerone should fight, Moussar should fight, Al Jermaine should fight? Can you help? Yes, if you're in a battle with Bokonovsky, you think you'd have to play with Al Jermaine, with Lerone. Okay, I think the good match in the division,

I think Leron Mofa face Moussa. Okay. Face Ji, I think, is a great fight, too. Yes, I actually think that it might end up that way. And so, can I ask, who do you think wins those fights? Mova'sa versus Littlemore, I don't know, it's a tough fighter. I think, I think Mova'sa. And the Aaljo and the Jai, I think Aljo take a advantage in the grapple.

Okay. But right now, it's very interesting at Featherway, right? All of a sudden, even with Ilig, leaving, we thought maybe it wouldn't be, but I think you have thrown a wrench into their plans because maybe they were thinking, John, would be a fresh matchup, but here you are. Did you think that it would be one fight and you could possibly get back in there? Was that what you were thinking, or are you even a little bit surprised if this turns out this way? Yes, looking at the division of 645, it's very interesting.

already, even with Yelda, seeing this division, they thought that it was more easy

to get and maybe not so interesting in the division, but now that

you get to that your division, has done things

more difficult for the others for the yeah. I think I think

now after my after my run to the title uh you have said me the

fight with a jam for this no for okay let's Let's try this guy, let's try this guy. Like, a

if he's is ready to the top, no? And it's about that, well, I'm able to showing that I still being there to play for the title. So, UFC, basically, he feels that he was, that John was thrown in as a fresh face and he was ready for the top. But Diego is obviously demonstrating

that he's ready to defend and also deserves to be in the top. You're Jim, Brazilian Warriors, When did you open this? Oh, in Puebla. The Gine's in Puebla, Mexico. I opened the Ging only, I started only Jiu-Jitsu in 2017. 2017, I started teaching Jiu-Jitsu in Puebla.

And in 2018, I started the teacher of the class for MMA-2. I built them one team, like a professional team, in Puebla. and this, like, I live here, I teach in the gym. Now my guys stay in the gym for training. I'm staying here for the interview. Okay. After finish the interview, I'm going to the gym for look at this guy because I have like three, four, five, six guys fight in the next month.

And I'm staying here for helping these guys. I saw that you recently signed a deal with Aviator to be a brand ambassador with them. right and yeah and so I'm just wondering like all these amazing things happening to you

in your life was there a point where you thought this would never happen it seems like it's all really coming together

for you I'm just thank you have many you have many of many people you're

a ambassador of many marcas uh has a few years you think

you've been you're a reality uh no my my dream every time is that is I'm staying in WFC, but I'm not sure I have a great sponsor in my career, you know.

Now I have great guys in my side. I use this for help my students too, for help my gym, for helping the kids, for keep training. I take the advantage for this for help the people, you know. We saw a video after you won of your hometown. everyone was watching outside people reacting when you see that how does that make you feel and where exactly is that i i feel amazing i feel amazing i feel amazing for this this is in monaos brazil uh in my neighbors uh multiron uh bro this for me is amazing because like people uh the people is like you know me like i'm so young you know i'm so grateful the people is

stay in front in the street for watch the fight. I'm so excited, too, because I, are you back for one in my city in one week? Okay. That's going to be amazing. Last thing, if Volcanovsky is watching, what is the message to Alex? Oh, Volcanovsky is watching? Volk, let's do this again.

I mean, better fighting for the last time. I mean, wait for the rematch. Okay. Okay, let's see how it plays out. Thank you, Diego. Congratulations, great fight, great performance, great everything that week. You did an amazing job. Very happy for you, and thank you for coming on, as always.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much, brother. Thank you. Talk soon. Okay, all the best. And thank you to Edgar for helping us out. But as you see, each and every time we have Diego on the program, he continues to get better, doing a great job with the fighting and, of course, also doing a great job with the English.

as well. Tremendous stuff there. Turning into a superstar and I think he should keep the mustache. The whole package is a great one. All right, a matter of seconds, and I do believe he is ready. Okay, this is a huge, huge deal. It's a huge honor for us to talk to Ben Asgren. Obviously, we've talked to him many, many times before throughout the vast majority of his MMA career and even after his MMA fighting days were over over the summer. We received some scary news and by now you know everything that he has been through so I don't have to go into it right here. Now as we introduce him, we'll get into it with him. And so I'll just say without further ado, it is a massive, massive pleasure and honor to have the one and only

funky Ben Ascran on the program. Let us say hello to him on this Monday afternoon. There he is. What's up, Ben? How are you? I'm having a good day today. any truth to the rumor that you said man I need more chats with Ariel I'm not this is this is what I need in my life this would be the best medicine is that true you know sometimes rumors get skewed a little bit so I don't know I don't know

there's truth to that but you never know well it's lovely to see you honestly and sincerely and genuinely and you look you look like your old self I'm sure you don't necessarily feel like your old self well I have my shirt on so you can't see you see how skinny my arm is still. I have obviously gained weight. The lowest weight I have is 138, probably 25 or so

pounds heavier than that now. Putting my weight on, it's been difficult. At first, all the food tastes like shit. And then even after it stopped tasting like shit, I thought it was going to, so I didn't want it type thing. So yeah, just dealing with kind of issues like that. But food is finally starting to both look good and taste good. So it's much easier to put on weight. Okay. If you don't mind that I know you've talked to a few outlets about everything, but obviously I'd be remiss if I don't ask you about how this all started. I had heard that we could jump off from here that you were just having some back problems in late May and you thought it was a back spasm? Yeah. So I've had, I don't know, I'll say five back

spesms over the course of my career in a very similar spot on my right lower back. I actually rolled with Raphael Lovato on Friday. He posted that video of us rolling. And actually it's funny, he posted the part he posted where I tried to do a Peterson, but he was just too damn big. That was actually the part I was thinking like, oh, that was probably what did it right there because I was trying to force him over and he was just too big and strong. And then I wrestled the next. And then I came on when I played disc golf. And at no point did I feel anything.

And then, like, Saturday afternoon, we went to a friend's, like, pool get together. And my backslart hurt. And, like, I didn't even want to step by the pool. I was, like, waiting got some ice. I'm like, oh, man, I got a back spasm. Yeah. And then it just, I tried some chiropractic. And it was funny because that actually helped for a little bit.

So I might have had, I potentially had both the backcism plus this other thing. I don't know for certain. But yeah, then it keeps you hurting. On Tuesday, we left for Vegas for the Bitcoin conference. And it was still bad. And then on Wednesday, my wife forced me to the hospital, at which point I told them I had a backspousal of them and I had a history of them. I got a little bit of medicine for that and it didn't work for it the dam.

By the next morning, I was way worse. I was in really rough shape. And I went to the hospital. I remember walking in I don't remember anything else and correct me if I'm wrong you were sort of fighting your wife Amy about going to the hospital right

yeah you know I'm stubborn right yeah I'm stubborn and I always think I'm okay and honestly for probably the rest of my life that's worked out pretty damn well for me but I actually didn't fight that hard because and you know I think like subconsciously maybe I knew something was

wrong and I didn't want to admit it. Because if I want to find something hard enough, I'm just not going to do it, which is, you know, that happens a lot of times in my life. So I think maybe subconsciously I did know something that was wrong and I just didn't want to admit to it and I was really excited about a bunch of the speakers at the Bitcoin conference and like I can deal with pain. So yeah, I think that was, but luckily, if she wasn't there, I don't know that I would have went.

Okay. I would have to pass out or something first. So you say that you went to. to the hospital. And you're still in Vegas at this point, right? Correct. Uh-huh. And then you say, like, you go in and then you don't really remember anything else. What have you been told, like, what happened to you in that moment? You got to talk to my wife about that. But, so, yeah, I went in Wednesday. We went at the exact same place on Thursday. And the Thursday, I remember walking in the, like, waiting room, you know, like the front part. And I don't remember

anything after that until I woke up like I think it was like July 2 maybe or somewhere around that time don't remember the exact date um yeah so what actually happened I said there may have been a back fism also that was confusing me but I had this little spot of staff on my elbow and you know you don't need uh or you know at least to my experience prior to this you don't need antibiotics for every staff right So, you know, I, I showered real well. I cleaned it. I used some, you know, antibacterial and that type of stuff. And it went away, like, right?

It was like on my elbow. And then, you know, a few days later, it clears up. It looks all healed. But they say it somehow got into my bloodstream, which I, listen, I'm a doctor. I don't know how that works, but it did. And then from the bloodstreams, somehow it got into the lungs. Yeah. And then it's eating my lungs.

So that's kind of the long and short of it. I think in the beginning, they thought they could do heavy doses of, I wasn't awake-framed this, right? So this is, like I can have knowledge. Heavy doses of antibiotics, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And essentially, I was on a whole bunch of machines to keep me alive. And then at some point, they realized the only way I was going to stay alive was if I got a lung transplant. So when I woke up, I had two new lungs.

Did you have pneumonia? They called it, they called it necrotizing. pneumonia. But prior to like me going to the hospital, I think I'd even worked out a couple days in there. It wasn't like I was short of breath or like none of that stuff. I didn't really feel sick, I guess. The last morning before I went in, I would say I didn't feel very good. But like the day or two prior to that, like I would tell you, I felt completely fine. Like I said, I'm pretty certain I worked out on Tuesday and or Wednesday. Yeah, so it was shocking to me.

For the vast majority of the time you're talking about here, are you in Wisconsin or are you in a Vegas hospital? So we were in Vegas. I went to one hospital for two days, and I guess, man, I had, I'll crash, I cried, but I had so many people who were so good to me. So two of our friends, one of which is a doctor and one of which is she was actually a nurse practitioner in the CVI that I would actually end up in in Milwaukee. She's kind of in charge of it. They both flew to Vegas.

Wow. Help my wife. And so they kind of determined the first hospital didn't have what it took. And they got me transferred to this better hospital in Vegas. Like I said, I don't remember any of this. They got me transferred to a better hospital, and then they just started doing research. And actually, the hospital here in Milwaukee has a really good department for this type of thing. And so, you know, they suggested that I'd come back here and a bunch of them.

They even put together, like, I essentially took like a private jet with medical stuff on it. So, because I wouldn't, obviously, I wouldn't have been able to be off stuff for long enough to fly. back, right? So I'd be this very specific type of medical flight and I flew from Vegas to Milwaukee and they got me to freighter, which is the hospital here. It's local, but apparently they're really, really good at the specific thing I needed. For the beginning of this, none of us really knew about it in terms of, you know, the media or the community, I'm sure, obviously people close to you. And then words started to trickle out. And honestly, just, and I'm sure this is not news to you, but the word wasn't great, you know, even some people saying this is it, which was shocking.

And I mean, honestly, Ariel, there was, from what I've heard from other people, there was multiple times when it was almost over. Wow. And so, you know, I know one time my friends, I had two friends that were in there and like literally my heart stopped. for like 20 seconds, right? And I guess that happened like multiple times in a couple hours and they were all scared you of this. And, you know, I don't remember any of it. And then there was a few other times

where my wife said, you know, like it wasn't good. And, you know, eventually they sedated me so hard because every time I would even move a little bit would affect my oxygen levels. So, yeah, I mean, I don't remember any of it. But yeah, I don't think it was very good. When you got better and spoke to doctors about it, Did they say this was a miracle?

Did they think that you were not going to get out of this? There was, it's funny because they know, I don't think they want to express that to you, but yeah, there's a few that thought I was a goner. And honestly, had I not got the lung transplant in such expedited fashion, and I did that because I met all their criteria, right, had a life-threatening illness, I was young, I was healthy, I don't drink, I don't smoke. So all these metrics, they wanted me to. hit. I was there. And so, you know, I got a lung transplant relatively quickly. And, you know,

who knows? Honestly to that, I don't, you know, I don't know. Wow. And it was a double lung, right? There are two new lungs. Wow. And how long is that surgery? I don't know. I wasn't there. No, well, I mean, I guess technically you were there, but like, what did they say? Is that like, I don't know anything about it. It's like a 10-hour surgery? I mean, it sounds pretty. Yeah, it's probably a long time, but I know they said they had like scrape my previous lungs. out of my chest cavity, which sounds awful. I don't even like, you know, they cut me straight across like here and they just open it up, which sounds awful.

Yeah. Do you know anything about the donor? I don't. They don't really tell you that. After a while, they'll give you the option to message them. And then if they want to, I thought it's not the donor, right? The donor's family. Sure.

If the donor's family wants to message you back, they can. So, yeah, let's see on that one. Okay. one thing that I was wondering about and I hope you know I'm not trying to make you emotional here but I was thinking about this a lot because we know a little bit

about your wife, she's on social media and I know you have kids you're out of it right like you don't know and so in a crazy way they're the ones who are really suffering in the sense that like they have to see you in this state

yeah did your kids know about I mean I'm sure they knew because you were in the hospital how did you deal with that or how did she deal with that we kind of shielded him from it we never let them know this is you know her telling me

we never let them know really how bad it was but yeah I mean they visited me in the hospital multiple times yeah so I don't know that she ever told them for him how is she handling it um she did great and she's

you know obviously like I'm way way better than what I was but like um there's still a lot of things that kind of need help with and like it's weird because one of the biggest things right now is I just don't have the energy so like today I've felt really good and I've done a bunch of things but then it means I'll probably crash tonight right and I'll maybe feel shitty tomorrow and that's kind of like how it works it's just like I just

can't do that many things I get worn out my body just can't handle it and it's even it's not like I'm doing a lot. It's like, you know, previously I would have done 10 things. I'm doing like three of those. And then that's like exhausted. Can you walk on your own? Oh, yeah. I started, um, when I left the hospital, I was, you know, I had a walker.

Um, and I did say, I dish that kind of a while ago. I ditched that, um, once it was the end of August. You know, I said, I started trying to walk like real short distances like here to the table or here to there, you know, and I just got more and more comfortable. Yeah, I walked yesterday. Last week, we went on a hike, and I actually got, I got lost. I told my doctors. Oh, my gosh.

But, yeah, so my previous long walk was like 25 minutes. I walked 47 minutes. But then that's one where it's like, I felt like crap for two days after that, you know, it was not good. Okay. Yeah. I know this might be a silly question, but like, what about driving and things like that? I'm driving home.

Okay, wow. Okay. Wow, that took a while, yes. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of things on my own. I'm just not doing them really well and not too much of that. I said, Amy helps me out. Now, our kids aren't great idea yet, but it's been a good opportunity for them to take more responsibility.

Our oldest is really good at it, but the other ones aren't quite there yet. So, yeah, I've lost it on a few times because my main thing is like, Amy is so busy right she's got deal with my shit now too you before I was a contributor right and now I'm not really or you know maybe a little bit I'll try to help out here and there um but so it's like there's so much burden on her and then you know the just everything with the hospitals and insurance it's like I can't tell you how many hours she's spent trying to figure that out and deal with it and that type of you know so it's like she's been so busy and And so it's like we, I've really been prodding the kids to contribute more to her.

You're a pretty active guy. I mean, you were going to come back and compete at RAF. I was so excited to wrestle, and now it's sad because I'll probably never get to wrestle again. They didn't say no for sure, but it's probably unlikely, I would guess. I'm just wondering, how do you like, how do you not go stir crazy? Because you're coaching, you're in the gym always. Now your life is a lot more calm. Well, I got some mats in my garage and the kids come over to privates.

Oh, wow. Yeah, that started a few weeks ago. But, yeah, I mean, honestly, that's probably one of the worst parts right now is I can't be up and active for a really long time. It really wears me out. And I'm not supposed to be around people. And so, like, yeah, well, honestly, this weekend was easy for my family. We didn't have a lot of stuff going on, so it was great. But, like, a lot of weekends it sucks.

It's like Ozzy has football in the morning and I can't go to that. And he has cheerleading. And Alex has soccer. It's just like I just freaking sit here alone, but, you know, for six or seven hours or something like that. So, yeah, it's not ideal. What do you do to pass the time? Read a handful of books, play them on my phone. You know what I started doing?

I started watching the Brewers because Ozzy, my son, loves the freaking Brewers. So I'm watching them with him, which I haven't watched baseball regularly and 20 years. maybe more, but the brewers are good this year. So it was actually kind of fun to watch, you know, to follow them with my son. I'll never forget when you popped up, the first time you popped up on Instagram, that video that you posted, your hair was a lot darker. You had a like a Fu Manchu. Yeah, well, I was trying to shave myself and they like wouldn't let me. It was my hands in my arms didn't work. It was a disaster. It was shocking to see you like that because you don't usually have facial hair. And when you were in that, like, when you

you woke up, was there a part of you that broke mentally where did you think, like, I won't get out of here? Am I like, how did you deal with the news? Because when you wake up, you have someone who has to explain to what just happened. Yeah, so I think in some way, shape, or form, because I'm trying to reflect on this, like, just is I think I got some issue where I can only think forward. Right? Because, like, I mean, man, even in this whole time, it's been, I think it's been 12 weeks

since the surgery, so probably a little less than 12 weeks since I, like, was conscious in that sense. But, like, I haven't dwelled on it at all. And it's like, you know, some days when I really feel like shit, I'm like, oh, man, I wish I didn't feel like this today. I wish I could, you know, do this or do that or something that I want to do and I have to realize I can't do that today. I need to freaking rest because I feel terrible.

And then, you know, they would say if you push it too far, then it's going to cause complications. So, um, you know, there's been a few days where I'm like, ah, I wish I felt better today so I could do the specific something, but I haven't looked backwards all that much. It's just like, okay, here's where I am and, you know, I got to work from this point. And, you know, one of the things I would stress my wrestlers, which I think maybe I've done it so many times I've brainwashed myself is that anxiety and stressing people is generally caused by thinking about things they cannot control, and so you focus on what you can control, right? So I say, like, Ariel, if I had you fight Tom Aspinall, how many times are you going to

win? And you say, zero. I said, Ariel, if I had you fight your youngest son, how many times you're going to win? You'd say all of them. And so it's like, the result of a contest is often not within our control, but it's like, how hard can you try, right? So what happened in the past is not in my control. I can't do anything about it. Like, do I wish it was different? Of course I do. Right?

I was having a great time in life. Everything was moving in a positive direction. But I haven't really dwelt on that too much. And I think that's probably, you know, and honestly, like, I think for a lot of people, because, you know what, Ariel, when I put that first Instagram video up, it was because when I first got my phone back,

I don't recall which day it was. Because my wife kept up for a while. I think she was responding to a lot of myself. But when I first got my phone back, I have like a thousand-some text and a thousand-some messages, and my hands were like this. So I was like, I couldn't like text. And so it's like, well, I want people to know how I'm doing,

especially now that I'm likely not going to die. I want to put that out there, and I had no idea it would go as viral as it did. And I think a big part of that is like the message of like, hey, I am where I am and I'm going to try to get better. That has seemed to be really impactful for a lot of people. Oh, yeah. And even like your subsequent videos where you're trying to like almost give us motivational messages as you're going through this is amazing to see. but then I'm reminded of the Ben Astrian that, you know, spoke to us on this show the Monday after the Mazvedal fight. Like, you've never backed down.

You've always been able to put a positive spin on this. So if there was ever someone that was equipped, I think, mentally to deal with something like this, it's someone like you. Yeah. I mean, I always said fighting or wrestling losses never really bothered me. I saw them as an opportunity to get better and an opportunity to improve. And, you know, if I want to look at the depressing side of this, every once I'll bring up to my wife because she'll maybe be too optimistic

it's like there's a whole bunch of shit that I love that I'm never going to get to do again you know it's like I'm not supposed to go outside in the sun for too long I'm not supposed to chainsaw I'm not you're right I'm really not probably supposed to be around big crowds that much after a year maybe a little better but there's this long list of stuff

I'm just not supposed to walk around barefoot That one pisses me off. I did this morning. Don't tell anybody. You know, so it's like, if I dwell on that, like, here's all these things that I really enjoy or really love and I'm never going to get to do them again. I get that'd be really disheartening. So it's like focus on what I can do every day to get better.

And then, you know, hopefully I'll get good enough to do a lot of things I enjoy or maybe I'll find a few other things that I enjoy to do. And, you know, obviously I think medicine and healthcare is moving forward. So who knows, maybe in 10 years, there'll be something where they can alleviate some of these other problems I have, too. I have no idea. So that's kind of how I'm envisioning it in my head is just focus on the day-to-day, you know, try to do what I can do.

And, you know, hopefully I'll be able to live semi-regular life and do a bunch of things I enjoy. And who knows, maybe medicine gets better and I can even have a better outcome than that. How close to 100% are they saying you can get to your own self? I mean, they said, like, they were giving me an example of some guy who ran marathons and he was able to run a marathon. I think it was only like a year and a half after his surgery. So, like, they say, and this guy that was like, they gave me all these guys to talk to if I wanted to.

One guy was like a mountaineer, so he does that, but, so I think it, Basically, I can be really healthy again, but it's just like, you know, now that it'll be like effing stack of pills I got every morning. Like before this, I was on no medications, none, right? And now it's like, I don't know, I've probably got to take 40 pills a day. Wow. And that is, that's going to go down. But it's never, ever, ever going to go to zero.

How often do you have to go back to your doctors? How often do you have to see them? I was, I just crossed a threshold. It was once a week. and now it's every other week for a while and I think after that it goes to once a month and then I think after a year it becomes even more infrequent

I don't know if it's every quarter or every six months or something like that. Was there anything? That feels like a really long ways away to me. Sure, sure. Was there anything you could have done in retrospect to avoid this? I don't know.

When I think about those things, it's like that's just not something I would have done. Yeah. You know, like when my back starts hurting on Saturday, go to the doctor. I'm sure some people would have done that. I would have done that at zeroed up a hundred times. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Like it's, I just like, I didn't feel sick. I worked out. My back felt tight. So like on Sunday Monday, I was supposed to wrestle with a kid. And I said, hey, man, my back's so bad. We got to find your different partner because I cannot wrestle. You know, so. Yeah, but I really thought I was a backstab.

and I didn't feel sick at all. So I suppose I could have went to the doctor right away, but that just seems to me to be an unrealistic possibility of who I was. And I'll let you go in a moment because you've given us a lot of your time. But I'm just curious, when you, you know, I remember you got out of the hospital and then like two or so days later you posted a video saying I'm back. It was like sick days. Okay, yes. Do you have, because everything seems very positive, but like, do you have moments where you feel yourself slipping, where you feel yourself breaking?

And if so, how do you get out of that funk? Man, I hate being in the hospital. It sucks. Yeah. I was there way too long this summer. No. I guess, you know, like I said, I could have been more careful, like my back hurts. I could have went to the doctor, which is, man, I can tell you from age 30 to 40, I don't

think I went to the doctor. Like, to get my hip done, and that's it. But, like, just as a general, I'm going to go to the doctor or whatever, like, no, I was healthy and I didn't need to go. And maybe took my kids as a doctor, so I'm right, that type of thing. Right. But now it's like, for example, I'm on all these immunosuppressants. So it's like I need to be cognizant of whom around. And if they're sick and then if I start feeling stuff, I need to be able to go dress that with my doctor.

And so I Yeah, so I guess I have more cognizant of it Just because I'm in a little More difficult of a predicament than I was ever previously Did you see that the U.S. team had your initials on their gear? Yeah, that was a man like I said I don't want to get too emotional But

But I've brought the two women flying to Vegas To help my wife with that stuff I've had Just an insane amount of support from So many different people in so many different ways, whether, I mean, my wife set up that Help Hope Live, which is essentially like a GoFundMe, but you can only use it for medical expenses, which I thought was good because I didn't want it to be like, we're just getting this money. That would have been weird. I think she felt similarly. We had thousands of people donate on there. I mean, it's crazy. And then, you know, her mom grew up at church instead of a meal train. And I had so many friends. come and visit i mean i'm still having them right just come and visit and help out or sit with me in the hospital or you know that type of stuff and you know when i was in the hospital when i finally started walking around the hallway it was kind of sad because it seemed like there were some people

who never had anyone with them ever you know i was so lucky that i had such a great community and um honestly sometimes it'd be too much i'd be like any i can't take anyone else i just need to lay here and be quiet because it's wearing me out to have too many visitors you know like that's a good problem to have and then yeah just everyone's just been so generous feels really good last thing if I may

and I don't want to ask you about specifics because I think it's very tacky but there did become a thing as like who's helping Ben who's not helping Ben you know famous people my wife said you were going to ask this no no but I don't want to ask you who specifically I just want to know if there's anything

you want to say about that because I don't think anyone should be forced to help anyone hell no and so I just want to know if you wanted to clear Dave Paul and Dana White both donated sorry say that again sorry I missed you

Jake Paul and Dana they both donated okay they were both very generous but to your point it's like I don't expect anything out of him right if they didn't want her they don't want her that's their money

you should go do what they want with it and I'm I'm grateful that they felt generous enough but then also it's like we are you know Amy and I talk we don't want to talk about too much because it's like there was literally like a thousand some people that made some donation. And, you know, um, say $10,000 is somebody who's

got many millions versus, you know, $25 and someone who doesn't have anything. It's like, that's just as big of a burden on that person, right? So you look at a person to person burden. And so we had so many people that were really, really generous. Those guys are both generous. It's really, you know, it's almost funny when it comes from like, I don't if you call me your enemies or the people you haven't seen eye to eye with. Um, but I mean, that's kind of brings out the good side in humanity, I think. Is there anything you want to say to the people, the average dough, anyone who supported you?

And is there anything that we need to know about how we can continue to support you? Yeah, it's looking like it's going to be okay at this point. But yeah, we just had so many people who are really, really generous, in all ways. You know, I said in all ways, whether it was meals or helping with our kids. Because, you know, especially when I wasn't awake, my wife had to deal with all the medical stuff. If they needed something, they talked to her because I couldn't talk. You know, from donations to help help live, you know, a lot of college friends and old friends come to visit me and see me just to spend some time with me.

Yeah, really in all, it just was really, obviously, I never would have chosen to go through it, but it was really amazing to see how generous and charitable people were. Amazing. Thank you, Ben. All the best you get well soon. Really appreciate you coming on. You got it. There he is. Ben Ascran, who has been through a lot. What a summer for him, but so great to see him on the other side of it. And yeah, I was in that process reminded of who he is as a person and the stuff that he's been through and the way he would handle setbacks. Truth be told, he didn't have a lot of public setbacks. But, you know, back end of his career, the Mazvedal fight, the Jake Paul situation, and he handled it just like this, just like the guy that you see on social media. Very matter of fact, positive outlook, very inspirational. And it's amazing to think back to, I remember getting the message from someone close to him

that it wasn't looking great. And now to see him here and looking like that, looking like his old self, I know he doesn't feel like his old self, and he's obviously skinnier, but to see how far he's come is pretty amazing. And yeah, shout out to his wife, Amy, who appears to be an angel. I know her very, you know, very much from afar, but obviously they've been together for a while and seems so loving and supportive of him. And, you know, I can't imagine what she's been through when you're seeing your significant other,

getting transported, is your partner, your father of your children. And in a state like that, I can't imagine how scary that is. So shout out to them, shout out to the Ascans, much love to them, and I wish that he only continues to get better and that, who knows, maybe he defies the odds once again and competes for RAF or does some sort of exhibition and shows us all that we can truly overcome everything. All right, let us keep going.

Let's talk about some more things. Actually, we have some super chats. I want to answer those before I keep going. Yeah. Dear world, man. Yeah, why not? Yolo. Got a big movie premiere to attend.

Hey, got my hotel booked at the MGM for WrestleMania, but was just so discouraged. By the way, I actually thought you were saying this. Like the way you said that, I thought you got your hotel book. Well, I did it. Okay, very nice. Should I start over? No, no, no, now I see it's Jake from...

Now I have second thoughts, friendly advice. P.S., please let Frank be the superchats. Okay. Well, wait, sorry, let me just... Sorry, we got to side chat. Can I digest that? I got so discouraged my ticket. Oh, tickets starting at 854. Wow, at Allegiance Stadium, two nights.

Holy shit, they're going to make a lot of money off that. Listen, I don't know how much you can afford, whatever. I say, you got your hotel, Yolo, live it up. The next WrestleMania is not in the United States, so it's going to be a lot more expensive to go to Saudi Arabia, and who knows where the next one will be. I say, if you can do it, live it up, but, you know, who am I to tell you how much?

The cheapest ticket is $8.54? What is the most expensive ticket? $9,000 for floor seats, it says, on the AI overview on Google. $9,000 for floor seats. Yeah, but you get your chair, though, right? You get the chair? Don't trust that AI overview. Yeah.

I wonder what a floor seat to MSG UFC costs, too. The money is nuts out there for ticket prices. And that's one night. They're doing these two nights. 18,000? Yeah, I know, but like, think about the money that they're going to be making off of this. It's quite a bit. As I compare, yeah.

Tickets for the Ryder Cup this weekend were hundreds of dollars. Like, the cheapest to get in on Saturday was like $1,100. And what's it, what's like a usual? I don't really know about golf tickets. Like, what is golf? I mean, I've been to, like, Sunday at the U.S. Open for like 160. Oh, wow. And that's just to stand at a hole, right?

Yeah, yeah. But you can't roam around. You can roam around. Oh, yeah, but it gets tiresome. and there's huge crowds and you're not going to really be able to see the shots. I mean, we were talking about this on boys in the back, but like just ticket prices in general

for anything in the world. Especially like WWE, you're almost certainly like bringing your kids. It's, I feel like it's rare that it's just a person buying a single ticket for themselves. Unless I'm crazy, did I not hear Mark say something about like we used to price it family friendly and now it's like we were leaving money on the table? One of the TKO executives, I'm fairly certain.

And I remember saying something to the effect of like, it used to be price family friendly, but no more because we were leaving money on the table and now we're coming after it. Well, here's what you have to understand. Yeah. Dynamic pricing, right? Let me explain to you dynamic pricing. That word kills me. All right. So I will say on a site fees.

A different site, tick pick. I can get a two-day pass for 481. Two-day pass, 481? Like $481? Here it is, by the way. Mark Shapiro. Vince McMahon was primarily. pricing tickets for families and wasn't focused on maximizing the opportunity to increase said

prices like TKO is focused on doing from one of those Goldman calls that we get. So, yeah, you know what, fuck them kids. I was going to say. Yeah. Well, you remember when Rikishay was on? And he said that it was like a family friendly product. And then people are like, well, you know, you are having matches where forks are being stuck into people's heads. I think what he was referring to was the price of the tickets. I believe that's what he was referring to. Here are the WrestleMania. of 42 ticket prices, according to Newsweek. Section A on the floor, 8,900 and 98, Section B on the floor, 3,800 or so. R101, obviously a little higher, 2,200, 100 level, between 1,100 to 1,400, 200 level, same-ish, 300,

$300, $1,100, and then, yeah, $8.54 for the cheapest. These are the retail price? This is what they sell for from the box office? This apparently does not include Ticketmaster fees as well So just imagine what those fees on a $9,000 ticket I am seeing a two-day pass on Tick-Pick right now I have to fees $481. That's a parking pass.

I mean, you're sitting with God. That's a parking pass. Section 433 row 8, like you are in the nosebleeds of all those. There's airplanes buzzing. You're not even watching the ring, you're just watching the Jumbotron above the ring. By the way, you know, obviously most people are coming from out of town so that doesn't include

flights, hotels, food, souvenirs, you're going to have to get a souvenir. Oh my gosh. But that chair. I'll enjoy it on TV. It's got to the point where you cannot afford to be a fan of anything if you want to go see a live.

Whether it be a concert. By the way, this is not specific to WWE, this is not specific to UFC. I don't am me, Frank. Yeah, what is that? Concerts are nuts. He likes niche music, you know. What is the end?

You're telling me your cost to go to these concerts and stuff significantly increased it is it increased been there's some artist like when we're going to see next month that's a little high for one show but when you go to multiple shows you know the budget 25 to 50 and high roller Frank over here 25 to 50 dollars yeah I mean who are you seeing some some super niche sure the chat will love I'm gonna go see swans on Tuesday of next week I'm familiar if I've heard a swans it would be your chat's coming for garbage man dead

with an s how swans how do you spell swans uh that's s w yes uh a yes yes followed by another s all right you could have just said that i mean it could have swans i didn't know if it was a bit or no i don't know what the hell is trying to get over because he can't read he wants to pull fast i had to read i'm reading it myself to make sure i got all the letters right anyway all to say it's very expensive but uh if you already bought your hotel to i'm assuming your hotel room and and I'm assuming the flight as well. Live it up. Although, by the way, this is Allegiant Stadium.

You're going Section 400. You won't see anything. Nothing. At that point, for me as a fan, I'd rather just be at home. Thousand percent. Right? A thousand percent.

There will be diminishing returns on this at some point. There will be a point where enough fans have paid that price once, and then they just go, I'm staying home. So I was at the Ryder Cup this weekend. Bucketlist thing to do for me? like two hours in i looked i looked the person i was with i was like can't allow this would be it should be better just be watching it wait you went yeah yeah oh really where was it uh beth page uh beth page long island oh wow yeah i didn't realize you went oh yeah that's how i got

the shirt i saw you bought it off the you were there oh yeah it was that posted pictures i mean instagram story i know you know he invited all of things get busy that might have been was that was that like uh family and friends with the star not i don't do family and friends. Everybody's my family and friend. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was there. Was it fun? Europe won, right? Europe's on fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, USA had some fight yesterday. They won almost every match, but just not enough to get it done.

Buried themselves too deep on Friday and Saturday. But from a fan perspective and how much tickets were going for and everything, yeah, I don't know if I would do it again. Can I say, I don't think it's fair that it's the U.S. versus Europe because Europe is a continent. U.S. is a country, it doesn't seem very fair. Nah. It seems very fair. We'll take on the whole continent. Who's the best American golfer?

Scotty Sheffler, world number one. Number two? One two majors this year. Number two would be Rory Macquarie. So what's up with that? No, no, who's the second best American? Yeah, yeah. Oh, second best American?

Romero is European. Oh, I think you meant world number two. I mean, Deschambo's good. Yeah, so it falls off. I mean, J.J. Spahn. What about Gretzky's son-in-law? Oh, Dustin Johnson, he's washed, right? Oh, he's done.

Damn. Yeah, he's on, like, live doing the whole shit. And so, oh, and by the way, like, what about Mickelson and these guys? Wash? Mickelson's like 55, do. Okay. Yeah, he's long gone. And where did you stand?

Yeah, I stood on the first green, watched, like, the four groups go through. There's only four matches going on. That's what kind of limits this one. At a normal golf tournament, there's guys just cycling through the entire time. But with only the four matches, you know, you're limited. You've got to, you're chasing. and you've got to go get out ahead of them to be able to see it.

Right, right, right. It was hot, I got sunburned the bald head. I didn't do the math. I was like late September, I won't get burned. Burned? Yeah, I got burnt. Nice merch. Yeah, some nice merch.

I can't lie, shot out of 47. 47, the brand. Okay, I was like. Not 47 DT. Wasn't it was there. What's wrong with that? They're saying like the 45th and it's red, white, and blue,

you would think it would say. Yes, yeah. United States of America. Man, you were there. Pizzi was at Croke Park for Steelers? Yeah, Viking Steelers. Yeah. Yeah, I was sending Pizzi pictures

because I know, you know, he supports Team Europe. I was like, oh, belt ass, you guys are killing us. I'm enjoying it. No, he's like, it looks great. And Frankie's like, ah, Pizzi wouldn't stop texting me about the Vikings. I was like, I guess I missed it. About the Vikings?

Yeah, a nice picture with the people he was watching it with. Wow. You got, you got like, private text from him like just wow we chatted out it's kind of crazy yeah that is kind of i actually took a picture with uh mick conlin who ptie did a story on for on crown at the fight he was there cornering tampebo a little selfie i was like oh let's take a picture mic you know we're buds for the uh you know for ptze for the crack as they say you say no uh no i got the picture no reply from ptze damn didn't even reply next day i was like you know what i didn't get a reply

I was like, hey, PT, no reply to the selfie? I mean, it's Mick Conlin in Montreal. Oh, sorry, I'm at the game. It's crazy here. I mean, I did send the selfie to yesterday. I've been at the game since yesterday. Yeah, it's crazy at Croker here. I'm like, yeah, what about yesterday when I said it to you?

The lads were all over the gaff this weekend. Rider Cup, Montreal MVP car. It was a bit of an international affair. Anyway, what other questions do we have, Mr. Frankie? The proper term is, what else? What else? Are Izzy and Oldberg still cool? Izzy noticeably did not react

to Carlos' win this weekend. In his video, Carlos dodged a question at Thursday Presser about him and changed the topic to Marconn. I will be honest, I didn't notice any of this. Did you guys notice this? I didn't really pick up on it all.

No, that did I. They always seem like boys. Yeah. I mean, Izzy was there. He was there. He was out training with him when they were with KKF on International Fight Week. Yeah. I don't know anything about that if they're,

what do people love this kind of drama so much, all right? Just let them be. What else, Frankie? What else? Yeah, for sure. Do you guys think Ronda is training for the White House card? Sure seems like it. Rhonda versus Kayla?

Okay, so I don't know if it's the White House card, but I really think something is happening here. I don't think this is just, is she testing the water? Sure. I think there is interest, and I'll also say this. I never thought that it would happen. Like, I never thought we, She seemed so disgusted with MMA, with the community, with the fans.

I'll never forget the Ronda that showed up to fight Amanda Nunes, what was it, 11 months after the Holly Home fight, like she was a shell of herself. Do you guys remember this? She didn't show up to the media day. She was the only fight. She showed up to the morning way in, like backdoored it, weighed in, didn't look at any of us, and then bolted. didn't talk to anyone and then ended up losing in like 60 seconds who Amanda Nunes. She seemed like a shell of herself. She seemed broken. Obviously, that was 2016. We're approaching almost

10 years since that fight, which is crazy. I mean, we're approaching 10 years since the Holly Home fight, November of 2015. So a lot has changed. She's a mom now. I think she has a couple of kids. She's married, et cetera, et cetera. But I just think when she left and went to WWW. At the beginning, she seemed so much happier. She seemed like she was enjoying it, all that. And then, of course, towards the end, it seemed like she soured on the world of wrestling. To now see this and to see her kind of flirting with the idea is something that I never expected. But I do think something's there.

What does that translate into? Does it actually translate into a fight? I don't know. And I don't even know. Put it this way. It seems to me, and let me know if you guys. guys disagree that the vast majority of the people who want to fight on the White House card are fans of Donald Trump. Is that a fair thing to say? Like open fans? I don't know where

she stands on all of this. So does it matter that it's White House or not White House? I don't know. By the way, I don't even know if she has a UFC contract. I would assume if she came back it would be for the UFC because of her, you know, very good relationship, it seemed with Dana white, but who knows? Are you saying she could be on Don Davis's proposed PFL, White House card? Is that what you're kidding? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, as far as like the

connection to President Trump, I think, you know, there's certainly some prominent names that are associated in that direction, but I do think this is such an opportunity in terms of like transcending that, that there's a lot of people who would be angling for this card. The ones, though, the ones, though, who are publicly angling, and by the way, Frank just sent me a link here from Newsweek,

second Newsweek mention on the program. During a recent appearance on the lapsed fan podcast, Rousey said, quote, I got better shit to do when asked about fighting at the White House event. Newsweek has reached out to the White House, the UFC and representatives for Rousey via email for comment outside of their regular working hours. What are you going to say? Hey, guys, I heard that on the elapsed fan podcast. Ronda Rousey said, anyway, it doesn't sound like she wants to fight at the White House event.

Yeah. I don't get the impression that that's motivating her. I just think she seems to be enjoying training right now and it seems to be at a pace and with a, I don't know,

listen, we're going off of a 45 second video here, but I'm just getting a vibe. That's all. I'm getting a vibe. And also, wouldn't the White House card kind of be the antithesis

to the last time, right? the idea or actually it'd be in line with last time she'd almost want the antithesis which is like last time the bright the lights were bright it seemed like she didn't really want to be there the best time to come back or the best opportunity to come back might be a quieter thing right it might be like hey not an event maybe an event of Vegas or California or something and not necessarily that at the same time though would you fault anybody if she said yeah I want to be on that card and I'll take on whoever I think it could go either way now it's still way too early to kind of say, but I'm with you that this feels like something.

Like Ronda Rousey doesn't really like just say stuff to say stuff. There tends to be a motivation. Are you with me? It feels like something and also never saw this coming. I never thought that she would ever even flirt or entertain the idea of fighting again. Never saw this coming? Never saw it coming. Don't know if I feel like it's something.

Okay. All right. Okay. Well, that's something. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see.

By the way, speaking of the White House card, Connor McGregor was at the Bear Knuckle Show in Manchester, and earlier in the week, last week that is, the boys talked about this, him putting out the tweet that he wanted $100 million to fight on the card, including the 100 U.S. quote, golden visas for himself and his family and friends. So he wants 100 millie. And then he was asked about this at the Bear Knuckles show. Here's what he had to say.

Yes, that's got home. Donald agrees with the terms of the White House card. You know, I'm not negotiating with the UFC on behalf of myself for this fight, like usual. I'm negotiating with the United States of America on behalf of Ireland for this fight. So it's a peculiar one. But Trump and the administration have been fully supportive and backing, and I cannot wait. Should John John John bring that card? Yeah.

What do you think of Caleb Crawford? Okay, so that's fascinating. He's saying that he is negotiating with the United States government. Now, who is actually going to pay him? in the end you know what I mean like if if if Trump says yes I think you should get a hundred million to fight on this card who's actually cutting that check this is fascinating stuff what a journey it's going to be to get to this card in uh in June of 2026 a hundred million seems like a little bit outside of the UFC's typical I don't know actually you know what with the new

TV deal and the double you know rights fee raise maybe every everyone is going to be making that kind of money. I don't know about everybody, but I think Connor McGregor can command it. Yeah. Do you guys think that Trump and his team are going to say we want these people on this card? Yes.

Yeah. So do I. Yep. It's essentially a representation for the U.S. Right. Which is why I keep going back on the like, don't they want Americans to go over. I don't,

I don't, like, we keep having these fantasy cards, but I do feel like there has to be an indication. I don't think they care about the result. I think they just care about who's always. on the card. You do this card and all the Americans just get dusted? I don't think that goes over hot.

Chandler, McGregor, this is Canada. Let's say Chandler loses. Ireland and it's the biggest star in the history of the sport. At that point, like, you can't worry about that stuff. I just think they want to have the big. This is a, when Donald Trump was the owner of the Trump Taj Mahal and all this stuff, he wanted the biggest fights. This is his version of a fight card in 1988.

You know what I mean? No, it's his chance to bring a big show to his home. It's perfectly logical and reasonable. It's the same thing that Turkey does with all the boxing fights. Like, I want the biggest names to compete. It makes all the sense in the world. I would expect nothing. If he didn't care about what was on the card, I'd be shocked.

That would be a bizarro world. What else, Frankie? What else? So glad you asked. I loved the mix-up last week with Ariel and the Crack, combined show and another in studio guest and boys in the back. Great work, guys. Yeah, you know what? I think everyone did a great job. Ariel in the Crack. I mean, that was M.M.A. Beat and and, you know, those are the three, I would say, most prominent. Oh, yeah, I mean, we could get

Chehien in there, although he's the EIC. He's way too busy to be partaking in things like that. Drake is out there as well, but I want to do with boxing and with wrestling as well. Crack has their thing, and it's great. I'm not trying to take away from that, but we were looking for things to do during my hiatus, so that's a fun one. Obviously, the classic interview look-back series is a fun one as well, but you guys really did a great job. How did you feel doing two shows in a week? Were you guys exhausted afterwards? How was that? Well, we got the break from Monday to Thursday, so it wasn't too much. It was fun, though. I mean, Alicquinta carried

us on Monday. The shirts, that was a great reveal. Oh, yeah. Al showed up looking like a real estate agent. He looked unbelievable. Yeah, he looked fantastic. He sold a few houses on the way out. Yeah, we had these, like, cheaply made shirts. I actually had double custom shirts last week. I made the I equinta real estate shirts.

Yes, he was wondering. He was like, wait a second. Did I give you that? Where did you get that? No, we had them made. Yeah. You know a guy. Yeah, I got a plug. Oh, and then you had a plug. And then you had a plug. Of course, you had the Tehuna shirt. Yep, yep. Also came from the plug.

James Tehuna? That was a great one. Like, that was like those ones that I see now at, um, at Hot Topic with the, you know? Yeah. Frequent Hot Topic. I'm, I'm a fan, you know. Hot Topic Spencer's Gifts. Okay.

I'm not sure about Spencer's Gifts. I just know Hot Topic. A Topic. Spencer's in the north. Yeah, yeah. We had Spencer's. Yeah, for sure. Clairs.

Nice. That's a different iceing category. My daughter likes Claire. I was going to say that's like where you're, yeah, yeah. daughter goes to get her ears. Is that actually her franchise? She dislikes it because it's her name. Anyway, yes. So everyone did great. It was really nice. And, you know, the train rose along. I felt like I was on the outside, but, you know, it was Russia Shana. You did great from the old MTL. Oh, yeah. I appreciate that. You mean when I was working the card?

Yeah. Yeah, no, it was all week, all the festivities. All the festival. You know, Russia Shana, you know, it's a big time. Happy New Year. I got to go to the new mall in Montreal, which is the talk of the town, the Royal Mount Mall, which I highly recommend, by the way. Got to see some family. Did you get a hot topic, then? I did not. They did not have one. Oh, it was the brisket, man. How was the brisket? I didn't have any brisket.

You guys don't do brisket on Russia Channel? No. You do? Yeah. It's the best thing. It's probably the best thing we have. He brought some in for all of them. We do very sort of Middle Eastern, traditional. Well, it's actually interesting because on my side, it's very Middle Eastern. and then my wife's very sort of

Eastern European Gifilta fishy, that type of stuff. Let's just say between you and I... We're not doing the Gifilta. Yeah. Couldn't payment. Have you ever had Gifilte fish?

I've looked at it. I've never had it. Matsubal soup, yes. Matsabal soup is... Sound for the Motsu. Is it like pickled herring? No, it's actually nothing like pickled herring. I don't even think I've ever had pickled herring.

But anyway, it was... You know what actually was the highlight of the weekend, if I may? I was able to give a few very old classmates of mine, like elementary school classmates, tickets to the fight on Saturday. And so my friends being at the fight and I'm seeing them and then we got to hang out afterwards, I mean, I felt like it was the old days. It was really nice.

So I really, really enjoyed that. It warmed my heart and I don't know when I'll ever get to hang out with those guys again. And when was the last time I got to hang out with them? So they had a great time at the fights. and then we we hung out after the fights as well because the card ended at like 1030 it was wonderful. Anything for old Dahlia?

No, no Dahlia. Like a... No, actually. Coming together. Some of them know Dahlia actually quite well. That would have been a moment, right? No, she was not there. No, not a big boxing fan if we're being...

What else, Frankie? What else? We need Ariel versus G.C. in Long Island, Luke's prop quiz. Ariel's OG Knowledge versus G.C.'s recent history. history knowledge. We need Ariel versus G.C. in Long Island's Luke Prop Quiz. What is that? He hosts like a YouTube show where he pits people against each other and

it's almost like a jeopardy style thing. So if my forte is old school and your forte is new school, how could we compete against each other? Because we aren't well versed in the same thing. Yeah, I think it's like a jeopardy style. So you'd have like the category. Oh, that's fine. New school, old school. So, like, who headlined UFC 112? And then it'll be like, who headlined UFC 312? Exactly. Or maybe the answer is like Anderson Silva versus Damien Maya.

And then I would say, who headlined UFC 112? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I've seen this guy. This is good. This guy's pretty good. You're the one who showed him to me, right? I didn't realize his name was Long Island Luke. I mean, a little bit of gimmick infringement, obviously.

This guy's pretty good, though. 312, 312. 312 was D. ADP Strickland earlier this year. Yeah. It's crazy. In Australia? I can't even tell you 318.

13 was Fourier, Holloway. 319? Hamza. Yeah, it's amazing. It's literally like talking to myself. The last event, it's amazing. 266. That's when, that's when it starts.

That's literally when it starts. For me, it starts at 66. That's crazy. Technically, I think I could do 265 because that's what I was like in the interview process. I really need to watch that. was Cyril Gunn versus Derek Lewis. Oh, the interim, yes, yes. That was a shite.

This guy does, like, Jeopardy, and it's very good. He tailors it to the guest, so it's actually, give this guy props. Okay. It's the name of the channel is Main Cart Minute. He does, he does good stuff. Is it, is it combat sports related? Yeah, so it's like, he'll have like Brian Campbell and, and what's the recent one? Mike Heck did one against Edmishu.

Exactly. And then he'll tailor the categories to all. also like the MMA people. I thought this was like a hot ones. Nah, no, no, no. Like me and G.C.

showing up on some YouTube channel. It's Shepardy. It's Combat SportsRleys. Okay, okay. He's a good host. He does it for him. I like that. Shout out to him.

I like seeing people. Other than stealing, you know, the gimmick. And who's gimmick? I mean, I'm New York. New York, Rick. Oh, come on. You think that's what he was doing?

Absolutely. Wow. I mean, why not be stealing as well? Mine, mine is Jordan. Oh, yours is definitely stealing because he just gave it to you because that was all he could think of at the moment. No. Did he even give it to

where it didn't Jedi Goodman say No, that was 100% me. It was me because of New York Rick and also because DCDC. Because of New York,

Rick, obviously. And GCDC. That thing was more clear how much Ariel was missing Rick than the beginning when G.C. He's like,

he could be Georgia Conner. Yeah, yeah. He's from Georgia. We played New York Rick's original music segment just so you could hear it again. The love was felt. The love was felt.

Oh, yeah. I remember that. Those are some good days. August of 2021. Okay, what else, Frankie? What else? Lastly, Sledo paid $2 to ask, will Frank bring shrimp cocktail to the premiere?

Oh, good question. The answer is no. Eric will be providing soup dumplings. Okay, can't wait. By Frank's demand. I must have soup. Do you ordering those or what? He's ordering them.

You know, the orders are not coming in as fast as we'd like, so maybe they'll have to come halfway through the, like, you got the two that you need to care about. Frank, Frank has actually been very, forcible. He's forced me to put a house warming on the books. Yep. For yourself? Every day's invited.

Yeah, for myself. Frank demanding celebrations is becoming a... Next Friday, October 10th, everyone's invited. Wow, this is how I'm getting the invitation. Yeah, yeah, through the show. You're welcome. Now we have a paper trail for when you try to say that there was... What do you mean? You can't just drop an invitation in the middle of a show that's happening. We should have

had Andy reach out because then it would have ensured that he didn't take it seriously and don't show up. Yeah, I'm booked. My favorite part I was like, when are you doing your actual house-waring party? And the conversation went, I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, why does he need- And then now we have a date. Yeah, when did you come up with the date? And did you not check and see if it worked for all of us? Seems a little selfish.

I have my calendar. Here come the excuses already. No, it's okay. Can't go. Can't go. It's okay. I do have some other things that we need to discuss. Shout out to Yeri Pachaska. Some video has emerged of his graduation.

What a time it is for Yeri. Look at this. Does it get any more wholesome than this? Yuri with his family promise hair looks great that looks fantastic do you think this is old footage

or do you think he's going to show up with this kind of hair I hope not there needs to be some sort of craziness to it look at this guy he's the best who's better than this guy no so congratulations

to Yuri Prochaska I did want to say congratulations to the great Melvin Galard who announced his retirement Did you guys know that Melvin Galard had an 11-year losing streak? I did know that, yes. And he snapped it recently with a win over Terry Wiggins, a 27-second win back on September 20th, so nine days ago.

And then he announced his retirement with a record of 33, 24, 2 and 2-no contests. Actually, it says 3 there, but I'm seeing 2. I saw it 3. I guess we'll trust you. No, you're right. You know what's weird? I'm looking at his Wikipedia page. He lost to Isaac Moreno on July 18th, 2025.

It says three no contests. Then the next one says two no contests. It's almost like you should use this website called tapology. I don't know, it came up. You know me, big tapology guy. His last UFC fight, let's see, let's see, his last UFC fight, he left the UFC, came back, had a long run. his last UFC fight was March 8th, 2014. He lost to Michael Johnson on the Gustafson

Manoa card in London. Then he went to World Series. Then he went to Bellator. Then he went to Australian FC. Actually, before they went to Kunlan fight MMA in Yantai, China. And at this point, the losing streak, by the way, started when he lost to Justin Gaii in November of 2014. Then he went to Yantan, like I said, Kunlan in Yantah, Juntai, Australian FC, Sparta Combat League, Risen, United Combat League, Ohio Combat League, Fury FC, and then Region FC. I think he had a long, okay, so he had a six-year break between 2019 and 2025.

That's really not that, I mean, it's almost unfair to say 11 years. but anyway, Melvin Galard great character made his debut 2002 23 years I want to talk about this Terrence Crawford

story that emerged Terence Crawford had a big celebration back home in Omaha had his birthday and then we find out yesterday had a run-in-with-the-law and a

video is emerged here. We have sound on this. I'm opening the door. You can take my mouth for me right here on my right. I'm keeping my fucking hands up. I'm not reaching for no gun, bro. Can I move my phone?

Yeah, that's crazy. So you can hear his voice. According to reports, he was held at gunpoint by Omaha police. It was his birthday, as you can see. It was at approximately 1.30 a.m. local time. This was after a huge celebration in Omaha for his birthday. And of course, for everything that he's accomplished as of late. He was pulled over in his vehicle by Omaha police.

He was with three other occupants. That's just a short video clearly shot by someone who was in the car with him. You can hear his voice. You can see him exiting the car there. The Omaha Police Department said in a statement that it pulled over Crawford's vehicle for alleged reckless driving. The statement alleged that police observed, and this is from Darshans report over at uncrown.com, by the way. Police observed a firearm in the car while speaking with Crawford and confirmed, quote,

all four occupants were ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint. A firearm was found on an occupant of the vehicle who was a member of Crawford's security team. The officers determined that everyone in the vehicle was legally allowed to carry a firearm. Crawford was cited for reckless driving. Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. said in a statement that, quote, his heart dropped in learning of this end to an otherwise wonderful day and evening celebrating our city's world boxing champion. There you see the statement.

He says, we must ensure that every resident, no matter who they are, feel safe and respected in Omaha. Omaha needs to remember this important day as a good one while we seek answers to how it end it. So a very, very unfortunate situation. Let's see what comes of it. Omaha Police Department on Sunday reiterated Ewing's statement that the department has, quote, authorized an internal affairs investigation into the incident.

Craziness. So let's see how that plays out. We also got information from the new CEO of the Professional Fighters League, John Martin, who is making all kinds of changes. He announced two title fights on a December card in Lyon, France. It's one of the great crowds that we saw last year in WWE. They had a show in May of 2024. Vadim Nemcov defending his...

Actually, is he defending? No, I don't think he's defending. I think it's just Vadim Nemcov versus Henin Feheda for the heavyweight title. And then it's Chris Cyborg against Sarah Collins for the... featherway title, they're starting to crown champions now. John Martin posted a statement, did some interviews, getting out there, speaking to the MMA fans, he posted this on social media regarding how he's trying to make things a little easier on the, the PFL fans out there.

Hey, everybody, I'm John Martin, CEO of the Professional Fighters League, breaking news. we're going to be coming to Leone, December 13th, with two championship matches. First, Nemcov versus Ferreira for the heavyweight world championship. And also happy to announce that Co-Maine is going to be icon Chris Cyborg fighting undefeated Australian-born Sarah Collins. Hope to see you there. Yes. He posted a statement kind of like discussing. Do we have this thing where he posted like a breakdown?

Yes, here it is. Historically, the PFL crowned champions through its seasons or tournament format where the winner held the title for that year. I recognize this created some confusion about who truly sat atop each division. That confusion grew when the PFL and Beltor merged, bringing in not only tournament champions, but also legacy Beltor champions who defended their belts, leaving fans unclear on who was the definitive champion in each weight class. We are now simplifying our champion system or championship system, going forward. forward, each division will have one PFL world champion, the single undisputed title holder in that weight class. You saw this recently when Costel Van Sienis scored a last second win over

Johnny Eblen to become the PFL middleweight world champion. Next up, Hussmannermagameirov versus Paul Hughes. That's for the PFL lightweight title. Corey Anderson versus Dovlett Yakshu Miradov for the PFL light heavyweight championship. Vadim Nemcov versus Henan Faheta for the PFL heavyweight championship. Cyborg versus Collins for the women's featherweight title. Wow. I also know that there has been some confusion around unique distinctions in the past, like the superfight title won by Francis Nganu. That was a special one-time designation. Going forward, those belts may be used only for occasional special events. And importantly, I will be engaging directly with Francis to determine what's next for him at the PFL. My goal is clear.

One champion, one division, one world title, a system that is simple for athletes to chase and for PFL fans to follow. Has actual sanity come to the PFL? Common sense? That's how you run a promotion. I don't know much about John Martin. I don't know about his fighting background. I don't know if someone is guiding him. But whomever it is, whoever is responsible for this, thank you.

This is all we've been asking for. Common sense. One champion, a champion of top of division, none of this superfight nonsense, none of this league nonsense, none of this tournament nonsense. You want to determine number one contenders via a tournament? Great. That person's not a champion. You want to have a PFL Europe, this?

great, those are mini tournament, but there should be a king or queen at the top of each division. It's not that hard. And so this is a breath of fresh air. Even when I saw them announce Vadim versus Hina Faire, obviously the best fight to make it heavyweight is Vidim versus Francis. I saw people say, what about Francis? What about his belt? That belt wasn't a real belt. That was just like a super fight belt. I don't even know what that was. And everyone knew that. Come on, stop it. No one considered Francis the heavyweight champion of PFL. He should have been.

That fight should have been for the PFL heavyweight title, but they were getting too cutesy-pucci with all these stupid tournaments and events and titles. Thank you for this. Thank you, Mr. John Martin. And so I look forward to a lightweight champion being crown and a light heavyweight champion being crown. And it's great that Costello is the middleweight champion. And then you got two times. Thank you.

This is how a promotion should be run. I was very excited to read this. tired of all this stuff he he did a couple of interviews there was one quote yeah there it is via via an interview with uh mhmie junkie i think we've been asking the fans a lot to keep track of all the various formats i'm interested in putting on the best fights we can for as many people as we can wow sometimes simpler can be better wow i'm going to be looking for how do we hit that sweet spot and optimize. I think there could be some changes coming up. Wow! One more time, Frankie. Wow! It's a good wow. That is a breath of fresh air. I feel like

I just drank like a tall, tall glass of shut the hell up. I'll give you a tall glass of shit down. You're in my world now, Grandma. Yeah. Anyway, this is great. I'm very excited about this. Shout out to Gable Steven. Who would have thought after his LFA slash MMA debut, his next fight would be in Dirty Box. He's fighting on their October, what is it, 30th show, a Thursday in Nashville

against Cub Swanson's cousin. Seriously? No, I'm kidding. The poster is great because it looks like just a singular name. Oh, yeah, yeah. Gable versus Swanson. Yeah.

SummerSlan, 2026. Hell yeah. Kind of looks like Roy Nelson. Roy Nelson's cousin Yeah Small country named Cub Swanson Small countries

We don't know What's happening With Arm and Sarukin guys We know he beat Benton Henderson In a grappling match I think he'll fight again This year

But we don't know if it's for the belt If not I think it's going to be Patty versus Zillia But let's see All to say If we just keep getting Armat Surukian eating videos

I think we'll all be very happy Here he is Eating a massive croissant yeah just feed me these no pun intended why are we so captivated by this

why is this so good because they're so ridiculous I mean first of all this is just a giant croissant but like the other ones he's like stuffing his face with like a pound of caviar and then like the Dave

Dave's hot chicken he has like 80 meals in front of them and he comes up with this and look at that cup of coffee why is it a thing why is it a bit I don't know but why is it so good He went from, like, about to fight for a title in January, and now he's had 17 grappling

matches and food video drop every week since. I really enjoy it. I genuinely do enjoy it. Anytime I see an Armin food video, I get hyped. My question, though, is, like, how do we get to the point where we realize that we enjoy this? And how did his team come to this conclusion? I don't know, man. And by the way, how do you get a croissant that big?

I don't know. Your Arm and Surukin, you can do anything. That's true. that's true um so let's see what happens with him but hopefully we get some news soon kaya secura is moving up to 135 you guys like this i think it's it's the right move you lost two fights you lost to the champ uh maybe uh you know a new division fresh coat of pain on the career will do the the career good i'm down yeah no no no i think so i think so okay that's good analysis right just screamed something back here and the mic was on what's wrong what's wrong what's

I don't know. He was asking Jordan if he was okay, but he was screaming that. No, I like this. Is Jordan okay? I'm not sure. Oh, my God, Jordan. Oh, you actually scared better than last Monday. Okay. What happened last Monday, by the way?

A little BGJ, you know, a little bubble guts. Oh, stuff. What was that? A little BGJ? BGJ, bubble guts, Jordan. Okay. He was on the John. Yeah.

Yeah, Owen, two, a flyweight. Let's go ahead, knock up to 135. Can I ask you guys something? Why do you, okay, when, I was in, what's so funny? Just the transition here. It's just, yeah. I've also pulled up another, the last Armin Sarukin video before this.

And it's him sitting in a red leather Rose Royce with, it appears 15 to 20 double doubles from in and out with like 18 sides of fries. And he's just going in on him. There's always so much with him. I do love a simple formula this is, but he has realized this was working. Yeah, I mean, 426,000. There's something about the calmness, the hair. The ridiculousness of the settings, the amount, obviously. It's like a muck thing.

He's got something. I just want to know how they reach the conclusion of like, wow, we've got something here. How they got to this? When we were on our hiatus during the summer, the Raja Jackson story was the biggest thing, right? Like, you couldn't go anywhere on the internet and not see someone when. Ariel, you have to talk about Raja Jackson. You must. Sorry, okay.

That must. That was the sentiment. Tweets, videos. why has the aftermath, his arrest, and whatever came of that, been a complete non-story? Like, if by the way in which it was covered, you would have thought this was like the OJ trial all over again. Why has, why does no one care? What details do we have? I don't know, but no one cares.

I don't see anyone talking about it. In fact, I didn't see anyone talking about the arrest. Yeah, it got picked up here and there. But the level of coverage and discourse surrounding the incident versus everything else, to me has been fascinating. And so I agree with you, but I also feel like we are not getting answers, right? Like there is no, what more is there to react to?

It just kind of disappeared. I don't know. Why did it take so long? Who is going to answer that question? I don't know. Everyone was weighing in on this one incident. The thing is, like, when it happened, I obviously was shocked by it and I knew it was Rampage's son.

But I was like, wow, like we're getting like hour-long breakdown videos from the MMA community, from the wrestling community. this is going to be a big freaking deal like this is this has blown up so I thought you know when something blows up it remains on fire you know from a coverage standpoint have you guys not noticed that no one talks about it now

I noticed but again a point to what would they be talking about at this moment there is no update there is no legal proceeding there is nothing like there's nothing to kind of talk about where is the guy I don't know I would imagine he had to have bailed out I'm sure he got bonded he would think given the interest that someone would have looked into this

no what some outlet is like okay here's raja this is what he's doing this if anything the local news would have had it right but it seems like there's their mum on it i don't think there's anything to discuss yet there's no salacious video that goes along with it there's no real drama it's just he got arrested $50,000 bond and that's pretty much all we have all right i just thought it was interesting i mean it was gigantic no it was massive i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he wasn't arrested yet and the video that accompanied it. I'm more surprised at how massive it became

than I am that there's nothing happening now. Can I have a hot take? I don't know. Yes, go ahead. It was because there was no response and these things. People get all fired up about that. And then once it happens,

it's like, all right, well, there's no there there now. Plus the internet just moves so fast that by the time he got arrested, it was a whole month later. No one cared anymore. Okay, so you think, Frank, that the outrage and the coverage was because nothing happened,

and once something happened, everyone just moved on to the next thing? It does seem like that's what happens a lot. When news is coming on, there's less detail. Everyone's, what's this, what's going on, who's that? And then when the detail trickles in, it's crickets. Yep. Okay.

Everyone loves a conspiracy, right? They're like, oh, what's going on here? Why isn't this happens? Because he's famous. I think it makes her a more sensational TikTok than the, oh, he's been, you know, justice has been served or someone's going to have their day in trial. Like, that doesn't pop quite as much as, why is no one talking about this? Yeah.

Okay. Fascinating. But I think you're on to something there. Are we on to something with Jake Paul versus Alexander Usik? Do you think this happens in 2026, guys? No. No? True or false?

False. I think we more likely get Jake versus Joshua than we get Usik. Yeah, I could see that. Here's Usik weighing in. Also, because Usik is proposing MMA, and I just don't think there's any chance. It is fascinating, though, that you have these massive names who all want to fight him. Do you think it's because of the payday or because they think it's an easy payday?

Both? Yeah. Easy payday and a massive payday. When you're at the level that Ussick is, like what else is there to accomplish? But in M.A. He's... Yeah, that's a bizarre one.

I don't know how to explain that. What are you more interested in? He worked on the smashing machine and got inspired. I don't know what else the point in it. Usik, Jake, in M. Or Joshua, Jake, in boxing? Oh, that's a good question. Usik, Jake, and M.

I think I'd go Joshua, Jake, in boxing. Yeah. Because they both don't know MMA. At least... That's what makes it fascinating. Yeah. Jake Paul doing MMA period would be very fascinating to me. By the way, Ussick doing MN.A period.

In the smart cage? But less so. Yeah, maybe. The Jake doing MMA is more interesting. What's the co-main? Terence Crawford with his wrestling pedigree. Versusilia? Versusilia.

Yeah. So, but how is this getting done, though? PFL, UFC. That's finally the UFC. The Saudis bring them all together. Who knows? Ain't happening. No.

Yeah, the Saudis bring them all. together brought to you by EA. Did you, oh, gosh. The video game. Did you guys, did you guys see the, um, the Tank Davis-Shikors-Stevenson tweets on Saturday? Yes. They were going back and forth, like there were a lot of them for as long as they were there until- And then Tank deleted his Twitter.

Yeah, exactly. Can't just delete the tweets. Got to delete the whole tweet. Did, is Tank Davis-Jake Paul going to happen on November 14th? Yes. Yeah. You think so? Too much money.

It's a big, huge payday. He does have a sort of like, at times. apathetic. At times. But he had that heading into the Roach fight too. It's just where he is. And he said he's going to retire. Yeah. Saw that? He said he's done after this fight. I believe him. You believe him?

I believe he's done until another opportunity. I think in his head he thinks he's done. You think so? Yes. Jake Paul can retire Tank Davis? Yes. Imagine saying that statement four years ago. El Pico Gaiil.

Yeah. Hires Tank. El Pico de Gaia. Oh, my dear. Crazy times. Well, I don't know what to make of it. Because I was just looking at his body language and everything, and it was interesting. And then I saw the back and forth with Shakur, and it seems like he gets very upset when people bring up Shakur and Lamont Roach and all these guys. And then all of a sudden he deletes his Twitter.

My position is basically based on the fact that if you're Tank Davis, why announce it at all? Why get into this at all unless you were going to see it all the way through? now do I think a good version of him shows up I don't know that that I have some questions about but do I think he will be there yes absolutely I mean you you sign up he showed up to the press conferences you get your bag and and then you you get out of the sport maybe he's only 30 I feel confident this will not be his last one you'll be back I mean just look at Vanderlai here's the question this this is being compared to David versus Goliath sort of by the people promoting it by nobody else I want to ask this question who's David who's

July. Neither. There is no David and Goliath story. There's a balancing act with the massive size difference. Because you could actually make the case that tank is Goliath. No, you can die. From a skill standpoint. From a skill standpoint. But from the size is the, the, the talent gap is that much bigger, right? I mean like, yes. What about the size gap? Much better boxer. The size gap is also that much bigger. I'm workshopping my, my opening intro for the broadcast. You know, a lot of people are going to be taking as Goliath in this scenario? Are you doing the opening intro, confirmed?

Well, I'm working the broadcast, yeah. So I'm going to say, you know, a lot of people have been comparing this fight to David versus Goliath, but can I offer you this? Perhaps. I would suggest not. A matchup of biblical proportions.

You are looking live at Cassement or Miami. Tank is actually Goliath. here. And Jake is David. I think we need to go in the lab. Notable for how skillful he was. I was just workshop. Hopefully that was just pencil and not pen. I was just go ahead and erase that one from the idea. I actually was pretty excited about it.

I think you do kick it off with a matchup of biblical proportions. Okay. All right. Well, I'm not doing the intro intro. I think that's... Oh, I thought it was going to be like this sweeping grown view. You are looking live. At the Kasea Center, where

right now, Jake Paul is Who is the favorite going to that fighting? Can you... Tank? Jake's up to what, was it, like, plus 160 or something at this point? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I will be taking to the bank. Rick's lock of the year?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm all over. Remember the last time you had a lock of the year with Jake Ball? Anderson Silver, right? No, because the last one was Mike Tyson one was the Mike Tyson one. We all went heavy on Jake Ball and that. It was free money. Didn't you say that he was going to...

No, that Anderson was going to start him? I was... Oh, yeah. We all bet Anderson's Silva. Yeah, yeah. I bet Anderson Silva at like plus 110, and he closed it like plus 400. Oh, my God. One of the worst bets I've ever made, and then it lost either way.

That almost makes it better, though, because it's like you didn't miss out on plus 400 because you got beat. But yes, I'm quite certain that Jake is going to win this fight. From the face off, I just can't, I can't fathom a world where Tank is able to close the distance on him. What if he just hits him with a gnarly body shot? How is he going to hit him? This is my question. Everybody talks about this. He's six feet away from him.

He's not going to be able to hit him. He's going to have to get out a stepstool, jump onto it, and then punch Jake in the face. And that's why they put on the fights. It's not that much. Look at him. Look at that picture. Honestly, if you have to continue to ask who is David and who is Goliath, it means neither of them. No.

It means it's that good. There is no David and Goliath. I'm going to take on David, and then I'm going to go fight Goliath. That was an okay line, by the way. That was all right. Oh, that was a good line, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, tank two, Joshua. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

By the way, calling Tank David is crazy. Right, I mean. Right, it's Tank Davis. We have a premiere to watch, or not really a premiere, but a movie to watch. We're going to pretend like it's a premiere. Hell yeah, we've got a red carpet. We got a red carpet. We're going to have paparazzi.

Frank demanded that. Emily Blunt's not going to be here? That, that, that, that, that, what are you guys wearing? I'll be wearing a sweater. I brought, we all know, the one and only time that I've been to a movie premiere, I really got dressed up. Remember that one? Oh, yeah. The Izzy movie?

No. Round, oh, round. Roadhouse. Roadhouse. I remember that. You wore the, I was wearing jeans. You wore the floral hood in jeans. Yes, yes.

I was like, me and Frank were dressed nice as well. Yeah, that was a good time. Oh, that was good. C-Mac in the house. All right. Thank you very much to everyone. Appreciate you all very much. Good to be back.

Big show tomorrow. Who's on tomorrow? I told you Mattis Gameron's on tomorrow. Benny Saftees on tomorrow. Tom Nolan's on tomorrow. A couple others as well. Wednesday could be a potentially big one. I'm just going to put it like that.

Wednesday could be. be a potential massive one, but still TB Dizzle. You know what I learned? I did the Dizzle thing with my kids. They didn't think it was very cool. Like, it's not a thing with kids. You remember when there was like a for-chizzle, Dizzle, that whole thing? Yeah, like 22 years ago.

Yeah. They're not so into it. Yeah. They actually didn't even know about it. Probably for the best, you know. Really? Like sleeping dogs lie, you know. I thought it was the thing that, I mean, I'm Snoop Dog.

Wasn't it a Snoop Dog? Snoop Dog to them is like Martha Stewart. Well, I would say things with an isle on the back of it, and they're like, what is that? No, I guess you guys weren't exposed to this. For shizzle. No? All right. Anyway, today was a great day.

Thank you very much to everyone who stopped by. Thank you very much to all our guests, Demetrius Johnson. go check out his YouTube channel. Great guy, met him. Great, great video with Marab. And it's just fascinating to watch a legend like him roll with Marab Duolishvili. Thank you very much to Diego Lopez.

Looking forward to seeing what's next to him. And, of course, much love and speedy recovery. Continual, or continued speedy recovery, I should say, for one Ben Asper. Thank you very much of him as well. Thanks to them. Thanks to you. Back on Tuesday, say, time this is a piece of my there.