The Ariel Helwani Show - Canelo Alvarez in studio, Johnny Eblen, Fatima Kline in studio, On The Nose, news & notes

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Ariel Helwani starts the show with On The Nose. The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll join to answer questions about handling emotional interviews, Conor McGregor embarking on another comeback, the concept of point-fighting, and more (13:05). Johnny Eblen is back on the show, recapping his win over Impa Kasanganay for PFL’s interim middleweight title, before talking about his continued rivalry with Costello van Steenis, wanting the rematch next, training with and potentially fighting Sean Strickland, and more (1:03:30). Boxing superstar Canelo Alvarez joins Ariel in-studio, talking about his fight with Christian Mbilli and why it was delayed, feeling off ahead of his fight against Terence Crawford, wanting the Crawford rematch, his love of golf and his son’s love of wrestling, his relationship with Jake Paul, still loving boxing, and more (1:35:55). Inside Boxing host Dan Canobbio drops in to react to Canelo’s interview and talk all things boxing (2:26:24). Fatima Kline stops by the studio to break down her UFC win over Tabatha Ricci, then express interest in fighting Zhang Weili or Tatiana Suarez next, give her prediction for Mackenzie Dern vs. Gillian Robertson, tell stories from her life, and more (2:57:48). The show wraps up with your Super Chats (4:08:16).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Air Wednesday, July 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be here on a lovely Wednesday afternoon in New York City. We survived the tornadoes, the storms, and whatnot. In fact, when I got home, I saw these videos of flooding and all this stuff, and I feel like we missed it all, guys. I feel like it was a blessing that we were able to be here while all that craziness was happening outside. Everyone okay, all the home's okay, all the basement's okay,

all the apartment's okay, all the furniture okay. Anyone have any issues to report? Yeah, I got some unfortunate news, man. Serious? No, everything's fine. Okay. Oh, that's real funny. I know GC's in the penthouse, so all good there.

I didn't even know that it was raining yesterday. I'm not going to lie. Frankie? Yeah, I didn't want a tornado or, flood or anything, but not one lightning strike, not one. He wants it to be bad so it can be okay. It's going to be bad. Yeah.

Oh, wow. That was a good one. Shout out. That was a deep cut. Or maybe not so deep. Not really. Pretty surface level. PT, okay over there?

Everything's all right? Yeah, just about hanging on over here, but I'll get you to show. Yeah, yeah. Actually was walking my dog and my neighbor told me, it seems like everyone's going to Ireland these days. He told me he's headed off to Ireland this weekend with the family for a week. I said, make a quick right and then a left hang out in, what is it, D22? D15, thank you.

Damn it. You know, I had 15 in my mind and I didn't trust myself. Do you see the anger in his face when you said D22? Yeah, I'm sorry. What is D-22? I represent D-15 my whole life. I don't care what it is. Okay.

But do you know what it is? Don't give a fuck, well. Seeing Pici interact with other Irish people, though, and be like, oh, D this and then they're just like comparing. Oh, yeah. What's kind of an experience? What's going on? Yeah.

Isn't Andy going to be there soon? That's what I'm saying. Andy is in D24 right now. At the moment. This is what I'm saying. He does the D thing. On Huland territory right now as we speak. When you're meeting up?

Well, she's going to Belfast on Freud, I believe. So when she gets back to Dublin, we'll link up. Must be nice. Tell your neighbor, of course, if they need anything, yeah? Of course. No, I actually told, I gave him your number. I said hit up my guy.

Peter Lerner. Because your brother didn't get in touch. He did not. I was offended by that. A bit offended by that. I was offended on your behalf. Gentlemen, we have a lot to get to today. We have a lot to discuss.

We have a lot of interesting people on today's program. Two, count them two, in studio guests on today's program. We will begin the day with a non-in-studio guest. That's Johnny Eblen. In some people's mind, the best middleweight in the PFL, a man who was victorious on Saturday against Impakasanganae, back-to-back stoppages for Johnny Eblen, the former Bellator middleweight champion. and he wants that rematch against Costello Vansdenus, you'll recall almost exactly a year ago in South Africa.

He lost to Costello in that inaugural PFL middleweight title fight. They were supposed to run it back this past weekend in Austin. Costello got hurt. He was in attendance, though, and I don't think Johnny loved that. But anyway, this is a big fight that we hope we are going to get back end of the year. That would be a big one for the PFL who could use a little momentum. They have a show this weekend and next weekend as well. So back to back to back for the Professional Fighters League.

After that, my friends, after that, we were trying to decide where this man falls on the rankings of most famous people to ever sit in our studio, both this one, MMA Hour, ESPN Days. And he's got to be top three, if not top two, maybe even in some people's eyes, number one. He is the pride of Guadalajara, Mexico. He is one of the most famous boxers in the world today. Some would argue the face of boxing. Some would argue the most popular to come out of Mexico. And that's a big statement I know. Multiple time unified champ, multiple time undisputed champ.

We last saw him in September on Netflix against Terrence Crawford. Saul Canelo Alvarez. In studio today at about 2.30 is what we're. we're being told. I'll believe it when I see it. No, I'm kidding. It's an amazing honor and I can't wait and I'm very excited. There's a lot to get to with him. Thank you to our friends at Cal She for making that happen. This is going to be tremendous. And then after that, where else? What other program can you go from Canelo to Fatima Klein? But that's what we do. We touch all corners of combat sports around these parts. And so we will have Fatima Klein on.

the undefeated, sensation, UFC undefeated, who is coming off an incredible win this past weekend. She defeated Tabitha Ritchie. She is a stud as far as her wrestling is concerned. A lot of people are very excited about what she can do in that strawweight division. They call her the archangel. That's the right way to say it, right?

Not Archangel. Would you say Archangel? I think Archangel. Archangel? Archangel. Archangel. And I didn't trust myself when I said undefeated.

Of course, I don't want to disrespect Jasmine Jazz DeViscius. She did beat her. Yes, my bad, my bad, my bad. It didn't feel good when I was saying it. That was that flyweight. Undefeated straw weight. Undefeated straw weight.

I knew there was an undefeated in there somewhere. But she's a stud and a lot of people are very excited about her. She's now won four fights in a row. Tabitha Richie, Angela Hill, her last two wins. She was disappointed. She didn't get the finish, but she got multiple suplexes and takedons.

And it seems like a lot of people are excited about what she's going to do at 115 pounds. So there's your show. And as I said earlier, thank you to our good friends over at Kalshi for hooking us up once again. And thank you to our good friends over at Kalshi for being one of our best sponsors. Yes, we love Kalshi around these parts. And we urge you to support them because they support us. Right now, if you download the Kalshi app and use the code HALWAN, you can get up to 500 bones when you trade 25.

I mean, what's a better deal than that? The QR code is right there. The app is K-A-L-S-H-I. We love these guys because they are federally regulated. They're available in all corners of this country, including California and Texas, and you're not playing against the house with Kalshi. No, it is peer-to-peer trading.

You buy yes or no contracts on whether something will happen and you're trading directly against other users. And so I want you to download that app, put in the code hell one. and you get 500 bones when you trade 25. Let's take a quick look at what's going on as far as Calci is concerned these days. Obviously, we mentioned that they're hooking us up

with Canello today. We love that sort of thing. And so quick look at Canello v. Christianambili. This is a fight that we thought was going to happen on September 12th. It is not. We're going to get hopefully some answers as to why and when it may happen.

But as of right now, a lot of people disrespecting the pride of Morayal, Christian Emboli. If you're a long time Arilinade fan, you may recall that I've been on the Ambili bandwagon for a minute here.

I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of Christian Ambili, and I love that fight. I don't know why it got postponed, but let us see. Let us see. Tyson Fury fighting this weekend. Let's see what they're saying

about the Marius Walk, watch, walk, fight against Tyson Fury. Look at that. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, d. J. jumps up to 94% in favor of Tyson Fury. Shout out to him. What about Fury and AJ fighting later this year?

Oh, a little bit high, then low, then high, then low, then high, then low. Seems like we're pretty high right now. We're currently at 62%. Peaks in valleys, peaks and valleys. Peaks and valleys. I say it happens back into the year. I feel confident that it happens. Obviously, there's a UFC this weekend.

We were hoping it was going to be Magumet on Kalayev again. against a roundtree. It's not. It's going to be Guskov stepping in on short notice. And a lot of people are favoring the former UFC light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalayev. We're very excited about the return of Steve Erseg around these parts. And it's a 50-50 race. Erseg Temirov is a 50-50 coin flip fight, as they say. A 50-50 fight. They love saying that in the UK. And what about the UFC debut of John Pork, aka Janko. Yeah, there you go. 73% for Mr. Pork.

But do you not like that? I don't know. And also, everyone's going crazy over this LeBron James YouTube situation. The Miami Heat apparently scheduling something for July 27th. Everyone's very worried about what this means if you're a fan of the Cavs, Warriors, maybe even a Philly fan right now. Has that changed everything?

area like in terms of like obviously the markets are here in front of us but has that flip because of that YouTube video the canceled scheduled video i wonder i mean let's look i'm colorblind but i think i've located the miami line it seems like it's gone up right guys that seems like it's pretty high at the moment and that's over the last day or so so yeah i would yeah look look how high it is at the very end of there do you do you avoid about that like are you like this has to mean something kind of thing? I don't know. The YouTube thing, I don't know.

I mean, usually where there's smoke, there's fire. Look, I have felt from the beginning, Cleveland or Miami, just because I don't know if he wants to start anew. There's a story with Cleveland, of course, and there's a story with Miami. If I were him, I'd rather go to Miami for multiple reasons. Forget, you know, the weather and the city and all that stuff. Like, they just got freaking Janus. They got Janice, BAM out of bio

That is a true big three That is an incredible team I'm sorry Rick I don't think the calves are that good I think the calves are a little bit soft I think they're posers I think they You and me both brother

You and me both And also I think Spolster is a better coach than Atkinson So it's like If he wants to win a ring He should go to the heat Or the spurs But they don't seem to be in the runner I also kind of feel like

The Cavs story I know he didn't win the championship and leave but it was almost like, I want you the championship, the rest is gravy. If you come back, now it feels like do you have to do...

I don't know. Good vibes. I want them back. I understand that. I don't come back. Come on back. Mitchell's still there. Miami, right?

Yeah, it feels like... He's a beast. Yeah, I don't know. I thought the calves were the shoe in and now I sort of feel like Miami is. Also, I was listening to Pat Riley on Lebitard

and like he is such a G and it just kind of almost feels like he knows what's up. I know, but you know the history. I know, but he said that they're good now. They hugged it out. I mean, not for nothing.

When he came back to the Cavs, him and Dan Gilbert didn't have a good relationship, the whole Comic Sans letter. And then they were good, and then he came back. So I guess, I'm saying. What's he turned 42 in December? Yeah. Crazy. I love the narrative of, oh, had the Knicks not won, he would have come to New York.

What is that? What is that? Who cares? They won. Yeah, we won. Like, what are we supposed to feel about that? Like, okay, great. Thanks?

What does that mean? You guys are the chance. What's the percentage for the Atlanta Hawks? Yeah. Hey, by the way. N slash A for that one. By the way, Montreal's own

Lou Dort coming to the Hawks. It's big, man. The city's been on fire ever since the Dorts. I'm telling you, it was a trade, by the way. They got rid of Risa Shea. I like that trade for them. I think the Hawks have a nice little thing going.

You just picked up Tim Bond Temps of ESPN as well for the front office. So there's a lot to be excited about. Big moves. Big moves. This is the groundwork for a title. That's what I thought, too. Your rival James Hardin, what was that Pizzi?

Did he, someone just informed me that he plays for your thing now? He plays to the Cavs, yeah. Yeah, he was there last year, too. Remember the playoffs? Remember when we cooked them in the playoffs? Remember when Jaylon? All right, easy, brother. I'm actually just take a play out of the Hellwani book.

I'm just going to say everything is like Tim Bond, Tim signing. That is the catalyst for a title. And if it reverts back to this is the starting point, I can always just be like, I told you. It was Timmy B in that front office. Exactly. It's better to be positive off the bat because then you could say I told you so. It's the point of being negative.

I agree. Time now for everyone's favorite segment of the week. It is time. I will just say something regarding on the nose, which is and has always been everyone's favorite segment of the week. But I have noticed something. And a big shout out to El Emmanuel on the moderator front, who has done an amazing job. We learned last week the pride of Puerto Rico, not Colombia or Venezuela, or any other place where they speak Spanish. It is, in fact, Puerto Rico, and we are so proud and happy to have him a part of the team.

I have noticed that there's a lot of trolls over on the substack, and I just want to say, look, guys, we don't really have to do this. I don't know of a lot of shows, and I'm not saying that we're doing it like, oh, we need to pat on the back, but I don't know of a lot of shows that spend an hour or so each week answering questions. there's this entitlement that I noticed from people with fake names who continue to post the same questions over and over and over again, like some dating back to three or four months. If I don't answer it once or twice, maybe I miss it the first time, second time, probably not, third time, definitely.

Like, you can stop doing it. And so there's this entitlement, like, you need to answer these questions. No, I don't. I answer whatever the hell I want to answer. I believe we're an open book here. I believe we talk about a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff. that most people don't.

I tell you how I feel about things. I give you the warts. I give you the good, the bad, the ugly, the skeletons. I would venture to say you know a hell of a lot more than most people allow you to know. But like you're demanding answers with, you know, these guns pointed at us. If I'm not answering it, I don't want to answer. I don't want to open it up because you know why? Because it will get clipped off.

It'll be taken out of context. People will start talking X, Y, and Z. And I don't feel like I need to do that or subject us to that. So I want to answer the fun stuff, the interesting stuff, the hard-hitting stuff as well. And that's why I'm happy to have a moderator here to weed through the crap. But I don't care if it gets liked by six people. That's not pressure for me to answer anything. You don't like the interviews.

You don't like my questions. You don't like my decision. That's cool. Don't watch the show. That's fine. There's plenty of other shows to watch. There's plenty of other shows to partake in. It's all good.

We will go with our first question of the day and it is from Stu Law. Ariel, when you are interviewing someone and manage to get them to open up to a point, they shed a tear, do you take it as a badge of honor? Now, I like Stu here because he spelled honor, H-O-N-O-U-R. That means he is a Canuck. I've noticed you have a skill when someone is cutting a promo or opening up to just let them keep talking. That's like rule number one. Never interrupt. It's not about you.

Don't interrupt. Let them cook, especially when you're doing the face-to-face. I let it breathe. I let it play out. I don't care if there's an interaction that is taking three, four minutes to play out. It's not about me in that moment. Even if they end a sentence

and there's a slight pause, you don't jump in. I try, like with Dustin yesterday, I noticed at the beginning I was thinking or mistiming when he was ending and I would talk over him. And so I'd rather allow that extra beat for him to say something something else rather than have the awkward. When you're in front of someone, when it's face-to-face,

it's a little different, but I'd rather avoid the awkward back and forth and the talking over each other and the stumbling. And so I'll allow the extra beat, if you will, the breath, just to see if they want to say something else. Is this something you were taught or have just learned naturally keep up the good work? Well, with regards to the first sentiment, I don't view it as a badge of honor per se. I guess the only thing I would view it as is like this person is engaged and, you know, the questions and the moment and the interaction is meaningful to them. And if it elicits that type of response, it could elicit any kind of response, happiness, laughing, whatever, then that's, I would take that as a compliment. That means that they're into the conversation.

And I love that. As far as taught, no, that's just reps. That's just years and years and years of doing this and hours and hours and hours of doing it and talking to people and studying people. And I was saying this to someone recently. Like, I feel like I am not an expert at finances or tech or anything like that. But in terms of like reading body language, I feel like I've become somewhat of an expert in that because you have to read if someone's comfortable, if someone's happy, if they're sad, if they want to open up, if they don't want to open up, if you need to go around this way to get to this way, it's, yeah, it's something that I take very, very serious.

and take a lot of pride in. So I appreciate you noticing that, but I think the main thing is it's not necessarily something you could be taught. It's more something that comes with time and experience. Old Man Pack says, lads, let's not blame Frank, aka Grand Pappy,

for having Mario Batista's audio completely muted on Spotify. Oh yes, we were alerted about this. He's going to have to kiss someone's ass for that one and not as moms. G.C. If I can beat your 5K time on Strava before I fly to New York in November, me and you on the bike, your time has come, uncrowned as the one, peace and love. Yeah, go ahead.

I think my fastest 5K time on Strava is like 1940. Lock it, man. Or something. So whatever he's at, lock in. 1945k? That's boiled. Yeah, and I've just entered half marathon training camp. Damn.

The walls have gone up. By the way, what does that mean? What makers? Eating healthy, in the gym, working out six days a week. Wow. Alcohol. We're locked in until October. Wow.

I marked it with my birthday. That weekend's over. Celebrated, had fun. Hell yeah. Now we're going for the half marathon. And is that the New York City half marathon? No, no, it's not that cool. It is the Falling Leaves Half Marathon in Brooklyn.

Love that one. Yeah. It's a no-name. Look, man, the crowd isn't going to be out, but I don't need the crowd. This is a me versus me. I'm actually a huge fan of that one. It's a great medal. It's a fall-themed metal.

It's going to be great. All right. And what date is it? What date is it? October 19th, I think it is. Whatever that Saturday is closest to that day. I can't do a half marathon. I really want to do a 5K.

I think they have a 5K option. Oh, like on the same. Same day. I kind of feel like a loser. They let the kiddies go and then. I think I start first, so then I'll be finishing. Hey, guys, I'm here for the 5KKKKKK. Five K.

Let's go to the park to do a fourth K, what I mean? I want the bib, I want the thing. I want the adulation. Yeah, it's going to be great. I want everyone kind of being like, hey. I'll end. I can't even lie. I've let myself go a little bit.

I got to lock back in. He keeps saying this to me in Las Vegas. I took a progress picture and my, I got boobs that have shadows now. Come on. You don't have boobs. Getting bad. I swear. You're 30 now.

The extra large shirts hide it. You're 30. I'm swimming in this thing. You're enjoying. going in New York City summer. All right? You're out there. He's got buddy dysmorphia.

No, there's no dysmorphia. There's shadows. My boobs have shadows. I don't know what that means. I'm too embarrassed. I'm too embarrassed. I'm the epitome of skinny fat. It's terrible.

It's terrible. I can't even go to my fool anymore. I got kicked out. The lifeguard kicked me out. He's like, that guy's tits have shadows. Get him out. Get them out. Is it the booze?

and I've been eating like shit and I haven't been working out it's all of the above So now you're into six days a week You went from nothing To something to everything Couldn't wait either It's like a holiday firm

It'll be everything What did you say Pete? It was like a vacation The way we were talking about it You're like yeah I'm just gonna go home Lock the fuck in Yeah That's what happened

Literally starting Technically Tuesday morning I got a little too Overzealous for the World Cup final So we're now Was it about the Edward The Edward 40 Look, man, we're going to look back in a year

The Edward 40 will be like Was it a turning. Yeah, you guys were starting out of me. What the fuck was I doing? Not actually, though, because I will do it next year International Fight Week. Oh, it's just three months. It wasn't just the Edward 40

was the post Edward 40 that I think really It was, I mean, I've been looking forward to this for months now. The tube base back in the tube, you know? No, no. No, I had a great time. Zero regrets. Zero regrets, but now it's time to dial it back in. So, yeah, I accept this guy's bike challenge.

Here's Slava who says, Hey, Ariel, I remember years ago, you mentioned helping out DC with a promo in the past, can you give us any more insight or talk about if you've helped out any other fighters? It may have come up in like conversation and something like that, but nothing as, I mean,

my memory is getting pretty bad, but nothing as black and white as that one. As I've said before, wake up 630, UFC 187, he calls me, we're talking. I'm like, yo, you should say this. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then he nails it word for word.

I couldn't believe it. But nothing as clear as that, but, you know, I may have given a pointer or two. Of course, who could forget when I told Michael Bisping that, you know, there was an opportunity to fight for the belt? You know, prior to UFC 199. I mean, he was on a movie set, for goodness sakes. How soon they forget, how soon they forget. Hey, Ariel, question following your interview with MVP. When fighters claim that others are ducking them, is it difficult to verify?

I asked because even with the close ties you have in the industry, I can't imagine fighters, their managers are forthcoming and admitting to something like that. Any background on how you navigate this would be great. Peace and love, Chris. Well, you know, there could be a situation where I'll talk to a manager and be like, so what's up with this? Like, what's going on? And is this true?

And did they turn you down? But, you know, I'll be a thousand percent honest with you guys. I used to be obsessed with this stuff, the making of fights. And I'm not anymore. And it's possibly because, like, I'm doing this three days a week and then other things back into the week, like where I'm not. not as focused before. It was just one show week.

And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I could start digging around for other things. I'm so focused on the show and everything that we're doing on on Crown, on Crown films, the website, all that, that I'm not, just let me know when it gets announced. You know, like, I don't really, I'm not losing as much sleep over it. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. James Portland. Well, this is a question for New York, Rick, but I don't think he's there at the moment, right? Correct. He is not.

Okay, we will skip it. This is from El Sutt. Oh, L. Oh, God, this is embarrassing. You're going to be ashamed to me, G.C., for this one. So I was going to read it as El Sutterger. El Sutterger, Katt, Katt 7. Now that I take a step back and read it, it's LSU Tiger.

It's bad. That's bad. That's bad. That is tough. Difficult. It's one word. It's LSU Tiger Cat 7, El Sutterker. The LSUAL capital.

That's Joe Burroughs team? Hell yeah. It was his college national champions, 2019. Hi, all, with PFL having already the best summer they could ask for, are they? I mean, I guess in terms of matchups, they're busy, but I don't know if it's the best summer. I don't think the ratings would reflect that. What more should they do? Me personally, I'd like to see five-round main events, no matter if it's a title or not.

but I like to hear all opinions. I mean, I don't know if that's really moving the needle for them or changing much. I really don't know, guys. Get off the same day as UFC, maybe. Don't do events the same day. That's one. That was to have some kind of hype. Yeah.

There's just something about the product, right? Like the uniforms, I just don't know. What is it? What is missing? I think you're right in what you've said before. Like, they just need to try and do everything they can to make it as unique as possible. And the uniforms are certainly a hindrance to that. It doesn't jump off the TV

Like they have matchups It just doesn't Do you remember when Strike Force is doing events Like at least they tried to make it feel big Pride obviously tried to make it feel big I love that they got rid of the tournament I love that they moved away from that format I just don't

I don't feel that momentum I think the New York show is going to feel big I think Usman and Dakota on the same show Back to Back is going to feel big I think Even then To your point it feels like it lacks stake It feels like Johnny Eblen and Pekasanganae.

Like, what really was on the line? Johnny Eblen getting to rematch Costello Van Stenis? It just like it feels like there needs to be more stakes attached to it, but I don't know how they do that as an organization. That's a good point, it's like a showcase. Everything feels like a showcase. Like here's another showcase fight. Dakota feels like a showcase.

It feels like... This has to be her last on-tidal fight. Yeah, it has to. The biggest fights are like rivalry. fights that they do. You know, that really means something like obviously Usman and Paul. Like I felt like you had to watch that as an MMA fan. And I feel like I think Van Stenis and Eblen's rematch will certainly be that. Eblin's selling the shit out of that. Like, I'm sure you'll talk about it later. I don't know how Van Steenis is reacting to that,

even as far back as the face to face you did on your show. But that's the stuff that they, they need to kind of figure out because for most, like we have skin, a lot of skin in the game here with PFL. We know these fighters, but for the casual audience, they just, it feels like this fighter, this fighter, and they haven't really, they haven't shown us enough for them to make us feel some kind of way. Like, nobody is like, I need to watch this. And that's where they need to get to. And as you say, it just feels like, it doesn't feel like everybody needed to be watching Johnny Eblen at the weekend, which is disappointing because he is one of the best middleweights in the world. Some people think he's the best middleweight in the world. And I don't know how they get over that.

I hope. Ace Crouton, what's up, guys? When you read a bad question from here on the show, can Frank drop audio of Bryce Harper saying, that's a clown question, bro? Do you know that one, Frank? That was not... It's a good one.

It was a scrum, and Bryce Harper got mad. I was even thinking, while I was thinking about speaking to Canella, hopefully later today, a good one would be when he's like, get the fuck out of here. Remember that one at the press conference? Bayday, bayday.

All time. I guess you had to be there. Here's Kyle who says, hey fellas, it's been a few weeks since McGregor, and after watching the reaction from the MMA world, I found myself genuinely confused. Then hearing crews after the fight on the show, it really clarified the thought I'd been wrestling with.

The timeline of McGregor's career from entering the UFC in 2013 until today feels like one of the oldest human stories. Hunger, greatness, pride, loss, and now the search for redemption. Connor is trying to come home. He's at the exact same point in the arc where he has had to confront what he's become and who he now wants to be.

And to me, that's why it matters. Redemption is one of the oldest and most powerful human stories. It should inspire us all. Yet the community seems hesitant to buy in, almost as if protecting ourselves from disappointment matters more than seeing someone change, which is so shitty. But Gregor got me into this sport that I live and breathe today, but I don't love MMA because of the flashy moments anymore.

I love it because of the stories. It's the most human story rich sports. in the world. It's the most human, comma, story, rich sport in the world. So my question is, why do you think we stop believing in these stories? Why do we lose hope and redemption? Okay, so there's a lot there. I don't think there's people who lost, I think there's a lot of people who wanted to believe that he was going to come back and look good and win. I think that was part of the reason why the gate was as big as it was. Part of the reason why so many people watched it as was, you know, shared via their press release. I think a lot of that sentiment

comes from people who just aren't fans of his and he has given them reason not to be fans. He has put himself in positions and has done things that has turned people against them. And that's just consequences that he's going to have to deal with. I don't think he stays up at night wondering how do I win these people back. But he is a very polarizing figure in the sport and in sports period. And he's given people. to be like, no, I'm not going to buy into this. I'm not going to support this. I'm not going to say like, oh, you know, I hope you can win one for the Gipper. And then there are other people who do feel that way. I didn't get the impression that it was like zero percent hoping that he would get back on track

or hoping that he would win. But it was, you know, I don't know if it was 50, 50, 60, I don't know what it is, but it was divided. And that's going to happen when you're that big of a star and you're that polarizing and you have done things that have made people fall out of love with you, so to speak. But I do agree with your sentiment, by the way. One of the best components of sports and a sports fandom is the comeback, is the bounce back, right? I think there's a lot of people who are, and this is on a different level, but like, they want to know how Victor Wimbunyama is going to come back. How is he going to bounce back? Is Messi going to go for one more World Cup?

What's he going to do? Like, that's always been, you know, the Buffalo Bills. They lost the first one. They came back. They lost the second one. They came back. They lost the third. You want to know how people are going to dust themselves off.

And that's what I've always said about Ronda Rousey and Connor's Syrac in 2016. I believe that people fell in love with Connor even more after the Diaz loss because it was like, oh, you can mess up your human. But look at how you dealt with this. Now I'm really all in. Now you remind me of me. Now you are showing me what it's like to get knocked down and then building yourself back up. that's very relatable Rhonda for whatever reason

wasn't willing to allow us to get in on that type of sentiment and journey and I think people really turned against her so you're right about that I just think that with this particular version of Connor it's a lot more complicated than your typical like oh you lost you were out for five years and now here you are

trying to come back Doug the plug says hello Ariel and the Boys let's say hypothetically Dana White dropped dead tomorrow and the brass that the UFC offered you a position in the company doing commentary, interviews, or even calling fights. Is it something you would consider also if the terms affected, whether you could do or not continue doing your own show, would that sway your decision?

I don't want to talk about Dana White dropping dead. Like, that's crazy. And by the way, why does he have to, why does that have to happen for me to do that? Well, let's pretend he doesn't die, right? He steps away from the comedy and you get the offer to do. Oh, the old two picks in there. You know what this is, right?

You know what this is. This is a Tommy Asmo, classic, is it? It's a tremendous product. Which flavor you go with? Which one is it? Which one? What's the name of the company? I have it right over here. Pick them.

Pick them. Pick them. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now yourself, Frankie. Hey, say hello to the bad guy, chico. Mango, mango, mango, mango is the beast, isn't it? It's the best one, man.

I have to say, like, it is an amazing thing to just put in your mouth. Mint's not bad. It is. It's not bad. Watermelon just make themselves. What? What did he say earlier, Frank? Get your mind out of the gutter, Frank, you all right?

You disgusting. Wait, wait, we have a question. We're cooking. We're cooking here. Oh, uh. What I say? I give you the warts. Oh, right.

I'll give you the warts. You guys are disgusting. You're really disgusting. How did we even start talking about this? Wait, so what we're doing is. Because the camera flashed you and you had the toothpick. Yeah, but why? Why? Oh, you were talking about the commentary.

We'll remove the fatality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, say Dana just doesn't want to work for the USA anymore. I think that's noiser. And you got a phone call. Ariel, we've been waiting for this day for a long time because the one thing we wanted to do was offer you a job doing interviews. Oh, thanks, guys.

And, you know, being a part of the broadcast team, it's not going to affect anything you're doing with the Ariel Lawani show, Oron, Crown, Yahoo Sports, any of them. that. This would be on your terms, you get to come in and be parted to the UFC broadcast. What do you think of that? Okay, I appreciate that, but can I take it one step further? Why can't it be Dana White who makes that call? Why can't we live in a world where it's peace and love, peace and love? No? Why not? You and me and Ringo have been asking for over years. Yeah, that's right. Okay. If that's not going to be the case, and they still offer that,

the first question is, who's signing the checks? Who's paying? Is it paramount? Whoever to broadcast partner. Whoever the broadcast partners. Okay, now it's different. Now, that's historically not what they do, as you know. No one gets paid by the broadcast partner. So I would say, why am I the only one getting this type of opportunity? Because you're Ariel O'Wani.

I would say, here's Jerry Silboitz's phone number. Please. Jerry's on the blow. I just say, here's my guy's number. And let's see if it makes dollars and it makes sense, you know? So you're just going to not going to answer that. You want me to, you want me to, You want me to...

It's a good deal. It's a good deal. You want me to openly campaign for a job? That's not mine. It's Jerry. Ariel's pretty good deal we got here. What do you want to do? Well, I would say, get MVP on the blower and see if they...

Ah, yeah, now you yourself. Yeah, now you yourself. And I meant Michael Vennon and Page, by the way. No, I don't know. Listen, can I be honest with you guys? I'm very happy living in a world where, you know, there's a trip every four or five months. I don't want to live in a world where I'm traveling every week or every week or every two weeks, every three weeks.

There was a stretch there in May, June, like we were traveling a lot. You know, there's a L.A. thing. This is, I'm happy to have built this so that the stars come to us and we don't have to go to the stars. Don't get me wrong. Being a part of a production,

a show, a broadcast is an amazing thrill and I love it. I really genuinely love it. But do I want to do it as 20 or so times a year? I don't know about that. Sitting around, leaving my family. Maybe when my kids are out of the house, it'll be different, you know, 10, 15 years.

God willing, but now I'm happy. Frank Moody. Hi, Ireland, the gang. Question, of course, the Cheddar makes a bit. Why would the UFC even want to resign Connor McGregor? Wow, let me clarify. The UFC doesn't want to be in the superstar business. They're over John Jones.

They don't want to do business with Ronda. Connor is the only one left that earns the big bucks in the UFC. And with possibly two fights in the Paramount era, he has done his job to attract as much subscribers as possible. Connor is the last one in the UFC left that has a name that can compete with UFC. With him gone, it's finally just all about the UFC. I don't know if they view it that way. But yeah, if he gets smoked in his final fight, like there maybe won't be the same kind of incentive to pay him 30 million or so. But I could still see them if he wins wanting to be

in in business with him. And even if he loses, he's still a massive, massive deal. He's still the big effort. Any other rivals, right? Any other rivals will make a shit ton of money. You would help validate them, right? Help put the spotlight on them. So, I think they're happy having him here for one more fight. You can always promote that back pocket. Not that they're actively doing it. Dana has said it himself. Like, talk to me when he's cleared, but they're in a good position.

It's not quite the six fights that, you know, Dustin may have left or Nate or, you know, like when he was there for so long or Alex Pereira, these guys, but they don't have to worry about him crossing to the other side of the street. Okay, guys, butt nutter says, howdy lads. let's have some fun matchmaking the rest of this year's numbered events and the title fights that will take place on them. How do you foresee it going?

Ariel, this is where you drop in sneaky insider knowledge. Pttie, I love you. Goat Conner, shout out to you. Ta. Maybe he's from... Liverpool. Well, we know about August, two title fights.

September 19th, I'm hearing into it. Into it? Yeah. We were checking the schedule for September 19th, and there seems to be a concert that night at Intuit. Interesting. Could it be a crypto?

Jordan, who's playing it into it on September 19th? You know who it is. Three doors down? 311, maybe. Who is it? Zach Brown? No, but actually, who the fuck is playing? Life is good to do.

Mana. Yeah, mana. So there is a concert on the schedule. Andy was really hyped for Mana. What is Mana? Oh, okay, shout out. Yeah, shout out to Mona. Can I be honest?

You caught me there. I was told L.A. and I just figured it was into it. Okay. So maybe it is crypto. So we're doing that extra, you know, investigative research. No, no, you are. That was sloppy on my part.

No doubt about it. Who could be, it is a good question. That is the next numbered event that we don't have a title fight. Or we don't have a main event for, right? Volk. It is crazy, by the way, that that show is less than two months away. Like, we have gotten into a cadence where it's like... Seven weeks?

Yeah. We have no idea. That's crazy. It used to be like four. months out. Yeah, you'd know a long time in advance, sorry. What champions are available? Vogue, Van.

Gagee? No. Too soon. Gagee Paddy? Okay, I would say... Don't eat too much pizza. I think Armin, to your point, would be the best, like, Armine would be perfect for L.A. Yeah, but is Gaci coming back in three months? I don't know.

So, okay. Jan Mara? That's viable. It's been 10 months since we've seen Marab almost at that point. Van Pantosia? Would they headline a card with Van Pantosia and that be it? What about 2535? I could see 2535 or 2545.

Folk against Mossar in L.A. Islam's obviously fighting in August. Sean Strickland? John Strickland in L.A.? Against? Historically a very sort of red state, you know? That's your mind? Yeah.

I mean, that's Blockbuster. Carlos Alberg, no. Aspinall, no. I think they'll try to do Aspinall and Abu Dhabi. McKenzie, no. Valentina, very quiet right now. 25-25?

Oh. Kayla. Oh, shit. We should be ready by that. You remember when she was at that show and she said September? Remember when she was at the PFL? I haven't asked her in a while.

I've kind of left her alone. Honestly, you want the inside. knowledge, I'm not giving you any insider because as I said earlier, I'm not really bugging these days. That'd be Nunes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's big time, right?

That's huge. Yeah, I love that. Big enough for L.A.? Well, they'd have to have some support in cast, right? Another 125 maybe or something. Nunez, Harrison, Pantoja, Van. I love that. I actually quite like that.

I mean, that's a lot. Because you would suspect October, I think, is, I think, Aspinall Gunn feels like an October fight or what about MSG? Is it an MSG fight? I don't know. What's MSG?

Scene of the crime. Yeah. What is MSG? G. Arman? Mm. That feels like the time. That's good time. That's good time.

That's good. It's good time. Like, you know, noon as a return. That feels like MSG worthy. Hmm. I will speak for Josh when I say maybe Gable Stevenson versus Alvin Hines. Yeah.

Oh, stop. Jack, you're jumping in here with a Gable Stevenson versus Alvin Hines? You're in the penalty box. You're in the penalty box for that one. Oh, he's actually incredibly disappointed. There it is. Guys, what about Jacob 22 Mallet who says,

Hello, Ariel and crew. I'm currently listening from the oyster farm. Is this really a farm where they... Farm oysters? Wow. I'm generally curious about this question. When people say that a fighter's style is point fighting, Does it mean that they literally stand around pointing at their opponent, low output,

or does it mean that this fighter often goes to the scorecards? I can see it both ways. But anyway, life is good today. What a casual, yeah. They just point at them. Yeah. The idea is obviously a famous point-jones. John Jones, one of the great points.

Sophie Cunningham? Point. Yeah, oh, she's. Yeah. Max Holloway, point fighter, for sure. I can't tell if he's joking or not, but point fighting comes from like, you know, Taekwondo, karate, where you're just trying to score points, amateur boxing. Olympic boxing, where it's just like you're just scoring points, you're just tagging, tagging,

but you're not going for the finish. You're not going for the stoppage, the knockout. You're winning rounds rather than trying to finish the fleet. Yep. Down to the oyster farm. Hell yeah. I'd love to go to an oyster farm. Count me out. That would be incredible. Hello, friends. This is from serial gain. G.C., would you please blind rank these five breakfast cereals? Absolutely. I've been waiting on something like this. This is it. I have a number one with a bullet in my head. Let's see if you listen.

Oh, okay. That's a nice tease. Frosted Flakes. Four. Lucky Charms. Three. Captain Crunch. Two.

Oh, wait. Sorry, I didn't finish. Captain Crunch with... Crunch berries. Yes. Two. Okay, so I didn't change. Cinnamon toast crunch.

Wow. That would be my actual two. Frosted Flakes would be five, but I'm going to have to put cinnamon toast. five just in case if he's got fruity pebbles no no fruity pebbles wow I like fruity pebbles

this is I completely botched this cinnamon toast should be one in this list Reese's puffs is my actual number one all time all time then crunch berries yeah yeah I fuck that I gotta tell you I don't know if there's a bigger fan of peanut butter

on this planet like I would put peanut butter like smoothie Reese's peanut butter crunch, whatever it's called, never been my thing. The cereal or Reese's? No, no, no, the cereal. It has always felt artificial to me. Oh, it's artificial. I love it.

I love it. It's like a nostalgia thing. I used to only get it when I would go to my grandparents' house growing up. That bright orange box. It's the best. They have that over in Ireland. Don't know, mate. Yeah.

Maybe. Cereal, a big thing over there. Yeah. Huge. I feel like y'all invented series. here's an interesting one for Frank guys shout out to the BTB for Rod Talk the hottest segment in combat sports

Frank can you please blind rank these five on-screen rods Don't forget brought to you by Snyders of Hannah Have a moderator or not I mean it's right here Five on-screen rods Frankie Marky Mark and boogie nights

They're Diggler himself I mean I want to see number one but we'll do three. Jason Segal in forgetting Sarah Marshall. Uh, four.

William Defoe in the Antichrist. Hans down. That was... We'll do that one as two. I didn't think this was going to be literal. Harvey Kytel in the bad lieutenant.

Never saw that one. Five. We'll park it there. Vigo Mortensen in Eastern Promises. I don't know that one either. One. That is.

Yeah. This is from Chris Rem. G.C., please blind rank these five Colby Covington nicknames. Yes. Oh, brilliant. Number one. Justin Goichi. I'm still not sure why he...

I don't really understand that at all. Ralphie Dos Nachos. Four. Stockton Soyboy. Five. Yawanna, no paycheck. And Ben Ascream. That's a proper one.

How know Marty Snoosman in there, though? Marty's Suzeman? Marty fake newsman. When he does that interview where Kamaru comes on the broadcast, maybe the only time Kobe ever legit had me dying was when he's like, next time I see you, Marty fake newsman, you're dead, you're dead, Marty fake snoozman. The way he continued to use the nickname while he's screaming into the camera.

Ah, his goal. He likes the chumsat one too. He didn't list that one here. Come, Shat Shumai. Here's Ryan Holland, who says, Ariel, quick question, why are boxers paid so much?

Do they generate enough revenue to equal their pay? Does Connor Ben generate a $15 million return in Australia? I've never had anyone ever say, hey, want to watch a boxing match? All that to say, G.C., please blind rank these following soups. Soups?

Clam Chowder. Are my eating this on a cold day or a hot day? By the way, this is why we love on the nose, right? Summer day, that's five. It's July 22nd. Are you having the clam chow? Five. A hot dairy soup ain't going down easy.

That's five. Split pea. A lot of fiber and split pee. I'll go three. Oh, split pee off. Pumpkin. Four. Gulash.

Oh, this is fucking hell. That's a soup? Two. What's number? Come on, what's the last one? What is it? I know what it is already. Frank's mom's ass.

Jesus. Number one, baby. Also, why get the original question? Connor Ben, does he bring in that evaluation? Frank these soups, Frank's mom's ass? I hope they enjoy writing those as much as we enjoy reading. Oh, my God.

Another question for Rick, but I don't think he's... Where is Rick? He's busy, man. He's doing things. He's EPing it up. Yeah, he's getting it done. Well, I think this could be for the rest of the group, because I've got to be honest,

I have not heard about a movie as much as I've heard about the Odyssey over the past week. And so I'm going to just throw it out to you. Have you seen it, G.C.? I have, yes. Pizzi? No.

Frank? I'm watching it on Friday with G. Oh, you're going twice? Of course. Chris Rennelan, favorite director. He's also putting that lightly. I am hooking them up with a free. ticket to 70 millimeter

iMac's been sold out for months at Lincoln Center and he's just kind of like, oh yeah, thanks, ma'am. Is it just you two? It's just us too. Can you give me a one-line synopsis? I'll give you a one-word synopsis epic. Is it really that good?

Matt Damon. Matt Damon is 10 out of 10 in it. It is... Oscar. He's fantastic. Oh, yeah. There is zero question he will be nominated for best. Is it like sci-fi, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings? or is like a real thing?

No, no, no, no. This is Homer. I mean, it's fictional, yes. This is mythology. Anyway. It's sci-fi, no. It's bronze age mythology. There's like monsters, though.

Sure, yeah, Cyclops and stuff. No, no one cares. You guys are just non-fiction. No one cares 267 Mill opening weekend box office. Would love a good documentary made about the making of the film. That's, that is exactly up my alley. I love all things non-fiction. documentary Billy Madison

about trying You know it's crazy I was so excited to share this yesterday as a aside a long time classmate of mine I met this guy

when I was in pre-K Brandon Spark he came owner of naked and famous denim by the way go check it out shout out there's a big pop

for naked and famous from Sally yesterday oh for real she's a fan Sally's a fan he is the wow that's amazing

they have a store on Broadway anyway he does an amazing job what he's built with that company is unbelievable. In any event, he comes in with his girlfriend. It was great to see him. I hadn't seen him in a while. I've known him literally since like 1986. And all he was doing was quoting Billy Madison.

And I ran to the control room to just show you guys that I'm not a 101 in this regard. It might just be like a Montreal Jewish community thing and people born in 1982. But I just, I thought you guys would get a kick out of someone else doing the same thing that I always do. Nevertheless, question here is I saw The Odyssey last week, not an IMAX though. Have you seen it. This is for Rick, but I'll ask you, G.C., what did you think of it, and did it meet your expectations? As a casual moviegoer, knowing little about Greek mythology, it exceeded my expectations, and I had a blast. Not sure if it's my top three Nolan movie, though. Rick, can you give us your top three Nolan movies? So G.C. gives us your top three. I know Rick loved it. He texted me,

holy shit afterward. He saw it an IMAX 70 millimeter by himself, Lincoln Center. Shout out. Okay. I loved it. Also not top three Nolan movies. Interstellar. Dark Night, and I'm a sucker for Memento. I absolutely love Memento. And what was the question about IMAX? You did see it on IMAX or no? I saw it's 70mm. What does that mean 70mm?

It does it look like... It's on film. Oh, wow. So is it like, you hear the... Yes, actually, when it got quiet in the theater, you could hear it, and when it was very bright, you could kind of see like the flicker of film wrapping through. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

Better director. Who is this guy, Tom Nolan? Christopher Nolan. Shout out to Tom Nolan. Or Wes Anderson. It's not even a competition. That's coughing baby versus atomic bomb. I love West.

Rick is back though. Rick, where have you been, bitch? We're looking for an odyssey. What the fuck did I just come back to? Where are you been, bitch? Holy shit. This is again from Summer Heights High. Grandma's dead.

You didn't let me finish the line. They're asking Odyssey. They want your opinion on the Odyssey. Has anyone seen Summer High Ty here? Nope. Never even heard of that. Frank. surely you've seen it.

No. Chat, have you seen it? And they also want your top three Tom Nolan films. Yeah, they want... Tom Nolan? Tom Nolan? What films is he been in? Countdown to UFC?

Yeah. Embedded episode... They're asking you about the Odyssey and whether you loved it. I absolutely loved it. Okay. Odyssey and obsession up here for me this year.

Your top three Nolan films, though, for real. Number one, dark night, hard to bang. Hard to contest that. Number two is Odyssey up in the top three yet? Inception? No, Inception is probably three for me.

Prestige? And prestige might be two. I'm not an interstellar guy. I know that one is on a lot of lists. Odyssey might be in the three. It's four, four or five territory, though. It was great. You loved it.

It was really good. Were you invited to the, 700 millimeter date? No, no, no, with these guys, but are you going with them? On the next on Thursday night that it came out. Wow. You were in line. Frank actually got the fill-in spot. I was supposed to go with someone else and they bailed.

Wow. Frank, how do you feel about that? I feel great. Like, how do you feel about being the backup? I mean, I feel great. If he wants to feel even worse in the interim after the person bailed And before I confirmed with Frank after us prior discussing it,

I invited someone else in the in-between. Now what the fuck? Wow. The Floyd's are expensive, man. I don't know what to say. We'll see if I'm there. They said no. It's actually great that Rick is here

because Big Money is asking for Rick to please blind rank these five recent BCS's in case you're wondering where that stands for best case scenarios. There was no explanation. There was no explanation. Worse to best five to best.

best, number one. Okay, worst is actually worse and better. Actually best. All right. Ilya takes a brutal beating, beating his first loss, loses his championship

on the biggest stage at UFC Freedom 250. Two. 38-year-old Connor Injures his leg seconds into his epic return fight after a five-year lap.

By the way, prime candidate for a comeback of the year. Yeah. Based on your criteria, right? Yeah, fair play. Alex Perea goes for

three-division goat status according to Dana gets T-KOed I got. I can't decide if this is three or five. This is three. Undefeated boogeyman

Hamza Chimayev loses title and aura to arch rival Sean Strickton. I think by the criteria we've been going, this is one. Frank Kisses' mom's hand.

All right, we got to rein the model. The joke has gone on for so long. It's ridiculous. Can I... Five. Can I reveal something? This past weekend I had

something, you know, I'll just say it was embarrassing happened to me and I walked away from it and I whispered under my breath Best case scenario There it is. I was thinking of record. There it is.

I'm not joking though. Let me ask you guys something. It's a way of life. Have we not heard enough people say something, not exactly that phrase, right? Maybe not exactly that phrase, but something to that effect about Ilya's loss.

No. Best case scenario is a straight. No. No, again, throw out the phrase. I've literally not heard anyone say that. I've heard like... He'll benefit from this in the long run. I've heard people say that about other losses.

That was a pretty bad way. Oh, we just had somebody this week. I forget who it was. That was saying like... I think Dominic was saying that regarding Conner's injury that he could benefit. Maybe last week, but either way. I'm picking up this ideology, actually.

Listen, it's a nice way to look at things, but it's sometimes just a little crazy. But now I am. Everything's best case scenario. Earlier today, guys, I asked Frank, I'm in the market for headphones. I lost my headphones on a flight. And so I asked audio engineer extraordinaire Frank

for his top two favorite wireless headphones. And wouldn't you know it, Nick W is asking Frank to please blind rank these five audio brands. Senheiser. Say two. Bose. Say five. Bowers and Wilkins.

I'm fairly partial to BNW. So one. You got to go to BNW. JBL. What the fuck? Three. Retro. GVL.

Skull candy? This person is just trolling me at this point. Yeah, where's the Apple? Bro, Apple is a computer manufacturer. You told me to get Apple. You like the Apple ones. You said that. Yeah, I know. So, but why? Audio brands.

Okay, but they're in the audio business. We do need to point this out. You ask me what I recommend for best wireless headphones over ear. Yeah, yeah. And then I want to expose this. Oh, wow. Ariel is not a big fan of ANC, the active noise canceling. And I assumed that you were.

And I actually was, you know, I got goosebumps. I was proud. I was like, that's my boss. Yeah. I like it. But then I went to ChatGBTBT, BT to verify. That's the fucked up part. Yeah.

And they told me the opposite of what you said. Yeah, Chad Chb-GPT is just like a fluffer, man. You tell it like, oh, you know. It tells you what you want to hear. It's an echo chamber. Frank have a full conversation with ChatGBT about you earlier today. He did. So why is he shaming your chatty-tty?

It is weird. It is weird. He was asking me, you know, he was asking chat GPT about whether or not I value his opinion. And you know what it said?

Something like that. I was half listening. You know what it said? I don't know, man. Sometimes it seems like he does. Here's Port Rush Chris who says Ariel and BITB, what is the best piece

of sign memorabilia you guys own? Mine is a signed Isamachev glove and a signed stone cold smoking skull belt. For a second, I thought he was going to have a signed skull belt by Isamachev.

Oh yeah, there it is. One of one Josh Gad Auto Olaf edition. I don't believe it and take that home. It doesn't get bigger than this. Where's the Rudy G? Sorry about that.

Rudy G. Rick's got it right here. Yeah. That one's not autoed though. Man, shout out to Olaf. Yeah. Oh, Rudy G. Not auto.

Not auto. Yeah, Rudy G. We're going to be hunting down that RG auto for a while. There's no doubt about that. Did he say sports or is it M.M. No, no, because he had a stone cold belt. Rick's second favorite right here,

the Clarissa Shield signed one. Oh, yeah. I got the Clarissa Shield. I got the Sean Count. I have a Jalen Brunson signed ball that someone gave me. Memorabilia, I think, is always a lot more valuable when you get it yourself, right?

You get the signature. Yeah. Like my son's Shammett jersey is pretty cool. His heart jersey is pretty cool. I mean, obviously, it's not mine, but meeting Josh Donaldson in 2019 before UFC, I think, 236 Braves dugout. He went, bringer of rain.

He went to the dugout. Clubhouse came back with a bat and said, Ariel loved the show, Josh Donaldson, MVP, I think he wrote 2015. That was pretty damn cool. I have a time. I mean, back in the day, I used to go to Montreal Expo's games two hours early with my brother, and I got Cal Ripkin, I got Tony Gwynn, I got Barry Bonds, Ricky Henderson, Moises Sal Loo, Vladimir Guerrero,

Lenny Webster, my favorite player, anyone who came by Bobby Bonilla, So, like, those 90s guys, I have all those guys, Pedro Martinez. It does seem like it was a lot easier back in the day. You know, you go early in the game. You could just go down to the field level, watch warmups, try and get some autographs. Now, you know, unless you're Ariel Hawani, you can't get down there as easily. I don't know about that. Was that Fenway?

We actually just saw him get denied at Summer League. Yeah. I literally went down there to try to get Ewing's. Hwani and the mob of eight-year-olds all got interaction. It was actually a little bit embarrassing. Have you ever been denied an autograph from someone? of course. I mean, my...

I didn't ask him. I don't know. Like the athlete literally says not. I mean, when you're there, when you're at the games, there's not that many people. They're ignoring you left and right. I probably said the story before about Barry Bond's being a total dick when we were all around them. I mean, he did end up signing, but he would, he stood there with a blue pen.

Anyone who gets autographs on a baseball knows that that's crap. Like you want it on a Sharpie and you want it in the sweet spot. This spot right here. This is where you want it. That's the best spot. And he was holding a pen and he was taking everyone's stuff and he was just doing like right here. And I said to him, can you use my pen and can you sign it in the sweet spot? And I'm probably 14, 15.

And he looks up and he goes, who's signing the autographs here, kid? I'll sign it wherever I want to. And then he gives me a B&B right here, like a total crappy one. Fucking that. I was like, yeah, that wasn't very nice, but you still gave me the office. The dude to a kid is crazy. I met Dr. Jay when I was 12 and he was just like, no, man. Not doing that shit.

Serious. Had the pen and paper ready to go. I was just like, can you just sign him for me? He was just like, nah. Where? At a Georgia Tech basketball game, ironically. Wow, wow, wow. He was there just sitting and he said no to you in front of other people.

Actually, he was out in the concourse, and he was just kind of chilling. And I was just like, yeah, Dr. Jay, you signed this? And he was just like, nah. Damn. Bad form, bad form. Keep it moving. Punk.

Yeah. Been a Dr. Jayater ever since. Julius. Keep it down there, Rick, all right? We're trying to do a show here. I know, screaming. By the way, intern Jack tells me that UFC is Apple, PFL is Samsung. Both have great matchups.

UFC is more well-known, better presented, and is more public appeal. What do you make of this, Frank, this comparison from intern Jack? Say it one more time. I was helping out. Oh, sorry, sorry. You were doing your job. Yep. Basically, Jack said that the UFC is Apple and PFL's Samsung.

Yeah, I'd go with that. You're cool with that? I'm cool with that. Or should PFL be like... I think maybe PFL's more like... Oh. High Sense. What?

What is that? Like, what was it? Like, uh... This is disrespectful. Is it? Yeah, this is disrespectful. Yeah, what the hell are you talking about? Same thing is pretty, pretty upper class.

When I shop TVs, I see a high sense and I'm like, wait, this one's such a Oh, high sense. I've never even heard of that. Yeah. You never heard of it. This is a little bit disrespectful. We have a PFL fighter on the line. Yeah.

High Sense. It's Samsung. Come on, Frank. It's Samsung. Yeah, I actually think PFL is Apple. G-F-L is High-Sense. Yes. Yes.

That is a great point. Well. But High-Sense exists, right? I've never even heard of that. Ice-S-S-E. How do you spell it? G-I-S-E-N-S-E. Better or worse than LG?

Way worse. Way worse. Really? Yeah. Life is good to do it. Someone asked a question about P-F-L before. And I was just trying to make the comparison that PFL doesn't have the popularity that UFC has. They can have good fighters.

They can put on good fights. But they don't have Dana White. They don't have the public appeal. Their lower thirds don't look like the UFC's lower thirds. Their presentation doesn't look like the UFC's sort of thing. I think U.S. You're not miss fawning celebrities. Oh, that's a big.

That's a big full pop. The worst production team. Way better at celebrities than UFC, though, PFL. They got them right. Shall we go to our first guest of the day, guys? Please, please. Is he ready? He sure is.

I wasn't sure. Okay. Former PFL, excuse me, former Belator middleweight champion, now PFL, title contender, a man who was just in action this past weekend, defeating Impak Sangane. That's back-to-back stoppages for Johnny Pressure Eblen. He wants that rematch against Costel Ventinus. It happened almost exactly a year ago. He's kind enough to join us right here now to talk about it all.

There he is. Hello, Johnny. How are you? How are you? What do you make of all? all this LG. Were you listening to any of that? Listening to what? Okay, good. I'm happy you didn't hear any of it. They were trying to make comparison. I saw like the end of it.

It was perfect. Okay, yeah. It's better. Yeah, it's better that way. Big Morgan fan? Yeah, I went to one of his concerts and it was pretty awesome, man. I'm going to try to go again because the first time I went, I went by myself because it was like a last minute thing. Cutman Tate got me in And it was pretty cool I was down in the pit And you know It was a great Concert

And I couldn't take my wife But next time I go I'm going to take my wife Wait a second You went to the concert by yourself And left the wife at home Well she was I was in Vegas

Helping Sean train For Chimayev And Cutman Tate was like Hey I could probably get you in And my wife had just flown back The day before And

Tate hit me up the day of on Friday. He's like, you want to go? And I was like, yeah, sure. I thought I was going to meet up with him. But apparently he was still in Florida doing, you know, cut man stuff for Gamebred FC. And yeah, he was like, oh, I'm not going to be there until tomorrow. And I was like, what the hell?

So I went there by myself. I ended up seeing some people I knew. And it was a good time. But yeah, it was really funny. I kind of feel like, I'm never going to concert by myself. Yeah, I don't know. Is that a good? Like, I love going to movies.

by myself. More so like before I had kids, I always would love that. Is it fun to go to a concert by yourself because you could just kind of dance and not worry about anyone else and vibe out? Or is it fun to do it with someone, to experience it with someone? It's better to experience it with somebody. But I feel like it was a good experience that I went by myself because I've never done that before. So it was cool. But I ended up running into people I knew and it was a fun time. Okay. It seemed like Saturday was a fun time in Austin for you. Another great win. this time against Impagascangana. Can I ask you, you know, we did the face-to-face, and I thought you sold the hell out of it, and it was just, it felt real, it felt authentic,

and made me want to see that fight. I said it was one of the best fights that PFL could put on this year, and then he pulls out, when you found out that he was withdrawing, that he was hurt, and I'm talking about Costello-Vancinus, what was your initial reaction? My initial reaction was, I was upset because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to fight, you know, on that Austin card, and I was very excited to fight on that Austin card, and I was very excited to fight on that Austin card. I understand injuries happen and so on and so forth. You know, Sean separated his shoulder, a week of the fight, you know, and he still

showed up and fought. I actually was hurt. This upcoming fight, I sprained my ankle, you know, around the end of camp, and, you know, thankfully, it wasn't horrible. And also for the Costello fight, when I fought him in South Africa, I hurt my shoulder, like, I think it was six weeks out from the fight, and I didn't really have a full camp but I you know I found a way to make sure I showed up fight night and and that I competed you know it's rare to go into a fight 100 percent so I mean the fact that he

showed up at the fight he's walking around you know seemed fine you know it was a little weird to me were you told what the he was could have I he like hurt his knee or something but like it I mean it's obviously not that bad he doesn't need surgery he's walking around you know, and he got hurt very early in training camp, you know. It's not like it was right before the fight or anything like that. So he had plenty of time to heal up and still train and get ready and still fight. But, you know, he knows I'm one of the best guys in the world and he wants to be fully prepared, and I completely get it.

But I don't know, I'm just a different type of guy. I'm built different, you know. I show up to fights when I signed the bout agreement unless, like, I literally can't fight, you know. like it's too unbearable. I can't fight. But like I said, Sean Strickland, I separated his shoulder, fight weak. And the dude still fought. And he won. Super impressive, you know. That's a heart of a champion. And so I'm just curious, obviously you saw him afterwards, but did you interact with him at all beforehand? Did you say any of this to him? Were you able to talk to him? Or did that not happen? To Costello?

No, I don't really talk to the guy. I'm not like cordial with him. I'm not like buddies with him. Yeah, I don't know I feel like after he beat me He was kind of like kicking me while I was down And I didn't really I don't really mess with the guy man I don't fuck with him you know And uh

Yeah that's about it I just don't fuck with the guy How did you feel like he was kicking you While you were down? I don't know Just like some of the shit he said Post-fight interviews about me after I lost I just it rubbed me the wrong way

So I'm just like all right It is what it is We're gonna talk shit And I'm gonna see you again I'm going to beat you. Did PFL want you to not fight on this card? Like, did they give you that option? And did you get the sense that they would have rathered you wait?

So they were trying to get me to wait till next year. And I was like, I can't do that. Like, I'm not going to fight once this year. I got to fight again. And they were trying to maybe get me Aaron Jeffrey. But Aaron Jeffrey was already booked. So they were like, well, after he fights in Charlotte, we'll get you a fight with Aaron Jeffrey.

maybe or Impa. And I was like, dude, no. Like, I'm not going to sit here and wait. And then, like, they didn't want to rebook me and Costello at the end of the year. They wanted to do it next year. And I was like, I can't do this. I got to fight. I was like, why don't we do an interim belt with Impa?

He's well deserving of a title shot. I mean, it keeps me busy. It keeps Impa busy. And also, it's a good buildup, you know, for an interim title. So we have a fight to combine the titles. I was like, it seems like a good idea. And they were like, well, it was booked and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, who the hell is Impa fighting?

And they didn't even, like, I don't even know the guy. And it didn't make any sense. And I was like, well, why don't we just figure this out? And we'll do an interim title in Austin, me and Impa. That's a great fight. I want to run that one back anyway. And they're like, okay, well, give us till Monday, because this was, I think, on Friday or Saturday.

And, you know, come Monday or Tuesday, they sent me a bout agreement and they got it done. So I wonder why they wanted to, as you say, put it on next year. Do you think it was because of the state of his injury, the severity, or is it because? No, no, because I think from what I heard, Costello was like, oh, we just need to push the fight three months. Because I think his doctor told him to rest for, what, 12 weeks or something? I mean, that's just like a standard thing you say. from my, you know, experience, it varies depending on how bad it is, but whatever. He wanted to push it three months.

PFL was like, well, we want you guys to be on the new TV deal. And that works out for us next year. And I was like, well, that doesn't work out for me. I want to fight regardless if this dude's injured or not. I don't care. Get me a fight, you know. And they did a great job. They got Impa.

It was a phenomenal fight. It made sense. And also now we need to combine the titles. So this makes me think, though, that all right, they got you the fight, you're happy, they're happy, whatever, but they want to be able to say to whomever they're talking to, hey, we've got this grudge match when the new TV deal kicks in next year that we probably are not going to see you guys fight back end of this year. Do you think that's accurate? Yeah, I mean, that's from what I've heard. That's what's happening. Yeah. I know I want to fight the end of this year. I'm sure Costello wants to fight the end of this year. I mean, he wanted to push

in three months and fight in October or something, but it just doesn't work out. Like, just because you want that doesn't mean that the company has to do it, if that makes any sense. Like, I'm trying to please everybody. I want to fight often. I'd love to fight at the end of this year,

but it doesn't make sense for PFL. So I'm like, okay, cool, we got to figure something else out. I still want to fight in July. You know, let's find an opponent. And we did. And we got it for an interim title. and it made sense.

You know, everybody was happy. The show was great. I won, which was great. You know, what really sucked is, it was a big risk for me to do this because I could have waited and waited till next year. But I feel like that was just kind of like a bitch move, you know. I'm a fighter. I do this for a living. I want to stay active.

And I took a risk. Ended up getting the win. And then now, you know, everything's going to come together. You use that B word. I believe you called him that word after the fight. bitch. Yeah. Yeah.

I call him a little bitch. Yeah, I feel like he's a little bitch, man. How do you feel about him coming into the cage afterwards? Were you cool with that? Yeah, it was cool. They told me that it was going to happen. They said that he was in town. And I was like, okay, yeah, they want to do a face off.

And I was like, that's interesting that he's in town for the fight he was supposed to show up to. And he's walking around all fine, doing media, blah, blah, blah, smiling, taking pictures. It's like, bro, you were supposed to fight me. Like, for me, I wouldn't want to be at that fight. Like, if I'm serious. seriously that injured, you know, I'm getting surgery and I can't, I can't even be there. You know, I don't know, I don't know about you, but what do you think? I mean, I don't know the severity of the injuries, so, you know, it's possible that. No one, dude, that's the thing. No one knows. Yeah.

That's very odd to me. Seems like he wants to buy time and training, be ready and be 100%, which I could totally get. I'm not a guy you should take lightly. It could also be a thing where Beltor, excuse me, PFL was like, hey, you couldn't fight on this card, but you know, you were a part of the the promotion. We want you out there to just, A, be there and B, sell it like you guys did in the aftermath. So it could have been them. I mean, it's probably them too pushing it. But also, like, as a man, when I sound a bad agreement to show up to fight somebody

and I, like, get hurt and I can't make it. And then I show up to do all the media, I don't know, that would hurt me deep inside. You know what I mean? Maybe it hurt him. I don't know. He's not, he didn't seem very hurt. He seemed like, you know, he was happy to be there and, you know, willing to promote the fight. But he definitely didn't want to fight me.

I still don't think he wants to fight me. I think he's kind of like, like fuck. Even though he's in a box now. He already fought you. Like, even though he's, like, what makes you say that he doesn't want to fight you even though he's done it already? Bro, did you watch the fight? Come on. I beat myself that fight.

Everybody knows that. I push the pace too hard. I gasped myself out because I thought I was going to steamroll and finish them in the first three and I didn't take my time and pick my shots this is exactly what I did with

uh, input. I took my time, I pieced them up, I heard them, and then eventually when the finish showed up, I finished him. Um, I'm gonna do the same thing to Costello.

So you got the interim title. Does that mean anything to you? Do you care about it? I mean, it's just a belt. They're all just belts. But I guess, yeah, I guess I do care about it.

because getting paid a little more, adding the belt collection. Yep. You know, I don't have my new title up there. I'll get that up there. But I'll get another PFL belt next time out. Yeah, I was looking for it over there. So what, they gave you a new Belator belt every time?

Or is that the Super Fight belt? Yeah, they're not supposed to, but I have two Bellator belts. There's one up there. I don't know if you could see it. Oh, yeah. There's one up there. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, where's the PFL interim belt? I oh it's in a bag somewhere I haven't put I haven't I don't have space for it yet seems like it seems like it really means a lot to you I mean there are belts yeah who cares you know like it's cool to have it and whatever walk around with it take picture with it but personally I hate doing it but it is like a like a an accomplishment to get belts and it's cool and it means I'm going to make more money. So yeah, man, cool. I like it, but it's not like what I live for. You know, I live for like getting my hand raised and getting locked in the cage and like, you know, like doing the walkout to get locked in and fight somebody, you know, that's what really

gets me going. And training every day. I love training. I trained today. I went to the gym today, hit some pads with Diet Davis. And then I did some drills in Mike Brown's class. You know, I didn't go live because I was like, ah, maybe I shouldn't push it too hard. Right. But I love this shit, man. This is my life. Back-to-back stoppages this year, two very impressive wins. And I heard you say that maybe not having to worry about belts and whatnot right now is allowing you to fight this way.

I do also wonder if the fight last year in South Africa kind of, I don't know, maybe he gave you like a bit of an edge, a chip on your shoulder. Like I feel like that guy that we saw at the end of that fight on Saturday had this, you know, this like, I don't want to say venom, but like you were, it felt like you weren't just intent with the W you wanted no I'm fired up man yeah I'm fired up like there's there's a there's a storyline there's something for me to to prove now you know I lost the fight you know before that I was kind of just running through everybody everybody's like oh Johnny needs to be in the UFC but then I lost to a guy you know I got to get that win back and I got to get revenge and you know I had to

fight two people to get this revenge I thought I I deserved an immediate rematch but you know what I put it behind me I was whatever I was like whatever I'm just going to get better train every day, and I'm going to fight whoever's in front of me. And I've gotten two stoppages since then. And, you know, I'm ready to get my revenge and to fight again. What about the art of selling a fight of promotion? I can't help but wonder, this version of you that we're seeing, I think, is a little bit different than the one that we've seen in the past. And you've been hanging out with a guy who is pretty damn good at selling fights as well, Mr. Sean Strickland. Has any of that rubbed off on you?

I mean, probably. I don't know. I feel like I've opened up a little bit more. I've shown my personality more. But it's just not Sean. It's just like the people I hang out with the gym, you know, all the people I, you know, talk shit to. And, you know, we just have some banter back and forth. It's just hanging out with the boys, you know.

Maybe I'm just showing more of my personality. And so in this case, he came out to Florida for a couple weeks or so and then came and then went to Austin with you? Yeah, so he came out to Florida for two weeks. We trained super fucking hard. Every time I train with him, man, we level each other up. And then I think he went back home. I told him to come out Thursday night.

He came out Thursday night, and he just came out for a fight week and hung out and, you know, cornered me. And it was great having him. First time he's ever quartered me. And he was a great addition, man. He, we were just shooting the shit in the back. You know, keeping it light, just talking about whatever, killing time. Then I warmed up. And, you know, he was great to have in the corner, man.

He knew exactly what to do when the time was right. What does he like as a cornerman in terms of like during the fight and instructions and whatnot? Or does he defer to your actual coaches? So he defers to my actual coaches. He didn't say much. You know, he knew he was there to support me and meant a lot. And it was great. and you know it's it's it's how i am when i'm in his corner you know we kind of understand like

our coaches are there to coach us and we're there for moral support and you know if we if we had a tip bit that we need to you know maybe shoot some advice you know talk to one of the cornermen and and maybe tell them about it and then they can relay it to me you know and uh at the end of day it's just great to have your boys in your corner that are there to support and you know fucking just fire you up you know they let a fire up fire under your ass, you know. Fucking, I remember, like, I was saying what's, like, like, you know, dabbing up my corner before I was about to go in and, you know, dabbing up Mikey, dabbing up Daya, Tiago.

And after I dived up, Sean, he was like, to the death. And I was like, fuck, yeah, to the death, let's go. You know, he's firing me up. And that's exactly what you want in a cornerman. Well, what's interesting about that is it seems like you have a great relationship that you like being around each other, training with each other, all that stuff. But then I see the video and I believe it 100% where he says like, I'd be happy to fight you in the UFC. And so you share the sentiment.

Really? Even though you love this guy so much. We fight each other for free. Yeah. We fight each other for free. Like, come on. But it's a little bit different when you're trying to take something away from the guy and really truly hurt them. It's not like we're trying to take away from each other.

If that makes any sense, we're just competitors. You know, even when we spar, we spar hard, Ariel. It's not easy rounds, man. We spar with big gloves because it's like, all right, we're trying to crack each other. Obviously, if someone gets dazed a little bit, we're not trying to go in for the kill because we're training. But it's just competition, man. I grew up competing against my friends my whole life. I started wrestling from the age of four.

And you know, you wrestle your teammates all the time. I mean, in college, you're wrestling off your teammates and your friends for a spot to make. you know, the lineup. So it's just a part of competition in combat sports. What's been like the top thing if there is one that you've learned from him? How important a jab is. And understanding counterstriking and timing and understanding like you have to, you can't just go out and do the same thing to everybody. You have to be adaptable and change your style when it's necessary. And, And, you know, Sean just has a great fight IQ and just sparring with him and, you know, picking his brain, you know, has definitely elevated my fight IQ. I love that.

So at this point, is it fair to say he fights, you fight, you guys, regardless of the fact that you're on different teams and whatnot, you're going to be doing this. It's working for both of you. It worked against Hamza. It worked for you this time around. This is the thing now. I think so, you know. I mesh in very well with his camp. He meshes in very well with my camp.

we always elevate each other's skill level every time each and every time we train together um yeah man i like i like extreme he likes ATT i think you know this is going to be something that we do uh from here on now you know just a couple days ago pfl announced a co-promotion with risen a j mckee fighting for their belt and and all this stuff did you see that do you have any interest in that is there any chance that you go that route if the costello stuff doesn't materialize or are you dead set on Costello next? I mean, I want Costello next, but if, you know, he can't fight or something happens and we can do a rising deal, yeah, I'd love that, man. I always wanted to fight in Japan. I love the rule set there. I love the soccer kicks. I love

being in the Nia guy when he's down. Oh, shout out Danny Sabatelo, man. Oh, yeah. That dude's a savage, bro. Savage. Did you see what he did? Yes. He freaking knocked him down and he went to go face-stomp him. And I was like, dude, that's a fucking savage right there. Like, holy shit, dude. Huge for him as well, because some people were saying his fights were a little bit, you know, there wasn't enough action or violence damage. Yeah, man.

That was a big one. Big one. Also, you know, both of, like some people say that about me here and there. And I proved out this fight, you know, got to knock out, I guess a very good, very good, dangerous striker. And Danny went out there and knocked out a guy. and we both come from a wrestling background, man. So it's awesome to see, you know, two ATT guys coming out on top this weekend.

Danny has really found a home over there in Risen. It feels like they've really allowed him to be the character that he is. Yeah, I think they do a great job of promoting and allowing guys to just kind of promote the fight the way that they want to. You know, they don't put the guy in a box and tell him he needs to do a certain thing. And with Danny, that's great. Danny really knows how to sell fights. and is great at talking shit. And, you know, I love the guy, man.

Love watching them fight. Is it true they're calling you Johnny Elbow now? Yeah, that's my other nickname now, Johnny Elbow. Got Johnny Pressure, Johnny Elbow. I like Johnny Elbow. It flows. I like Johnny Elbow. Did you get that from Tiago Alves?

A few people said it, but yeah, I think Tiago said it. I'm going to start calling you Johnny Elbow. And, yeah, man, I don't know. It kind of just, I think, someone from the cast said it oh fuck who did I don't know if it was Dan Hardy or anyway yeah it was

it might have been Sean O'Connell okay oh you mean from the broadcastie I think he said it yeah from the broadcasting my bad right and so all right so at this point like you get this win over Impa which by the way I kind of feel like it must have felt good your debut and the PFL was against him that was a close fight split decision

you could kind of like move on from that one. I don't know if that was something that was sticking with you. Was it even something like that? Like you had, no, you were familiar with them? No, you didn't think about it. I didn't really think about it, man. The past is the past. And I just move on and don't think about it much, man.

You know, I just take what I can and learn from it and do what I can to become better. And the past of the past, and I'm just like, okay, I'm done with it, you know? And I move on. Well, you were there boots on the ground. We continue to talk about PFL's future. I always ask you about this. Are you getting any sense of what is to come for PFL, what 2027 might look like? What are they saying, boots on the ground?

What are the whisper saying? Whisper's saying that they're in a good place. Okay. And they're going to definitely focus on the U.S. market, the European market. And it's going to be run very, very similar to how Bellator was ran. you know, no real tournament structure. You know, they're not going to be all over the place trying to go to Saudi Arabia or wherever. And it's really looking like it was Bellator.

It's Belator again, if that makes any sense. They're doing the Risen thing. Yep, yep. There's no tournament structure. I mean, they might have a tournament if they have a killer weight division that, you know, deserves it. And even when they do the tournament, it's not going to be a point system or anything like that. It's going to be very straightforward in a bracket. And yeah, man, they're just trying to fill up these U.S. cards with great headliners.

And same thing with Europe, you know. And I really like it. I think they're on the right track. And, yeah, I'm excited to fight for them and excited for the future. Yeah, they have three great shows in a row here. Thadjean fighting this weekend, next weekend, Usbanda, Magamadov, Dakota. I just wish that, I don't know, I don't know how they can. can get like a little bit, I'd love for them not to be on Saturday nights going head to head.

Like, I wish your fight was on a Friday or a Thursday to where you can own the night. I don't know if you share that sentiment. It sounds like maybe you do or it looks like maybe you do. I just don't want them to go head to head with the UFC because the UFC is a behemoth and they suck up a lot of the oxygen. I 1,000% agree to agree with you. I'm not sure, though, if that has anything to do with PFL or if that's something that ESPN makes them do. So I'm not sure. I'm not back there.

I think it's ESPN. And I'm not saying that ESPN is malicious in doing it, but they have openings in their schedule and they say, okay, this is the date, this is the time. Yeah. So I think that's the problem. You know, maybe when they get a new TV deal, they're cognizant of this and they can start scheduling fights that make more sense so they're not competing with the UFC. You know, at the end of the day, I think you need to not compete with behemps.

like the UFC and just kind of work with them. Because at the end of the day, we saw how it went when PFL tried to compete with them. Didn't go very well. And at the end of the day, they just need to find their position and kind of try to make the best product they can and fit in with behemoths like the UFC. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting. This is one of the most interesting stories to follow for the next, I'd say, five or so months. leading up to, uh, to 2027.

But they've got, they've got players, they've got faces, they've got fighters like you. And if you continue to fight this way, I feel like this is something that they can really hang their hat on, the likes of you, Usman, Dakota, Thad Gene. I mean, all these guys are like, I would say you're, they're top five fighters in terms of popularity and skill and all that stuff. So you did your part with that great win on Saturday. Enjoy the victory. Enjoy some time off.

Don't train too hard. Don't go too crazy in the gym. Uh, and probably you'll get your number called, uh, in the not too. distant future of Sean fights at some point in the next few months as well. So you might get some work with him in Las Vegas as well. But always great to talk to you and very happy for your success this year, a real bounce back year for you, so to speak. Yeah, great talking with you as well, Ariel. Thanks for having me on. And yeah, man, I'm back, dude. I'm ready to fight again, hopefully soon. You know, I wish I could fight at the end of the year, but it looks like it's going to be

early next year. And I'm looking forward to, you know, fighting Costello, getting that revenge and putting on a great show. you, Johnny. We'll talk to you soon. Congrats. Talk to you soon, Mario. There he is. Johnny Eblen. The PFL interim middleweight champion.

He was the Bellator middleweight champion, and he's trying to unify that belt now with the current PFL champion, who is Costel, Vince. They fought last July. It's a very heated rivalry. They don't like each other. He called them the B word. So let's see. Let's see when they make that fight.

But we were talking about this yesterday when there's. when there's a TV deal to be done and there's some big fights in the back pocket, we just saw this with Connor and the UFC. Like you kind of want to hold off on those. There's no great incentive to give them up essentially for nothing because you're kind of lame duck and trying to play out the deal. So these things happen. I'm happy you got a fight though.

I'm happy you got a fight in there. And Impa got his opportunity and it was a risk. And he passed that test with flying colors. Okay, still to come two in studio guests. back into the show Fatima Klein who had a big win on Saturday over Tabitha Ritchie, strawweight contender

undefeated as a strawweight did lose to Jasmine Jazz DeVisius in her UFC debut but she has been killing it as of late four in a row for her and she hasn't been in the UFC for all that long. She made her debut

just about two years ago, July 13th, 2024 and she's fought four times in the last two years prior to that hopefully in about 10, 50 minutes time Canelo Alvarez in studio.

I think you've all heard of them. So we'll get to that moment. For now, though, some news and notes. The Tyson Fury face-off happened earlier today in Thailand. Marius Wach. Vok? I think it's actually Vok. Here they are.

Spencer Brown in the middle. They're having a grand old time. This is the closest thing to a Maple. Leaf Wrestling, Saturday morning, WWF squash match. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I promise, but it just really feels like, you know, let's get another one in while AJ is fighting on Saturday against Christian Prangha. You know who never did these things? That's Canella Alvarez. Now, I know he was very close to fighting Jake Paul, but Canella Alvarez never did tuna fights. In fact, his last 17 fights were for world titles.

So, you know. What did the inside boxing, guys, I have to say about this one. Oh, they broke it down. Shout out to Dan and Chris. Hello. What's that? What is that? Is that Dan?

I don't hear him, though. What is going on? Is Canobio here? Ah, ha, ha, what is this? Is that Kenobio's music? You should have seen Frankie's face with that hey. Dan, man. I can't hear Ariel though.

You can't hear me? This is some kind of set up. How is this possible? I actually think that Frank is... He's sabotaging. Wait a second, wait a second. There's a lot here. Jack's going to help you out.

There's a lot. Jack, the intern. Do you hear me, Dan? Hello, Ariel. Wow. First of all, did you just hit the tanning bed? What's going on? I've been tanning.

You know, I have a pool. It's a little bit red over there in the face. I've been running around, too. I just did a shoot with the zone. Must be nice. I saw Canella was going to be here. Oh, well, congrats. Oh, you just show up

when the famous people show up. Well, I wanted to see Frank. That's a classic on Crown Team move. It is amazing. Everyone does that. We got Pat shows up when Conner's here. When I saw Canello, I was like, all right, I'll make my way. This dude, Dan Kenobio has been a part of the team since February.

Has never shown any interest in showing up. Not one. You need to send him the QR code. Yeah. Very nice digs you got here. You seem like you're a little bit out of sorts. You're looking around. Is it a Wegman's downstairs?

Yeah. That's the Wegmans. I don't know where to look. There's somebody like. I know. It's kind of weird. He's like looking all over the place. Where's the camera?

Right down that pipe right down. There it is. There he is. Hello, everybody. Okay, so what was the big meeting like with Frankie? Everything that I thought of. Everything you dreamed of and more? More.

Yeah. I know the voice. Now I know the face. Yeah. Wow. A lot of people know that face too. So, excuse me. There's an NDA that you're going to have to sign.

Did you just show up to like get Canella's autograph or what? Oh, me and Kadella have worked together. We've done several, several, viral videos. He famously made fun of my drip. I'm hoping to see him in a little bit. Where are you going to see him? Here.

Oh, wow. Okay. That would be great. I mean, that's why I'm here. Okay. Any questions I should ask him? Is there anything top of mind? I just kind of want to know where his mindset's at.

This is a very uncharted territories for Canella coming off of a loss. He did lose the Bavall a few years back. I just want to know where his mindset is at. Because when he lost to Bavall, he still had a lot left in the tank, and he did have some big wins after that. Are you suggesting he doesn't have a lot left in the time? I would like to know, I'm sure you're going to get that out of him and see where he is at, because he has everything in life.

I'm curious where his drive is. This is a title fight, too. He can win a title with this fight over in Billy and then. Is it even happening, though? They announced it, they took it away. That is true. Good point. They did push his date, which I...

They didn't tell us why? Please ask him why. Yes. Canelo, he loves fighting on September. 12th. Yeah, mixing independent state weekend. Now Ryan Garcia is taking that spot. You know, fun fact, you can't spell Daniel Canobio without Canelo.

Oh, that's a great point. Wait, Frank, you're telling me he's like literally at the door? That's right. I didn't even realize he was here. You're talking to me? I mean, here I am just kibitzing with Dan Canobo. Dan will do that to you. Inside Boxing is a great podcast.

Go check it out when you can. It's available. wherever you get your podcast. Let me just turn this on. I was just kibbutzing with old Danny C. Do you hear me? Oh, Jesus. I don't know what's going on.

I was excited. I wasn't expecting Canobio. Where's Algeria? I can hear you. Okay. Perfect. Without further ado, I am so very excited and honored to say hello to one of the biggest names in all of combat sports, multiple time, unified world champion, multiple time,

undisputed world champion, the pride of Mexico, the pride of Guadalajara, Mexico, the one and only Saul Canelo Alvarez Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. What a great honor. Hello, Canella. How are you, my friend? Good to see you.

Well, we met before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, he said nice to meet me. My heart is broken now. Hello, how are you? Here's a nice little glass of water. I was at a lot of your fights, Canello, but you don't remember.

I didn't make an impression. No, no, no, no, no, don't say that. Okay. I remember. I know you. Of course, of course. Good to see you. Thank you so much for doing this.

And I want to give a big thank you to Cal She for hooking us up with you today. you're working with Kalshi now. Yeah, I work with Kalshi, and I'm glad to work with them. They are very nice. Is that why you're in New York? Yes. Okay. That's why I'm here.

I came to make a commercial and photo shoot and that's it. And then back home. Yeah. Okay. How are you? Good. You're good? Thank you.

You're happy. Yeah, very happy. Healthy? Healthy. I have a lot of questions. Yeah, fine. Let's do it. We were just talking about it before you walked in.

There was an announcement in May in Egypt. that you were going to fight Christian and Bealey September 12th. And then we kind of found out no fight September 12th. What happened? Some problems in my family, so I need to fix. I'm sorry. But everything good, nothing. Okay, everyone's okay.

But I always very disciplined, so very organized with my training camps, and I wasn't ready to be in the training camp. So that's why I postponed the fight, because I need to attend first family and then. But all good. All good now. Ready to train. And we want to be October 31.

Oh, that's the goal. Halloween. Yeah, Halloween. Okay. That's the new day. That's a new day. And it's still in Bealey. It's the new day.

Okay. And so this was your call. You made the decision and they respected it. You said, hey, guys, can we push this? Yes, because I wasn't ready to get in the training camp because, you know, when it's family, you need to attend the family. Sure. And that's why.

But now, all good and ready to train. We know you love, you know, Mexican Independence Day weekend, Cinco de Mayo weekend. To not fight on that weekend, does it bother you or you're okay with it? I think I like those days, obviously, no, because it's very important for me. But for me, every day is a Mexican day. I feel proud of all represent Mexico. I feel proud of all represent my country, my people, and any day is good. Okay.

Any day is good. And especially for these kind of fights, good fights, and I'm ready to come back. And will this fight be in Riyadh? And we don't decide yet, but it's going to be in Riyadh. We're going to decide what venue or place. We want to fight, but it's going to be in Riyadh. It will be in Riyadh, but you don't know where. Yeah.

No chance in Mexico or the U.S.? This time no. This time no. This time no. Can I be honest with you? Yes. I like when you fight in Mexico and the U.S. Oh, me too.

Me too. But, you know, for me, it was a dream to go other places around the world. And right now we in Rio, so it is what it is. But for sure, I'm going to be back and fight in Mexico or U.S. It's just, you know, I know I know you have a great relationship, with Turkey and with the Riyadh guys, Sela, but especially on Mexican Independence Day weekend, I feel like we don't get,

we're not going to get a lot of more chances to see you fight. And you are the biggest Mexican fighter in the world and maybe of all time most popular and beloved. It's a shame not to fight for your people in front of your people. No, it's not shame, you know. I fight a lot of time for them. Sure, sure. And no matter where I fight, I fight for them.

I fight for my country. I fight for my people. And no matter where it is the fight, I fight for them. So it's good fighting in USA or Mexico. They can go and enjoy the fight, right? But no matter where is the place, I always fight for them. All-time favorite venue, which is like your favorite, favorite place that you fought, your favorite arena. This is very difficult to say.

But one of my favorite places was the Cowboy Stadium. When I fought Billy Josonders. Yes. Oh, it was amazing. Because it was so big? Yeah, big. The people was amazing. And the fight, everything around the fight was special.

So I enjoyed that night a lot. I actually think that fight, and in particular, the Post-Fight press conference, is one of my favorite Canello moments. Oh, yeah. You know this one? Yeah, I started speaking English. Get the fuck out of here. That's when you... All bad words.

Yes, yes. Payday, payday. That's one of my... That's actually one of the first times that we heard you speak English. Yeah, that's actually the first time. Because you were upset. Yeah, I'm upset. At the Andrade. I didn't care about how I sound.

Yes. Or how if they don't understand me or no, I just... Get the fuck. Yeah. But, you know, it was good because I make a lot of mistakes speaking English, but that's the way you learn, right? Who taught you how to speak English? Nobody.

Nobody. By hearing and watching movies, talk with my friends. And yes, I start with that. And now I've taken classes. Oh, you do? Yeah. Still, till this day? Yeah.

To extend my vocabulary for business. You've come a long way. There was a point where you didn't understand anything early on, right? Not a word. Not a word. Did you feel like in order to connect with the public, this was important for you? Oh, I didn't feel it before,

but now I feel like I'm more connected with the public because they can hear me. They can hear me. Sure. Through me, not through the translate, right? And I really mean something. When I really mean something, I say it. And when it's a translator, they just translate in different kind of way.

But right now, yeah, I feel more connected. because they understand me and they they they feel what I mean. Going back to the fight, if you do fight in Riet, it sounds like you will, October 31st, not in the middle of the night. No. No, we can't do that again. No, no in the morning. For you, yeah, it was five o'clock.

Five o'clock. Six, five in the morning. So it was... No more? Terrible. Were you very tired? Tired. Yeah.

I feel like I'm not there, like a little bit weird. So I'm going to fight in maybe 10, 11 o'clock, Friott. Local time. And so it'll be afternoon in Mexico and in the U.S. Yeah. Okay. Do you think that because it was in the morning,

that's why the fight went the way it did against William Skull? No. I don't think so. I think William Skull did a horrible fight because he just ran really, ran a lot. And it's very difficult to make a good fight in that kind of situation. Just me going forward and I try to make a good fight is very difficult. You need both fighters with the same mentality. Of course, you don't want to get hit, but in a different way, no?

Sure. One of the more frustrating fights of your career? Maybe the most? Yeah, maybe the most. Even though it was a win, there was no engagement. No, you don't, I, I never see the replay. You never watched it? No, I don't, I don't, I don't really care.

Because it's horrible, it's horrible. It's a bad feeling. Nothing to learn. Nothing to learn. At all. Yeah, just not pick that kind of opponent. Right, okay. And then, of course, the last time we saw you was against Terence Crawford.

Yes. How does that fight now sit with you? How do you feel about it? Oh, I feel great, you know. things it's already happened I cannot control I know what I did bad

not bad not bad wrong I think we sometimes we go out of bases you know what I mean I did everything good in the training camp but my mind wasn't there

why not? I don't know I feel like I wasn't there thinking about other things a lot of things happened in the five week so So sometimes we're going out of basis, you know, focus on the fight, focus on boxing. Like I say, I did everything good in the camp. I always train very hard.

But it's not just that. You can be physically ready, but if your mind is not there, it's not the same. I heard you say the weight cut and maybe the rehydration wasn't great. Everything. Everything is because my mind wasn't there. You were thinking about other things. Yeah. But it's such a big fight. How do you, like usually, you've done this so many times.

I just can tell you, I just cannot tell you how that happened. Just happened, right? And I need to learn about, about what happened. I don't, when I'm victim inside myself, oh, I should do this, but it's already happened. I need to move forward, right? and just make sure not happen again. Were you thinking of that as you were walking to the ring? This wasn't a great week.

This wasn't a great camp. Yeah. Those feelings were there. Really? Yeah. Have you ever felt that before? No. Wow.

No. Were you doubting yourself? No doubt, but I feel like I wasn't there. It's very strange feeling. But, you know, I know what I did. Not bad, what I don't need to do again. As far as the fight itself or the week of the fight or the lead-up to the fight, what you can do to avoid that? Everything. You learned a lot.

Yeah, because the training camp was very good. Okay. I trained correctly, no, but my mind wasn't there, and my mind in the fight week was in another place, not there. Okay. So, but I got it. Was he better than you thought he would be? No, he's a good fighter. You knew that.

I never doubt how he is. He's a very good fighter. He's very intelligent. He has everything. No, I knew that. What impressed you most about his skills? Nothing. Nothing?

Because, you know, I knew. You knew? From watching him, from studying him. Yeah. Were you of the understanding, as champion going into the fight, that if it didn't go your way, that there would be a rematch? Was that discussed beforehand? No, never discussed.

Never discussed. I know there wasn't a rematch clause. It was some mistake in my side to not sign that a rematch, right? Because we, the champion always need to do the rematch clause, right? Clouse rematch or whatever. And I didn't for some reason. But things happen for a reason. You know, I hope that fight, the rematch can.

If not, it's fine. We need to move forward, right? In the ring, when you spoke to him, did you get the feeling that he wanted to do it again? In other words, were you surprised ultimately when he announced his retirement? Yeah, I'm surprised. Yeah. I'm surprised because as a fighter, we won a rematch, right? We want to show again.

And I always did good in my rematch. And, yeah, surprise me a lot. But it is what it is. It's his life, his career, and I can do nothing with that. Before he announced the rematch, did you guys speak? Was there any talks of maybe trying to do it? And then he eventually announced the retirement. In other words, were there any negotiations or any talks whatsoever about trying to do the rematch?

Oh, right after the fight. Right after. And how did that go initially? No, no. I don't know if they say to him. Yeah. But right after the fight, we talk with Turquilachi, we talk about it, but anything happened. Yeah.

Like you see. What do you think? Do you think you ever fight him again or no? I hope so. I got the feeling. I got the feeling he's going to come and fight again. You feel that way? Because he's adamant.

I spoke to him two weeks ago. He says, no, I'm good. And everyone... Look, you need to respect that. Yeah. If he's out, he's out, right? But I hope not. I hope he come again for one more fight.

You've been having, you know, massive paydays for a very long time, 17 straight title fights, and you've not shown any signs of wanting to slow down. Are you surprised that he got to the top relatively recently? He's always been great, but only big fights recently, maybe since the Spence fight three years ago, and then he retires. Like, there's a lot of money for him to be made,

and he's still at the top of the game. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what he's thinking about, but sometimes it's not about money. Right. You know what I mean? I get a lot of pay days, like you say, but I'm still love boxing.

I don't do it because I get a lot big pay days. It's because I really still enjoy boxing. I love boxing. But it's nothing out there for me to prove because I did everything. I accomplished pretty much everything in boxing. I still enjoy it, but it's maybe three, four more fights for me there, because I have other goals out of boxing.

Like what? My business and enjoy my... Canelo promotions as well? No, I don't think so. No. You know, everything happened with promoters right now and all that stuff. I don't want to be involved in that kind of stuff. I don't really

is done really my goal to be involved in a promoter or a promoter or something or being fighting with all the promoters I don't want to be involved a lot of drama right now

a lot of drama you pay attention to all of it I obviously I pay attention on everything I know everything and I'm good friends with everybody you don't want to to fight with them. I don't want to fight with them. But maybe you could be the one to bring them together. Yeah, why not? And if I have some fighters and I want to put in their promoters or whatever,

I can do that. I can be a manager, right, or something like that. But I'm not a promoter. You know Eddie very well. You used to be promoted by him, Eddie Hearn. His feud now with Dana White. What do you make of it? I don't want to be involved with that, but they need to work together. Why not? It's about the fighters, it's not about the promoters. I think they all need to work together for the fighters. It's very simple.

I don't think they want to work together. What? Is there a problem, not my problem? No, of course. I'm just curious because you've been in this game for a long time. And you know Dana White a little bit, right? Yeah, and I like Dana White. Yeah.

I like Dana White. Like I say, I like everybody. And I've been working with everybody and I'm a friend with all. So I don't want to. One thing that I thought was fascinating, that fight week in Las Vegas, the pre-fight press conference. Max Kellerman was up there talking about how Dana White

has changed the UFC and he's going to change boxing and make it like the UFC and whatnot. And you interrupted him and essentially said like, hey Max, like, don't disrespect boxing. No, because he said UFC is more than boxing. Yeah.

Not because of Dana White or whatever because I respect Dana White. He knows. Because he starts saying right now is UFC is much better than boxing, which is not, which is not. And that's what I say to him. No, no, don't say, don't lie to the people because boxing is boxing.

And that's why the UFC fighters want to come and fight in a boxing much. So just that, but I'm nothing with, I don't want to disrespect anybody. No, I know, but it felt like you were trying to maybe defend your sport that you look very much. I always want to defend my sport because boxing is the number one sport. That's it. In your heart, of course. Whatever. It's my opinion.

Sure. There is opinions, right? Of course. Maybe not the fact. It's not a fact, but it's my opinion. Do you watch MMA? Do you watch UFC? No, not at all.

How come? Like the White House. Yeah. I watched that, for example. What did you think? was a good show and good fights

but not your thing you don't love the sport you'd rather watch you know boxing I respect everybody of course I support all the Mexican all the fighters

because it needs a lot of discipline a lot of hard work I admire them I respect them but I don't watch that much UFC you'd rather watch football not even football

you don't watch football I don't watch football I I saw you at the World Cup. Oh, soccer. Yes, I meant, yes, I was trying to say. I just watch the World Cup. Yes.

I don't watch, I'm no soccer guy. So what I watch the most is golf every week. That's your favorite. Yeah, my favorite. I know you love to play. Yeah. But you like to watch it too. Yeah.

Wow. Because I learn. By watching, I learn a lot. Okay. Who's your favorite? My favorite right now is, obviously, it's a Rory. Macalroy. Macalroy.

Masters. He's one of my favorite players. Have you ever played with him? No. Have you met him? No. I feel like you could make that happen. You were at the England-Mexico match, right?

You were there. What an atmosphere. Oh, was a good match. Was I would match. I was walking to the half time. Yeah. And that's when the world's come. I didn't see.

Oh, you missed it. I miss it. I miss it. you at a half time i think harry kane said hello to you was it yeah because i play with him in here in in the liver national okay in the icon series golf oh wow we play the world versus usa so and him and i we play together okay so who's better i don't know i don't maybe he's better than me in golf yeah okay but that was incredible for the country i feel like me mexico no was really shined no the world That's a great match.

The whole World Cup, I thought every time Mexico hosted, the views, the fans, the way the other countries loved. Mexico is the best place to do events or whatever. We are the best hostess. Yes. Because the culture, the food, the people, everything around Mexico is just great. It's amazing. And people notice, right now they talk about us differently because, you know, we're not. Before, they just hear in the news all bad things, you know.

And if you watch a movie, they put very bad places, like all Mexico is like that. And people realize now with the World Cup how Mexico is, and Mexico is great. You know what I love? I love Lucha Libre. Oh, yeah. I saw you with your family. You went to AAA, right? Yeah.

And you met the Undertaker. Yeah. He's doing... Did you go to the one with the Grando... El Grande Americano? With the mask. Yeah, he was there. He was there.

This guy's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing, yeah. This guy's a German guy speaking, like Mexican-Spanish. Yeah, he's amazing. He's amazing. My boy loves Lucha Libre. Okay. He loves Lucha Libre.

That's why I went there because he loves. And Penta is going to be there. That's right. He's his idol. He was dressed. I see. Here's the video here. He was dressed like him, right?

Yeah. Your boy. It was dressed as Penta. Yeah, look it. Amazing. That's your son. That's my son. The whole outfit he had.

Yeah, the whole outfit. He's a fan of, he's very fun. His idol is Penta, so that's why I bring him to the Lucha Libre. Your oldest son is how old? My older daughter is 18. 18 and then? 18, 8, 7, and 11 months. 11 months.

Wow. What is that like having 18 and 11 months? That's a big gap. Yeah, besides a gap. Yeah. That is different, yeah. Of course. Any of them want to, obviously not the 11 months, but any of them train, want to be boxers?

The boy. The boy. Yeah, I say to him, hey, you know what I be like a Formula One driver? Yeah. Or golfer or soccer player or whatever. No, I want to be a fighter. Let's see when you receive the first punch. Yeah.

What did you say? And no, he went to be a fighter. And how do you feel about that? You know, I'm a moment. I'm going to support him until the end. Whatever, whatever, boxing, golf, Formula One driver, whatever, it's difficult for me to think about he's going to be a fighter because boxing is very hard sport, right? But it's not my life. It's not my decision.

At the end of the day, I'm going to support him whatever he decided to do. Knowing how the boxing game, you know, how it could be so ugly, the fight game, would you rather he didn't do it? Yes. Yeah. You wanted to make money. You wanted to make a better life for yourself and your family, right? I want to be the great. Yeah.

Money comes together. Right. Really, I really love boxing. I started boxing because I really want to be one of the best. And everything comes together. I never thinking about the fame. I never thinking about the money I'm going to make. So I always do because.

I want to be the best. And then everything comes together, and you need to be ready for that too, because it's difficult to handle that situation. I read your first million, you were 19. Yeah, 18, almost 19. That's a lot to handle for a kid, right? And I make it in Mexico.

Yes. Did you ever feel at any point that you were going, that it was getting too big? But you know what? I never think about the million. dollars. No? At that point because this wasn't my goal. Wasn't my goal.

My goal was being a world champion. And at that point, I don't even fight for a title. So I make my million, but does not my goal. My goal is other thing. The belts. The belts. Be the best. Sure.

And so this is a really interesting time with the belts. So Terrence Crawford, you know, they took the belts away, WBC, the whole, how do you feel about everything that's happening now with the belts? I don't really care anything about it, you know. But when you have a belts with history, a lot of history in boxing, you want to fight for that belt. Sure. With history, with many champions, the legends, they turn world champions.

They fight. They fought for those belts. And I think as a fighter, I want to be a champion for those belts. I want to fight for those belts. And you've been Unified Champ, Unisputed Champ. The system with the four belts, you're okay with it. I'm okay with everything. You need to adapt yourself to everything.

It's like you need to adapt yourself to anything, no. And I'm okay with it. Are you okay with the system? You know, Terence talked about the fees and things like that. You need to pay. Yeah. Because they sanction the fight, they put the judges, they put the referee, they work. They make the bell.

They have an office and they need to make money. So you've never had a problem with that? You can pay, no? I don't. There's a big push now to try to get rid of the belts. You see this, right? But do you think it will always be a part of boxing? Yes.

Need to be. Need to be. Need to be part of boxing because. Those belts have a lot of history. You know, I think need to be in boxing those belts. It's a lot of history. For us, like I say, for me, if my boy, he turned a fighter, he wants. He wants to be a world champion.

Like he's that, right? Fighting for those belts. Of course. He's that. So it's a lot of history behind those. well so I didn't need to be in the in the system one of the things that I respect so much about you and I think a lot of fans respect is that like I said 17 straight title fights you don't waste the public's time and money taking nonsense tune-up fights squash

matches if you will and and you could have many different times why why was that important for you to always fight the best if possible because if you want to be the best you need to fight the best, right? And the whole four division I fight, I fight, I fight, and I try to fight with all the best, because there's a point, right? If you want to be the number one, you need to fight the best. And it's for me challenge, that's the motivation.

I have discipline, but you need that kind of motivation. You know, the discipline and the motivation together is very strong. So like this weekend we have Tyson Fury fighting in Thailand. I didn't know that. Yeah, against the example. Yeah. It's not a very tough matchup with all due respect. And AJ, Anthony Joshua is fighting in Saudi Arabia also against.

I do know that. But these are sort of like tune up fights. We've not seen you fight in a fight like that in a very long time. Yeah. How do you feel about that? I think the last time I did that, why we was with Gilded in. But that was kind of, they have a contract with Calum Smith and I, I fight with the best in 168.

If we want to fight each other, we need to sign a contract. The next, if Calum Smy would win or rather I win, we need to give him the opportunity to fight for the bell. And that will happen, and that's what I did, because I haven't in contract, right? But I think he's the last time, but I don't really like that. Not your style. You need to go and fight the best.

If they're going to fight each other, you need to wait in or fighting other guys. Just go and fight. Do you think they'll fight each other, Fury and Joshua, You think so? They're going to fight. Oh, you say definitive. Oh, they're going to fight.

Just Turkey like she announced in that they're going to fight. But they went to fight in between the fight. They want to do some of fights. So I don't really like that. Not your thing. Not my thing. And it's very interesting, like the history with you in Turkey, because at the beginning, it wasn't great the relationship. And now it's great.

That was a misunderstanding. You know what I mean? Because he sent people to approach to me. And maybe the people tell me in a wrong way, they approach in a wrong way. And I say, I don't really need this situation. I'm good here, fighting here. So, and when they go back to Turkey, I don't know what they say to Turkey. And he started talking about me.

And that's all what happened, and it was a misunderstand. But right now I call him Padrino because I like him very much. He's a very good friend of mine. He's a very good person. He always cared about everybody. And I know, I notice that. And you need to appreciate that. And right now, our relationship is different.

because when he called me, he called me directly. I fly to London and we fix the things. You know, when it's directly, you don't need somebody in the middle because when you tell somebody that somebody tell you other things and that all the misunderstand. But I, you know, I love Turkey-A-chi. He's my friend and I appreciate everything. He do for me and for everyone.

That word that you said that you call him, Parino? Padino. What does that mean? Godfather. Oh, he's the godfather. Okay, of boxing. No, I call him. Yeah.

Padino. It was a fascinating story to follow because it seemed like you were that close to the Jake Paul fight. Yes, but I already signed with them. With who? With Turkey Alachi. But before that, Yeah, but I wanted to fight in May. Right.

So, but they don't want like a hard fight for me. And I say, well, this is the correct fight to do. Which one? Jake? With Jake. Yeah. With all my respect, right? Yeah. That's why that was my toss. And when they find out, they say, you know what?

No, you don't. And yes, I don't need that kind of fight. Right. I don't really. You were close, right? Yeah, but I don't really want it because it's not. I think it's not a moment. Maybe later in the future.

Not right now anymore. But in that moment, I say, maybe in the future, but I don't really want it, but you know, I say, maybe it's a correct time to do it. And I thinking about it. And when they realize, they say, no, no, no, you don't need that fight. And then they give me the fight in Riyadh. Jake was very upset.

Yeah. You're posting things about you and stuff like that. Yeah. And then I saw recently you guys did a FaceTime, right? you were with it's a friend of mine called me in a FaceTime and I was with my with my daughter my little daughter and I answered like like always yeah and if you have my phone I'm always gonna answer okay because you're important for me and and and I answered and what and he told me hey I have somebody here and what

Jay Paul and he told me, oh, I respect you and we have things in common and all that stuff, right? And my friend starts saying, oh, 200 million, 200 million, but I never talk about with my friend about that fight with Jay Paul and anything. And he's saying, oh, I hope when they, if we don't fight, we can be friends and everything, that's all. Okay. We never talk about fights. we never talk about anything.

How do you think that fight? I respect everybody. Yeah. But if they did respect me, then I throw my fish. Of course. Right, but I'm that guy. I respect everybody. How do you think it would have gone if you fought him?

I don't want to say, I don't want to get into that. Because if I say something, he's going to start talking. Sure. I don't really want to be into that. I understand. Because like I say, I respect everybody, and I don't, It's not the fight we need to talk. Do you think at some point it would make sense?

At that point, I told you. At the end, maybe. No, at that point... Meaning like at the end of these fights here, do you think... No, no anymore. No, now you're done. He need to think about fighting again. But his life needs not my life, right?

Sure. After breaking his jaw. Yeah. Do you think that was a mistake? Yes. You can tell. Yeah. It's just facts. It's not opinions, nothing.

It's already happened. It was too big of a step. Was a mistake thinking about you're really a fighter. He can fight. He can fight and he can make money. You know what I mean? It's a showman. And he did really well.

But to be that, to be a real fighter is different. And to fight a guy like AJ. Yes. Gold medalist, heavyweight champion, former heavyweight champion. It was just too big of a jump, right? And there's a possibility if he fights again and breaks it again, now you can live forever with a chronic job problem. Yeah.

So he has to think twice, in your opinion. Yes. Do you think he's done good for the sport? I think, yes. I don't see anything bad about it, you know. I think he bring different audience, kids, people don't know about boxing, and it's good for boxing. That September 12th date that you were supposed to fight on now is going to be Ryan Garcia against Connor Ben. How is your relationship with Ryan now?

Good. Obviously, we don't talk that much, but it's good. I always saying that I like Ryan. He's very talented. and when he's focused, he can beat everybody. Do you think he wins that fight? I know Connor, too, and I like Connor too. But I think Ryan is a special fighter. He was telling me, he was on the show yesterday, and he was saying that sometimes he gets heat from people, especially the Mexican fans, because he doesn't speak Spanish,

and they don't feel like he's truly Mexican because he didn't grow up there or something like that. How do you feel about that? Is that fair? Yeah, maybe. But who cares? Yeah. He can fight. Who cares? Right. That's kind of his approach too, but he's now fighting on that special date. That's a very, you fought there, Delahoya fought there. It's a special, special date to fight on that weekend, right?

It's very good, especially if I've turned down that day now. Yeah. Because I move my fight, I think he's good for fighting that day. I think he's the correct person to do it. He's the right guy. And the fight. Right. A fight deserved that day.

Can I ask you, you know, there's reports about some issues that Floyd is having money problems, and we've never heard that with you before. When you hear that, someone who made so much money and who should be set for life as grandkids, how does that make you feel? And why did it seem like you did not make some of the mistakes that other boxers made? I don't know if it is true or not. And I don't really. I know it's not your business specifically, but.

You know, my business, but you think about it, and you need to learn from other people too, right? I've been learning this for a long time and seeing all the fighters get here and then go in the same place. And I try to don't be that fighters, you know, being smart and learning about business, invest good, invest in good things, You know, every business is a risk, right?

But there is minimal risk, no? And I try to learn from everything. Like, I don't know if it is true or not with Floyd. I always say, if you spend a lot of money, sometimes you're going to be broke. Right. No matter how much money you have. Because it's relative.

How much is a lot of money? You know, how much is a lot of money? If you have $1 billion, but if you want to spend $1.5 billion, then you're going to be broke. Right. Right. And if you don't invest, smart. So I think money is how much, a lot of money is relative because we don't know.

We don't know how kind of life you want to, how kind of life, lifestyle you want to you want to live. I know you said that it wasn't about the money for you, but was there ever a point where you felt like you were making mistakes and had to... I make a lot of mistakes, but thank God I made those mistakes at the beginning. With what you were paying, investments, things like that? What kind of mistakes are you talking about? Yeah, if I my house and cars and years and not,

and when I realized, I have like a 200,000. thousand dollars in the bank. Wow. After I have like eight, you know what? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How long ago was that? Like early in your career?

I was 2013. Okay. So still early? Early, very early. Yeah. And I learned, oh my God, the money gone. Yeah. Quick.

But I think I was in a house, house from my mom. And so, but I realized that, oh, money gone. very quick. You need to fucking be careful. Did you have someone who guided you throughout your career? No. You kind of did it yourself as far as the right moves to make and whatnot. Yeah, because I learned a lot. Yeah.

So, and by seeing, I learned a lot of things. So I knew where is the path to go. You talked about motivation earlier, and I'm always so fascinated, especially with fighters like you on a different stratosphere. I always talk about the Marvin Hagler line, about sleeping with silk pajamas and it's hard when you're so rich to get out of bed and run at four o'clock in the morning. And so I know you say you love it, love the sport, the belts, all that, it's not about the money. But what you put your body through is intense. At this point, 36, right?

Why put your body through it? Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you do this when you could play golf, when you can hang out? What's the point at this point? When you've done it all? That's why it made me feel alive. No? I always I always, I born from this. I born for this. So I really enjoy it. And it's hard. It's hard.

It's hard. It's hard to adapt yourself again and this and the training camp is very hard. But I love, I love that. I enjoy it a lot. I don't need anything. You don't need it. You've done it all. You've beat them all.

I did everything in boxing already. And I'm good. I'm talking about money, I'm good, but I still love boxing. I feel like I always, when I always fight, I break records. And that's the motivation for me. And you need to do something in life. You need to keep your mind busy, motivate. And right now my motivation is boxing.

I don't, maybe four fights more, but I'm on it. I'm focused till I end. When I retire, okay, I'm going to still doing exercise and boxing and this and that, but I have other things to do. And then I'm going to focus 100% on those things. Do you think you will miss it when you're done? Yes. Yeah.

Are you worried about that? Like, do you dread that day? I'm not worried because I did everything. I did everything in boxing. I accomplished everything in boxing. And I have nothing to prove, but yes, I will miss boxing a lot. There's always going to be people that... Because doing for 23 years now, in October I'm going to turn 22 as a professional.

So basically my whole life doing boxing training camps and it's going to be difficult to go away. Yeah. Right? Because basically it was my whole life doing the same thing. But, you know, I have other goals to do in business. There's always going to be another guy, another guy. Does it frustrate you when you've done so much when it's, you know, the fans will say,

what about Benavides? What about this guy? What about, and you're like, there's always going to be someone. I always been in that situation. Yeah. Always been in that situation. so it's nothing strange for me no when he's coro mayweather they're talking about that and kalum is me triple g uh man a lot a lot of names out there when when i beat them then the other

name come right right now is benavides but uh he's he's he's heavy way he's a heavy way fighting in 175 or no cruiser way or something but he's a heavy way it's not fair what a fight that would have been maybe a couple years ago yeah was it ever close when i when i when i when i turn on disputed yeah if he will be a champion at that point that's that correct time to to to do the fight but he wasn't and he wasn't he was fighting in 168 at that point but he wasn't a champion so but i was a That was, I think, the perfect moment to do it. Was it ever close or no?

No, never. No. Did you see his last fight? No, I didn't see. He could be maybe the next Mexican star, maybe? No Mexican-American. Mexican-American? It's different.

Yeah. Mexican-American, yeah. Who could be the next Mexican star? Is there someone that you're seeing right now that could be the guy? The Mexican-American, I think Ryan have the possibility to. Right. The more possibilities to be. He has a lot of charisma, a lot of talent.

and I think he's the next Mexican-American. Mexico, we'll see. Is there anyone right now that you see? No, at that level, no, not yet. Not yet. Is that surprising? Surprising because it feels like it's always, yeah. Always see somebody there after the other.

The next one, yeah. The next one, yeah. But I don't see, I don't see right now. we'll see maybe in one year we don't know we always happen pretty soon I did see an interview that you did in 2020

and you said when you turned 37 you wanted to retire yeah that was the point but you're 36 you're about to be 37 right that's the point that's the point but you can do four fights in the next when's your birthday what month July 18th? July 18th

you just did you have one year you're going to do four fights no no no no chance so we're going to go to what 38 maybe 39 98. Okay. Why that time? Why 37? Why did you say that age? Because before, when I was young, the signs were different. You need to run time every day. And the training was so hard. Sparring, a lot of sparring. Right now, the signs change. Right now is different. You don't need to run a lot. You don't need to do a lot of sparring. So you can. go even farther. You know what I mean?

Before they are 30, 32, they already done, everybody, all the fighters. But right now, I feel great. I feel great. I think that's why I think in that way now.

After Ambili, is there someone on your mind? I know you go one at a time, but have you thought of who you want the four fights to be against? No. You don't think of that. No. You just want one. Fight by fight. Right. And he's good, right?

No, he's very. powerful power he throw a lot of punches he will always forward but I like those kind of fight you're you're you're intrigued by the challenge like you say this one gets you motivated yeah can I ask you before I let you go is there someone that you never got a chance to fight that you wish you could have fought that it just didn't work out timing wise throughout your career you got to fight very much with Mayweather Mayweather I thought you were going to say Crawford by the way there really much right now yeah yeah but Mayweather But at that point, yeah, the rematch would make,

where I think we would be like three years after, four years after the... Was it ever close? No, never. Never. He didn't want it? No. The theory is that he picked you when he knew you were a little bit young to beat you then? Yeah, I was a young.

Right? I'm not experienced. Right. That kind of fights, big fights, big scenarios. Three, four years later, it's a different fight. Yes. Were you nervous before that fight? Not nervous.

It was different for me. It was your mind thinking about everything. People, the SNRI, you know what I mean? The environment. Environment. I love, I think it was maybe before the Mungia fight, they did a countdown for you. And you're listening to classical music

while moving with the bag and stuff. You know this? Yes. This is unbelievable. Sometimes I just go and look for that clip just to watch it. The way you move with the bag. Yeah, that is. Unbelievable.

You do that all the time? Fluid. Like a ballroom dancer. Yes. I enjoy in the gym. I always try to enjoy everything. You play that kind of music in the gym? Yes.

Classical. Yes. What's your favorite? Do you have a favorite? I like, I like bochelli. Wow. I like a lot of bochelli. Yeah, mostly bochelli.

It's beautiful. clip is amazing. You know the one I'm talking about? Yes. Beautiful. Definitely. For you, you know what Mount Rushmore is? No. It's like people say the Mount Rushmore of this sport, the top four. There's a famous mountain in America with presidents.

Oh, got it, got it. You're Mount Rushmore of boxing. Of boxing? Mohamed Ali. Bright Robinson. Private Robinson. Hilberto Roman. Julio Cesar Chavez

Senior or junior I'm joking Not you not you Nah You can't put yourself Okay Thank you very much for this This was amazing

Calci I want to give them a shout out again For making this happen This is what Calci is saying about your fight by the way 72% for Canelo Yeah So the people know Shout out to them They're also saying regarding

You said AJ Fury is going to happen Yes You said for sure Yes definitive Yes And they're also saying 62% that it's going to happen. So the people know. A lot of chance.

Yes. The people know. 62 is a lot of chance. It's more than 50. Yes. So it's the majority. Well done. Thank you so much.

This was a huge honor for us. Thank you for coming in. Good to see you again. Thank you. And October 31st, Halloween. Are we going to come out maybe with like Halloween costume? Yeah, maybe. Why not?

Penta. Maybe like your son. Penta. That would be amazing. Canel Alvres, the one and only. What a legend. We'll say goodbye to him. Thank you to Kalshi once again.

and we'll be back with Fatima Klein. Don't go anywhere. All right, back on the program. That was my conversation with Ryan Garcia from yesterday. Today, Canelo Alvarez in studio. I mean, are we killing the boxing game or what? I mean, oh, you're just an M.MA reporter. Thank you to our friends at Kalshi for making that happen.

We appreciate them very much. Devin Haney saw some of the clips. Shout out to Spencer with the clips. Best in the game at that. and Devin Haney has reacted to some of the clips. Here's Devin Haney saying Ryan back doing that twitch with his face again. Oh my. He also said he looks like he's been on a bender.

Oh my. So there you have it. The Devin Haney Ryan Garcia feud will never die. And we will never, ever, ever see it again. Great interview, Ariel. Oh, hey, Dan. Hey, Dan. Did we get some breaking news there?

Which part? May 31st. October 31st. I was making sure that you were paying attention. Halloween night. Yeah, that's an interesting one. Is that a Saturday? I assume so.

You know, I didn't even check. I do like that you pushed them on the Riyadh fights because I had, you know, tweeted out, I want to see Kinello fight in North America. You know, he only has three or four left. It's crazy. And by the way, this has nothing to do with Riyadh. Like, I'm sure someone from that squad will be like, why are you hating? if he was fighting in Belgium, I would feel the same.

If he was fighting in Canada, I would feel the same. He has to fight in America, preferably Vegas, Texas, California, I would say. New York would be cool, sure, or Mexico. That's it. There are different types of fight weeks. Like, no disrespect to some of the other fighters out there, but when Canelo fights in Vegas, you feel it all week long, and I want to experience that from a selfish standpoint. But, you know, he's got to go boxing.

You go where the money is, and right now, that's the money's in Saudi. combo of him fighting in Saudi and then fighting in the middle of the night or the morning. Like that William Skull fight was just, it was just a tough watch. There was no atmosphere. Everyone felt sleepy, right? Everyone felt tired. Everyone felt sleepy. I don't know. What did you think? Algeri, my co-host and inside boxing. Of course, we love him. He fought Mani Pachio in Macau, China. I remember. Maybe three or four in the morning. And he's, you know, fighters, athletes are creatures of habit. And he said, it was off. Let's like, Cannell.

said like he felt like he wasn't even there and he said it didn't affect him but it 100% affected him and also the fact that William skull just had a horrible style sure but yeah it's a they're creatures of habit and there's there's no way to get up that early uh yes get up that early sure or stay yeah some guys like there was a fight in manchester two summers ago ufc fight and there were some Americans who actually I thought were in a better position than the UK fighters because the UK fighters had to fight in the middle of the night. The American fighters just stayed on American time zone and the main event happened at five in the morning. So I thought the Americans were at advantage as opposed to the local fighters whose entire body clock was messed up because they

were now fighting in the middle of the night over in the UK. So it's a weird thing. What did you think of Canello? What did you think of his demeanor, his responses? It's got the aura. Yeah, he does. I've been lucky enough to do a lot of videos with him over the years with my work with PPPV.com. And he just, I was just telling Rick, too, like the amount of, like, how he's media savvy for so long. And when you do a pay-per-view, everyone wants a piece of you. And he doesn't turn down interviews. He's sitting there for two hours at a time. Like, everyone's coming up and wants that sound bite.

And for the most part, he'll deliver it, especially in the last couple years, when he's learned English. And it was pretty cool to see that he's still taking classes to, you know, even further it even more. because he wants to be something bigger than boxing when it's all over. But yeah, the guy's got like crazy aura. I just showed him my golf swing. Oh, wow. I was planting a seed, so maybe we can want me and him to play golf one day.

Oh, that would be nice. Yeah, you're a real Canello fanboy over there, huh? Oh, come on, man. I guess he didn't see some of my tweets. I was hoping he didn't see some of my tweets over the last couple of years. No, it sounded like he did it because he was very, very, very happy to see you. He was. I'm glad you saw that.

I mean, I felt like it was a knife in the heart when he said, nice to meet you to me. I was like, golly, Conello. Oh, golly. Nice to meet you. Good to see you. That's a tough game. It is a tough game.

But I feel like we want him over in the end. And for him to do interviews now, 45 minutes, and it could be even more than that. In English, like five years ago, he's not doing that. No. And I do feel, I'm not going to urge any fighter out there. You have to learn how to speak English. It goes a long way. It only helps.

Absolutely. It only helps. Absolutely. And Canello is, like, it just shows you, even the highest levels. Because he can easily just say, no, I'm not going to do interviews. It's two hours less. on a fight week that I have to sit and do interviews. Right.

But it ultimately benefits the fighter in the end. Since we have you here, yesterday, Ryan Garcia, your thoughts. Going in once again on Delahoya, they're off, they're on again. Delaware responding in the comments on the Uncrown Post, he didn't say, I crapped on the fight. He just said he wanted to see the Haney fight more. But it seems like Delahoya isn't really going to be a part of this. It seems like this is part of the two-fight deal that he's signed with Turkey. I kind of said that on our show.

It seems like Delahoeia is going to take a back seat. Yeah. Which is crazy because Oscar doesn't take a back seat for anyone. He'll find a way onto that stage. Unless there is some print, unless it's in the contract, I thought it was a big part of the promotion. I thought Dana and Oscar, it shouldn't be the number one part of the promotion because it's always about the fighters and should be about that.

But let's throw that in there. Like, I want to see Oscar and Dana on a stage together because I don't recall them ever being part of our promotion. Correct? Oh, like this? No, absolutely not. I mean, he's been to a UFC event. They took a picture together. but last five, six years, they've been mortal enemies.

In fact, on-air Jordan is all learning me to the fact that they put out a poster today about the pre-sale, which kicks off tomorrow, General On Sale Friday, and as you can see at the bottom, there ain't no Golden Boy logo down there. Who's that on the right? Because that's not counterband. What are you saying? We're doing AI? Like, what are doing?

A-O. shit. Yeah. What's the other clip? Who gives a shit? Watch the fight. Come on. What is that? Who gives a shit?

There it is. Exactly. I watched the show. What is that? Yeah, but more importantly, no Golden Boy and no WBC. No, no, do you say this about Ryan Garcia. He said on your interview yesterday, great job. Like, the W.C. Belt means something.

Canello just said it here. Love that. It has history. Yeah. It means all the greats have held this green belt, especially the green one. Yeah. I feel like the green month's most prestigious. No offense to the other ones out there.

But now with Ryan not having it on there, and who knows if it's going to be on the stage, You saw this happen with the Opataya fight. That was a big fiasco with Zufa and the IBF. And it's a very interesting time in boxing. I feel like I can talk about this part of the sport, every single episode of ours. I don't know how much people enjoy it. But it's certainly an interesting time. Well, it feels like there's a bit of a war going on.

The establishment, the new kids on the block, so to speak. I said yesterday, actually, I feel like if the TKO brass were being honest, I feel like they probably thought the Ali Revival Act. bill would have been passed by now. Yes. The fact that it's almost the end of July and it hasn't, and then you see Nico Ali Walsh's tweet,

who knows how much there is to that, but it just feels like this is going a little bit slower. And so they've had to adjust a little bit, right? Work with others. Adjust on the fly a little bit. The belt stuff. And that's going to happen. I mean, it's sports been around for 100 years,

and there's a lot of people, promoters and managers and organizations and sanctioning bodies that are used to things, operating a certain way. So it's going to take a really long time to buck that trend. Like Zufa, it's going to take a long time. I said it on your show, and I got texts from people thinking I was working for Zufa

because I simply said that I think they're going to be the last one standing because they have the resources and they have the smart people. It's not exactly what I want to happen, but it's kind of what I think could happen. And a long time, decades. Your level of interest in that fight? Big time. You love it. I just came from Dizomi, did a little promo.

for that fight and I was saying how meritocrity does not exist in boxing so does he deserve it Ryan Garcia deserved the Mario Barrio show probably not coming off of a lost time is Connor Ben deserved to be the number one contender in the WBC no he hasn't fought at welter rate since

2021 Chris Algeria was still active back then so it's about names it's about Star Power these are two of the biggest like two of the top 10 biggest names in the sport so of course they're going to get it on Of course, they're going to generate money, and we're all going to be watching, because that's a big fight. You don't want to see either guy lose, because I was trying to figure out and like to ask you, like, who's, like, the, is the baby face is the term, right?

Oh, yeah. Like, who is the baby face of this fight? Who's the public sentiment behind it? That's a great question. I'm going to say Ryan Garcia, because it's in America, because he's a social media star. I know he had the issue with the Austrian and whatnot, but I feel like, and then the aftermath was a total mess, but I feel like, for the most part, in America, Ryan comes across more as like, as close to the baby face as possible. I will say, at the presser, Connor Ben with the Spanish, was pretty damn cool.

That was good. He was, like, freaking Scarface out there with the Spanish. He 10-9ed that presser, and I don't think Ryan was ready for that, but I do like Ryan's retort on the show yesterday. What do you say? My fists are bilingual? His fists are bilingual. That's a bar.

It's not bad. It's a good bar. It's not bad. I still want to see Haney Garcia. I still kind of feel like that's going to be one of those. that we never see. It's getting into that level of floating off. Yeah.

And I agree with Oscar. And I've interviewed Oscar numerous times and I said, you're the guy that can make it happen. Like, why are we getting Haney Ryan? It has literally everything. They're both champions now. It's a unification ballot. You want to go that route with the prestige of titles.

Built in storylines. I mean, one guy got the loss removed off of his record because he was on PEDs. I mean, it was also a really good fight, too. If you take away the knockdowns, I know that's not the easiest thing to do. Like, Haney won a lot of some rounds where he wasn't getting knocked down. So it has everything. And it's just getting to the point where there's just so much bickering. And Haney just can't get off of the fact that he was on PEDs.

Even when the loss has been expunged. So I don't know what's going to happen there. And now for the, I think, the eighth or ninth fight in a row of Ryan Garcia, he's saying this is my second to last fight with Golden Boy. So it can get further away from that. Well, this delays it, right? because this is in a Golden Boy fight. So the next one's going to be the last one as well.

He still has one more fight with Golden Boy, and I think this has delayed things a little bit. And what's going to stop that next one for being the one more? His escalator clauses in these boxing contracts are absurd. It's the never-ending marriage, these guys. They want to, well, I think Oscar probably wants to be in business with them, despite the issues. I think Ryan wants to be free.

Ryan, this happens to Golden Boy fighters, happened to the fighter that was just sitting right next to you. Yes. Alvarez. You get to assert. I got to give Oscar credit because he has built stars. He has found stars and he has cultivated stars from Canello right to Ryan Garcia. The majority of the BBC roster was at one point signed to Golden Boy.

It's when Oscar took a hiatus from the sport is when they all trickled over to the BBC and ended up leaving him. But Oscar does have an eye for talent and knows how to build them. But it gets to a certain point where all these guys or a certain level, like Ryan Garcia, I put them at that level, where they can kind of go off on their own. Or they can just sign a Zoufa. because, like, I mean, Ryan, they're showing him the Zufa life with him going to... Feels like inevitable, yeah. That's another thing, too, is because Haney, I feel like, is, I don't know how much you've been following along with the Haney, Kishan.

Yeah. So that... He was ordered, right? That was ordered, and there's going to be a Pursuit schedule for Monday, but I'm seeing that they're going to forego the Pursk bid and come up with a deal, which is a good thing. So, of course, Stevenson isn't... Not going to be fighting... That's, of course, Devon Haney is not going to be fighting under the Zoufa banner, at least not next.

It's going to be with the zone, and the zone has been locking up fighters. Yeah, what do you make of this, by the way? It's very 90s, HBO, Roy Jones, Lou DeBella called me yesterday while I was at the gym. Oh, Jesus. How long was that conversation? 30 seconds, didn't get a word in. He didn't say, hello, he didn't say goodbye. Yeah.

It was, he had some great theories. Oh, that you can share or no? I want to share on my show. Oh, wow. I don't give everything away. Wow. You ram sack our show and then you say you're saving stuff. Wow, that is a bullshit.

That's for Frank's ears first. Okay. No, it's fine. I have to filter through it more because I don't want to get it wrong. This isn't exactly my forte with the networks. I have to lean on Alu. I'll call Alu and get his thoughts. Can I tell you I'm a little bit surprised in this regard.

Last week, Shakur hinted at this. He said he had a deal on the table. from DeZone. I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then someone texted me and was like, hey, Tiafima is about to sign with DeZone as well. And I was like, Tiafima Lopez, coming off the loss to Shakur, is that really the guy that you wanted? I understand why DeZone wants to do this. Hey, we can now drop him onto any card because he's our guy. So, hey, if it's a boxer card, who the hell cares? Queensberry, who cares? If it makes sense, put him on there. But is that the guy like Garcia, who said yesterday, hey, I'm a little offended. I wasn't

offered this. Make sense. Shakur makes sense. Those guys make sense. Tio O'M a little surprised. He's a name, but the zone, I feel like, is trying to get what they can. And they're trying to solidify themselves. But they have a massive roster. They already have all these dudes. I'm telling you, and this is the part that I don't understand. I've been doing this a very long time. I thought I had a pretty good grip on it. But it's like, how do you explain some of these things? Like, how do you explain? You've got top rank, and I think they have the best young American roster in the business. You've got the great matchroom roster, the Queensberry roster, the boxer roster, the Golden Boy roster. What the hell do you need to sign people on your own. It just feels like a misuse of funds if you're disowned.

Could be. And especially with someone like Tiafieli, he loses to Roli, which is, like, I just picked Roli to beat Tiafima. That's two straight losses. I mean, no in boxing, like, we really shouldn't put so much emphasis on losses. But two in a row, I mean, that's when you start to question that. And you lose a lot of your marketability. You lose a lot of, you know, people want to tune in to watch you fight. I will say this about all of the promotions being under, one network. Let's think it makes it easy. I wouldn't say easy, but if someone want to

acquire acquire like boxing, quote unquote, which is the hardest thing to say. Like, oh, someone should come in and just buy the promoters. Someone should come in and run it. Like, there should be a Dana White of boxing. What are you saying? What are you saying? Right now, it's never been more time in boxing

where everything is under, it's the most uniform it's ever been. It's the most organized. Except for Zufa and MVP. Those are pretty much the only two that are outside. Right, there's always going to be one There's always going to be a stack But MVP I put on a different Why? Because they're just

Focusing strictly on female fights, women fights So it's, they are Yes and no, I mean they've got guys Jamal Harvey's on there Like they've got some guys TikTok baby I'll be on there You'll be on there You have TikTok?

I do have TikTok yep Do you actually go Do you use the app or do you like So New York Rick back there is Hardcore TikTok Shout to Spencer my guy He does most of my TikTok Markos.

Yeah, the two guys who you met, social media gurus. Do I spend a lot of time there? No. It's the most addicting of them all. More than Instagram? It's the most addicting algorithm. It's like a drug. Really?

I only look at it in night. Okay. As a little treat. Let me ask you, Dan. And this, by the way, is Dan Kenobio of Inside Boxing fame, which you can get. Usually Sundays and Thursdays, although this week... I don't know. We've got a major problem this week.

I was just with Naji. It was going to be our co-host. Okay, from Cigartagat. Cigartre. A great dude. Sound like there were some tech. It doesn't matter. Tyson Fury in Thailand.

A.J. Pranga in Jeddah or, that's Saturday, Zufa Boxing, Edgar Berlanga, Richardson Hitchens on Sunday. Did you know this was happening, by the way? Of course. Okay, you made a phase. Which one are you most interested in? Definitely not Tyson Fury. And we're not going to be able to see that. That's the best one.

Highlights until three to four months from now on At Home with the Furies. I'm sure something will leak. Hit the internet. Yeah, I mean, there's got to be. Unless they're asking people to put their phones in a... NDAs and whatnot. Just to watch a glorified sparring session. Don't care about that fight.

Pranga, AJ. I'm always going to watch AJ. I'm a big fan of his. Similar to... You said it was a fanboy for Canello. No. Close second. AJ, I mean, the charisma.

I mean, I've done some cool stuff with AJ, and I just root for him as a person. And I'm curious to see how he's going to look. I'm really curious to see how he's going to look. And this Pranga guy, I'm just talking to Chris on the drive in here. He's tough. He's big. I expect AJ to win. I'm very interested in Errol Spence's return.

That probably is Noemuno for me of the weekend. Spence Zoo coming from Australia live on ppv.com presenting sponsor of Inside Boxing. Yeah. How did I miss that one? We were talking all about it yesterday. That is the best fight of the weekend, by the way. Closest odds? Best fight?

MMA or boxing, there's a PFL event, a UFC event as well. I feel like no one's talking about it. Errol Spence, who at one time was maybe one or two pound for pound, hasn't fought in three years since losing to Terrence in a massive, massive fight. That was a huge deal at Team Mobile. I feel, and it's probably because it's happening in Australia, but I feel like here in America has completely flown under the radar. Has flown under the radar.

Australia, a big reason for that. I also think the boxing game may have passed Errol Spence by. If it was like he came back a year after the, the Crawford fight to be more, maybe a year and a half, we're double that. Yes, three years. Three years removed from that fight. I just don't think fans see a path for Spence back towards anything of relevance.

Even though it's at middleweight, did you notice that? They added, it was at 158, then they just added. They just bumped it up. Let's get two more pounds on there. Spence says it's not because I'm out of shape. He said, we might as well just get it to 160. that part is intriguing because middleweight is a dumpster fire right now. There's really no one at the weight class that could,

so Spence about be able to get a title. I just don't know what he's in it for. He said training camp was hard. There was some rumblings coming out that he didn't train hard or couldn't train hard for the Crawford fight. Didn't spar for that one. You know, Zoo is coming off of a handful of losses too. It's kind of like a true loser leaves town fight.

I guess, I mean, loser leaves town, loser leaves the sport. I don't know. I don't think Zoo is leaving anytime soon. Maybe expenses. I mean, this will be three losses. He lost to Bacrom. He lost to Fondora twice. And this would be a loss to a expense that's coming off of three-year layoff.

Yeah. Who fight forever in Australia? They have a whole ecosystem out there. He can fight for the next 10, 15 years in Australia and make pretty good pay days because it's just so hard to get there. But in terms of Tim Zhu on like the highest of levels, he's got to win. What's Kalshi saying about this fight? Let's see. You said it was the closest fight.

Here we go. Look at that. Wow. Spence. 52%. 48% Spence getting the love, maybe from the American fans. Well, disrespectful to Zhu. He's looking at that.

It's 50-50, basically. No? Yeah. It opened big for Spence there. For boxing terms, that's pretty close because there are some pretty wide margins. Like the Fury fight doesn't even have odds. Yeah, no. That's.

I mean, that is a real squash match. By the way, earlier when we were talking to Canelo, we brought up the odds for Fury Joshua happening this year. Does it happen? I think it does. I think it does. 62% the people are saying? I think that fight happens. I just, it's just gotten to-

Where does it happen? Hopefully, Wembley. Come on, guys. What are we doing here? I mean, that's the part of boxing that I can't stand. Like, this fight is eight years overdue. And now we're getting into where is it going to be. We're going into politics.

Turkey is bringing up the mayor of London. Like, who, as you're a fight fan, who cares what the mayor, like, ordinance, sound ordinances. This is a real thing. This is a real thing. It's bigger than boxing. This is a real thing. Put the damn fight at the time that the UK fans can enjoy it. Okay, so then let me ask you this.

Let me ask you this. I get that. And I think that this is like a love letter to the UK fans. These are the two biggest names in UK history. But let me ask you this, just playing devil's advocate. If you're, say, Netflix, who is going to air this, do you want this fight to happen at 1 o'clock in the afternoon

on a college football weekend? Get it. Or do you want it to happen in prime time? Eddie hasn't been as vocal about it and Frank Warren have not been as vocal about it because they could have made this fight the last eight years. They didn't. Why didn't they put up the money?

Why didn't they put up the money? I know there were boundaries, but they could have made this fight any time in the last eight years. So now here comes a broadcaster in Netflix who have very deep pockets and have a very, very smart analytics group that are going to look at this and say we're going to put, we want this fight at 8 p.m. Eastern. And we've seen that with the MVP events.

We saw that with the MMA event. They wanted that a certain time. And if it comes down to that, I understand that. But you would think, like, someone's always going to get screwed. And it's the UK fans that are going to get screwed. But I understand, like, the Netflix aspect of it. They're footing the bill. They're footing the bill.

But yes, obviously, like I said, it's a love letter to the UK fans. They've been patient. They've been waiting for it. I just, again, this is not going to sound good. I understand that. I don't want it to happen in Riyadh or in some place overseas where there's no crowd. There needs to be a crowd. I think if it happened here in the States and if it's in a part of the country where

UK fans can travel, it would be great. Obviously, the ideal is Wembley. That's the ideal. O2 would be, if you're going to pick an arena, that'd probably be the best one. Manchester would be a great one as well. On and on it goes. But at least, like, we need the atmosphere for this. This can't be in an empty arena.

This can't be like how, you know, AJ and Inganu felt or even to a degree fury in Anganu felt. Like it just like I need that crowd. I need that, that excitement, that energy. You need that pop. So that's what I hope for. But ultimately, I think it's going to be great. We got New York Rick back there who says that if AJ loses to Pranga, well, he should be back there or will be back there at some point. I think he's hanging out with Canelo.

A.J. Pranga. He says if AJ loses to Pranga. he doesn't care, the fight still means something to him. We all said the fight loses its luster. You can't lose the prank? We were like, what if he slips on a banana peel? You still care? Yeah, who cares?

Cuts is the thing I'm worried about. Like, stuff like that, like injuries, like cuts. Twist the knee. Anything. Yeah. I mean, they want to break a hand. I get it. It was also because what happened to Joshua, you know, the tragedy.

I mean, he was in a horrible car accident. Like, people just overlook that because they don't look at fighters as actual humans or athletes as humans. Like this fight probably would have happened in the summer. Yeah. That didn't happen. That was always the plan. He was going to fight Jake, which was a huge success for Joshua. We were there that week.

Joshua was a star. He was the star of that week. And I thought it was brilliant in that terms. And then he gets into the car accident and that the whole timeline got thrown off for this fight because now we're looking at December. But that's another thing too. We're going to put it outside at Wembley in December. Tough. I know that we just have a few more beers. get nice and warm,

but it needs to be in Wembley. Okay. It needs to be there. His name is Dan Kenobio. He is the co-host of Inside Boxing. He just ransacked our show. I'm just going to leave now. It was a total freaking hostile takeover.

Frank, did you know about this and not tell us? I had no idea. I got up for a minute and then there he was. Wow. Do we not have security in this building anymore? That apartment would have been flooded. I can tell you that much, had you known old Danny Coo was going there.

Texted aerial 1250. I saw the Canello. You know, I saw that as of, you know, when we took this break, 1245 you sent me a text. I was locked in, I'm not checking my phone. 1245 is like the right before I... We're going live, I won. Yeah, no, exactly.

I would never hit you at 1. Like, 1250 was like usually my cutoff. But true or false, you saw that we promoted he was on, and you're like, oh, let me finally come say hello to the team. It just worked out great. Yeah. You saw how, Connell how excited he was to see me? He was excited.

That was awesome. Thank you. You make dreams come true. Everyone here. I appreciate that. I love you guys. I'm crowned for life. There he is. Dan Kenobio, everyone. Please give it up for the co-host of inside boxing, which you can maybe get tomorrow. We're not sure. Who's to check? You know? We'll find out. Who's to check? Who is to check? Okay, some other news and notes. Before we get to Fatima Klein,

who I know a lot of you are excited about having in studio today, she's going to be joining us in a matter of moments. Gable Stevenson has his next assignment for RAF, aka. Real American Freestyle Wrestling, aka RAF. That's my favorite variation. He's going to be on the one-year anniversary show. There you go against Tony Casopio. Nope.

Butchered that. Cassiope. Cassiope. Cassiope? Cassiope? Sounds like an Italian name like Kenobi. Cassiope. Casiope.

Anyway, Gable, able to do both. That is big. What about Sean Strickland and Anthony Fluffy Hernandez? Strickland likes to, you know, he likes to mix it up with the middleweight. Fluffy, obviously, fighting in August. We know about this. Look at the two. They just fought back in February in Houston, you may recall.

Fluffy clearly at Extreme Couture. Sean likes a good scrap. You get the impression, love him or hate him, this guy is down to fight whenever, wherever. When I was at Extreme Couture, I noticed his locker. It actually says Deshawn Strickland, D-apostrophe Sean Strickland

Naserdine Imov did an interview and says that he's next Let's take a look at this Of course Next fight is a belt Before the fight Strickland with

Hamzat I wanted to fight Dikus To stay To stay To stay To stay To stay

To stay, how I say Being patient Active Active, to stay active to stay active. Yeah, exactly. To stay active. And UFC talk me.

I could fight only belt. Shout it to Jaden Campbell, or excuse me, Cable, doing big things. Jaden Cable, want to get that right. That's a big interview with Nasr Dene Imavov. So well done to him. Let's see. He feels like he's next. That's what he wants.

Will he get it? We shall see. Speaking of the middleweight division, the guy he's battling in terms of who will get that title shot is Hamza Chamaev, and Hamzat is in Abu Dhabi. The UFC is in Abu Dhabi this weekend. There he is arriving. So looking like he's in good spirits after losing to Sean Strickland back in May.

And of course, one of the big names on this card is John Pork. Janko. He had his open workout earlier today. the People's Champ making his UFC debut, a contender series product from last year, everyone loves them, a viral sensation. Old Chanko, yeah, look at that switch kick. Looking good. At the mall.

I love when they do the open workouts at the mall. There's something fun about it. Anyway, here he is talking to Red Corner, I do believe, about how excited he is to make his UFC debut this weekend. I'm going to translate or at least read the translation on the screen. How happy are you to make your UFC debut? Chaco says, Salamalam alaikum to everyone.

It's been almost a year since my contender series fight. I was waiting for so long for them to give me the fight. Al-Hamdullilah, they finally did it here in Abu Dhabi, which is nearby. My brothers and friends, a lot of people are going to come here

to support me. I've had a good training camp. The easiest part is what is left. Actually, the hardest part is the weight cut, of course. But after that, Mohammed says for the people for your fight is the main event. Oh, the people's main event, dare I say. Do you realize why fans have been looking forward to your debut that much?

I don't know. Maybe fans like me after my Contender Series performance. I've had a good fight, and they've actually put me in the main card, right? Yeah. So it's a great responsibility for me, he says. I need to win, inshallah. I gave my all for the sake of this moment. For those who follow me,

to all my fans, inshallah, it's going to be a good and spectacular fight. I will try to win, inshallah, and make it look smooth. Wow, how long is this clip? Okay, what is this? A three-minute interview that we're playing here. There's nine minutes left on that. Jeez, Louise.

We didn't know you were tired. You've done such a good job. I just didn't know. I didn't want to... People want to hear from James. I just didn't know we were playing the whole interview. People were actually in the chat wondering if you could read, so thanks for clearing that up. Okay, perfect.

Yesterday's big news, of course, was the new look Zhang Wei Li, and she's given us more content to dissect. Everyone going crazy over the new look, Zhang Wei Li, there she is. She's a new look. Now, this is a different look than yesterday's look, right? I think a different way. Oh, these are all different. Wow. there's more.

That's also a different wig, yeah. She's just sporting all the different looks. What is this all for, by the way? And when are we going to see her fight again? A magazine shoot? I don't know. A movie? She does look remarkably different with the wig, right? It does change everything.

The wig and the makeup combo. Yeah. It's going to do it. Well, there you have it. We're not going to see her fight next month, but we are going to see her fight. hopefully next year, maybe hopefully against the winner of McKinsey Dern versus Jillian Robertson. And hopefully in a matter of moments, our next guest is probably going to be very interested in that situation

because she is a top contender in the strawweight division. She's currently ranked number six at 115 in both the meta and media rankings, which is good. It's good that there's some uniformity. I'm just trying to put this on here, Frankie. Do I really need it? Do I really need it or what? Damn right, you need it.

You didn't say anything to me last time. Actually, Jordan said something to me. Yeah, we were all talking your year off. All right. Too locked in. Okay, wait, wait, wait. I have to fix this thing. I don't like to be...

All right, she's coming off the... Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're going to make dogs go crazy everywhere. A big win over Tabitha Ritchie. This past weekend in Oklahoma City, four in a row now for the UFC. Number six in the meta and media ranking. She is the one and only Fatima Klein.

Kind enough to join us in studio. Is she there? There she is. Hello, Fatima. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Welcome. Thank you for having me.

It's nice to meet you. Please, have a seat. Have a seat. And hello. Aaron, how are you? Well, this is rare that there's two top contenders in our studio at the same time. Aaron's just, she's just here to support. She's not trying to invade your interview.

But it's great to have you here. Congratulations on the win. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. I'm living it up. Frank, our audio guy, who's a big fan of yours, we talked about him last time. He's asking if you can speak closer into the microphone. He's a stickler when it comes to the audio. How's that? Frank. Is that better for you talk? Is this any better? Okay, he says it's perfect. Did he ask you for a photo outside? Not yet. I think he's shy. I'm expecting it, though. Frank? Frank? Okay. All right. He says relax. He says relax. I feel like this was a lot. I feel like this was a lot. I feel like this was.

like a bit of a coming out party for you. Do you feel the same this fight? Yeah, I definitely feel the same. You know, I definitely didn't expect, I guess, the fight to go exactly the way it did, but that's exactly what I trained for. And I'm just excited to be able to kind of show people who I really am, show people another side to me. So when you say you didn't expect it, did you expect it to be better, worse? I think I had just expected maybe a tougher fight. I think maybe I expected more from Tabitha. You know, she's fought people who have fought for the title and unfortunately have lost. So I did expect to feel that a little bit of more engagement. But, you know, I trained to be the best in the world and to beat the best in the world.

And I feel like that's exactly what I. In other words, you felt it was an easy fight. Yeah, I did. Really? Yes, I did. I mean, you were throwing her around. You were ragdolling her. Yeah, essentially.

I try to be, like, nice and humble. And I try to, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. but that is exactly how I felt. The two suplexes were amazing. Is it true you told her to get up again so you could do one more time? I did. I wanted to give DC one more.

I thought, you know, third times I charmed, so I did Westwood, too. I was like, just get up one more time. And, you know. And what did she say, if anything, when you said that? She rolled over to the cage,

so I knew at that point, I was like, all right, she let me shine, and now it's time to lock back in, get back to hopefully a finish. The photos, we can't show the highlights, but the, like, just like the moments in the fight,

like you gave people a lot, look at this right here. Yeah, that one punch did look like it hurt. Yeah, I mean, I think you heard her a ton. That's a mission I came super close to finishing. Okay. Yeah, I think that was fully locked in another couple seconds. I think she would have been out cold.

Does that annoy you? No, because like you said, like I feel like the suplex is really kind of brought out another side to me that people haven't seen before. And, you know, I feel like every fight, I'm either going to give you a finish or I'm going to give you something that you've never seen before. And I feel like that's what happened. Sticking out the tongue. all that stuff playing to the camera. Again, as I was saying, I feel like we got to see a different side of you.

It's a bit of a turning point. Are you feeling that as well from the people? It feels like the fans are very much behind you. Yeah, I feel like I've gained so many fans and so many eyes on me. I think I always knew that this was somebody that this is who I am. This is what I love to do.

And I feel like you saw me at my most calmness. You know, I was enjoying myself out there. I can't say I really enjoyed my previous fights with the pressure that there is being in the UFC. but now kind of getting my feet wet, getting now into like a closer top five spot that I really feel like I could show people who I am and what I could deliver. You're more comfortable. Yes.

Octagon jitters are a real thing? I feel like they are. I feel like definitely in the UFC and as you kind of get higher up. I really didn't expect to be as nervous as I was for that one. I'm not sure why, but I had more nerves than I ever had in my entire career combined going into that fight with Tabitha. Oh, that particular one. I thought you were talking about the Jasmine debut.

No. This particular one. So I heard you talk about anxiety after the fight in the cage as well. What was going on? I felt like I had just a lot of self-doubt, and that's something I really never struggled with before. But for this fight in particular, even when it was Amanda, it's not like it changed when it was Tabitha throughout my whole like 12-week camp, three-month camp that I really felt anxious. And I felt like I maybe wasn't doing things right. Meanwhile, I knew I knew I was and I was listening to my coaches three and through. Yeah, I just felt like I was in like a spiritual battle kind of thing. Wow. And how far out was that?

That was from, I mean, I feel like as soon as I got the notice for the fight, I think I got it in like April and kind of started training and dieting a little after it. I think I just put so much pressure on myself to be perfect. And again, like God isn't looking for perfection. He's just looking for my best. And as soon as I gave that up and I kind of was like, all right, you do this what you want with Lord? then I kind of started out of peace.

But again, it goes in waves. So it went in waves for sure. And this didn't happen in your previous fights, previous training camps. No, I've never really struggled with this. Even when I went to fight Jasmine, I was like, all right, 10 days notice, might as well just fight my heart out. Right. When I fought Angela and MSG, that was like the biggest arena I ever fought.

And I didn't feel like that. For some particular reason, it happened with Tabitha. It happened for the Oklahoma City card. And I'm not mad. It happened at all. I'm really grateful that it did because I, feel like it just proved to me that yeah you know my anxieties might go up might go down you know I might never experience this before but assuming that I will that I'll be able to prevail and

get over those obstacles and when you talked about like self-doubt were you starting to feel like you're not good enough or that you can't beat this type of what and how is that possible you're on a three-fight winning street going into this fight like why would you start doubting yourself yeah I have though I do why I was doing everything I was supposed to do. I was training my heart out. I was dining exactly the way I should. Weight was coming off. I think I'm really a perfectionist through and through and I got in touch with a sports psychologist through the UFC and he was helping me out a lot and just the fighter's mind and what we expect out of ourselves. And when people say you're your worst critic, I am truly my worst critic. Even when I watch back my tab of the fight, just the

nitpicking of things that I did wrong and I was like I could have done this I could have finished her but I think I'm just learning to accept the you know the waves of emotions that come rely on the Lord and fight my heart out and do my best and see what comes out of it was it to the point where you couldn't train at times no no I prevailed through and through I was always kind of able to train and always really able to you know lock in when I needed to lock in as soon as I would lose, as soon as I would leave the gym, I did find myself in like struggles daily trying to navigate, navigate my emotions, you know. Thankfully, I have parents and family members and coaches that really back me up and

were praying for me throughout my entire camp and that, you know, really just reminded me that, you know, I can train my best, I could do my best, but God has a plan for me and I'm, I need to trust in that plan. So you told people about this, about how you were feeling. Yeah. Keep it yourself. No, no, I feel like without even having to say it, people knew. My parents knew what was going on.

I kind of kept it hidden for like maybe two or three weeks, and they could just tell in my voice that's something, like, what's going on, what's happening. And they prayed for me right off the bat, and I just started digging deep into the word and digging deep into the Bible and just be anxious for nothing, trust in the Lord, stay still, have faith, you know. And that's something I really think I had to learn and I had to go through in order to, I can't say I got it down perfect. I'm definitely not going to say that. I have to fight again to see if I do. But at least I could say that I have gone through the emotions of this and I know,

God forbid, this happens again, I'll learn from it. Everything's a learning opportunity for me. Did your coaches notice as well? My coach was not as much. My dietitian knew because my weight was stalling pretty drastically. It was a pretty big cup for me. And I think it was, I kind of did that to myself with all the stress that was putting on myself to be perfect. And did you call the UFC and say, hey, I'd like to talk to someone and they recommended? My nutritionist Dawn. She actually recommended the sports psychologist to me almost right away. It's somebody that, Micah, she's been trying to get him to talk to me for a while, trying

to get me to talk to him for a while. And for a while, I was like, no, I'm good. Like, you know, I'll just get through it. Kind of the fighter's mindset. Like, I don't, you know, I could do it. And we just push, push, push. But he really helped me to take a step back and be like, listen, he, he, he, he, he, he, He would always say, like, be a palm tree because palm trees and, you know, winds and waves can bend.

And an oak tree just falls right over. So being a palm tree. Ah, I love that. Well, you continue to speak to him now. Yes, yes. In post-fight, you're all good, but you want this to be a part of your routine. I want this to be a part of my routine. And it makes me feel better knowing that he's also speaking to other fighters that deal with the same thing.

And that deal with just not many things really give me anxiety, but, you know, fighting I love the most. And it's my passion. It's what I do. It's what I've always dreamed about doing. And so it's the one thing in my life I take highly, highly serious. And that also comes with, you know, self-destruction at the same time. Hard to open up? I do.

Yeah, it's definitely hard to open up sometimes. It did take me with Micah a couple weeks. At first I was like, hey, listen, I'm not into this. Like, you know, tell me how you're feeling. Is the sky blue kind of thing? I was like, that's not my thing. But hey, listen, like, I'm open. If you think you could help me, I'm, I'll do whatever I'm told.

you tell me to jump, I'll tell you how high. And within the last couple weeks, and especially leading into my fight, he talked to me throughout Fight Week and just being able to lock in when I need to lock in and take a step back. And remember, I'm still just a human, just like everybody else. I'm a fighter, but I'm a human. What about locker room fight night? Were you feeling that as well?

I felt it a little bit. It started to kind of go away as I started warming up and kind of getting my body ready. I think sometimes your mind is at wits with your body. It's you know your body could do it, but your mind's telling you you can. And that's something that I really feel like I live through because as soon as I got in the tunnel and I saw that cage, it was like I knew how I was all over again. I knew like, oh, I'm Fatima Klein. I'm 9 and 1 in the UFC. I'm ranked number 11.

This is what I love to do. This is what I dreamed of. And what I actually thought about right beforehand was there's going to be a time in my life where I'm going to wish I was back in this place right now. And so I remember that and I try to stay really grateful and just be like, there's going to be a time that I retire and I'm going to want to fight again and I'm not going to. And so I have to live in the moment, take it for what it is and keep on going on stuff out of time, you know. This is a beautiful perspective. I actually speak like this all the time to people I work with, to my family. Yeah.

I always say like I don't want to be 85 one day and saying like, man, when I was 35, 40, I didn't take advantage or I didn't appreciate these, you know, like the office clip. which I'm sure maybe you've seen of the guys saying, like, I wish I knew we were living in the good old days when it was the good old days. Like that's exactly the sensation that you were feeling. And it's amazing that you felt that as you're making the walk. It was crazy. You know, normally I make the walk and I'm locked in on who I'm fighting and I'm locked in on what I have to do in our strategy.

But this time in particular, I really thought about like my future. Instead of being in the present, I thought about my future and what future me would think in this moment right now. Wow. And it kept me grounded. It kept me wholesome and it kept me focused. And look at the performance that it led to. So maybe this is all good.

It's all good. It's kind of crazy. Like if you only saw my mind, you would have thought like, man, this girl is this girl in it, you know. But then the performance that I have, it was like my mind was somewhere else and my body was in that fight. And so I think that's just, you know, the Lord's Will right there. You know, I don't know what else I could say about that. And you met Hunter Campbell for the first time. I did, yes.

And this was a big deal for you. Yeah, yeah. What did you say to him when you met him? Ironically, I had no idea that when I suplexed Tabitha, that I was looking directly at him. I realized that and I kind of had to lock myself back in, you know, because when you see like the highest of, you know, the people that you're working with, like Dana and Hunter, you kind of kind of get like a little, you know, distraught. And so I focused right away, but then afterwards when we, when we. kind of locked eyes and I went over to him. I could just see that he was pretty blown away by my performance. So when I looked at him, I was like, oh, I must have did good. I mean, I kind of knew

I did good, but you know, you kind of forget as you're going through it. Like, I don't remember my first round by the time I was talking to him. And so I could just see by the look on his face that, you know, he saw something special at me. And I think we both knew that. And he just told me that he's going to start making some calls, making some things happen for me. And hopefully we'll see something bigger next. That's got to be exciting. It was super exciting. I mean, it was nerve-wracking at the same time, but it was thrilling to know that, you know,

the guys that make the UFC happen are seeing me and seeing, you know, my product and what I could put out there. Did you compare you to Caitlin Clark? I believe Lawrence compared me to Caitlin Clark. And then I think Hunter compared me to Demetrius Johnson, which I was... They're great comparisons, by the way. Like, you can't really go wrong with either. Yeah, definitely quick to compare me because, you know, I'm.

Now, to me, I compared myself to, you know, November me when I fought Angela. And I was like, okay, I got better. But in no ways have I ever compared myself to anybody greater than me because to me, I'm kind of trying to reach that level. I don't feel like I'm there yet, but it's definitely, you know, excited to, I'm excited to know that that's how other people see me. But it feels like they're very much behind you. Yeah, absolutely.

You feel that. I can feel the push from the UFC now. I could feel, you know, maybe a little stardom rising. And I'm ready to take it full rain and write it out. And you're one of the very few in this new meta rankings slash media rankings where I feel like they got it right where both sides are agreeing and your number six and both. Yeah, yeah. I was definitely like kind of surprised because I know the media and the AI ones were pretty polar opposite. Yeah.

And I know I was bumped back to like 14 and I was kind of like, man. Before the fight. Yeah. I was like, I didn't fight Angela to be 14. I thought her to be like number 11. But, you know, rankings are based off of your fights. And I really don't take them that serious. You know, I know there's still five people in front of me that I want to take that spot from.

And so I'm just, I am excited that I did bump up eight spots. I definitely did not expect that. But I'm just excited to be compared to some of the best in the world that's a challenge now, the best in my division. I know you said you wanted to fight everyone above you. And we're looking at the rankings right over here. I don't see her above you, but you did mention, yeah, she's all the way down. Like, you mentioned loopie. Yeah.

After what you did on Saturday, like that feels like a very fun fight, but now are you not interested because she's all the way behind you? Yeah, I did call it. I threw everybody in the next because in my head going into my fight, I always have a list of people. I had a list of people that I wanted and loopie was ahead of me at that point. Obviously, if the time comes and we're now even, I'd love to, you know, run that fight. But for right now, I think it seems like everybody thinks my greatest challenge would be Wei Li, and that's who I'm lying right now.

Do you Zhang Wei Li right off the bat? I don't see why not. Obviously for me, I think I could beat the best in the world, so I'd be more than happy to take that, but I could see Tatiana as well. Okay, and these are all the big names. I love the big name. This is what you want? This is exactly what I want. Did you think of what happened so soon?

After a performance, like I did, I did expect it to happen immediately. I think if the fight went any other way, I don't think so. But I think that's a part of who I am. That's the training I put in. I think skill set wise, I can compete at the top of the division. Sure, they might have more experience in me, but I don't think in any way they have more skill than me. And that's why I think I can beat the best in the world. You were there. You were talking to the big wigs. Why isn't Zhang Wei fighting for the belt next month? Do you have any idea? Oh, no. I wish I did, but I'm not. Surprising, right? Yeah, it is surprising. I mean, again, that's why I would love to fighter is because she hasn't fought in I don't know how long it hasn't been like a year and a half so I'd love to welcome her back down a 115 pounds and um what better fight would it be than than to prove who's that's a number one contender fight yeah wow definitely think so we'll see what happens with mackenzie and jillian I mean i would i would love to fight either one of them as well but i know they're

going to have me fight someone before the belt but i'll be ready in case of anything have you seen the new jangueli her new look i did what do you make of this? Is it really her? Yeah, I think it is. At first, I didn't even think it was her. We were just breaking down. There's a new video. There was the video yesterday with the blonde hair. Right. And now there's another video we could play it, I think. Here she is.

No. Yeah, what do you think? That's definitely her. I guess it looks good. It doesn't look like her. I feel like I'm used to the buzz cut now. You don't think that looks like her? Is that a wig? What do you think? Here she is again with another look. Oh my gosh. She's just having fun over there. I think she's pretty cool, right? Pick one and rock with it.

Yeah, which is your favorite? But that's a window, right? I think so, yeah, because she's had three different hairstyles here in the last day, you know. But I think she looks pretty damn cool. I'm into long dark hair. I mean, that's what I guess. That's your thing, all right. I would probably tell her.

But it seems like she's doing other things. Seems like she seems content. I mean, you know, I think I'm really glad, obviously they're making something happen in the Strawway Division with McKenzie and Gillian. Wayley not really knowing what she's doing kind of makes things confusing but again I don't want to wait for anybody I'm ready to get the ball Who do you think wins that fight next month?

I feel like every time I say McKenzie in my brain a day later I think Jillian Oh okay you keep going back and forth I keep going back and forth I think I feel like in the stand-up I feel like McKenzie might have an edge on Jillian but I feel like that I feel like Gillian might beat her on the ground

I feel like whoever kind of gets to the ground first is going to wind up winning that fight. Every time I said McKenzie was going to lose a fight, she won. So now I'm the worst better. You can't trust me when it comes to making kicks. I was just wondering what your gut was saying based on what you see. Like, Gillian obviously great on the ground. Yeah. All the subs.

We know about McKenzie's background as well. Can we see a double sub? No, I don't know. I don't know. Can we see like a leglock battle and just two hooks at the same time? That would be incredible. That would be something. I mean, we just saw Alexa Grasso gave us a.

knockouts of. I'm not sure which one was first in her situation. That was insane. That was insane. I feel like that's somebody that, you know, just are finishing capabilities and that the aggression that she has is something that is truly special. That fight is one, one for the ages. Oh my gosh, yes. It will be talked about at the end of the year. Yes. With the awards and whatnot. This may be a hard thing for you to answer, but do you think the women's division and the straw weight division needs you. Do you feel you, you have brought some energy and a bit of like an edge, you know, like with the, with the tongue out and the, like, I just feel like you have infused some life, some excitement. And I feel like the fans agree with me. Do you feel like you are just what

the doctor ordered for this division? Yeah, I think I could speak for the strawweight division. I think as soon as I got into the UFC and I started making noise in straw weights, I always kind of said it to myself. I was like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to be like the saving grace of the strawweight division. make, you know, finishing a thing again because I, you know, you see all the time that the smaller women, we don't have any finishes, we, you know, we're not as excited. And I want to change that stat. I want to be a finisher. I want to be exciting. I want people to want to watch women's MMA and kind of expect the same thing out of, out of me as you would anybody else. There's no difference. I'll bring a show and I'll bring a fight for sure. Why do you think I've long loved

women's MMA, supported it, covered it, treated the exact same. as the men, but it feels like right now the fans aren't as behind it. And to be honest, the promotion, like there's just not as many main events, fights. Why do you think that is? I think sometimes the women could just kind of be a little too lax when they're fighting. You know, I think maybe naturally women are maybe more lax. You know, I guess fighting's not maybe in some people's DNA as much, but it's in my DNA and my parents are both hyper-athletes and it's challenged me to be the best version of myself. And I don't know.

I feel like that I'm one of those that people can learn to fight. They can, you know, try to fight. They can do whatever they can. I feel like I was born to fight. And I think that separates me from everybody else. What did your parents do? My dad was a boxer and my mom is a CrossFit athlete through and through. Still?

Still. Wow. She's like 2% body fat. Come on. I had missed that. Obviously, I missed that, Gene. unfortunately. But I got the gene of my dad that, you know, I got a tough jaw and big fists, you know.

Wow. Did they meet doing some sort of athletic thing? No, no. They met in a bar, you know. They met a bar in Queens. You know, my mom was from Queens. My dad was from Long Island. And so, you know, I'm a crazy mix of both.

And so your dad, you said boxer, you competed in the golden gloves, right? Way back in the day? I did. Yeah. Way back in the day. I thought boxing was going to be my route and then COVID hit. unfortunately took the golden gloves opportunity away. I made it to like the semifinals and I was going to fight out like MSG for the finals and then

COVID hit and blew it all away. But that's what kind of led me straight into Invicta and straight into my pro debut. So were you not doing any MMA at that point? Not that much, no. Yeah, I was really like head over heels into boxing. It was weird. I started in Jiu-Jitsu, loved Jiu-Jitsu, quit everything for Jiu-Jitsu. Did it for like five years, headstrong.

I did nothing else, and then I kind of switched right over to boxing. Why did you switch? I think jujitsu kind of just started slowing down for me. I feel like I wasn't really getting any big opportunities, and boxing seemed like, you know, with the golden gloves and for females. It was the ball was rolling over there, and so my boxing coach really, Derek, pushed me to do boxing, and I had three or four fights.

Okay. Amateur boxing, and I went back to pro-MMA. Did you like it? I loved it. Yeah, I think that's, that created like a big foundation, you know, for me. Having the jiu-jitsu resume that I do and then having had boxing matches, I think that's like where you see me able to just kind of like let lose, you know, the top of the fight I was having so much fun standing and banging. I kind of wanted to do the max hallway point down, but then she took me down.

I was like, you didn't have to do that. We could have stand and bang, you know, that's what I love. So, you know, I don't, I think my journey has went the exact. the way God has planned it. And so even like post-COVID, why didn't you go back to boxing? At that point, I feel like I just kind of lost touch with it. I feel like my mind shifted to MMA because now I competed in Jiu-Jitsu for a couple years. I did boxing for a couple years.

And I was like, let me just put it all together at this point and see where, you know, my career takes off. I had like the hardest amateur MMA debut there was. I went up a weight class. I was super sick. It was something, again, an obstacle. that right in front of me, I felt like I was climbing a brick wall before I ever even got in a cage. Wow.

And then I won that and, you know, I had people just come up to me left them, right? Like, wow, you're going to be something one day. And now looking back and here I am, the same people are like, look at what you're doing. It's kind of, it's got a whole circle and it's just, it's been a beauty to watch my career unfold. It's, you know, you mentioned Invicta. I'm sad to see what has become of Invicta. They haven't put on a show in so long. I don't feel like they have the backing right now from their owners.

I think ever since they kind of left UFC fight past, it's kind of been a little bit of a downhill. But at the time that they were kind of losing the backing, I was able to sign with CFFC, which got me the double championship in them. And, you know, luckily, if, you know, the good thing is, pre-UFC, you can kind of bounce around and go to different promotions and find the fights you need to fight,

especially for women when it could be really hard finding fights that, you know, just being flexible in your career at that point. And at that point, I was just taking anything I could get. A girl took a fight on three days notice. I was like, oh, let's do it, you know. And I don't think anything changed about my mindset, you know. You took your UFC debut on short notice.

Yeah. Losing that and wanting to make a good first impression, how did you deal with it afterwards? Yeah, that was a tough pill to swaddle, obviously, in so many different ways. You know, you're 10 years old. You dream about what your UFC debut might look like, and that definitely wasn't a part of the cards.

That was the last thing that was on my mind. But I feel like I learned so much about myself in that fight, so much about, you know, the mindset that I have to go into, you know, my next strawweight debut for the UFC. I felt like the Jasmine fight I really just tried to kind of push in the back of my head and say, you know, let's move on. Let's go back to the strawweight division and see what kind of impression we could make. And then I think that's why you saw a lot of emotion from me,

my straw weight debut in the UFC. Even after that, I had two back-to-back TKOs. And I feel like that was not only for the UFC, but that was me proving to myself that even with a loss, even in my mind, the worst thing that could happen to me is losing my debut, that I was still able to overcome that and kind of prove to the UFC that I'm here to stay. And 125 was only because it was short notice, right?

Yeah, I'm not going back. I'm a big 115er. And going up to 125 would just make things way too, way too even. Right. I like having the... You want to suffer? Yeah, no. It's like I want to make other people suffer with my weight, but, you know, it's a pill you have to swallow.

How long have you been shaving the size of your hair? Oh, this has been like since like 2016. So it's been quite, maybe like 10 years or so. Yeah, everybody thinks how I'm bold when I pull my hair back. And then I took my braids out today and I was like, look, you couldn't even Was there a reason why you did it initially? I had so, and females would get it, I had so much breakage from jujitsu. My hair was getting pulled out, left and white.

I had chunks of hair missing. It was crazy. I looked a little crazy, and so I was like, I got to do something with this. So this wasn't like a rock thing or anything like that? It was just because of the jiu-jitsu. That's it. Literally just because of the jiu-jitsu, and I was like, I wanted some, I wanted to stand out, and I was like, oh, what can I do to, like, you know, I'm not going to cut all my hair off,

because I got like, I got some long hair. You tell me, oh, I took a drink. I'm not cutting my hair. I feel like Sansom, this is my strength. You can't cut my hair. Yes, yes, yes. But I can shave the sides. So I'll shave the sides.

It kind of makes it easy to do my hair. Do you do it yourself? No, my mom buzzes my hair. Really? Yeah, yeah. Only Barbara I'll ever go to, never gone to someone else, never will. Serious. Serious.

Every time before my train. She cuts everything? She cuts everything. Really? You've never been to, like, a hair salon? Once, they botched me, never go again. In your life? In my life.

Wow. Your mom's a saint. Don't, maybe I don't even know if she's listening. She might already know that I already cheated on her once, but yeah, it won't happen again. How long ago? Oh, man, maybe like five years ago. Okay. And why did you do it? I think I was just like, you know, let me try somebody else.

I was like, maybe they'll give me like a new style, a new that, you know. And how they botch? They just like pointed me out here. Like I kind of keep it pretty natural. You know, I keep it all natural. No makeup, nothing in my hair. I keep it all natural. They lined it.

They lined me up too much. And I was like, you know. I do the same. You hate it too? Well, no, no, no. I was like, how pervert do you go to? My own? I do myself.

You do it yourself? And I don't like when they line me up. Look, it's all natural. It's all natural. I don't like it all natural. I'm not, you know. It's a little too aggressive. Yeah, yeah.

I was saying I hate that. I say I hate when they try. Because then when it grows back, it starts to look uneven. Yeah. And there's the stubble and stuff. It's better to go natural. Yeah. I love the, the shave.

Well, my dad's bald. Yeah, you're bald, right? That's considered bald. I mean, I have a shaved head. Yeah, you got a shaved head. Bald, I feel like, is like God's plan. That's, yeah, that is true. What is your dad?

I only trust ball guys now. Okay. Yeah, because both of my coaches are bald, and now I have this thing like. But when you say bald, do you mean like naturally bald or they chose to go bald? Naturally bald. Okay. Yeah, they can't grow an inch of hair. Okay, so you don't trust me.

That's, I'm just saying because this is a choice. Oh, that's a choice. Yeah, what do you think? Look at this hairline. Is it a choice? Absolutely. Look at this. If I had a receding hairline, I would have a normal hairline.

Is there proof that you have hair? Do you want to see? Like longer hair than this. I have insane hair. I need the proof. We can pull it up right now. Proof is in the pudding. I got to see it first.

If you type in, guys, can you type in Ariel Hawani Afro and put it up there real quick? Have you ever seen. When I was in college, just to prove. These were tough times. A long time ago. I don't even know if you were born. Were you born in 01? 2000?

2000 you were born? Okay, you were just born. I didn't trust any of the barbers. I went to Syracuse University. Oh, okay, okay. And I just wasn't feeling the vibe. Yeah. And we might have it here.

Let me know if we have it, guys. I grew my hair out, and I didn't cut it for three years. And for some reason, even like when I went back home, I didn't do it. And I have very thick hair. Yeah, yeah. I could tell. Some I call it a jufro. You may have heard that term.

And so here I am. Oh my God. Is that really you? That is me. That totally looks like a wig. That is my Afro. And as you can see, I have, that is also my. That's a mugshot.

That is my license picture. I tried to do an old dirty bastard type of thing. I don't know if you know the, he had an album where he looked like with his hair all braided. And so my girlfriend at the time braided my hair. Wow. Not the best look there, but as you can see, that's a thick head of hair. I got to call my coaches. You should have donated that to them.

Well, I'm just saying, like, you calling me. How many bold guys you could have provided you too? Well, a lot of people ask me, why do you cut your hair when you have such lush, beautiful? It's just too thick. It's like steel wool. Yeah. It's good in the, like, my ears get really cold in the winter. Yeah.

Stuff. Ears get really cold. But now, as soon as I put it down, it's right. So if I feel like being bald, I pull my hair back. If I feel like looking like a lioness, then I put it down. Joanne Calderwood. Do you remember her? Who?

Damn. You're really, Joanne Calderwood? No, Jojo, now known as Joanne Wood. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you know her as that? Yeah. Okay, well, she was for her whole career, Joanne Calderwood, the Scottish fighter. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She would always have shaved side, but always have, like, crazy designs. Yes, yes, yes. I'm a little bit afraid of that because what am I going to put on this on my head, my name? You could put a million things, cool, like, thunder. Thunder? Not a thunder, lightning, lightning, sorry. There was thunder yesterday. Lightning bolts.

See, I feel like I can't trust somebody with a buzzer next. Your mom, your mom. My mom? Oh, I don't know. She's not into that stuff. She's just going to... She's plain, Jane, just put a one and a half on the side of my head and just... Easy.

And how long does it take? Half an hour. Okay. My long hair takes a while, though. My long hair takes... She does that too. Does that too. Is she an actual hairstylist?

She was? Now she just does my family. The whole family? The whole family. Wow. Yep, yep. Dad as well or he doesn't need any help? He doesn't need much help.

My sister, though, my older sister used to have hair so long. It was below her butt. It had to be like at least like four feet long. Wow. Thick horse hair. It was crazy. It was way. It was like she was weighing her down.

Yeah. It was insane. Then she wanted up cutting it short a little bit, little by little year by year. It was cutting short and shorter. Now she's got, now I have the longest hair out of my family. Okay. And your mom does her hair as well, your sister's hair. Her hair, her husband's hair.

Everybody. Husband, too. Yep. What the hell's going on? My nephews, does my nephew's hair. We can't trust barbers up by the- Really? You guys don't, where do you live now?

I'm in upstate New York. Okay. So I was born in Queens, raised him on. I'm more in upstate New York. It's not good. Like Syracuse. You're not quite Syracuse. Not quite.

Yeah, like a little like an hour and a half north from here. Okay. Yeah. My dad works in the city every single day. Okay. And is he flooring? Yeah, he's a flooring guy. Yeah, MSG for us was like surreal.

because he was working in the building right across from MSG. He was looking down at the top of Madison Square Garden the week I was going to fight. Wow. It was probably a bigger moment for him than it even was for me, you know? Because he was a boxer. He wished that he tells me all the time you're living the life that I wish I could. Wow, wow, wow. I feel like God gave me him for that.

How does that make you feel? It gives me the butterflies. It kind of gives me the chills for sure, knowing that I'm doing something. My dad wish he did. And that's why I really try to take, like, you know, everything that I'm giving. that I'm given and I try to be really grateful for it, you know, because I know not only my dad, but people all around the world that, you know, aren't able to have the same opportunities. And, you know, it really does keep me grounded.

Did your, how many siblings do you have? I'm one of five, so I have four siblings. Any of them fighters? We all trained jiu-jitsu. My sister, my older sister had about, I don't know, like 50 jiu-jitsu competitions. insane. My younger brother Vince, he trains as well, does a lot of jujitsu competition. Younger brother Troy is like a bodybuilder. He's like a powerhouse. And my younger sister Tabby, she does gymnastics. Okay. Wow. So you're all athletes. Yeah, we're all athletes. Big family of athletes. I saw some photos of

I think your sister, she has two young kids. How we to the gym? My nephews, yeah. Vito and Enzo, they're bundles of joy. I feel bad. I keep on telling him how to, telling them how to hit. I keep teaching them and I guess they're just starting to hit her. And so it's becoming a little bit of a problem, but not my problem. Not my problem. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. And so when everyone wants to get a haircut to do, like, is there an app to schedule your mom?

How does that work? Yeah, you got to come in with a time frame because, yeah, we're all fighting for that slot. It's like one day kind of thing. She'll do it like, let's say, on a Saturday when we're all kind of around and on the money. If you got somewhere to be and you're missing your time slot, somebody else is taking it over.

And a professional setup? Does she have the chair and everything too? She's got a chair, a full-sized mirror. I love this. It's crazy. This is amazing. A little gym set up in the garage. She's got the best of both worlds.

Do your parents come to your fights? Like, were they in Oklahoma City? Yeah, they were. My parents, my sister, her husband, and my nephews were all there. Everyone. My mom has never missed one of my fights. One, due to COVID during Invicta, they would not allow her. Okay.

Everything she could be at, even jiu-jitsu, she's been at. Wow. Dad, too? Dad, not so much. Dad's got to make some money. Yes, yes. Providing for all the jujuts who are doing. Mom was the support, you know.

So support looks different sometimes, you know. Does she get nervous? More nervous than me. Yeah, I would imagine. Extremely nervous. You're her daughter, she's getting punched. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad she hasn't sat front row because I think if she did, UFC security would have a really hard time.

She's yelling? What is she doing? yelling, like I feel like I could only imagine what she looks like, but she, when I, every time I see her, she screams Mimi. Okay. Okay, why is that? It was just my, I think my little, my older sister, she couldn't pronounce my name when I was younger, so she would either call me Mimi or a Timi. Okay. So every time I go to fight, she's screaming Mimi.

I'm like, dude, you're making me sauce. Everybody's going to think I'm like, can you hear her? Oh, I could hear her. Okay. Amazing. I was crystal clear in Madison Square Garden and Nashville. I could hear it. It was almost freaky. I was like, oh, man, either the crowd's not loving it or mom's just killing it. What does that do for you when you can hear your mom in a fight?

I love it. You know, I think even during my fight weeks, I want my family to be with me, and I let them come to my training sessions. I let them spend as much time with me as possible, kind of like the pictures and videos you saw online. And like I let the boys into the cage with me while I'm warming up and training. Family for me gives me motivation. It doesn't distract. I know everybody's different and sometimes it could be a distraction. For me, it's a motivation.

And they keep me calm. They keep me grounding and they keep me, you know, motivated because, you know, I want to change the lot my life for the better. And I want to change my family's life for the better too. A fan asked us this question yesterday. So I'll ask you the question as well. So they said, okay, this was their interpretation. Okay. They said, your name is a Muslim name.

Just stick with me here. Your last name is a Jewish name, according to them. But you are, but you are Christian or Catholic. Christian, Italian, Irish, American. Okay, so Fatima, where does it come from? My grandmother named me. Okay. I can't tell you why.

She wanted to call me Fatima. Okay. Being an Italian, like came straight off the boat from Italy. I don't know where she got it from. I get, you know, people think I'm Brazilian, people think I'm Egyptian. Yeah. I get a whole lot. None of that.

Nothing. Okay. Plain Jane. Now there is, we were looking at this up. I think I, you know, disappoint people sometimes when I say that. There's a place in Portugal. You know about this. Yes, yes.

People give me like the little, you know, necklaces. My coach Augie actually gave me. He went to Portugal. There's a place in Portugal named Fatima. where I think the Virgin Mary showed up last in 1917. I did this whole deep dive into this. Oh, did you? And she spoke to three kids.

Do you know about this? Yeah. And that was her last appearance. And she told them about peace and love and all this stuff. So I was wondering maybe if you were named after that city. I guess I would assume so. But like I said, my grandmother's Italian. So I'm, I maybe she.

Yeah. You know, she was Catholic. So I could see why. Where in Italy? Uh, Palermo. Okay, very nice. That took me a second. Okay.

And so she, so you're, your mom's side or dad's side? My mom's sides, Palermo. So she's first generation American? Yes. And dad side? Dad, Irish, I don't know much about my dad's side, to be honest, more so just my mom's side. But man, I got the Irish stronghold. Okay, so Klein is Irish.

Irish, German. Okay, yeah. Kind of Jewish, I guess, but mine is K. El Iony? Yeah, yeah. There's German in there for sure. Yeah, yeah. So my name really confused with people.

It's a nice mix. It's like a United Nations. Yeah. I guess you could say that. I like it. I like it. I like it. Yeah, yeah.

I think, you know, people say it right and wrong all the time. But the Fatima part, I don't dig. You don't like Fatima. Fatima. Fatima, Fatima. I get a lot. The first one you said there, when you said Fatima, Fatima. Fatima, yeah.

That sounds very Arabic. Yes. I get Arabic. a whole lot. And that's what they call. I'm totally down for that. When the Americans call me Fatima, though, that's the one. Something about the fat part. I just don't do as much, you know. What do you go with? I'm like, no, you don't want to hear that. I'm like, you don't have some respect for the skininess, you know. So.

Your favorite pronunciation? Either just Fatima or Fatima is my favorite. When you do the second one, you definitely, my family's from Lebanon and Egypt, so it sounds like the Arabic that I hear at home. I totally dig it. Whenever anybody comes to, me with a little bit of accent they say it how they like I'm with it religion is a big part of your life clearly you've alluded to this has it always been yes always I was obviously raised Christian for a part of my life I kind of stepped away from from my faith and I was you know teenage years you kind of

believe in you and I believed in myself and that was it I quickly realized that you know I'm just human and we were imperfect people and you know, we're sinners and I needed a savior. And so by the age of 20, I rededicated my life to the Lord. And, you know, it's a hard and rocky road, but it is sure worth it. And so what was the turning point? The turning point was I basically like ran away from home. Like I left and I moved to Boston and I was doing my own thing and really surrounded by a lot of bad people. And, you know, my dad came to see me one day. And, you know, at that point, my, my UFC aspirations were practically over.

I didn't train for like six months. I thought about quitting. I didn't know what to do at my life. I felt like I was starting from ground one again. My dad came to see me and it's like my life changed ever since. I went back to church. I rededicated my life. I got baptized and my love for everything that I had loved previous was renewed.

Why did you run away? Just, you know, bad company corrupts good character. and so I felt like my parents were strict, and they were in, let me hang out with the people I wanted to hang out with and do the things I want to do and, you know, party and do stupid teenage stuff, and that's exactly what I was doing. And I was digging myself a whole, you know, and thank God I have the parents that I did that dug me out of it, you know, and Jesus said dug me out of it. So you just like picked up and left one day? Picked up and left. You didn't tell them. Were you living at home?

I was living at home. Yeah, I picked up and left the very next day. Were you mad at them? Extremely. Yeah. Something happened? We got in an argument. I was lying about just everything I was doing. Oh, I'm at a friend's house.

I was at a party. Oh, I'm not drinking. I'm drinking. I'm not doing this. I was doing that. Yeah, it was. And they caught you basically. Yeah, got caught.

Yeah. And got in a big argument. And, you know, it's crazy. It feels like a different life from who I am. I'd look back and I was like, I can't believe I made those choices, those decisions, you know. And I look at my life now and just see how. God's hands has been all over it because this is something that, you know, when I was doing the things that I wanted to do, look at where it led me. It led me away from my family. It led me isolated.

It led me, you know, depression, anxiety, drinking, smoking, hanging out with bad people. And then when I came back, it was like everything changed. Wow. And why Boston? It was the first place I could get to. Further enough to where they couldn't reach. me but close enough I could go back to, you know, kind of thing. And how did you get there? Took the bus straight from Manhattan, eight hours away. And you didn't know, you didn't know anyone there. I had a couple friends that were living there. So I went out there to live with them. And the further I went from my family, the harder my life got. Right. And now, you know, people always ask me, oh, would you move to Vegas for fighting? Absolutely not. I'm going to stay right where my

family is and right where my home church is in upstate New York. Did you communicate with them when you were away? No, I only communicated with my dad barely. But they weren't freaking out? Freaking out, bugging out. They were ready to come get me, but I was like, you come get me. I'm going further, you know? But how did they get in touch with you? Like, did you pick up the phone? I occasionally picked up the phone with my dad. You were mad at your mom. I was mad at everybody. I'm mad at my dad, mad at my mom. But my dad was a little bit easier to talk to. at the time. My obviously like I'm sure and I see it at with my sister as a mother it's like you it's a different relationship you know and um I think you know just with my mother I I put too much pressure

on her to again be perfect when you know that was that was extremely wrong of me you know and again I do it to myself I expect perfection and perfection and I disappoint myself and then I realized that, you know, everybody's imperfect and the only perfect person is Jesus Christ. And, you know, I learned to forgive her and she forgave me and my whole family. And, you know, we've reinkled. And our, our, our, our, our, my relationship with my family has never been stronger now. Yeah. Well, it's an amazing juxtaposition because you're talking earlier about how close you guys are. Yeah. And then to think that you left one day. Total idiot. Why would I do that? Well, I'm just thinking about it as a parent. Like, if my kid ever left, obviously, you were

probably what? 18. So I'm not quite there yet, but that's terrifying. Yeah. You went to another state. And six months, you didn't talk, you didn't like see them. So why does your dad end up going six months later? My dad was talking to a lot of the people from church, my church, Calvary Chapel of the Hudson Valley on like, what do we do?

How do we, you know, rekindle, how do we fix this? How do we make this right? And he just asked me like, hey, I'm not going to. I think it was the convincing me to come back. It was almost that thing where I needed space to figure out what I was doing was wrong and figure out that. And I should be way more grateful for the life that I have than I really do. And I think that's why now I really try to stay grounded and grateful because there was a time where, man, I had a car, I had a house.

Why am I not grateful when there's people out there that don't even have food to eat, you know? So being grateful for the little things. And he called me one day and he was like, hey, I'm not, I don't want to go. convince you you come back, but can I just see you? As soon as I saw my dad after six months, it was like, it was so surreal. I'll never forget that moment. Wow. Yeah. Emotional? Emotional. It makes me like kind of choke up even thinking about it. I know if he's watching that's that he's definitely choking up. But yeah, it's something that I think I needed to go through. It's something that I've never learned more about me, about, you know, my savior than being in the midst of loneliness.

and having nobody to run to, and there's always one person you can run to. How long did it take for you to agree to go home with him? An hour. Okay, that was it. It did not take long. It was kind of funny because we were driving back, and he was like, I didn't expect it to be that easy. But I think, you know, it's kind of the story of the prodigal child in the Bible

where the father, you know, his son runs away, and then he comes back and he opens his doors wide open, you know, just kind of showing. that, you know, as much, as many mistakes you could make as somebody's child that, you know, a parent's always going to open the doors back to you. And that's God symbolizing, you know, he's our father. And as much as we could run away that he'll always, always welcome, welcome us back into his arms. How did you support yourself when you were out there? I was working at a coffee shop. Okay. Overworked, really bad, unhealthy, and just,

I wasn't training, you know. And so, yeah, paycheck to pay. paycheck. I was living in the middle of nowhere in Boston. Literally in the middle of the ghetto, I would hear like gunshots. For real? It was pretty crazy. Yeah, a lot of people don't know, but. Why'd you do this? I really just, you know, I think it's called like a retro bait mind. Like you really are not thinking, right? You're not thinking for yourself. You're thinking, you know, in the moment, you're not thinking of your past, your future. You're literally only thinking the moment. And I think I wasn't thinking at all. I think I thought I knew what was best for me and thought like the decision I was making was better than what anybody else had planned

for me. That version of you probably didn't even dare to even dream of what's happening now in your life, right? Oh my word, no. Not even close. I would have never even thought about it. You know, I would watch like UFC fights obviously when I was there and I would get that itch and that, you know, because I was in training for like six months. Yeah. I would get that itch and get that, you know, sensation of like, man, I want that to be me, but I felt like held back.

Like I felt like, you know, there were two people. It's almost like that symbolism of like Satan and the devil, like kind of pulling you back and forth. And I felt like that was me in the middle. And most days I was getting pulled one way, and some days I would be getting pulled another. And so I really feel like that's not even who I am anymore. It's not even close to, it feels like a different lifetime.

It feels like a different life. And when you get back home, how quickly do you start to feel like yourself again? How quickly do you start training? I started training almost like immediately. Within two weeks, I was talking to my pastor from my church that was going to nearby Jiu-Jitsu school and he, you know, knew. The pastor was doing Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, yeah.

Wow. Amazing. It was so crazy. It's actually ironic and unfortunate. He actually wanted to passing away the start of my camp, which was brutal for me. This camp. Yeah, this camp. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, it's really sad. And I was extremely close to him. He was one of the first people that when I came back from Boston that was like, what do you need? And that's why he kind of guided me to my jiu-jitsu school right away. And the song that I had playing in my walkout music was actually the song that he told me he would play if he ever for. fought before. And so as like a dedication to him, I wound up changing my walkout music to that song.

Wow. What is it, what is the name of the song? It's called Walk On to Mount Zion. Okay. And it hits different. When I was standing in the tunnel and that song played it, it was like the arena got quiet. And I kind of got reminded of him right away. And yeah, it was crazy. A year before he passed, he told me like, oh, would you ever change your walkout song? And I was like, you're crazy man I would never change it I love my song and he winded up telling me like oh if I ever fall this is what I would you know walk out to and then a year later he passed and was it sudden it was sudden he he fell out of a tree and just he couldn't recover from it oh my gosh and um you know there were thousands of people at his at his funeral it was incredible to see how the lord used him

in so many different people's lives he was in people people people that I would not friends with would message me and be like oh my god mike is the best and i was like wow just look at this man who had even just the smallest interaction with people made such a big impact and ever since he passed i really try to keep that in mind even you know even dealing with you know maybe people you don't always feel like dealing with he always dealt with people he wanted to deal with the people he wouldn't you wouldn't be able to tell with this guy he wanted to know everything about you how you were it was he was a special kind of man. What was his name? His name is Mike Hargraves. Okay. Yeah. And his, his brother Bobby is my pastor. And Bobby and him prayed with me before my fight. And they always

make sure I'm covered in prayer before I go. Man, you were dealing with a lot. And I'm so sorry. That is an awful tragedy. Yeah. That's a lot to deal with. And I mean, this could maybe explain what we were talking about earlier about the stuff that you were going through. If you lost someone who was that meaningful to you and impactful on your life? Yeah, absolutely. I know there were times where, you know, he was in a coma for a couple weeks and it looked like it was going well. And so, you know, things were going great.

And then as soon as it kind of plummeted, it was like kind of a shell shocker because I was like, out of everybody, why would you take Mike? Like, Mike was, you know, even his brother Bobby would say it. Mike was something special, you know. And it was a tough pro to swaddle. And there were times where I'd be driving a jersey from. my house and I would be crying the whole time and then as soon as I stepped into the gym I had to kind of lock in right away and kind of get my mind right and my focus right but using his song as my

walkout song couldn't have motivated me any more than to do what I love to do and put my absolute heart out for it because again kind of like Mike you never really know when when your last moment is and so I really try to be impactful and genuine with everything I do. How do you wrestle with that as someone who is, is, you know, religious and believes in Jesus and all that, because I have these moments as well. I'm a religious person as well, and I ask myself, well, then why did that person suffer that person who was so good? Why did God do this? And I know there's a reason, and I'd like to think there's a reason, but how do you come to terms of that when a life is taken so soon that is such a pure and good person? Yeah, I think it's something

where it really is different for everybody, you know, accepting the fact that, like, you know, somebody was taking from you that you care about so much. I try not to question why when, you know, God, especially when he's perfect in all of his ways and all of his timings are perfect and are true. Why wouldn't me somebody who's very much imperfect and makes, you know, bad decisions on the daily, question the only perfect person? And so, using that really does, you know, help me to kind of accept that, you know, although I might know, I might not know the rhyme or the reason, but that he does and there's a plan and there's a purpose for it, that, you know, he could build more people up through that, you know,

the backing of my church after Mike died was absolutely incredible, seeing how many men and women came together and backed the Hargraves family and backed the church and even backed me and the people that were closest to Mike and loved him so dearly, it was incredible. It was a sight to see. And that, when the time comes from me, I'd love for people to feel the same way. You know, and I think that's solely because of the impact that God has on his life and then him to other people's life. And when did you get baptized? I got baptized in 2019 maybe

2020 Yeah hadn't been before I was I believe as a child as a Catholic and then I got baptized older on my own will Okay yeah, and what did that feel like? You know it feels like what it what it says in the Bible It's like you go down one person you come up another you know And it feels like You know all the miss bad mistakes that I made were wiped away, literally, wiped away. And you come out and then you obviously have regrets and I have regrets and things like that. But, you know, the Lord deals with it in his true and perfect way. And, you know, I'd love to go back to Israel one day and get baptized again. I was supposed to go on a trip to Israel right before COVID hit. And COVID had supposed to go with my older sister and they kind of shut everything down. But I'd love to go back and be baptized in Israel. No, I haven't. Your family? I'm a

longing to go. No, nobody. We're all longing, longing to go. My church does a trip like every year, but with fighting. It's like, you never know. One year I'm going to commit to it. I'm going to be like, listen, you can't book me in this time frame. Just give me two weeks. Give me two weeks to kind of live it out. It's a great place. Yeah, I believe it. I would love to see it. The tube's empty, you know? I want to see that. And is it fighting and religious, like, do you ever feel like there's an issue there? Or, I don't know. Is it the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the conflict, you don't want to hurt someone, you know, like that type of thing. Oh, I don't get like that.

I read David and Goliath all the time. He had him chop his head right off. Okay. I get it sometimes with, you know, some religious people come up to me, be like, oh, don't you think that it was like a little too much? And I'm like, well, did David not cut off Goliath's head? Oh, yeah. So I think if, you know, he's cutting off somebody out of hell and I'm just kicking

somebody in the head. I think what I'm doing is a little nicer. You're not trying to kill them. You're just trying to... I'm just trying to win. To me, it's an art, you know, mixed martial arts. It's not, you know, it's fighting, right? And it's purest form.

But to me, it's an art, and I want to be the best artist I could possibly be at it. That's why I focus so much on the skill set of it and not just, you know, I don't just want to beep somebody to uphold. I want to show my skill set in it. I don't want to fight for the sake of fighting. I want to fight because I'm a mixed martial artist. This is what I do, and I'm technical and skillful through that. Yeah, if I have to get down and dirty with it, I will.

But, you know, for all the fights that I have so far, I've won because of just skill and not because of brute. You know, I don't fight angry. I don't fight emotional. I fight with my mind. I fight with my skills. Are you hoping to fight on the MSG card again? No, that's a little too close for me. You know, I had my moment on MSG and I'd rather wait until I could get a title over there.

Okay. So maybe next year. Are you hoping to fight before? No, I'd like to fight in like December. Okay. Yeah, I would love to fight in December if they got somebody for me. I'm dealing with like maybe a little bit of a shoulder injury. I'm dealing with a little bit of a shoulder thing going on, a little achyer than normal.

It's only been like, what, a couple days, right? Yeah. What's today? Today's Wednesday, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's only been a couple days. So I'm going to see how I feel on Saturday and kind of, you know, get maybe more of an idea of when I can realistically fight. But I don't want to rush my body into a camp that I'm not prepared for.

That fight against Tapith, though, was three months where the healthy, physically strong, mentally weak, but physically strong. And that's what I was able to kind of put out there. And, you know, imagine what I could do it again with the same amount of time, same amount of skill, better mental. Right. Did you like OKC, by the way? Loved it. Okay.

Super cool over there. Fans were awesome. I hope they go back and I would love to fight there. Okay. That was like the gospel belt over there. I was like passing church left and right. Yeah. They're good old country people.

you know unfortunately I didn't no I didn't really have the time I was kind of going crazy it was like first time having kind of like a media day I never really had like okay a real media day over there so that was my first time so that kind of took up sometime but I visited a lot of coffee shops walked around the city a little bit people are so nice over there and like Midwest or right yeah I don't really know where I was I would say so okay Oklahoma seems like it I don't know where it is in retrospect of location. I'm assuming the yalls made me think that, like, they're Southern people. But, yeah, they were good out there.

I really enjoyed it a lot. I think whenever you kind of, you know, go somewhere they haven't been to in a while, like Tennessee, I did that. Fans were great. Oklahoma. They're super excited, you know. And I think in Invicta you fought on a church, right? Invicta, I fought on a church.

That must have been cool, right? It was pretty sick. Yeah, it was like the stained glass. was really something to be withheld. Yeah, it was pretty surreal. But Oklahoma was definitely, definitely super cool. I feel like, you know, UFC keeps on having me fight in these, like, Southern States. I feel like an American hero right now.

It's kind of awesome. I was like, man, I can't lose to a Brazilian on American soil, you know what I mean? Well, this has been amazing. Great job. I mean, for someone who's not doing media, you're pretty damn good. We just spoke for a long time. I try to. Are you were flowing.

Am I talking too much? No. People tell me I'm a little bit of a yapper. Really? No, I didn't get that sense at all. Okay. You were tremendous. Great to learn more about your backstory and everything that went into.

And to be honest, like hearing someone talk about anxiety and hearing someone talk about their fears and things like that, I think is actually very, very powerful and is relatable. When I heard that, especially in the cage you talking about that, you don't hear, you know, fighters try to be superhuman and aren't willing to open up like that. but here you are suplexing someone multiple times and then saying that you're doubting yourself. With the anxiety, I was able to throw some suplexes in there. I do wonder if part of that is because you're so religious that you're willing to just sort of be open and not view yourself as superhuman and say that like it's okay to be, you know, weak if that's, you know what I mean? Yeah, I want to be relatable.

I don't want people to look at me and think I'm untouchable or I'm not human in any type of way. We're all human. we all kind of struggle with the same things. Levels are different, but again, I want people to relate to me and be like, oh, like, I remember, you know, when I was young, I would look up to people like, you know, Rose Nomenunes and you want a young Jake Tuck, and these were women that I looked up to, and, you know, they were relatable, and now that I'm in the spot that, you know, they were once in, and I looked up to them as a 10-year-old, I want the same.

The 10-year-old thing is a trip. Yeah. You saying Rose and Yuana and 10 years old, you were 10 years old when the, the, you were? Rose and you know what we're fighting. Yeah, yeah. Like maybe a little, little later on when I started when I was 10, so maybe around 2013, 2014, did I really start being like, wow, these are people I really admire.

But, yeah, it was kind of right around 2000s. Every time the year changes, I change. Yeah, no, that is how it works. Yes. Just makes me feel very old to hear that. We were still sitting in this chair back then. Great to meet you in person. Great to have you on the show.

Thank you for doing this. Continued success. Well done. And looking forward to watching you. progress throughout your career. Yeah, thank you. All right, we're going to say goodbye to Fatima Kline, not Fatima, so don't call her that if you see her, and then we'll wrap up the show right after this. All right, that was my conversation with Dustin Porier from yesterday. What a week it has been, what a week it has been. How great is Fatima Klein? I think that she is a star in the making,

and I really didn't know a lot about her backstory about everything that she had been through. she did say as she was walking out that she had never really shared that before. Obviously she's relatively new to the scene but great to learn more about her and how could you not root for her? Someone who is that open and honest with what she's been through, trials and tribulations, feelings,

all that and more. Dare I say, Frank, I think you would be even a bigger fan of hers now after that, right? Absolutely. The word is, you're not going to say hello to her. Look, man, we're trying to cook back here. Wow. She's trying to cook.

We're all just cooking. We're all cooking. All right. But did you enjoy the interview? Oh, yeah, it was great. Thank you. I think you did an awesome job. Oh, thanks, Frank.

I appreciate that. Some would say she did the awesome job. She did. Yeah, she opened up. Takes two to tango, right, Frankie? It's the microphone, I think. It just lets everyone feel comfortable. What about that shot of my,

I just open up the slack here? It's still on my screen right in front of me. It's right there? Yeah, I asked Jordan to remove it, and he just went to the other one. It's the weakest. Not that one. we do, by the way, if you go to area

huany.com right now, the official store which we're working on improving. By the way, that's exactly where I took this from. There it is. You could get the shirt. This one is... People are giving zesty allegations. This is not zest. This is...

We're giving a little bit of zesty allegation. This is me sort of going through it. Unshure of myself. A bit of a... Big brother. A bit of a crisis of confidence. This is 2003. The Sheraton, Syracuse.

and just I didn't know. The main reason for it was didn't trust the barbers, but also everyone at Newhouse, our interns might appreciate this if they're still here. One of them is. Okay. Everyone at Newhouse would say, you got to cut your hair.

You got to be on the local news. You got to go to market 148 and then 129 and then 97 and then 46. And that's what you got to do. You got to be in broadcast journalism. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that. that. I'm going to do my own thing. And if you're going to tell me to cut my hair, I'm not going to cut my hair. And so I just let it grow. And then, of course, as some of you may know, I was at spring

training later that spring. So this was in the fall, I believe. And that spring, spring of 2004, I had written a letter to the Montreal Expos saying, hey, my radio station in Montreal, excuse me, in Syracuse said that they want to assign me to cover the Expos spring spring training in Melbourne, Florida, which obviously wasn't true. And I forged a letter. I put like, I made a letterhead and I applied for a credential. And they gave me a week's pass to do whatever I wanted at Space Coast Stadium in Melbourne. I flew to Melbourne because I couldn't go home for spring break because they were processing my visa. So I said, you know what? I'm going to go to Melbourne, Florida, which is like the country. And there were no reporters covering the expos then. They had like one

One beatwriter for MLB.com, not even the Montreal media was there because it was their final season and they were completely lame duck. And I got to just walk around the locker room and talk to Carl Everett and Joey Ayshin and Frank Robinson, the legendary manager. I'm in his office. I walk in. He stops what he's doing? And he's like, son, what is going on with your hair? What's happening? We got to fix this.

Like, I'm just a kid walking in there. That kid right there walking in there with the fro. and Frank Robinson, the legend, sees me and is like, you got to fix that, son. Next day, off day for them. They went on a road trip. I go to a mall. I see a barber. They shave it off.

I come back. He sees me the next day and is rubbing my head and I just couldn't believe. And then the best part was I was there the whole week. I got to interview Tim Raines. I got to interview him. And every time we did a scrum on the field, he would say, kid, what do you got? And I would ask them questions.

And it was for nobody. Like, I was not doing this for anyone. I was just doing this because I love the expos. I love journalism. I love journalism. The idea of covering a team seemed super fun. And yeah, I'll never forget it. Their final season makes me a little emotional.

So I just want to date you real quick with that? Please. That Sheraton Hotel that you were in is now a dorm at Syracuse University. You know, Jack, I have heard this. And it makes me sad because I had been. many, many good times there. In fact, the only time we've been talking about, Jack and I have been talking about a return to Syracuse. And the only time that I've returned to Syracuse was in 2014, so exactly 10 years after my graduation, you know, I had a contentious relationship with the school.

And it was all my doing, nothing they did, all my doing. And I said, I'm only going to come back here if they invite me to speak to students. And in 2014, they did, which was a huge honor. And I went with my two boys and wife, obviously my daughter wasn't born, she was born in 2016, and we stayed at the Sheraton, that Sheraton right there, and actually have a photo somewhere. Michael Bisping was fighting Luke Rockhold on a Friday night in Australia that weekend, and I told the kids that I spoke to. I was like, hey, if anyone wants to watch the fight, come hang out in the lobby. And like 12 or so kids came, and I watched that event with them. And it was just a great sort of full circle moment for me, being back at the school in the shirriton

and yeah I heard that it's now a dorm. What is the dorm called? Any idea? I believe it's called Orange Hall. By the way, you sound phenomenal. Are you on a different microphone now? Yeah, I took Rick's seat. Hell yeah.

It's the takeover, man. I mean, this is just the hot seat today. I love it. Let's see Jack in the seat. Hey, hey, hey, hey, yeah, you don't normally see me. Hey, Jack, he. He's on Thursdays. Man.

I'm not going to lie, I've never really looked at that picture. I thought you had a paintbrush in your hand and that you were holding a paint thing and this was a Bob Ross like Halloween It does look Bob Ross S. Now that I notice there's no there's no paintbrush in it. It's a different...

The zest allegations come down. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Yeah. So it's a dorm now. It's right at the beginning. It's on Marshall Street, right, Jack? It's like when you turn out of Marshall Street, it's right there.

Right there, yep, at the corner. Jack, your time here is coming to an end. One more week, right? Yeah. How are you feeling? I'm feeling sad a little bit in some ways, but... Is it going to be hard to go back, or are you looking forward to going back? I'm looking forward to going back.

I got a lot of stuff to do at Syracuse. I'm looking forward to see my friends. But I am going to miss this city and you guys and being around, you know, the people that I've been around with the past two months. Who are you going to miss the most? Tell us. Who are you going to miss the most? Always be nice. Why don't I got to pick? Whatever you say, don't say, Ariel, because then he'll beg you to say. No, I just want to know. I just want to know. He's going to be a kid on campus on. I just intern Jack from Uncrown.

Yay. But we got to come back, right? We need to make like an uncrown field trip to Syracuse. You, Josh. You're a senior coming up, right? Yes, I will be a senior. Josh is what? Junior. Junior. Okay.

So we need to, can you invite us to the cool parties and stuff? Like, can we get in? Party at my house. Okay. Wow. Party at Jackson's house? We could all bunk up? Frank too?

And we'll see about that. Wow. Maybe he can... Does your microphones too? Maybe he can help me with the trash. You know. Oh my gosh, Frankie. What do you make of this?

Well, Frank is the honorary garbage man of the control room. We don't have a trash. That is true. They've really stayed true to that from the moment we entered this place. Yeah, I feel like we break every other rule, so I feel like. Yeah, that is true. All right, guys, how about some super chats before we go? Jack, I guess it's all on you here. Yeah, let's go for it. All right, let's do it. There is. All right, here we go. Jack, the floor is yours. Yeah, so TP says, I'd like to

apologize for my super chat from yesterday about your DP interview. I completely miss the tough questions you asked him, and I commend you greatly for asking them. Egg on my face. The best journalist in the game. I appreciate that. I actually think that this gentleman sent me a DM, and he was like, oh, you know, I thought you were asking softballs, and I went off on you. I didn't see any of it, but yeah, I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for the Super Chat as well. How much was that? What was that? $25. Felt like it should have been a little more, given the slander that you threw my way. We accept all donations to the Superchats.

Thank you so much. There is a lesson, though, right? We really appreciate the $25. There is a lesson, though, in all of this. Like, you know, just a little trust. As I was talking about at the very beginning of the show, a little trust, a little trust. I would like to think that I've earned that. Also, maybe listen to the whole thing before it's over and send this to chat after.

Hey, hey, great interview. Some of a bash out. What else, Jackie? What else? Daniel says, VMC, Viva Mexico Caprones. Cabrones. Yes, VMC is actually, I didn't get to this. And, G.C., did you notice him saying it in front of me there when you were...

Dude, I... it hit me like a ton of bricks. I internally marked out there. When I heard Canello in my face say cabrones like that. What a legend this guy. Have you ever seen him with this much energy outside of a fight? It is true. What a guy.

It's right for those tequila cocktails. He does have some kind of aura, huh? How about the beard on him? I was saying it's like it's so cleanly shaven, but it's so full at the same time. It is perfect. It's like a perfectly, like if you go to like an amazing lawn or like a field.

Yeah, yeah. There's not like a, yeah. He's got it, man. I should have asked him how often you work. Yeah, it is kind of wild. Fucking crazy. There were a lot of people who didn't believe. What was it like in the back?

There's a lot of hardcore boxing fans who work on the other side of the fence. Were they freaking? Did they notice him? Kenobia wouldn't stop talking. Yeah, Kenobia was the one, yeah. Anyone? Yeah, there was some people excited. Control room was packed out.

It was a dizzying time, you know? Someone said that the photo of me is the seventh layer of hair. Yeah. Yeah. Out to Colby Governing. What else, Jackie? What else? Yeah, so J. Dash says New York, Rick, please blind rank these. I'm going to give it to Connor.

Okay, okay, do it. So rank these top five possible UFC non-title fights. Praaches versus Morales. Yep. Oh, God, love that one. Patty versus Ilya. Fuck. That should be my one, too.

Uri versus Costa? Hmm, four. Tricas versus Imov. Five. And Gable versus Hokit. Ooh, three. I don't mind that. I would flip my one and two, but...

He also mentions that, to UGC, that Golden Grams are a top five cereal. Okay. That was Golden Grams, maybe not top five, but, yeah, I don't mind Golden Grams. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Golden Grams, not bad. Not bad. I used to love...

Can't let them get soggy. Yeah, I used to love, God, there was like the oatmeal squares. Do you remember those? Like, like, how old Many weeks? No, they were old. Oh, I like my razor brand next to my oatmeal squares. Can I, can I tell you, oatmeal squares?

Let me this special day. Yeah, yeah, legendary. Omeal squares are legendary. Brown sugar? Any flavor with this? No, you probably, just like he eats his rice cakes. Bland. No, they're actually quite, they're actually quite sugary, sweet.

Can I tell you what's goaded, though, like number one cereal? What's up, please? Fiber one. You fuck. Fire one. My goodness. I have to say, I'm looking at a box of oatmeal squares, made with 100% Canadian oats. Hell yeah.

Great source of fiber. The R&E are flipped. There you go. So you're just about getting the bowels and moving. Let me tell you something. Don't, don't, if you know, you know. He knows, apparently. There it is.

The oat squares. Wicker oat squares. I think I was 20 pounds heavier when I ate those things because, like, it's just like, it's a lot of sugar. Yeah, man, we got to, we got to up the game. This was a lot of sugar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I would mix it with the fiber one.

That was my routine. You were just like, I got a shit. I got to blow it out. What's that, Frankie? Was the fiber one like your parents and you would just eat some of it? No, no, this is like post-college living on the Upper East Side, trying to figure out life. Yeah, you said you never had a colonoscopy, but if you were starting every morning with oatmeal squares mixed with fiber one, I imagine it was something close. Is this with orderlies brought?

you every morning. This is what, you know, my, my, my, my, my,

my, my, my, my, my, my, I'm the asshole. Okay,

yeah. Fiber one legit looks like dog food. You know what it is? It's like, it's like, it's like the,

it's like the, it's like the, it's like, yeah, yeah, that's it. 65% of your daily value of fiber.

I would eat like a full thing. I'm a fiber stand, but man. Trust me. What else, Jackie? What else?

I'm actually going to hand this off to Frank soon because we were just talking about this. Shout out Romeo Dobbs. I'm pretty sure he was the one who gave us this super chat. Okay. But he says, Nolan or Villeneuve? Better top five. Villeneuve. That is...

Arrival. Vienuve. Okay. Meeting is difficult. I'm just sorry. Sorry. I'm just working on it. I can't pronounce the name, but I know the film. So, top five. Prisoners, Arrival, Dunn, Blade Runner 2029, and then

Sicario. And, for Nolan's top five, Odyssey, Oppenheimer, Interstellar, prestige, TDK, or Memento. I haven't seen Odyssey or Oppenheimer, but I would still go with Denise. Wait, you've not seen Oppenheimer? Oh, this is amazing. Rick's voice is amazing. He also hasn't seen Interstellar. I've seen Interstellar a few times, though.

I'd like to go back to the Odyssey thing from earlier in the show, Ariel. Deni, by the way. Not familiar with the Odyssey? No. Never heard of you unfamiliar from the 8th century. You can read Ilyad or Odyssey and High School? Odysiah. Which of these movies have you seen?

Tell me. Oh, of these? Prisoners, no. Arrival, no, Dune, no, Blade Runner, no. 2049, is that a movie, too? Blade Runner, 29. Keep going. No.

Sicario, no. Odyssey, no. Oppenheimer, no. Interstellar, no. Prestige, no. TDK. Night, the dark night. No.

Memento? No. I haven't seen the dark night? Memento even was when you were in high school. This is... No interest. The best movie on this list is Sicario. Shout out to Sicario.

I do have breaking news, by the way. Oh, oh. Just got a text from former producer extraordinaire, the one and only TST, who tells me oatmeal squares are elites. Okay? Yeah, I mean, not great company to. support your what i got chaheen and tST what more do i need in my life oldest people in the game old old souls as well you know what i like to hang i like to hang

hey congratulations to tST on uh going facebook hard launch hard launch hard launch my man is taking hard launch god i'm so happy for tuesday take it off the market don't screw this up tsd all right old school fans will know of tST who once was locked into a little closet at uh at e s PN in Bristol and had to bleep out all the bad words on a four-hour show. You guys think you suffer back there. It was a pretty spacious control room. Poor TSD.

I used to visit him. You did? What are you even talking about? Yes. He was locked into what? Oh, TST would complain about this all the time. I was in a radio control room. Yeah, he said, you know, he would talk about, oh, they put me in this room. It's like a meat locker back there. He doesn't know about the armory.

He doesn't. He doesn't know about the real struggle. He doesn't. The early days, me, Jake, Nick, locked in that room. Listen, I'm not saying he was right with his complaints. I'm just saying he used to complain. He was also by himself in a soundproof room. He was left to do whatever he wanted. Eating his oatmeal bar.

Yeah, it's kind of a bullshit complaint, actually. It's not a bar, by the way. It's a cereal, Frankie. And it's a square. They do have fiber one bars, though. Oh, by the way, also goaded. Have you ever had those? I actually had recent ones with lemon, like lemon flavor.

Tremendous. I don't need my fiber lemon flavored. I drink fiber nightly, just cillium husk. just dirt powder. I'm a metamusal guy. I want to earn it. Same. I'm glad I missed the good stuff.

What else? What else, Jackie? What else? Yeah, the Gator said Need an Aspinol update. UFC fumbling the Paris card. He can get a fight on a Paris card. By the way,

I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. There's a main event on the table for that card that I think would make the internet very, very happy. But it's not done just yet. But there is a main event on the table for that card

that I think would make the internet very happy. Okay. What else, Jackie? What else? Duncan says, happy four-month anniversary of Ariel's start a member's only chat. Has it been four months?

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the day we got back after Seattle. Rick was already on his way to Hawaii. How could that be four months? It was late March. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was... I actually wasn't even here.

I was on vacation. Yeah, that was great. That was a great time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were like, ah, the plane. It has taken off. We're all good. I don't think it's four months just yet.

I'll tell you why. Because I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, the Seattle card was March 28th, right? Yes, but very close. Very close. I'm a stickler for the facts. Okay? I'm a stickler for the facts.

Who was it? Me? Dan, Frank. Shout to Dan. And Andy? What a time. So, Duncan, please send us another five euros in the next week or so when it's actually the anniversary. Oh, that was all time. Yeah.

That was all time. What else, Jackie? What else? I think, is that it? No. Oh. I think that's it, yeah. That's it?

What are you saying, man? What are you saying, man? No, I just, I just, usually we preface it with a, all right, and this is the last one. He said, I was not prefaced. I was not preface. No, no. I heard Rick tell you, so. No, listen.

This is not your fault, by the way, Jack. Don't let them make you feel like it's your fault. It's all Frank's fault. It's all Frank's fault. Tomorrow, B-I-T-B, boys. What do we got? What kind of pound for pound? No, I don't know. Wow. We're really mailing it in over there, huh?

Incorrect. We have a great pound for pound. In honor of Lou Debella calling Christian Pranga Christian Pringle. Okay. Pound for pound chips. That is an amazing, amazing departure from where we started. Okay, will the chip that Rick had in Vegas make the cut? No, it will not make the cut. All right.

You're number one favorite chips? he strikes me as a sour cream and onion type guy i'm telling you when you sit and think on it there's some bangers out there there's some ketchup chip guy there's so ketchup is great but it wouldn't be my top choice my top choice is always salt and vinegar but the very very close second but you guys wouldn't know because you're just not subjected to this this greatness all dressed oh well i know about all dress you don't know about all dress what do you know about i have all dressed in my pantry what are you talking about it's not available in uh oh yeah i have all dressed in my it's made over it's come over to the u.s oh yeah yeah

Oh, wow. Ruffles. Wow. Yeah, Ruffles is all dressed. Wow. Maybe they make the list tomorrow. Ruffles, oh, you know what? Ruffles all dressed might be the great.

I haven't had ruffles in ages. All dressed is pretty. They're great. Ruffles with the ruffles sour cream dip? Lys Prawn cocktail? Yeah. Oh, I can't wait for Franks tomorrow. Speaking of All-Dress, though, how about those all-dressed wings at our spot, you know?

Oh, man. Don't be talking about our spot right now. Which spot? Which spot? Which spot? Our spot. Our spot. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. What's this? Frank, you just put something in the chat. I was trying to figure out what day this happened. Oh, yeah. That was the day. It brought a smile to my face. Yeah, yeah.

I just started to make, can we get that? Can we end the show with this picture? How fast can we get it up? Jordan's trying. Jordan, this is a picture right here. Victor Wenbiniama gets put on the cover of NBA 2K-27, and Danhausen, quote, this guy is the best. Quote tweets it with an ore.

Come on. Is that, that, what a shot. I didn't, this is the first time I see this shot. Danhausen holding the Larry Obie next to Cat and Jalen. God. I mean, that's an iconic. That is, that is the last four months of our lives all bundled into one. And how does Victor Wemanniamma get it over Jalen, huh?

Jalen Brunson is the face of the NBA. He is. What? He's not. I couldn't care less, by the way. LeBron James is still the face of the NBA. I also could not give two shits. I just like to be, like, upset about this sort of thing.

Leave Jalen alone. We don't want any curses. We don't want anything. We're good. Peace in love. Peace of love. He's got the ring. He's got the chip.

Well, he doesn't have the ring just yet, but it's going to be great. And we're going to have the banner. And I will be there. I have to be there. Worth mentioning. Yes. Wembe is not the only one. If you get the ultimate edition, it's Prime D. Rose.

And if you get the deluxe edition, it is Caitlin Clark. Generational talent. It was Caitlin Clark. It was great. It sure was. Can we end the show with the picture Frankson? Yeah, go ahead. What?

The one when I screwed up? I just think looking back on it. Yeah. I just, at that point we were no longer alive. We were, you were deeming me directly. I screwed up. The chat.

And then just switch it back for me. By the way, can we acknowledge the fact that in a time of need, I go to you, Frank. I appreciate that. But it was like,

it wasn't as helpful as you would take. Did you just switch real quick? Just switch it back, man. Just switch right there. Gerk. Gerk. All right, it's time to go, guys. What a day, what a week for me here.

But I passed the baton over to the BITB. Of course, crack on Friday. You guys remember that song? Friday. This feels like my Friday, by the way. This is the closest I get to a Friday. 5.30 on a Wednesday. Are you kidding me?

415 sub-BITB is the number to leave a voicemail. I always love when I listen to the radio guys. call is 415 sub be a ATB and you know they do you know why they do it right they do it together their thoughts they do it like in such an automatic tone that it's really just a crutch

1-tru-8 say maddo give us a call anyways last night in the major league baseball world they always do that as a crutch they say it in a certain voice

kind of drives me nuts from being honest but you know those are the tricks of the trade things you can pick up over over time. I love today's show. Today's show was great. Canello in studio. Thank you to our friends at Kalshi for that. Fatima Klein. What a great chat. Really enjoyed that very much. Johnny Eblin, tremendous as well. Yesterday, Dustin, Ryan Garcia, Monday was great. Ben Ascran, Colby Covington, Michael Venham Page, and others. Feel blessed. If you're watching us and you haven't hit that subscribe button, do us a favor. It goes a long way. We really appreciate it. As we

round third for year two of uncrowned and I'll tell you next week about our summer break that's coming up early August. Have no fear back next week, same time in place, all that stuff, but it is coming. We'll tell you about that next week for now. Back to Monta, Mississippi. Bees somebody here.