The Ariel Helwani Show - Big combat sports weekend preview, Dustin Poirier's last dance, PFL beats UFC to Africa, more | The Craic

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

With a stacked combat sports weekend ahead, Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes kick things off by debating which bout carries the highest stakes (6:22).One of those matchups is Max Holloway vs. Dustin Poirier. The crew dives into their favorite storylines surrounding this trilogy clash (14:03).Arguably the biggest fight of the weekend is Oleksandr Usyk vs. Daniel Dubois 2. Can Dubois upset the applecart? The trio break down how the undisputed heavyweight title bout might unfold (34:25).The PFL is also making waves with its event in Cape Town, South Africa. Petesy and the boys discuss the promotion beating the UFC to the punch in hosting an African card (47:41).To close out the show, the trifecta tackle Manny Pacquiao’s polarizing return (1:03:40), before wrapping up with Petesy’s Guinness-fueled New York vlog alongside The Boys In The Back (01:15:02).  

Welcome back to the crack, ladies and gentlemen. We are one day away from a little thing we are calling Uncrowned Saturday. That's right! It's a big ol' week. We got Dubois, well I should say Usyk v Dubois too from Wembley Stadium for the undisputed heavyweight title of the world. We have Poirier's final fight against Max Holloway. PFL Africa breaking ground at a new continent. Fantastic stuff.

Manny Pacquiao out of retirement. We have KSW and we have Bam Rodriguez. A lot of stuff happening. Look at that beautiful graphic on our Jordans put up on the screen. I'm back in beautiful Blanchardstown and I must have taken that New York climate with me because I am pissing Sweth as I'm talking to you.

I don't know what happened to the weather over here but as I told the boys before I started, it is very moist. I celebrated my 38th birthday yesterday on the back of the word moist. I apologize for that. But I was I was getting massage. And because I'm still on New York time, I woke up and I was snoring in the poor masseuse's face. I was getting the old shoulder sort of thing out there and I woke up.

What do you do in that situation? You immediately apologize. And what do I have to do now? I have to apologize to my good friend Ben Foulkes who wasn't on the show last week but is returning today. Ben Foulkes, just like I apologize to that masseuse for falling asleep and snoring in her face. I would like to apologize to you and also congratulate you on the quick recovery from the horrible ice hockey incident that you went through last week. Yeah. I don't know if you know, there's not a ton of ice hockey related incidents that happen in the month of July, especially in Montana, uh, where, you know, we barely have the money to keep an ice rink going during the actual winter.

There's there, we got to melt that stuff to make way for all the sheep and the prize pigs to come in for the fair, man. Don't be ridiculous. I also like how you're opening where you describe, you, you, you mimed snoring, you referred to yourself as pissing sweat, you use the word moist twice. Like in like 60 seconds, you packed in several good reasons for people to stop watching. Like you just, you made a strong case that they should just hit close on that

browser window and do something else with their lives, and I appreciate that about this show in particular. Oh man, this demographics made of tougher stuff than that, Ben. Come on, they can stomach it. Chuck, all the way across the world, we were able to touch each other last week. It's so far away now. Emotional. There he goes again.

Now he's really trying to turn him up. It's so far away now. Emotional. There he goes again. Now he's really trying to turn him off. Yeah. It was great seeing you, man. That was like a, that felt to me like a marathon week and I was only there two days and you were there the full week. So, um, I'm, uh, you know, kudos to you for, uh, for still being able to do that pub crawl on the Sunday after all of that stuff that you did during the week.

I don't know how you did it, man. Well, I'm happy you brought that up because at the very back of this episode, we will be rolling the footage from the infamous, now infamous New York pub crawl, the great on-air Jordan edited together. I got a quick look at it. It is very, very good. You know, I don't usually do that kind of stuff. I made my pretty much my debut with the boys in the back on their fifeys yesterday, Crawfish, who knew? Huh? I mean Jesus. But they came with me, it was an absolutely brilliant day and Jordan did an excellent job. So check it out and we raided. I'm an influencer now by the way. I was raiding Guinness all over New York City. And I should also mention, as I said, that will be shown at the back end. We'll give it the big G up then.

I was even joined by some of my friends, some from Blanchardstown, would you believe, that were on the trip with us. We'll talk about that in a bit. But the reason why, and we'll get to the fight in a minute, the reason why I'm extra sweaty guys is my next door neighbor's cat got locked in my house about 15 minutes before we had to go live. And I'm actually allergic to cats. And the cat is a beautiful cat.

His name is Jasper. He's very fluffy guy. And I was just kind of walking into my bedroom and there's Jasper sitting on the bed and he's going, what's, what are you going to do, mate? You know what I mean? So I was like, Oh, Oh shit. Ring Elaine, like Elaine, what am I going to do here? She's like, make a clear path to the door. So I made a clear path to the door.

Jasper was like, no, I quite like it here. Reggie wasn't there to intimidate him. Reggie was out with Elaine. That's my dog by the way. So next was like, no, I quite like it here. Reggie wasn't there to intimidate him. Reggie was out with Elaine. That's my dog by the way. So next of all, Elaine comes home. I have to section Reggie off. And then my neighbor who owns the catarouge at the door on crutches. And she's like, I just blew out my MCL.

I don't know how we're going to figure this out. So it's, I'm looking, you can see the perspiration here. This is not a joke. It eventually got sorted. But yeah, Jasper fantastic guy on air Jordan, you can confirm I sent you pictures of Jasper. Did I not? He's not on air Jordan already taken the love when you throw to Jordan and he's not there. Yeah, see, there you go. And you know, Pizzi, you have these sort of our deals and this one even in the top 10 of the crazy things that happened 15 minutes before we taped.

It's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, it's always something, isn't it? And this one pretty mild. Yeah. Also, I love that. First of all, Jasper, great name for a fluffy cat. He's gorgeous. I love the neighbor coming to your door on crutches

and basically leading with, I have no solution for this problem. Wanted to come over here, acknowledged that I know there's a problem, also wanted to say right up front, hey, I don't know what to tell you, man. Yeah, that's great. And then I'm trying to be real friendly.

I'm like, no, it's no problem, I'm just allergic and I've got to do a show and if I hold the cat, my eyes are going to swell up. And they're just like, yeah, my knee is fucked. And I was like, we all got problems, man. That's what you're saying. Elaine, right? In a quick, witted moment, Elaine takes the crutch from the neighbor and goes up and chases the cat out of the room.

Oh my God. And down the stairs like a wild lunatic. We've got to start taping 15 minutes earlier is what he's saying. Jordan, let the people, if you can, I've sent you a picture of Jasper from earlier. If you can't let the people see Jasper, let them acknowledge his beautiful face at some point. I don't know. That was for the show, the picture of my toilet. Yeah, the picture of my toilet with Jasper beside.

Oh man. Yeah, probably not. actually, you know what? You're right. Let's leave it alone. Um, lads, as I mentioned at the top of the show, a few fights on this week. Uh, some of which we have talked about on the beautiful uncrowned website, which is the place to be this week, uncrowned Saturday, as we're calling it. And there we have it again. Look at all these beautiful posters.

Holloway v. Poirier three Pacquiao v. Barrios.'s that one over there that's PFL Africa that's right breaking new ground baby you got KSW 108 we have of course Usyk v Dubois 2 very excited for that one and then we have the Bam Rodriguez fight against Kafu later on that day oh actually when when me and Chuck are going to be doing this watch party. Sorry. I mean, post show. I don't know if some of these fights are still going to be going ahead. So it's a good question. It's going to be a while.

I mean, we're going on after UFC 318 though, right? Like that's what we're focused on. That's right. That's right. I don't know. PFL will be locked up by then. Uh, KSW definitely will. Uh, Usyk v Duwau will.

KSW, come on. I mean, I know you're buzzing though. It's not, we're all fucking buzzing for KSW definitely will. Uh, Usyk v Duwau will. KSW, come on. I mean, I know, you're buzzing, though. We're all fucking buzzing for KSW. But, uh, yeah, it's gonna be a wild, wild week. Lads, as I said, uncrowned, all the stuff is up there. Myself and Chuck did our wonderful roundtable, as we always do. First question the great Mendenhall put to me is, what is the biggest fight of the weekend?

And I looked at it today, and we both seem to agree that it is the undisputed heavyweight title fight between Usyk and Dubois, their second meeting, of course. And I was wondering, what does Benjamin think is the biggest fight of the weekend? Well, you know, I feel like I kind of can't just say, uh, it's Usyk-Dubois, because that's no fun. That's no fun at all. just say, uh, too sick to blah. Uh, because that's no fun. That's no fun at all.

And honestly, somebody has to come on here and be the, the MMA homer and say that it's Dustin Poirier. You know, I'm, I'm, especially when I saw on this card, oh, okay. So Mad Marvin Vittori and Paulo Costa are on the same fight card, presumably in the same host hotel. Yeah. This is, this is a conversation me and Chad Dundas had over on the co-main event this week.

We're like, do you think that there's somebody at this point in the UFC where their entire job, like similar to where you have to have somebody at a big complicated family wedding to be like, no, you can't sit uncle Merle over there. Next to like, somebody has to be over there being like, okay, look, if we don't want another incident at the breakfast buffet, we need to make some arrangements and take some steps to keep these two guys away from each other. Uh, though I'll say this, like, I mean, if you're talking about just like pure stakes, like yeah, the heavyweight title going up for grabs and boxing,

that is, it's gotta be the biggest deal of the weekend. But as far as emotional stakes for me personally, you know, Dustin Poirier versus Max Holloway feels like that rare kind of fight where, A, I actually believe at least more than most, at least more than in most instances, that this is a retirement fight that is actually a retirement fight. It also seems like the rare in MMA anyway, retirement fight that we can kind of feel good about almost regardless of what happens, it doesn't seem like we're doing the thing where we're feeding the old to the young, it doesn't seem like

we're trying to set up a squash match where it only works if one guy wins kind of whatever outcome you get here. You can feel like, okay, we did the right thing for the right reasons. We, I think we're almost certainly going to get a good fight out of it. And you just feel like, all right, this feels like a kind of thing where I can get excited about it. It doesn't need to have some sort of championship stakes. I mean, we can get into the whole thing with the BMF, the title that means

whatever we want it to mean at any given moment, but it does feel like, all right. We're going to have a Dustin Poirier homecoming. He's going to go out on a good note. One of the good guys in the sport, one of the vanishingly few good guys in the sport, and he's going to get the, the good exit, or at least like an appropriately, you know, fitting farewell, like a final salute to him, whether he wins or loses. You can feel good about that. And that to me, uh, maybe because it happens so rarely in this sport,

that's the big thing for me this weekend. Well, I think BMF stands for Ben motherfucking folks. That's what I thought. There you go. That's, that thing for me this weekend. Well, I think BMF stands for BIM motherfucking folks. That's what I thought. Ah, yes. There you go. That's a very good. You know, I was thinking about that same thing too, man. Pizzi, we did that show after Frankie Edgar fought Gutierrez.

Remember that? Like in his final fight, he's from Tom's where he's fighting at Madison Square Garden. The kid wants to fight, you know, there's a guy who's been around for a long time. He's fighting at Madison Square Garden and they feed him to this younger guy who, uh, basically to get him over, you know, there's a guy who's been around for a long time. He's fighting at Madison square garden and they feed him to this younger guy. Who, uh, basically to get him over, you know, at that point, and we get this brutal knockout and it just had this such a depressing feel to it. And I think, you know, if the UFC was trying to kill off Poirier, it was probably happened back when they, when it was the sound to Nephi, right?

I think that that was the one that they're like, okay, here's where we're going to trade momentums here. We're going to swap this guy for him. And he turned it back and he ends up getting a title fight. And I think that that's, you know, in the end, he kind of forced this situation where he's like, Hey man, let's have a big celebration for my, uh, my retirement fight in New Orleans. And I think that that part is very cool.

It's very unusual, um, for a guy who has never like, you know, some kind of reigning champion or something like this to get any coordinate, like any kind of like big event based around them, but this feels so specific and it feels right. And I think that the great thing about it is Matt, you know, with the, with the Max Holloway being who he is, you're probably going to get a delivered fight where these guys, you know, I think Max is going to accommodate him in any way they want to go, I feel like it delivers. And you're right, even though nobody wants to see either guy lose, everybody is going to accommodate him in any way they want to go. I feel like it delivers and you're right.

Even though nobody wants to see either guy lose, everybody's going to win in the end, right? Like even if Dustin loses, I think that the crowd will appreciate that. Give him his proper send off. So I think it's a, it's a really good setup for that. And you're, you make a good point with the Frankie Edgar example, where they, they fed them basically to Chris Gutierrez and you're just like, we see what you're doing, everybody who, who has followed this sport for any length of time, we can

see what the UFC is thinking there. The fighters can see it too. I was just talking to, to Lauren Murphy about this last week where it's just like, okay, the UFC knows you're going out on this one, you're 41, they match you up with a fighter 10 years younger. You know what, you can look into their thought process and see what they're thinking there. And some of that is just, that's the way the fight game has always worked.

That's the promoter playbook. It's they don't even think about it anymore. They go, oh, you're on the way out. Let's see who's on the way up. Let us, let us see if we can get a little bit of this shine to rub off on them. But then you look and it's like, all right, so you went out there, you depressed us all by getting Frank Yeager knocked out by Chris Gutierrez. Did Chris Gutierrez become a star off the back of that?

No, not, not, not at this moment. He has not. I mean, there's still time left on the clock form and everything, but like, it's not like, it's not like it immediately turned around from that where it's just like the fight world went, all right, Hey, that was a bummer, but it was worth it because now we're all on the Chris Gutierrez train. It did not really work that way. And so it's, it feels much better if they're like, all right, we want to send

you out who's up here where the fight doesn't have to mean anything and it would still be meaningful. You guys have some personal history, but it also, it's like, if you go out there and you do get brutally knocked out by Max Holloway, we go, all right, hey, fair enough. You know, like, that's, that doesn't feel like that's an outcome we were angling for, for like, selfish reasons. You know, the one thing though, I will say, as the exception to the rule,

for Nate Diaz, they gave him Tony Ferguson, man. That was a pretty good fight on and out, Joe, wasn't it? They didn't want to. That's so good of you. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. Oh, you're right, Joe. Oh, right, right Tony Ferguson, man. That was a pretty good fight on and out. Joe wasn't it? They didn't want to. That's so good of the UFC. Oh, you're right Chuck. Oh, right, right, right. Right. Great, great bunch of lads, the UFC. To a point that Ben made earlier, Chuck, on a scale of John Jones, who

will be how serious you're taking this retirement talk from Dustin, I'd be inclined to agree with Ben synopsis. Like this feels genuine. I feel like Dustin, Dustin is even emotional today on the scales. You guys saw I'm kind of like this is the last one. Looked very good. Obviously he looked a bit drawn out as you tend to do when you're losing 25 odd pounds. Oh, here we go.

Here's a here's the image of them on the scales. Like it looks good emotion. Yeah, I mean kind of looks like me when we showed off. Yeah, but do you believe that this will be the last time that we see Dustin Fari in the UFC? Or fighting at all, should I say? I put it towards the Habib side of that. If we're using that scale. I mean, not with John Jones as well.

He's gone two weeks before. But I would put it toward the Habib thing. I, does it change for you guys if he wins? Like say he goes in there and he just looks the best he's looked. He goes in there and wins. Do you, does that change anything? That is a good point. I don't know.

I think that the question is not just how good does he look and what's the outcome. It would be what would the UFC think to do with him as a result of that? Because, you know, I saw some, some comments where like, you know, coaches saying like, Hey, it would take something big to get them back, but it's not necessarily impossible. And that's the point where I, I don't want to begrudge fighters the opportunity to retire and then change their minds later. This, it has always been prize fighting. It's always been do what is best for you from a money perspective.

If somebody were to come to Dustin Poirier, whether it's the UFC or something else later on and be like, we're offering you this huge life changing amount of money to come back and do one fight. I don't think he owes it to us. Like the fans of media, anybody to say, no, I already went through that whole retirement thing and so therefore I cannot go back on my word, you know, hey, go ahead and take that fight. But I think that you would want to look and see like, what would the UFC think they could use you for if you were to come back?

Would they be talking about like, Hey, we could really do some business with a Dustin Poirier, Ilya Toporia title fight. Then I think like, yeah, you don't, you don't know anybody to say like, Hey, I gotta say no to this title fight, especially if you think he can win it. You think he could, you could get that. I, I think the UFC might think twice about having a guy who was seemed like for a little bit now he's been teetering right on the brink of retirement. I don't know if you want to offer that guy a title fight, especially if you

think he might actually win it because then, you know, how long is he going to stick around with it, but I do think that if you see a future for yourself, you're like, I win this max hallway fight, I got a lot of momentum and the UFC goes, all right, who's our next up Benoit Saint-Denis? Who could we, who could we use you for? Because we know you're not here long. Yeah. You don't, you don't want to go back into that spin cycle where they're just

going to do that thing to you all over again. Like if they say, all right, you and Arman Serukian next, I think that's where you go, nah, I'm good. You know, I'm going to stay home. Although I was watching, uh, Goldberg on aerial show talking about his WWE send off and of course Goldberg has some complaints, figure that, uh, and, but when he asked about, you know, retirement, cause it's like a pro wrestling retirement is even more malleable and, and, and temporary than

an MMA fighter retirement. And he was like, you know, you, you probably never retire for sure until they lower you in the ground. But I do feel like if you do it, even the undertakers come back, you know, I do feel like if you do it in your hometown, Even then the undertakers come back, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. If they, if you do this kind of like hometown thing, or like adopted hometown kind of thing, all your friends and family come out, everybody makes a big deal about you for the retirement. It is, it does make you at least think twice. If you were going, I have to then turn around and tell those people six months from now,

thanks for coming, but it was not the retirement. It's like, if everybody showed up to your surprise birthday party and you're just like, actually my birthday is six weeks from now, like people are going to be like, what the hell. So I've seen monthly crew on their farewell tour too many times. You know what I mean? You actually, like I read, you brought a brilliant piece about Dustin. Ben, is it fair to say, like, I mean, he has inspired your poetry.

Like this guy is like, honestly, like that is a profound impact to have on someone. Like, is it fair to say that, you know, he is a special place in your heart. I mean, I remember those, that series you wrote in ATT back in the day, it was absolutely incredible. He's obviously said something very profound to you, which you you revealed to us in this article. But is it fair to say that he has a special place in your heart in terms of your career? Yeah, I think so.

I think that, you know, a lot of times when you're in the MMA media, especially when you talk to friends or just like people who are fans of the sport and come to know that you write about it. And they want to know they're like, who are your favorite fighters? And they always think it's going to be the very best fighters. You know, they think, they think you're going to pick like one of the all time great champions or something. And the truth is, I think this is probably true for you guys too, where you feel like the ones that are my favorites are the ones who became my favorites

as both people and fighters. And it's not necessarily because they won them all. It's just because like something about them, you felt like this person is somebody like I connect with or like something about them resonates with me emotionally and I feel invested in their journey. And I think Dustin Poirier, it's not only because he has an ability to put into words, some of these things that other fighters are living, but maybe can't quite express, especially when he said this stuff to me that I have been

thinking about ever since he was 25. You know, like that was, he kind of always had that part of the gift, but it's also that I think when you see a fighter come in and it's not like he is Mozart, who is just a child prodigy of this, like somebody like John Jones was, where it seems like John Jones came in, you could tell immediately this guy's going to be something special. And in some ways those gifts may have stunted his growth as a person like that, how easy and how immediate the success came to him, like maybe stopped him

from growing as a person. And Dustin Poirier felt like a guy where it's not like he ever sucked, but it was like, he seemed like a guy who was kind of a regular dude for the UFC and he just kept at it, kept getting better, kept finding ways to either win fights or come back from losses. And I think that shows us what we actually like about this sport. Like what really resonates with me. It's not just like knockouts and it's not just seeing champions beat everybody up. It's seeing somebody go through that struggle and you feel like over the years, you went

through it with him just because you watched it. You, you cared enough that his ups and downs, uh, felt like they affected you in some way. And so it's like, you come to the end and it makes you sort of reflective about like one of the weird things I've noticed, it's like, there are times where I can, you know, you pinpoint some events that happen in your life where you're trying to think about like, what was, what year was it where this thing happened in my life, where this thing happened. And one of the ways that I use as like a marker of time is MMA stuff that I was

covering or MMA stuff that was going on. And it's so weird to reflect on that. Like I remember, I can remember what day of the week my youngest daughter was born because I had to go home that night and watch Ronda Rousey fight Kat Zingano. So I'm like, uh, it was a Saturday morning. You know, like that, that kind of stuff, you just kind of realized like it's these people's careers and their paths and their own stories that help you sort of know where you stood in time. Yeah.

You know what I just say about that too? He was one of those rare guys where you kind of felt shotgun with him the whole way and it goes back to the fight Ville, like, because at the time there wasn't a lot of documentaries and things like that, that fight Ville, I felt like when we were covering it back then it came out and you're like, you're watching, um, Dustin Poirier, like as a kid, right? And like when he debuted, I think it was that Josh Grisby fight and Grisby was the one everybody

talked about. If you remember, they were like, watch out, this dude's a beast. He's going to, you know, whatever it's going to be. And I felt like from the very first, like you mentioned, it wasn't like he was a prodigy, but there was something about being vicariously hitched to this guy's career because we saw him very young and he w he worked his way through it. And there was something about being vicariously hitched to this guy's career because we saw him very young and he walked, he worked his way through it.

And there is something about his way of communicating, uh, that's always very real. I was pointing this out to somebody else recently. I feel like you never get a different version of Dustin Poirier. If you went back in time, you'd still have the same version. If you talk, if he's like, say that you were just sitting in the living room with him and his mom, he'd be the same dude. He'd still be talking her exact same way that he'd be talking to us or to his

opponent, he doesn't really change his air. Like the way he carries himself is exactly the same and therefore there's a very genuine kind of connection I think he has when you get to know him over the years. So I think that he's, that's one of the reasons he's like become such a fan favorite and has this whole weekend kind of circled for himself here.

He's had an incredible career. Like, I mean, we could, we could pick out best moments. Um, we actually saw this, we talked about it as well in that round table, but so many people have a different Dustin Fourier moments, which is a really cool thing to have as a fighter. Be like, Oh, I think it's this one though. It's actually this one. Like to have so many, it's a, it's incredible. It's like a, a rock band with a, with a back catalog of 20 brilliant singles or

something like he is a, he's an absolutely brilliant fighter. Um, Chuck, is this a good card? Like with all this emotional sentiment we have for Dustin Poirier, which is evident, is this blinding us or is it in fact a really good card we're getting in New Orleans? By pay-per-view standards, it's not like a great card, but I think if you look at it and I hate to kind of be that guy who has the retrospect of, well, you got to watch the fights before you can determine if it's a good card or not.

But I do think, I know. I do think that if you look down the card, there's some pretty good fights. Like I don't think the stakes aren't high, the stars aren't like the most bright, but I think there are some good fights, some of them fairly lopsided, but they're also like, you know, in terms of the odds, but there are guys like. You know, Michael Johnson, who sometimes wins the fights he's supposed to lose and lose the fight he's supposed to, you know, see, there's a little wild card elements in there and stuff like that, but it's not like, it's not a great

pay-per-view, you know, I don't think you're getting tons of bang for your buck, but it's, it's not a bad card if you just like fights. I think you're going to get a lot of action on this. You agree then? Yeah. I mean, it would be great card if it didn't cost you $80 to watch on pay-per-view.

I mean, that's the, the thing here is that outside of the main event, you look at every other fight on this card, there's nothing there that would be way out of place on a UFC fight night. True. I'm not talking about the Apex fight night. All I'm talking about, I'm talking about the current tier, how we have, where we have pay-per-view at the top, we got Apex at the bottom, and in the middle we got UFC fight night in front of an actual crowd whenever we can find a city willing to pay us to come there.

And any of these fights would be at home on that middle tier. And so it's reasonable for people to look at it when you're asking them to pay such premium prices and for them to be like, what is here that feels like it could only be a pay-per-view fight. And it's just the top one. Yeah. It's, it's, it's just, and see, that's where I feel like did we do Dustin a little bit of a disservice on his retirement fight to not give a better supporting cast here?

I mean, you could argue like, Hey, we're going to New Orleans. We're, we're down there in Louisiana, even if we're not in his actual hometown of Lafayette, but everybody gets to come and see him. He, he, the focus is very much on him where it might not be if we had another title fight or something else on this card. So there is that, that nice element, but it's also like, you look at the rest of the card and aside from that main event, just does feel at least on paper, like one of the more missable ones of recent months.

Dana Cormier is happy. I mean, he gets to go home and the Nelk boys are happy, I think. Yeah. But their teeth look fantastic. Oh my God. You see the Nelk boys' teeth? I did want to point out, okay. You see Dustin Poirier on the stage, uh, squaring off Max Holloway and Dustin

Poirier at the press conference. For one thing, uh, I saw somebody point out that how funny it is where you're like, all right, so what you have there is two guys who started their careers as featherweights and are now lightweight. And both of them look taller than the former heavyweight champion of the world. Yeah. But also I love man, everything about Daniel Cormier, how you just watch that guy walk through a room and you're like, well, there's a wrestler.

There's a guy, there's a guy who would be at home like with a whistle around his neck, you know. Bowling pins run when they see them. You just like, that's such a born wrestler and wrestling coach out there in his cargo pants at the press conference, you know, just everything about the guys just seems like he's at home in a sweatsuit, uh, yelling at kids in nylon singlets to be tougher. And I love it. I love having him around. Even, even the direction he gave and nylon singlets to be tougher. And I love it. I love having him around.

Even, even the direction he gave to them, I thought was great. Like he's like, he brings them in and he said, you guys are two gentlemen. Then he goes, stare at the crowd. He's got history with both, right? Cause he's got the Louisiana connection to Poirier, but then he's him in Holloway. They Holloway used to always be like, I'm going to fight Daniel Cormier. Remember he was always talking about that. This week as well. He's beenay used to always be like, I'm gonna fight Daniel Cormier. Remember he's always talked about that? This week as well, he's been hit with that one.

I'm glad we didn't see that one. Look, your excitement levels might not be through the roof, but Pell O'Costa was literally vibrating at the press conference. I just wanted to show you this video. Cocaine's a hell of a drug. No. Look at this, man.

I mean, does he know he's fighting a Russian height with a savage volume? Is that really great? Is that, that's not sped up. What the hell? I don't know. That is literally answering a question about how much that's your MoF. That is normal speed, right? I know, Jordan, he can't talk.

Don't know why I asked him. Whoa. I don't know if you've ever read the back of a bottle of secret juice, but, uh, the, I have the extensive list of things that can add to potential side effects. It can cause jittery, uh, you know, kind of shaky feelings. So it's that's what that's the trade off. You, you want to blast off to the moon. You got to put some rocket fuel in there.

You know what I'm saying? Bala Casa he's, he's hyped. He's ready to go. It's it's bizarre that the. Oh, thank you, Jordan. Wow. He could be on a bottle of wine. That's a good show. Or off a bottle of wine.

Like you get those kind of shakes. I've been there. I've been there. There's no doubt about that. Maybe last Saturday morning I was there. More about that at the back of the show. But at Picks, guys, GC is running away with this fucking thing.

Joey's not. I'm one behind him. I'm one behind him. He has a lot of, a lot of year left, a lot of picking left to do. Yeah. Let's, let's have a look. Do we have the graphic there, Jordan?

I'm viciously mid table right now. Look at this. I hope you can see that. I mean, you expect me to see what's going on. All right. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. All right. Right.

So we're all going with Mr. Zell Huber against Johnson, despite the fact that Chuck hollered it earlier, that he is indeed a spoiler and he definitely is in terms of the Pitbull VE game matchup, Mr. Drake Riggs, I don't know why I mispronounced Drake Riggs, who was in New Orleans. Dracke. Dracke Riggs. He is going with Patricio Pitbull.

Shaheen Alshadi, our fearless editor, is going with Patricio Pitbull. And yes, mysterious Frank is going with Patricio Pitbull. I guess who else is going with, I don't know why I keep saying his full name, Patricio Pitbull. It is Ben Fokes. It's me. Tell us about that one, Ben. Go ahead.

Tell us about that choice. Look, when you're down there near the bottom of the table, like, you got it. You just said, well, let me tell you. You gotta take some swings, you know, you gotta dig yourself out of that hole. And if you just make the same picks everybody else is going to make, then you're never going to gain any ground. You gotta take some chances. picks everybody else is going to make, then you're never going to gain any ground. You got to take some chances.

This is one where I can be like, all right, maybe the pit bull that we saw on his first UFC fight, a lot of people don't look great in their first UFC fight. Even long time veterans of the sport have come in and struggled in their first UFC fight. So it's entirely possible that he comes in for the second one, especially knowing that you really, really got to win this one and performs a whole lot better. So yes, I was able to talk myself into that one there and no regurts. I like the strategy, you know, no regurts. Let's have a look at that again there, Jordan. I'll have a hand.

I just take the favorites, you know. I think I did. I think I did take the favorites, honestly, all of them. The only person that is not taking Mr. I think I did. I think I did take the favorites, honestly, all of them. The only person that is not taking Mr. Kevin Holland as he faces off against Daniel Rodriguez is our fearless editor, Shaheen Alshadi. Really? Sitting fourth in the charts.

Well, he's tied with me, PZ Carol, who was just one head of Mr. Ben Foulkes, not quite up there. The dizzying heights of Chuck Mendenhall, as we can see. You should see the view up here, man. It's beautiful. It's like being being on one of those walks with Ben with the dog, just beautiful landscapes, like, oh, my God. And the calm end event there, I believe it is only

OK, it's Chuck Mendenhall. Now it's Alshadi who has Paulo Costa and it is, in fact who has, uh, Paulo Costa. And it is in fact, mysterious Frank who has Paulo Costa and shaking like that. When I made my pick though, this is, are you, are you on Palo as well? No, you're on copy love. Oh, I can't see the thing. All right.

Yes. I was going to say, I thought I picked copy love, but who was my MMA fighting, uh, uh, prospect of the year back in 2019. Finally, finally making it there to the promised land. Yeah. I had the moment. Hamsatsumayev before he got to the UFC. Cyril Ghan before he got to the UFC.

Asimov before he got to the UFC. All of them. I'm fucking Jimmy Hedges. Jimmy Hedges never fucking makes it. He never got on there. Remember him though. Jesus. Yeah.

Finally for the main event and aces are wild here. Poirier, Mr. Connor Burke's going with Poirier. Chuck Mendenhall is going with Poirier. Drake Riggs is going with Holloway. Shaheen Alshadi with Poirier. Pizzi Carol is going Holloway. Ben Fogg's with Poirier. Eric Jackman, Holloway.

And Mr. Mysterious Frank also with Holloway. So two Poirier guys, boys, you're thinking with your heart. You love this guy too much. I'm about to take a point off you at the weekend. That's fine. Honestly, I would rather in this one pick Poirier and be wrong than pick Holloway and be right. I just, I can't, I can't live with myself if I learned against

Dustin Poirier at this late hour of the game. Plus it's two and oh against the guy. Yeah. That's, that's about as good as he can do. And the power has translated well in this, in the series so far, even though the first one was so far back, but I wonder, my only question is like if Holloway, you know, now that he's grown into the 55 frame, like, cause the last time it felt like he was masquerading, right?

Like he was, it felt like he was just kind of going up. He wasn't really, um, to that point. So I guess it does feel like there's a, there's an era of mystery to this one. Even though they faced each other twice before. Yeah. Ben and you have both now convinced me that I fucked up there. Yeah. Just, you know, the two and O thing should have really been front of mind.

When I was making, if they'd let me pick by method, I would have said that I fucked up there. Yeah. Just, you know, the two and O thing should have really been front of mind. When I was making it, if they'd let me pick by method, I would have said Dustin Poirier via guillotine. We're going out there where, where I, this is my prediction. We have ourselves a five round war final minute of round five. Uh, Dustin Poirier grabs the guillotine jumps for it. And the, the, we find out that what he needed to put him over the edge with that guillotine was the, the swell of the crowd, the, the, the, can you imagine the noise that will come up in that building the moment you see Dustin Poirier

jump for that guillotine and that's what's going to put a statue out front of the I didn't know Ben was working on a Hollywood script based around this last point of course, instead of pointing at the ground, he points to the crook of his arm. Get in there. Get in there. Yeah. Very, very good. We're looking forward to it.

I'm a lot more excited now. Always do this. I'm always like not really feeling the buzz and then we talk about it. I'm actually like, fucking hell, I love MMA. What the fuck was I thinking? But no, we are not talking about MMA for the next five to ten minutes. It is in fact the Wembley card. Beautiful Wembley Stadium all the way over there in cheery old London where they live an old cup of tea and a fucking crumpet

and whatever are you having yourself. They will be fighting of course for the second time. Really liked the drama of the first fight, you know? The fifth round, the fifth round, the body shot at the ref gives us sick like three and a half minutes. You mean the low blow. That's the fucking body shot. Okay. We're trying to make this interesting.

Yeah. I was determined to low blow. Let's be honest here. You are correct again. Chuck Mendenhall. Oh, Oh, we have a little bit of a highlight here. But you're allowed to play there. We're allowed to watch this, right? Like, this isn't illegal.

Oh my God. We're allowed to watch this. He just sprung this on me. I mean, we were, oh no. Chuck. There it was. Oh, oh, run it back. I missed it.

I was looking down. Look at the performative stuff out of this music. I mean, is he even a good guy? Does anyone know for sure? And there he is knocking him out in the night around, of course. Talksport, I don't know if you guys like a bit of Talksport. It is like a British sports outlet. This kept them going for about two months after they were getting Dubois' coach on. He was fucking losing his mind.

I believe he went for fucking Gareth A. Davies at some point. I respected you, Gareth. It was fucking crazy. It was a lot of drama. It finally happened. in his mind. I believe he went for fucking Gareth A Davies at some point. I respected you, Gareth. It was fucking crazy. It was a lot of drama. It's finally happening.

Joseph Parker just disregarded back in February. Good luck, mate. We're actually doing this rematch. Here we are in the beautiful Wembley Stadium, where once George Frutch fought in front of 80,000 people in case you didn't know. I wanted to know. Any chance of a little upset here, Ben, or are you with our Ukrainian warrior, Mr.

Usyk, who seems to be the most thought, the most thoughtful heavyweight champion, as Elliot Wurzel put it on Uncrowned this weekend that we've had in quite some time. That's a great piece, by the way. Really? Yeah, it is a great piece. I really enjoyed that one by Elliot. I, there's nothing I've seen that can really get me to pick

against Usyk at this point, but it's, it is that you can feel that potential there, you know, you can feel that possibility in the air a little bit. It's also just that like anybody you stay too long at the table and, uh, you're going to get got eventually, especially though he seems like somebody where I feel like the more you have to stand there in front of him, the more opportunity he has to fight you and study you and find out what you're like, the worse your chances get. I think you, you, you have a better shot at that guy early on in the first fight than you do at any point in the second fight, just cause I think that he is so good at sort of finding weaknesses,

figuring out people's timing and their range and operating off of that, that the more looks you give them, the better he's going to get. Yeah. He's shown that especially in the last three fights, man, against guys who, you know, including Dubois, but what I keep thinking, man, when you ask if there's a potential, I feel like Dubois, like when he came into that situation against Anthony Joshua, it just felt like it was another coronation, right? Like, well, Anthony Joshua, now here he is in his moment, 90,000 people.

But there was something about just that calm. I pointed this out in the round table. We were, we were writing about this and I would just his demeanor of just like, this isn't too big for me at all. He had complete poise in that fight. And when he started kind of landing and hurting Joshua and it felt like he was going downhill at that point, that stays with you. You know, you think like, well, maybe, maybe he can get this going.

But I'm ultimately with Ben. I just think that, you know, when you watch Yusick fight, even though at 38, you think that he would start to kind of diminish and you're never sure when that might occur. But I think that his ability to solve you in ring is what makes him different. Just his ability to adapt, see what you're doing, and then to start to do something else that you have no counter for. So I think that in the end, he's going to be too much for Dubois. Yeah.

Like, look, I agree with you. Like, I mean, going to my head, I'm definitely picking Usyk, but. I've been very impressed with Dubois. Really, like I know Jarell Miller, like is not, is not a brilliant boxer by any stretch, but he's a 300 odd pound man. And to stop him is an accomplishment, man. He's usually just coming forward and he got the job done against him. Right.

Like very late, a while back there. He had Hergavitch win and as you said the Joshua fight. I'll always remember that one because Elaine is a massive Anthony Joshua fan and it's not a lot about his boxing Elaine. At least you're being honest. Yeah she has a type I know but we're watching the Joshua fight the Amalfi Coast I remember and we're beside this swimming pool and the signal is coming in and out as it's happening and I was like, yeah, no, I can't really see much. No, he, oh, he's down and then start again.

Oh no, no, no, he's down again. This is terrible. Oh my God. He's just finished. I'm like, no, no, no, my beautiful. But, um, really, she likes the little ear piece you've got in all the time. Yeah. The one, the in all the time. Yeah. The one, the one.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I do look, even reading Elliot's article today, I was like, it is a great clash of mentalities, a great crash of style. Like Usyk seems to be this effortless charmer nearly. I don't think we understood it for like, you know, when he was, I think he was cruiserweight and kind of came up to heavyweight force. We didn't quite understand the charm, but you know, the I am feel thing, you know, all

of this, like it's like, it's, he kind of sucks you in his character. Like he's an incredible guy. The rabbit as a Tyson Fury used to call him. And of course the fury fights have made him infamous now. The struggling Ukraine, his alignment with them. It's been a tremendous story, honestly. But he describes brilliantly how I feel, never mind how Duvall feels before he gets on the mic, like him and Joe Joyce have this unique thing where before they talk,

everyone's like, oh, fuck it, please don't fuck this up. Come on, get us involved, dude. And Elliot did a great job of figuring that out, but I mean, sorry. Yeah. Putting it down on paper, but it's a really good fight. It's the undisputed heavyweight. And DePaul reminds me a little bit of Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes back in the day was like of all of the, you know, the golden era

in the seventies and into the eighties. You know, he wasn't going to wow you on the microphone or anything like that, but he would go in there and sometimes lay these destructionructions, you know, with his jab, that jab that he had and all this stuff, but he would do this stuff and you're like, Oh my God, this guy's good. So sometimes the action, you know what I mean? The action itself would override back then, especially, you didn't need to be a talker, right?

Like you could just show up. I feel like Dubois is kind of like that, but that, that, that piece that you're pointing out is really brilliant. You should go read it because it really gets into that. You know how Dubois, while the guy's in front of him, even if the guy's checking his setup, he's in control of that situation, whereas he doesn't have the same control when he's facing regular people and having a conversation or trying to be on the microphone.

So it's a very good piece to check out and get a glimpse of his mindset. You know, the point about Larry Holmes, you made is that there's a point at which that becomes a strength because those people do not have the ability to just sort of bullshit you. And I will always remember reading one of my favorite boxing stories. It was about the fight between Larry Holmes and Butterbean, which I believe is Larry Holmes' last pro fight. And it was, you know, it's a gimmick fight to begin with. It's like Larry Holmes and Butterbean at like a casino in Mississippi or something.

And at one point, Larry Holmes was trying to do the thing that he's expected to do. Where it's like, well, I don't know, this is a tough opponent. People, people don't realize how tough this guy is. It's going to be a good fight. Make sure to tune in. And he was, he was trying to do what he knew was expected of him. And then the writer describes him as sort of exasperated, finally kind of giving it up and being like, look, man, he can't fight and

I'm going to, I'm going to beat his ass. And it was just like, okay. The trade off there, somebody who is just like, he might not have a brilliant way with words, but that also means he does not have the ability to snow yet that what you see is kind of what is there to see. Man, he wrote that piece. I only remembered that piece when you broke into that final part where you kind of gave up the ghost.

He's like, come on, I'm going to beat the fuck out of him. I remember I've read him before in some anthology or something. Yeah, that's where I read it. I read it at the, the at the fights anthology, which if anybody out there wants a great, great boxing writing that just covers like from, you know, Jack Johnson and James J Jeffries up through, you know, like Mike Tyson is an excellent anthology full of great writing. Speaking of great writing, I'll just plug it while I'm here.

The great Donald McCray, his, his last book, The Final Bell is out at the moment. He wrote Dark Trade, which is incredible. Like one of the great, like it should be in the pantheon of great boxing books. And there are many of them. Like I put it up there with the fight, any of them, honestly, brilliant. His last book, I'm halfway through. I was hoping I'd read, I kind of have a halfway read before I got to New York and then I just didn't get a minute. Like I wanted to finish it and then go to the Katie fight. I just didn't get a minute, but boxing fans, boxing writing is just has been and is phenomenal.

Look at Elliot Wurzel. We're just speaking about him. Go and check that out. If you do get a chance. I believe that's the article there we have up on the screen, right? Yeah. What a guy, man. This guy is absolutely brilliant.

In fact, Elliot Wurzel has a, he writes one of the endorsements on the cover of this book that I'm talking about, The Final Bell. Oh yeah? Yes, it's absolutely brilliant. So he's a mysterious figure out there in England. You know what I mean? Yeah. I like it. I wish it was as cool as Elliot, man.

Remember he was on that group call one day and I was like, oh, I'm not rooting enough to be a good writer. He's probably, he's watching this right now and he's still mad at you over your tea and crumpets remark. He's just like hurtful stereotype. Yeah. Fucking Irish prick.

Hey lads, sorry, just before we leave this, Chuck, do you think there's any chance that this could be the last we see of Usyk? We see all these heavyweights coming up, these young guys coming up, Tom, all these guys everyone's getting very excited about. Do you feel like this could be the end point? Dubois kind of hint to hint that last month I heard him talking like he separated from his, his promoter. Uh, you know, this is usually a sign that things are closing down for a fighter. What do you think? For you, Usyk?

I mean, he's 38 and there's always a part of me that's like, you should, you probably should, man, if you can get out of it clean, that's the hardest thing to do in the fight game is just to be undefeated and leave it on the top. Um, but you know, you mentioned Parker. I mean, there's still a fight out there that would, uh, make money. So I guess I'd be surprised if that doesn't happen, but, but if he did it and it would be like, almost like, you know, if John Jones was more, um, sincere and genuine and like what he, how he approaches it, if he had just said after

he won the New York church fight, you know what guys I've done everything I can do. I'm out. I would have been, I would have respected that it was just the way he drug it out. But I think if, uh, if Usyk is basically making that same thing, if he says I'm done, I would respect that, you know what I mean? And I wouldn't blame him at all. He's made plenty of money too. It's not like at some point you're like, what's the trade off, you know?

But you're right. I'm back. Yeah. You also have to sit around there and go like, what is, it's not like there's a lot of stuff that he has left undone. You know, there's not a lot of stones left unturned there and that guy's career. And so, yeah, you get to that point, point, you've been at the top for so long. You definitely don't owe it to anybody to stick around until you get knocked

out, until something bad happens to you, which you know, if you stick around long enough, eventually it will happen. That's an inevitability, you know? So, uh, I, I wouldn't be surprised totally to see him do it. I also wouldn't be surprised to see him think he's going to do it and then maybe change his mind later because as we talked about earlier on the show, that's just part of the fight game too. Yeah.

What a weird shakeup just by the way, if Dubois does win it just what a shakeup that is, cause I think that not many people are actually contemplating like, what does it look like if he wins? You know, that'd be very interesting too. Yeah. I hope you guys saw the Aspys by the way, because a certain man came out of retirement. I know we don't have it on the list. I don't want to get into it because people get very upset.

White house speaks to them, man. Yeah. It's the John Jones whisperer, that white house. Can I just say, I'm just done. Like I'm not doing it anymore. All right. All right. I just want to make one comment.

The part where they're like the ESPN people on the red carpet clearly don't have a fuck about MMA. They don't fucking have a clue. And they're like, so why are you coming back, John? Like, as if like this has been years. I know. As far as they're concerned, if someone feeds me this in the year, like they're going.

And John just eats it up. You know, it's like, you know, the body, the body's not feeling like it used to. You're like, four weeks, dude, four weeks ago, you said you said you were in count what are you talking about what are you talking about bro sorry he just says stuff he's a funny mate in terms of humor like if you were watching that and you were one of his mates and he's like I'm gonna fucking tell them that I'm out of retirement I like how he thinks that the rest of like the MMA world or the combat world just won't listen to this or something I don't know what he's thinking he He's going to tell them something else.

But I'm saying if he was your mate and you knew he was retiring, but he's like, I have to go to the SBCS. I might like, I'm presenting an award. I might be like, I'm fucking out retirement. Just watch them just fucking lose their minds. It'd be pretty funny. Um, I'm not John Jones's friend by the way. I do not know. You are his friend.

Well, I wish. Of course he's the coolest. I do not know. You are his friend. Well, I wish. Of course, he's the coolest guy, as we all know. PFL Africa won. Ben can't wait for it. Chuck can't wait. Look at those fucking faces. Look at those two. Yeah, baby.

Look, they are, look, look how animated these guys have become. That's right. The PFL got there before the UFC. Yeah, PFL. It was a race. Make no mistake, it was a race. It was a massive race. And it reminded me of the time that Bellator went to Paris before the UFC and the UFC had said like, we're going to do it. Bellator did it before them. And I wrote an article for the BBC about it.

Like, you know, the UFC has said they wanted to be the force to break ground there. Like, this was always a goal. The UFC PR team went fucking insane. They're like, we weren't trying. We weren't trying to go there. Like, what are you talking about, bro? What are you saying? I was like, I mean, I'm just saying, like you said you want to do an event in Paris.

They did it before you. I'm wondering, joke, does it? You know, like God, you know, what are you going to do? The European office are crazy. I'm only joking. I love it when the publicists my God, you know, what are you going to do? The European office to crazy. I'm only joking. They're loving it. I love it when the publicists come at you. But anyways, go ahead.

Go ahead. I was going to ask, is this a case? I think I know the answer. Is this a case of the PFL getting there before the UFC? Or is it simply that the UFC haven't been given the bag by South Africa to come and do the. Well, I will say that Dana has been asked and talking about this for years. I mean, I was.

Yeah. It goes back to a Mike Straka thing, which is like, I don't know when the last time you even thought of Mike Straka, but like he was at an event and he asked him about South Africa, he said, yeah, we do have plans to go there next year. And that had to have been 10 years ago. Like he, it was like something like that, like a long time ago. So there's gotta be a little bit of that, but you know, I looked at Don Davis's, uh, you know, his, his tweet today and he's like, they and capital couldn't get here,

but we're here. So they're looking at it that way. Um, and it's not a bad boy. Piafella looking at that way? That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh, honestly, these things are, they're always so strange. Like the UFC is, you know, they're showing up, like they have one in Qatar, right? Like coming up, like they've got like, they're, they're always so strange. Like the, the UFC is, you know, they're showing up like they have one in Qatar, right? Like coming up, like they've got like, they're, they're going other places. It's not like, I'm sure they could put on an event there. I don't know why they haven't. And I, you know, I, you never, maybe the money is not like they tend to get paid where they're going these days.

Like, uh, maybe the money's not right, but I don't think the UFC is too worried about it. Let's put it that way. I doubt that they really saw it the way that the PFL is trying to. Well, PFL is trying to frame it that way because that's what you kind of got to do if you're in PFL situation. It's like that thing about, you know, that lawyers say that if the law is on your side, you bang the law and if, and if none of it's on your side, you bang

the table and just shout and yell a bunch that that's kind of what they're doing here. Is that similarly like the same way where I saw them making a big deal about their newly redesigned championship belt that we're doing. It's like, wow, wow, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no exception when anytime Western where a pizza, it's going to go with things like you wouldn't be interested. Anytime a promoter starts to tell you in great detail about the physical intricacies of the championship belt itself, it's a bad side. It's, and I say that as somebody who worked for a fight promotion that started to do that.

We, cause it was just like, we can't tell you that this is necessarily a real title fight to determine the best fighter in this weight class in the entire world. No one's really going to believe it. So we got to say the belts really fucking nice. You guys like you, you should see this belt man. Like that, and that, that doesn't, yeah. Isn't that what one, uh, one championship used to lean on at some point, like how, how heavy, how physically heavy their belt was compared heavier than all the other belts and it's like, yeah, that's what, uh, one championship used to lean on at some point? Like how, how heavy, how physically heavy their belt was compared, heavier

than all the other belts and it's like, yeah, that's what fans want, man. But the, the African thing too, is it's like the use of the word could with, is the, the defining feature there. Cause it's like, sure. The UFC could have gone to Africa a long time ago. They just didn't see it as a priority and you can criticize them for that. Especially since they, they had legitimate big fights they could have put on somewhere in Africa. Back when you had Francis Ngannou, you had Kamaru Usman at the top, you, you had fighters who had a

connection to Africa that you could have really done something with and they just did not see it as worth it. I think the PFL, sure, go ahead and make that point that like, hey, we're going new places, we're bringing this thing other places. We're helping like grow the sport. The UFC is not in the growth business that much anymore. They're in the pay us business. They're like, they are going places where the money is. They're not that concerned with like forcing open new markets or doing anything like that at the same time.

Didn't PFL do the same? Like the PFL technically beat the USC into New York, right? Like after New York opened, they were the first ones to actually hold an event there. And they sort of did the same thing there where they're like, look, we got here first and the USC was like, we had a little flag. Here we are. Yeah. And it was like, the USC has paid millions and dollars in lobbyists and for years

been trying to push this. And so it's like, sure, go ahead and make that claim and be like, we beat them here. I think it's a limited value in the long run though. I mean, the UFC even has a South African champion and they're not. Right. How do you think, you know, there was this kind of situation where we're like, I don't think Dakota DeJava is all too happy with the situation here. She was popping up and she wasn't directly being like, yeah, this is fucking disgraceful.

Like, where's my fight? But you could read it if you just watched her talk and you're like, yeah, she's pretty pissed off. How do you think has all been resolved? Chokeboy, give her this massive spot against, you know, you know, she's fine, right? Oh, I was going to ask Ben, I think he had a piece on the opponent. What was her name? It was, it's too difficult Right. Oh, I was going to ask Ben, he, I think he had a piece on the opponent. What was her name? It was, it's too difficult. I don't want to talk about it.

Still conjures up too many memories. Samiko Inaba, boys, is who, they go to each of his fights. She's eight and one. You know, huge fight. I think that it's still there. I mean, how long ago was it that the Santos fight took place? Because that was the big, the big moment we were calling her at Uncrowned, you know, uh, one of the breakthrough fighters

of the year, and it takes what, seven, eight months for her to return. That's too long, man. We start, we stopped talking about her, you know, and I felt like, and it's great that she's coming back, but now you're putting it into a weekend. You just showed a graphic where there's

six different posters. So she becomes just a part of this crazy weekend. I'm sure that she's not thrilled with the situation, you know? Um, and I talked to her before, like before her last fight and she wasn't that thrilled about it then, but she was kind of mostly like mad at like, you know, fan perception that she was fighting nobodies and she was hoping that the Tela Santos would then, um, you know, change that, which I thought it did. She went right through her and I, you know, I still think that she's got

the potential in all honesty, even if, even if she's with PFL, if they could just put her in front of enough eyeballs and like, uh, give her the shine. She could be the biggest thing in women's MMA right now. You know, I really think that she could just given her pedigree, her mom being a kickboxer, um, she's 26. She's right in that wheelhouse of just like not even at her peak yet. I think that you just take all of that. And if she keeps going through people and finishing them, she's got that

kind of potential man in my mind. Do you think she can be the, the, the biggest star in women's MMA? Well, she's with the PFL, Ben. Like we, I think we've had this discussion about Kayla for a long time. Yeah. Like, look, let's be honest. Like I've been saying this to everyone. This, when they bring up the co this week, I've done the who's she fighting again?

Just to say, and not one person was like, and you never do know, we can never have an answer for it. It's an important part, right? Like, and also like, it's crazy to me that need like that. She wasn't on Ariel show this week. You know what I mean? Like a massive week. Like I'm like, why isn't she on Ariel show this week. You know what I mean? Like a massive week. Like I'm like, why isn't she on there? Wasn't she front and center?

Like I tried to get her. I wanted to do a piece, but, uh, they didn't get back to me. You have to fucking do like they had Todd John on and he's great. Like, don't get me wrong. He's not fighting for many weeks. You know, like, this was the week to push her out there. And I'm just like, how are you not doing the biggest show? Like a guy, you have a rapport with a guy who's put you over so many times in the past.

It's crazy to me. Like, sorry. And I'll get back to the question, Ben, do you think that the code to J. Vickam be the biggest, uh, star in women's MMA while she's with the PFL? Not while she's with the PFL. Sadly. I mean, I don't, it's, it kind of feels unfair to the PFL at a certain point to keep reinforcing that aspect of the dynamic, but it is the reality.

And I think that you are kind of just going to temporarily try to keep her happy, try to hold onto her as long as you can, but it's kind of going to be the same situation that you dealt with with Kayla Harrison at some point. Cause you just, you know, you gotta have people for them to fight and you also, that fighter is going to get to a point where they realize like, I'm only going to rise so far as long as I'm here. And I got to, you know, I'm sort of big fish in a small pond right now. And I got to get out there on the open ocean.

And that feels like an inevitability almost. And it feels like you would almost be doing a disservice to her and her career if you didn't allow it to happen at some point. Then you were at that Cincinnati card. It was like a strike force. Oh yeah. Do you remember that? We were, I remember we were like, I know we went to some German restaurant

and we were running around, but uh, sounds fantastic. Yeah, it was a fun time. We, we happened upon a dance party in a basement bar. That's right. And it was a great time. I'm like a dance party in a basement bar. That's right. And it was a great time. Oh my god. How does the story know this? This is fucking really pissing me off.

It was wild. It was a wild one. But that particular card, was that Ronda Rousey? I can never remember because I went to another one of hers too. And like, was that, do you remember if that was the, is Ronda Rousey on that card? But it was around that time. I don't believe so.

Because it was the Strike Force Grand Prix. Yeah. But it was believe so. It was, cause it was the Strikeforce Grand Prix, but it was also the Strikeforce Grand Prix, it was the Heavyweight Grand Prix, but the sale had already happened. And right. And so it was just like, uh, what's, what's going to happen now that the, the UFC parent company also owns Strikeforce. Cause I remember, uh, one of the things that I did while we were in Cincinnati that time is I hung out with Josh Barnett, who, you know, it had sort of a questionable history with the UFC and with Dana White in particular, Dana White, it says some bad

things about him and I remember it was raining and cold and when I went out with him shopping for a jacket, he decided to buy a jacket and we went on just a wild misadventure while he attempted to buy a jacket and Eric Paulson was just very Eric Paulson about it. And, uh, Barnett and Paulson. Jesus Christ. Oh, it was, you should have seen it.

The, the story is still out there was for MMA fighting. If anybody wants to go and look it up. And I think it's called like Josh Barnett goes on a quest for a jacket or something. But, but I remember we, we walked into like, uh, you know, sort of a nice menswear section of a department store and Josh Barnett is wearing a shirt, like a heavy metal shirt with a drawing of the crucifixion on it. And Eric Paulson is just going up and spraying cologne samples all up and down his arm and

then asking me to smell them all and see which one I like best. And the guy who came up as the salesman, he was wearing a tuxedo. He's a salesman at this menswear department. So he's wearing a tuxedo and he looked at the three of us and you could tell on his face where he was just like, first of all, I don't get paid enough for this shit, second of all, you guys must be in the wrong place. And then Josh and him started talking about men's fashions. And it was just like, you could tell they each found a friend,

a soulmate in this world. But I remember us sitting down at dinner and me being like, so what's going to happen with this? Are you going to get absorbed into the USC? Are you going to be kind of frozen out now that's under new ownership? And Josh Burnett said something, another thing that I've, I've always thought about since then where he was like, what you're talking about right now is the business of fighting.

I just get really bored with the business of fighting. I just get really bored with the business of fighting. I got in this because I like the sport of fighting and the sport of fighting has nothing to do with the business of fighting. And so it's like the business side. It's not a lot I can control. It's going to be what it's going to be. But I came here to beat Sergey Keretanov's ass and that was pretty much it. Come here.

What, what kind of jacket did he get? And was it in fact leather? Cause I feel throughout this I've been picturing a leather jacket on. No, I think it was like a really nice, like kind of like pea coat sort of situation. Like it was quite, cause he was also like, the guy was trying to steer us toward, cause he was basically just being like, should you guys be at Hot Topic? Is that like, should you guys be somewhere else on this mall?

And just at some point it was just straight up told me, he's like, no, I came in here for a reason, like I'm going to buy a jacket and I also need it to work for like here in the weather, but then I'm going to go to fashion week in New York, uh, here pretty soon. And so I want to be able to take it to that. And that's when the guy started to be like, okay, this dude is legit. Let's talk about it. And the funniest part to me was that it was kind of an expensive jacket, but I

don't remember exactly how much it costs, but Eric Paulson, every single time he would bring it up, the price of the jacket would, would go up. And so it was just a point where he would just be like, I can't believe Josh Burnett came here and bought a $300 jacket. And then the next time he'd bring it up, the jacket was $650 to the point where it's like, we're sitting down to dinner at the end of the day and he's just like, well, make sure you take care of your $5,000 coat over there. You know, like, yeah, the whole experience, very memorable.

You know what? But listen to this card. I mean, real quick, like, listen, Josh Barnett beat Karatanov, Daniel Cormier beat Bigfoot Silva. Luke Rockwell beat Jacare. Muhammad Ball beat Hajar Gracie. Like you go down the, like go down to the, uh, to the earlier fight, Joel Romero lost on the prelims.

You had Alexa Davis beating Amanda Nunes. That's in a sinker. But the reason I brought that up is because Ronda Rousey at that time, I remember having this discussion out there at some point, like with that she was a big fish in a small pond and you're wondering how this was all going to translate. And I'm not, I hate the comparison because there was no women's MMA. There was no women's MMA in the UFC, but I do get a little bit of the Dicheva thing going over like where there might be this resurrection of it, you know, like

where they're like, okay, now there's big eyeballs. Now there's big interest on this again. Yes. And look, Johnny Edlund's on the card. He is defending his title against Kostlov and Stenis. It's a decent car. You have AJ McKee on there as well. I will be watching. I'm wondering, boys, will you tune in? Will you, will you be watching this? And Ben always loves this question when I ask him, is he going to be watching the PFL event? Uh, I am going on an annual camping trip. So I will be out there, uh, beside a river in the forests of Montana with my good friend, Chad Dundas and a lot of other people. So that's my excuse.

Yeah. He bringing his drum kit. I can't believe that kid plays the drums like he does. Yo, he's a beast. Chad Dundas during the week. Cause Casey Lloyden was here and he was like, he goes, I was like, isn't it crazy? Chad's in a hardcore band.

I only realized this when Ben shared it. I know me too, I didn't know that. And I was like, man, that's insane. He's so fucking cool. And he was like, yeah. And he was in like a great, he was like one of the, like one of the great hardcore bands that Casey followed like years and years ago ago the Sputniks yes he was like he was in this band I was like man he's so fucking cool it pisses me off writes novels and you do as well Chuck

I fucking tell you this stop with your fucking cool hobbies fucking annoying pricks okay let's move on and money is back you thank you for not letting me answer the question about that go ahead with back you no no, I didn't want to answer it. I'm just saying. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no That was rude of me. So you're just ruling yourself out at a post fight show. Then it's just not going to happen. Is that what you're saying? We'll see. I'm a maybe, I'm a maybe for the post fight show. We'll see.

Well, if you're on the post fight show, you're going to have to watch PFL. Like this is the deal. Oh, you guys can describe it to me. Yeah. And you should have seen it. It was crazy. See, it'll add on the level of drama. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I quite liked the headline I put on this section in your notes today. I don't know if you saw it. It says, money is back. Yeah.

Yeah, I saw that. Did you, did you just enjoy that? Did it eat it? No, that was good. Yeah. I got a little chuckle. Ben didn't laugh. Ben didn't laugh.

But he went, he's a, he's a tough audience. Low hanging fruit. He put in parentheses. It was like, stressed it up. To see that and enjoy that one. And he's 46 and it feels weird is the soul batting on that section. Go ahead, Ben. How do you feel about it?

It does feel weird. Especially when I saw it, like Josh Gross had a story, uh, maybe for the OC register, I think it was like talking about how Freddie Roach wasn't really included as Freddie Roach found out when everybody else found out like, oh, okay, we're, we're doing this. But you know, like has been sort of an underlying theme on this episode. This is how the fight game is. You, you, you can think that you're done all you want.

You can tell us you're done. We can even believe you that you're done, but we won't know for sure until, you know, we, we can put that date of death on the tombstone and know, all right, he's really done. Like you just, you never do know. I mean, 46 years old, man. I think the last time was what, 2021 that he was in there and he didn't look particularly good that time. Um, I don't know.

It just, it's what it was. We always talk about watching through your fingers. I feel like that's kind of maybe we're at that situation, you know, 46 years old. I just, I don't want to see it to be honest. Well, especially a fighter like where when you are relying on, you know, people missing their punches by millimeters on you, you know, when that, when that is part of your style, that's one of those things that will start to degrade over time. We've seen that a lot, like we watched it happen with Anderson Silva really,

you know, where it was just like, he was playing that game. And when you slow down even just a little bit, it doesn't work anymore. And also as a fellow who is close in age to Manny Pacquiao himself, the older you get, the worse it is for you to keep getting hit in your head, man. Your, your, your brain just does not bounce back from that stuff. The same, it does not feel the same for you. And you start taking some hits at that age and the odds that you will take more hits go up as the rest of your skills decline, uh, I wouldn't, I

wouldn't mess with it, but then, you know, that's, that's me sitting here as a guy who never was a professional boxer. Yeah. Well, this is where we're saying you need to stop getting fistfights down your local bar then. It's not cool at this age. Well, if people would stop looking at me weird, then we wouldn't have a problem. He's fighting a 30 year old man who can box like a motherfucker.

Yeah. It is. Yeah. That doesn't help. Yeah. He's it's a weird one. It's Mario Barrios. It's going to be good.

And look, the, the, the chief support, as I would say is a great fight, a rematch between fund or and Tim zoo. That's, that's a great fight as well. And it's going to be a good cat. I just, I'm trying to, as I'm going through this, I'm like, how many fucking screens am I going to have on the go here? Like sometimes do you ever have, do you ever try and do that? Honestly?

Like you'll have three screens going and you end up watching no fights. Like you have them all on. You're just like. That's true. It's like the old NFL, the old NFL thing. Like if you've got three quarterbacks, you don't have a quarterback. Like you have none. Yeah.

It's kind of that same. Yeah. You don't, you're not able to process. It's crazy. Cause it's just, there's just too much. If you're in a Vegas sports book and you're trying to watch a football game, like, and then you just get distracted by a million of them, feel like you never watched the game you intended you know. Yeah it's a it's a world situation dude and right what else do we got here and yeah we also have the Bam Rodriguez for he's one of Ariel's favorites he thinks he's one of the great upcoming.

And fighters in the sport and KSW one away Chuck's not going to watch this caseSW one he's absolutely sick about it and look maybe we won't get to it on our post fight show on Saturday night you guys know that of course our beautiful friends George O'Connor and New York Rick and the beautiful mysterious Frank and on our Jordan and we'll be doing their watch along on Saturday God bless them as well like as if they're watching the main event they're watching the main card of the UFC while all this other shit is going on as well. That is gonna be, I assume right? Because the PFL event, I think the main events will be kind of on that as the, maybe I'm wrong, as the main card is kicking off there. So that could be a real pain in the hole for them. Best to

look to the boys. And then afterwards, uh, with me and Chuck and potentially Ben, we're, we're not, we're not nailing him down. It is potentially Ben. And if Ben is there, he will have to be, we'll have to explain to him what happened to PFL, which I'm very happy to do because he's a lovely lad. And as long as he hasn't gotten a fist fight that night down the low hook, everything no guarantees there either. You know, um, that's all we've got for you this week.

And a speaker. There it is. I don't believe now it feels like a Friday. Oh my God. He thought we were getting over there. Here we go. Uh, hello guys from Sweden. Great show.

Happy birthday. Pizzi. Thank you. Uh, Sammy prediction for three of the weekend fights. Justin Poirier win, Daniel Dubois win. I like it. Bowl and Jesse Pan Rodriguez. Yeah, I'm with him on that. I mean, the Dubois one's a long shot there, Sammy. I'm not going to lie to you. That's a that's a that's a punt, as we say.

But if you're feeling it, fucking throw a few quid on it. You know, make sure it's nice and warm. Don't encourage that. Don't encourage people. What's a few hundred quid between men? You know what I mean? Get your mortgage on it. Put a fucking grand on it.

You feel it, you feel it. You know what I'm saying? Sorry. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, sorry, even more. Boojee Alpaca. Did you guys see Brendan Shaw's monologue about Dana?

Surprised to say he was spitting. I mean. Of course, he name drops. Come on. Was it about Dana. Surprised to say he was spitting. I mean, of course he name drops. Come on. Was it about Dana or was it about Chuck and I, Ariel? All the great journalists you didn't get. It was fucking, he did not say your name. I didn't know this even happened.

What did he say? Brendan Sharpe was like, well, I wish Dana would do some real interviews and some real journalists. Like, he was pissed about the milk boys. Yeah. I mean, he's spitting and he has a new haircut and you know what? I fucking like him. I really like Brendan Shaw.

Yeah. He's a good, I think he's a voice of the times right now. And I like that, you know, voice of reason. Yeah. I mean, he knows who the best journalists are. So I mean, what else do you need? Right? Sorry, Ben.

Oh, another one. Colby. Who's a better MMA wingman than Chael PP Sonnen. You know what? The, I, I appreciate about Chael Sonnen, especially at this phase of his career. He knows what he's here to do. He's here to be a guy who feeds the take machine. He's here to come out here, like whatever happens. He, and he's successfully done it. He's successfully conditioned people to where like something, uh, controversial,

something interesting, something just plain weird and stupid happens in MMA. And you know, chill's going to have a take. He's probably going to have several. He's going to churn out like six 90 second YouTube videos about it and he also does a good job of thing. I used to talk to us when I was a graduate student teaching introductory rhetoric writing at the University of Montana if you're gonna write a persuasive essay and you want it to be interesting You gotta pick a thesis statement that people could potentially disagree with. And so you can always see Shale doing it. He's not just going to come out here and take the obvious position and try to

argue that because no one cares. They're like, okay, I thought you were right before I heard your argument. He's going to take a position where you're going to be like, what the hell is this guy saying now? How could he possibly take like adopt this position? Cause now you're interested to hear what his argument is. And so that's why when, when Conor McGregor, uh, is, is seen all in his full glory, Chielsona is going to be like, I should come out here and talk about how I can't

stop staring at it and he knows what he's doing and I appreciate that. I respect it. Yeah. Arlen was pretty locked into the cock weight as well. Yeah. If I'm being completely honest, I wonder if sales have gone up. Um, but, uh, yeah, interesting situation there. Uh, any other, uh, soupity doopity's?

Oh, it's aunt Evans. The great one. Someone asked folks if he painted art on his walls. That's a weird way of saying that I'm not going to let you. I'm just going. Yeah, it is. It is a weird way to say if I, if it does he mean if I painted this put that back, put that back, this man's a warsmith, put this back up.

I need to see that again. Can we see that? Someone asked folks if he painted art on his walls. Come on. You're a literal fucking writer. You wrote an amazing piece just weeks ago. Like, I mean, what the fuck? I think he means the art. I think, uh, this one here, here, this Hogan Warrior WrestleMania 6 one is by a guy named Sam Evans in Australia and you can look him up on the internet.

He has lots of great- Any relation, man. You know what, maybe that's why he's trying to get us to talk about it. That's why he's asking you. He's trying to give an assist here to this guy. He's lucky that I had the name right on the tip of my tongue. But I actually have two paintings,

this guy does great paintings that are sort of just like good stylistic takes on like scenes you were familiar with in one way or another. I have this one from WrestleMania six and then up in my kitchen, I have one, a scene from good fellows of Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta sitting at the diner, uh, talking through their troubles. Uh, and so I highly recommend the guy reasonably priced and good stylistic art. This other one is a sumo wrestling one. And, uh, yeah, let's say I painted that.

Sure. Prove me wrong. Yeah. What? What? He appeared on a serious, Ben appeared on a very serious CBS show. Oh, it's good to say this. With the, yeah.

So yeah, yeah. He, he was, uh, he had his paintings front and center there, didn't he? Yeah. Is that like, as you're on the show, are you like looking at the image or getting back in and saying, I wonder how many people are clocking me. Got the warrior behind you. You know, I was, I was happy to do my part to get that out in front of you. I always, I appreciate it when you're on any sort of like more general discussions.

It was like a mainly a politics show and say, wanted to talk about the UFC White House thing and you can tell when you're there, even the host of the show is like, why am I talking to this guy? I love it. Yeah. Well, listen, Brendan Schaub might not have you up there, but you're my favorite. He knows who I am. Brendan Schaub and I know we go way back and that's, that's why he

intentionally left me out. I'm sure my feelings aren't hurt at all, Brendan. It's fine. Two of the greats. And it's a pleasure as always. Who knows? we might get both of the legends on the post show. We are about to head off. I believe there is no other segments of the show that I forget every week.

I'm hoping that's true. Now listen, we've got a special video for you here before I sign off. First of all, the great On Air Jordan is the man who edited this. Thank you so much to camera guy Nick for shooting it. It took place over the course of, I'd say, of about six hours in New York City last Saturday. I was there.

The great Connor Burks was there. New York Rick was there. And some of my friends joined us. Eamor and Eric joined us. Ashling Morade, all of my wonderful friends in New York. And we had ourselves a few drinks and we tried to figure out what is, in fact, the best pint of Guinness in New York City.

We're gonna leave you with this one. We love you very much. Remember to watch the boys on the watch along and then watch me and Chuck and possibly Ben on the post fight show. We love you very much. Get a load of this guy. The Uncrowned team have ruined me

over seven days in New York City. I'm tired. I'm irritable. Katie Taylor just beat Amanda Serrano for the third time. But yet here I am today. My final day in the city. And I'm going to find the best god damn Guinness in this whole place. We're starting here in the Dead Rabbit. Frank and GC brought me before and I thought it was fantastic.

So this is what our opening gambit is going to be. We're going to go to Brooklyn. Brooklyn we're gonna go uptown again we have a lot of things to be doing the only problem is all everyone else just took a sick day I don't know where oh sorry on the broadcast there a few times that's like hey you come here what the hell no we do what the hell where you go what a dickhead I mean all right we're gonna have some Guinness we're What the hell? No we do. What the hell? Where are you going? Oh Rick! There he is! Ah there he is man! It's good seeing you here! Stepping all over my shoes. What a dickhead! I mean, alright.

We're gonna have some Guinness. We're gonna see the sights. And listen, if I get belligerent, I hope camera going Nick. Edited it all out. Thank you very much. Let's go. Ready, out of here. They have custom glasses that they painted themselves.

Pizzi's too afraid to go to the G. He wants to do the bottle ball. I'm gonna go with the, I'm gonna go with the fucking G. Alright, we're gonna try and split the G now. You go first, take the honors. Kick us off with a bang. Oh, not bad. Not bad. Pizzi, not bad.

I stand no chance, here we go. Come on, thank you. Those stand no chance. Here we go. Come on. Thank you. Those are rookie numbers. Oh, he's going for it. Let's go GC. Oh, so close. Not bad. So close.

Better than I expected to be. To the point. That's nice. We have special friends today. The all-Orland finalists are here. All-Orland semi-final I should say Ema from Blanchettown group on the same road as me Ashfield Grove and her lovely husband a Kiwi from New Zealand

Australia oh wow that is That is offensive. Oh, you live in New Zealand. There's a Fencing Hero the Brit from UK What the fuck are we watching here dude? This is the All-Ireland football semi-final. This is only the semi-final? This isn't even the championship. So they're playing in Croke Park, there's 84,000 people there. 85,000!

And they use this soccer ball and they run around and they dribble and they kick and they throw. It's like a mixture of rugby, soccer and American football? Yes. And this is only played in Ireland? No, there's a team in New York. There's a team in London. Oh no fucking shit. They play in the All-Irland, yeah. Honestly, God. I'll get you a game if you want. Once I see how well this jersey fits it, I'll be like, yes.

Fucking nice. I'll say they gotta send me one. I don't think we're gonna point anywhere bad in this. Alright. Tastes, pour, everything? Tastes, pour, everything? 8 points. The glass. Alright, on a scale of 1 to 10 shamrocks that will be the scale for today.

And don't be afraid to use decimals. I'm going 9 shamrocks for this. Just to leave the possibility out there that someone could hit 10. It's an absolutely beautiful bind. It's a great pub. Also the pub itself is just absolutely to die for. I love this place. Even like Ivar and Eric come here all the time like they were like oh dead rabbit of course.

Alright one Guinness down. 8ian's iris reds to go Pete you're in the middle we're off to spot number two yeah that was good i could have stayed there all day uh that's the dangerous part we're about to go to Hartleys it's a very small looking establishment uh the window looks like it needs to be replaced, but these two guys told us it's really nice Let's go the best point they said huh the beers from last night are wearing on there right now. I need a Water another Guinness that hair the dog. We're now a hat least as you can see Eric and Ema have very much gave us a big endorsement on this one and

GC said he checked the rain said it was very good broken. Broken window, can we sort that out, Harleys? Come on. I actually saw this as the number one place. But it was two out of the way. But then Eric gave us such a solid recommendation we had to come. Here, say what Irish people say before they're having a point.

Oh, slaughter. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Presentation wise, these ones in Harley's looking very, very good. Very good. I mean, oooooh! Look at the cream. Look at that.

We've decided we're going to try and split that H. Split the H. The H. The H. So as you can see, we're changing the goalpost constantly on ourselves here. But this is, dare to be great. Dare to dream. We're going to go for it. Can you match what you just did in the dead rabbit? Split the haze right through the middle. Alright, let's give it a go. Let's give it a go.

My uncle's cousin that you have to dance to the rhythm. So that's what I got you. That's what I got you. That's what I got you. Oh my goodness gracious. I think you got it right on the money. Boom. Right down the middle?

You fucking motherfucker, that is perfect. That's perfect. You're is perfect. That's perfect. That is picture worthy. There's no chance I get that. That is, that is, this is a true skill. Here we go. You can go five for five. Here we go.

Too far. Oh, not far enough. You scared me out of it, you son of a bitch. That is more bad than that. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one.

That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. That is a good one. Too far. Oh, not far enough! You scared me out of it, you son of a bitch!

That is more better than... Sláinte. Oh, I got carried away. That's too good, I couldn't stop myself. Eamor! Blanch baby. Very good. Yes. Yes.

I like the pints too much. I was very aggressive. Listen, it was probably Steve's fault. There it is. Look, really good. I thought they were really good Okay So like at this point at this level of pine

It's now to the point where I don't know enough balls where I can decipher what makes it amazing I know this is a really good pine I can recognize a bad one, but like between this and the dead rabbit it almost just comes down to atmosphere Yeah, it's coming down to little increments here. That was absolutely fantastic. That's The dead rabbit is the best point of high and you get that nine shamrocks. Remember you can do decibels You can do decimals. I'm gonna give this 8.5 shamrocks. So that's right up there. Maybe on a different day. It's a 9.5 It's it's perfect. This isn't a fantastic point, but man, we'll see for the rest of the place We'll talk about the glass as well. It's a perfect glass unmatched

Unmatched atmosphere today.'re talking about the glass as well it's a perfect glass unmatched unmatched atmosphere at the dead valley absolutely well fantastic here as well all very good so far it's with the h baby the h all right two more glasses of water two more nights and i'll be on my way the the the guinness has finally caught up to the headaches yeah so here so here we are at the Conrad. They have a Spice Bags in here. We are two points deep, of two out of two. It's pretty impressive. Not all unexpected. Let's go, let's do it, come on.

So this is a real glass here we're dealing with. While everyone talks about it in the background, this is real life exciting for me. We have a real splitting of the G. We have a real Spice Bag here. Can we get a look at the spice bag? Okay, yeah. Look at that.

That is a thing of beauty right here. This is very exciting to the point where, the energy I have going through my body right now, I can't even fucking describe. I'm so excited. No, no! I don't even get the first bite of my own. Fuck you.

Fuck. Now, would you recommend, if it was me, that I would have poured the sauce all over it? That is incredible. You're a dipper though. Is that the word? I'm a dipper. I'm a pourer.

You can do whatever you want. Yolo. Yeah, I have to say, I fucking adore curry. That's fantastic. That is unbelievable. I adore curry, that is so good. They have the real Guiness classes, they have a legit Spoy's bike.

This is crazy. I'm honored. This is crazy. So is this. That is the best. That is one of the best spice bags I've ever had. Anywhere. Like that's as good as any of these. That's actually nicer than the ones you get in the US.

Really good white meat chicken. I can't wait to taste these fries. The sauce is unreal right? This is a winner. Spice bag for the fucking win. Before I have a real Guinness Class I won't wait to taste these fries. The sauce is unreal right? This is a winner. Spice bag for the fucking win. Before I have a real Guinness glass I won't do it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Had to have overshot. Yeah. Fist boar. We'll bounce back at Iona. You're going to do it.

Eric, I believe in you. Tuning out everyone. Oh, that's not bad. All right, here we go. We're not saying over the G. Let me get you. What do we do? What do we do? Over shot it.

Oh! Oh! Over shot who, Rick? Over shot who, Rick? Yes! Come on, GC. So that's every fourth we switch in. Every fourth.

One of us get it in each one. Whoa. Come on GC! So that's every four we swedge in. Every four. One of us get it in each one. Here we go, the digital camera selfie. Thirsty boy. Brother's thirsty after that fucking curry pack. So Spice Bag, unbelievable right? A++++.

And I can say it's the nicest Spice Bag I've ever had in anywhere in the world. It's that good. Unfortunately the pint is not, it's the nicest voice bag I've ever had in anywhere in the world. It's that good. Unfortunately the point is not, it's not up there with Harley's. It's not up there with the dead rabbit. It's a 7.5 for me. Look, fantastic place. They're playing DC Fontaine's, they've got the Irish rugby game on. A really weird one as well.

Like who the fuck is watching Portugal v Ireland? Incredible. But good place. They brought us a free Jameson shot. Oh cool, who was going to have that? as well like who the fuck is watching Portugal v Ireland incredible but um good place they brought us a free Jameson shot oh cool who was gonna have that you not me not fucking me no no no little New York tidbit so this is the Klonard down the road here is another bar the Bushwick Social Club or Country Club Bushwick Country Club is the inventor of the pickleback shot apparently where it started So if we would pop back here,

we might get a pickleback at the end. I don't know if you're interested in that. Show them your tattoo. Show them your tattoo. Quick. Woohoo! Whistle. Fourth place, it's called Leona.

We've had three splits and three pubs. Rick there, look post-spice bag. Look at him there. Look at him there, show him. Show him there. It's hard, it's glowing. We're going in for number four now. Don't know what the G is gonna be looking It's gonna be hard to fuck with dead rabbit. It's gonna be hard to fuck with heartlies They are top of the pile at the moment our friends who are meant to meet us at 12 here

Look at them all jumping up and down in there. Okay, fair play though. The bartender at heartlies told me that Iona is actually the best The bartender at Hartley's told me that Iona is actually the best pint I've ever had. We're here in Iona now. This is the fourth one. It's got a fabulous personalized glass again. These are fucking beautiful pint asses. This is beautiful. Alright, split in the end. Way too far. Way too far. Way too here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.

I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.

I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.

I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. record come on come on way too far every time every fucking time it's too far with you fuck up oh is that a split G over there from big neck all right how many shamrocks we did what what half seven at the third one this one this is up there with the noise this is up there with the noise of the 8.4 is the world I'm gonna put it right there with hardly it of the 8.5 the world I'm gonna put it right there with heartlies. It's an 8.4. I'm gonna say I own a heartlies dead rabbit You can't entertain anybody was saying to you like pound for pound number one Fucking did and we got another one here. I own it. You're not quite the dead rabbit though. I Love the glasses.

Yes. Everywhere we've gone that's good had branded glasses. Can we just point out that Eric, not this Eric, the better Eric... Too many fucking Eric's here. What the fuck? The better Eric split the G here. So that's four out of four fucking pubs. We split whatever the fuck it is here.

Come with us to the next pub. The crack. It's got a really good name. It's named after my podcast. It's crazy. We're on our way to a pub that's named after my podcast which is pretty incredible. I hope I don't get mobbed by fans. Hoping I don't. Let's see what happens. I hope you're enjoying your beach day Jordan you bitch. Sorry let's go in. Fuck you Jordan. Alright Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. All right, what's the crack? Is that what we say when we walk in? You think they got Killian's Irish Red hair? It's me! Everyone, here he comes, here he comes.

Oh! This is how I know that it's like a real pint. This right here. I don't know if that means anything, but I feel like only European glasses have that. I swear. I only feel like European glasses have that. Right, lads, Eric.

That looks simply. We need a split from one of us. It's the last bar. How do you say it? Slaunter. Slaunter. Slaunter, everyone. It's a really joke, he doesn't know how to say it. Slaunter everyone It's a really joke he doesn't know how to say

Slaunter Slaunter ready Well, we need one. Oh you failed really have two more shots. We gotta go five for five. Come on, BT. Here we go I'll let you go for us. Come on. You can do this Give me two seconds Let you go for us come on you can do this give me two seconds Just a little far a little long Like this angle I like this angle of it this angle doesn't look bad No, I got I got a right angle PT., this is all on you. The table is wonky, I think.

The table is wonky. Do it on a level surface and see. That might be it. Nah, you save us, P.T., save us. Oh, that's a perfect split right there. Oh That's a perfect split right there the black velvet champagne champagne and get it looks horrid Absolutely disgusting His father is rolling in his grave right now. It's absolutely fucking morbid what just happened to my mouth. Um.

Right, so this is uh, this is pretty good. It's down there with the Clonard. I think I'm going Dead Rabbit, Hartley's Iona, Crack, Clonard. And, and interchangeable to be fair, the top three. If anyone told me they had the top three in any different order,'ll be happy enough with it top three interchangeable bottom two interchangeable Maybe we go Conard because of the spice bag the spice bag was unreal in the closet Hey, and this is a really good place to fair play everyone fair play fair play fair play to you camera going Nick I'm gonna be so fucked up on this plane tomorrow all for you beautiful people