The Ariel Helwani Show - Chamatkar Sandhu on UFC's MASSIVE 2023 & Why We Love MMA | The Found Generation with Troy Farkas

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

With nearly 163K followers on Instagram and another 100K on Twitter, Chamatkar Sandhu is a must-follow when it comes to breaking MMA news.But many of you, especially the newer fans, probably don’t know much about the man behind the accounts you follow on social media.Today, in a conversation with Ariel's producer TST on “The Found Generation with Troy Farkas," Sandhu talks about the insane growth of MMA, his career trajectory, and he also gives TST some life advice. The lads discuss: How to get non-MMA fans into MMA (0:00) If MMA will become a “Big 4” sport in the near future (6:52)  What TST and Sandhu admire most about fighters (13:52) The gut-wrenching decision Sandhu made that changed the course of his career (21:22) The scariest thing he's ever done (34:44) For more insightful and inspiring conversations from “The Found Generation with Troy Farkas,” please subscribe to the show on YouTube.#ArielHelwani

Aloha, everyone. Troy Farkas here. Some of you may know me as TST from The Ringer or the old ESPN days. No episode of Ariel and the Bad Girl today. That show will be back very soon. In the meantime, I wanted to give you an episode of my podcast, The Found Generation. I just recorded this conversation with MMA journalist Chamath Karsandhu, who I'm sure many of you know from MMA Twitter. He's an MMA journalist, works for the social media team at BT Sport, and just does a wonderful job there. And I had him on my show to talk about our love of MMA, about its growth and its popularity, and just its record-breaking numbers that it's doing. And I also talked about his career and gave a peek into some things that you probably don't know about Sandu. So without further ado, here's my conversation

with them. I hope you enjoy it and that if you enjoy it, that you please head over to my YouTube page or to Spotify to listen to this show. Hope you enjoy it. Good morning, everyone, and welcome into another episode of the Found Generation podcast, a podcast for young people. So if you know me at all, if you follow me on social media, if you follow my sub stack, listen to this podcast, you'd know that I happen to work in this weird, crazy world of mixed martial arts. I don't know how I ended up here. I never intended for any of this to happen, but it's happened over the past couple of years. First got into it four years ago, and I'm addicted to it, and I'm never leaving the game of MMA.

Someone who has been there a lot longer than I have, and it's a much, much, much bigger deal than I am in this space, is the one and only Shamakar Sandhu, the social media producer at BT Sport for WWE Boxing and an organization that you and I both love, Sandhu, the UFC. BT Sport is the exclusive rights holder of the UFC broadcast in both the United Kingdom and Ireland. And your work reaches a bazillion people around the world on social media. Like I said, you are a massive space or massive player in this space. And it's an honor to talk to you today, to have you on, because I want to talk to you a little bit about your career, because I know you've been at this longer than I have. And even if you're not an MMA fan, trust me, this conversation will

add value to you in some way. I first want to ask you, Sandy, when I tell people what I do for a living, I tell about combat sports. A lot of them are like, oh, it's bloody. Oh, it's violent. Oh, I can never get into that. Then I have to go on some long tangent trying to convince them to just at least watch it, at least have an open mind. What is the pitch that you make to the people in your life who don't know mixed martial arts, but you want to get them to watch it? Well, number one, thank you very much for that introduction. And number two, to answer your question, I would say this, just give it one chance, give it one shot. And by that, I don't mean watching it on television, go watch it in an arena, get the live event experience, because as long as you can give it a shot and give it a go, if after that you don't like it, you don't

like it, it's all good, right? But I feel like most of the time if you give mma and especially the ufc a shot you'll walk away being a fan of it or you'll walk away at the very least having a big appreciation for mixed martial arts and what these athletes and these fighters go through for our entertainment but the ufc experience is like something that is just not available anywhere else it's amazing um i feel like the pay-per-view i know that tickets can be a little bit expensive now with pay-per-views but man when it's ticking down to that main card and baba o'reilly hits the in-house production that the ufc puts on it gives you chills and goosebumps it gets you fired up for the fights and then when

you get moments like we just got recently with Israel Adesanya defeating Alex Pereira and you are in this in the arena you're part of the scene you're part of the audience those are memories that live forever so that's what I would say is just give it one shot and I'm not talking about watching it on TV give it one shot in the arena. And then after that, if you're not a fan, cool. You gave it a try. But I think more than likely you'll become a fan of it and then start watching it week to week. Why has this sport taken off so much in the decade or so

that you've been working on this? I mean, it is in a vastly different place today than it was when you first started. A lot of credit has to go to the ufc brass in terms of the strategic moves that they've made and then you have to look at some of the key players that really helped elevate the sport to the masses i think the first major acquisition was brock lesnar coming you know from the wwe world and bringing a whole fan base with him and then you start to think of some of the bigger superstars that came in his aftermath

ronda rousey the explosion of conor mcgregor that is bigger than the sport itself and now you've got a plethora of stars that are really kind of representative of certain markets as well and then when you look at the ufc how they've strategically grown the brand grown the business they've gone to every single corner of the earth you know barring africa at this stage um and i tell people all the time like when the ufc for example go to london these days they don't need or you know other markets that they don't perhaps frequent as often as vegas or new york or other parts of the us they don't need to announce an event anymore they don't they don't need to announce a main event or a headline or any fights at all it's just the UFC brand has become

so big that tickets sell out so quickly um in London when you have the NFL come over for like their their Wembley shows um and they kind of do you know some of the away games in the UK it's a kind of similar thing where there's so many American expats that live in London but also a market like London is full of people with disposable income. And so if the UFC are only coming around, say, I don't know, once a year, people are going to be like, oh, I'll check it out. I'll go there because it's in London. It's something different to do. And now you've got a UK champion as well. That's why they're breaking records, not just in London, but since post-pandemic and since they've

kind of left the apex, they're going back to all these cities and countries and markets that they used to go to quite frequently and because absence makes the heart grow fonder they can put the ticket prices wherever they want to and people will buy because they want to go back and watch these events and these fights live um but to kind of answer your kind of question like i said before i think you know going to Fox and then going to ESPN and um yeah there's so many there's not one straight answer but I think it's just an amalgamation of reaching the ESPN platform in the US and then also having strategic partners like for example BT Sport in the UK the perfect home has been the home for many many years at this stage and then every now and then you'll get a fighter you'll get a fighter,

you'll get a superstar that will help elevate the sport and bring a whole legion of fans with them as well. I was producing a podcast a couple of years ago that had a conversation with our mutual friend, Aria Hawane, and someone whom I look up to in the business world, Gary Vaynerchuk. This interview was done, or just Gary V, as he's known on social media.

This interview was done just or just Gary V, as he's known on social media, this interview was done just after his sports agency, VaynerSports, had gotten into signing UFC fighters, Sean O'Malley, Stipe Miocic, and the list goes on. And he said in that interview, I'm getting into this, and Gary V has always been a guy who's been like ahead of the curve, ahead trends i'm getting into this because the ufc is going to be a big four sport in america within the next 10 to 15 years now you live in toronto but you have a great finger on the pulse of the american sports scene do you think that will come true well gary v is a smart man and when you look at the year on year results of the UFC, when you talk about ratings, when you talk about gates and tickets being sold, the number of events that they're actually producing, and not just the UFC events, when you talk about Dana White's Contender Series, they are producing so much inventory for live sports that it's going to be there and it's on the mainstream platform on ESPN. And the UFC has only really gone like this.

It's never kind of fallen back. It's never been like, oh, one step back, two step forward. No, it's always been ahead and keep climbing that mountain. And I think UFC now is as synonymous as the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA. Look, it's not going to pull the kind of ratings that the NFL is going to pull on a Sunday or a Monday night, but it has a loyal fan base. It has a very loyal hardcore fan base.

And also, it continues to get new fans into the sport and a young demo. I remember when Jon Jones fought earlier this year, and I put a poll out on Twitter, have you seen Jon Jones fight live before? 35% had not seen him fight live before. And his fight previous to Cyril Garner was like three plus years ago prior to that. So that just tells you just during the pandemic, how many new fans, the influx of a new fan base coming into the sport you all are also representative of that new wave of fans that have come in post-pandemic or maybe through gambling or maybe just because of the the espn platform it's become normalized and that's going to continue to be the case moving forward so i agree with gary v 100 can i tell you why i love this sport hit Hit me. I've been watching sports my whole life. I've been primarily in NFL,

NBA, MLB fan my whole life. My two favorite athletes from that world are Tom Brady and LeBron James. Pretty easy, right? They've been in my life, a mainstay for about 20 plus years. And I still feel like I don't know that much about them. I don't know much about how they view the world. I don't know much about their thought processes or what they're like off of the field or the court. With MMA fighters, they give you a window into their minds, unlike any other athletes do. NBA, NFL, those big four athletes are trained to not say anything, to not because they know that there's a bunch of people, writers, that will pounce on anything they say, make up a big deal, take things out of context. So they just keep it, I'm on to the next game, going to control what I

can control. Very vanilla milquetoast answers that doesn't give us a window into what these people are actually like. Fighters, they have nothing like that. They are so open with who they are and what they think. And you'll get a lot of dicey characters. You'll get a lot of people who are out there saying what they say, and they'll turn a lot of people away because of it. But they're so open and honest. And you get into fighting. You don't really get into fighting for the most part because you want to be a fighter. It's usually like you come from a bad background your family wanted to get you off the streets or like this was my only option this was the only thing i was good at or whatever and they just have such these inspiring stories to become a fighter you have to go through so much

find a gym you battle injuries find money you don't make anything of note until you get to an organization like the ufc even if you're in the ufc you might not necessarily make battle injuries, find money. You don't make anything of note until you get to an organization like the UFC. Even if you're in the UFC, you might not necessarily make the money that you deserve. And when they speak, they're so captivating. There's so many interviews that Ariel does with athletes that would never happen in these other sports. They say things that just have me glued to the TV. When Francis Ngannou speaks about his future, when Kayla Harrison speaks about her loss, when Israel Adesanya speaks about something that he just did, I'm just like, I'm so in awe of you in ways that I'm not with other athletes. You hit the nail on the head. They really do wear

their hearts on their sleeves in these moments. And it's because the sport is so raw. You know, people say all the time, MMA is the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. There are winners and losers every single weekend. And for the winners, it's the culmination of six, eight, 12 weeks, or in some cases, a lifetime journey getting to a championship. And then you have on the immediate flip side, the absolute heartbreak of losing and what that means. And are you going to be cut? And what's your next fight? And only half your pay? You know, when you talk about how the NFL and NBA and these other kind of athletes from different sports giving kind of like vanilla answers, remember, they're making

multi millions of dollars, right? So they have a completely different lifestyle. They're not having to worry about their next paycheck or how they're going to fund their next camp and things of that nature there are still so many fighters in the UFC that are working part-time jobs right and then there are still ranked fighters top 15 ranked fighters that still have to do bits on the side because they for one reason or another aren't able to fight enough or get enough money for the times when they do fight sometimes there's like long-term injuries that they have to take into consideration so it's such an unstable sport in many respects for the fighters which is why we appreciate them so much because when they do come to fight and when they are able to perform and give us moments of

entertainment whether it be in cage, on the microphone or in interviews. It's a blessing. It really is for us to be able to enjoy that. And also they have to, you know, constantly do interviews and say something to have that emotional attachment to their audience, because that's the only way we are going to be emotionally invested in their fight and take interest in their career. And buy the fight. And buy the fight or tune in on saturday night and so they have to get us in emotionally invested in their journey in their career uh because if they can do that then the promotion all automatically says oh okay we've

got something here there's a fighter that's been able to generate interest with the fan base and now we can put them in a higher slot and kind of you do some matchmaking there as well so that is a very integral part of how you know the the chess pieces get moved around in terms of how these fights get put together. I can't imagine having a job like a fighter where you lose, you don't have your best performance, and then you don't. You have to wait four months, six months, a year until the next time you get to prove yourself. Baseball, you have a bad night. Wipe it off. I'm out there the next night. Football, you wait a week, tops. I can't imagine being a fighter and having that kind of career. Like if I mess up a podcast edit, like I can't imagine having to stew in that mistake for six months until I get my next podcast. Like I have

another one the same day. Right. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I've spoken to a lot of fighters that come from a kickboxing background. So say, for example, someone like a Michael Venom Page or a Steven Wonderboy Thompson or even Israel Adesanya, they have dozens, 50, 60, 70, 80

kickboxing fights on their record. And that world that they come from, they're like competing every month, sometimes twice a month. And then they kind of go into MMA. And as you start to climb the ranks, you're maybe fighting twice a year, three times a month. And then they kind of go into MMA. And as you start to climb the ranks, you may be fighting twice a year, three times a year. And like you said, if they lose,

they have to stew on that for a while. And that's, I guess, a part of why it was fascinating to see Israel Adesanya when he lost to Alex Pereira in MSG. Everyone thought, oh, okay, he needs to take a year out. He needs to kind of re-evaluate the whole game plan because he's lost to this guy you know three times in a row now something's just not clicking something's going wrong he's not getting the results and he almost did the fast track move he came back a lot sooner than a lot of people expected and and look at the result he's

able to get that monkey off his back and now you know he's got his mojo back and he's winning but yeah it's it's a tough thing because there are only so many events there's only so many slots on a card the UFC has I think something in the region of four to five hundred fighters on the roster some only get to fight once a year it's it's tough out there and that's why you know going back to your previous question why it's so important for them to kind of stay out there whether it's be through the use of social media or interviews and things of that nature so you yourself have been keeping yourself out there you've got a new podcast smack talk with sandu a couple episodes in why did you decide to start this oh well i really missed this and

i missed it but what i'm doing right now with Smack Talk with Sandu is new. So when I was a journalist and when I was interviewing fighters, it was always 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, 15 minutes there. It was media scrums or it was just, you know, you've got an hour with 12 athletes and you've got to cherry pick who you want to speak to. I never really had the opportunity to do long-form conversations long-form interviews with fighters so a i missed that b i just think we're living in a world now where technology is available when i was kind of coming up in the game zoom and doing things over the internet was just not a viable option it wasn't realistic to do it and so the only opportunities I would get to speak to fighters would be at media events or on site at a UFC event or perhaps a special media day that the

UFC or Bellator or another promotion that's kind of set up for you and so now to be living in a time where I can just reach out to a fighter and say hey would you like to do an interview hop on zoom and we can do at your convenience. When do you have half an hour? When do you have an hour? It makes it so much easier to do. But more importantly, I really missed it because I've really felt like I was just starting to scratch the surface of what I wanted to do

when I was a journalist. And even though I'm technically not a journalist anymore, I still really, you know, I'm now starting to enjoy the process of having conversations and interviewing fighters. Because I just something that's something that I wanted to do. And I feel like if I've got the opportunity to do it, you know, on social media, on my YouTube channel, you know, with the availability of the internet and technology, like zoom, then why not? I don't want to have any regrets when I'm 50, 60, 70 years old,

I want to be like, Oh, hey, I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have done that. No, I'm going to do it. And thankfully, I'm in a position in life where I can actually carve out the time, effort, money, energy and resources to actually do this. So the show lives on YouTube and also on all the podcast apps, Spotify. I'm a big fan of spotify uh and apple as well so youtube is like a really tricky game i feel like you know everything that's algorithm based i in a way i hate and love the algorithm i hate it because you feel like you can put something out there that's really good that you're proud of but just youtube just won't recognize but you also do love it for the sense that like oh it just this number of views I got

like way outpaces my subscribers. It's crazy how this all works. How in 2023 do you approach YouTube and try to master something that's just constantly changing? That's a great question. What's funny about YouTube is YouTube is where I started my career like 12 years ago. And now I'm going back

onto YouTube it's a completely different platform a completely different beast it has more users which is a good thing but you're absolutely right and I'm lucky and very fortunate that with the experience I've had working with BT Sport and working with individuals far more experienced far better at social media than even I am to be able to learn from them. And one of the things I've learned a lot over the last three or four years is YouTube and the back end. And I feel like a lot of people don't understand how much work it actually takes to put into the back end of YouTube to try and generate some level of success when it comes to your videos. And I'm not just talking about thumbnails and tagging and descriptions and creating chapters. There's so much that goes into it. But ultimately, I feel like creators in any way, walk of life or in any industry,

you have to try, in my opinion, removing yourself from the idea of the views and the listens and the downloads and the subscriptions. You have to be proud of your work. You have to say to yourself, hey, you know what? I enjoy the process. Like, for example, I've just recently got back onto YouTube after a very, very long time. I don't have the most number of subscribers. And I've kind of mentally said to myself, hey, you know what?

I'm going to do 100 interviews. I'm going do a hundred episodes of smack talk with sandu some may bang some may flop some may not do the kind of views that i think they're gonna do but during that process i'm gonna learn what's working and what isn't but more importantly i'm gonna make sure i enjoy the time that i have speaking to the fighters and then after 100 episodes then i'll do a deep dive analysis. And then I'll look at, you know, which episodes worked really well, which ones didn't, what generated subscriptions and things like that. And then maybe I can start to take that information into a strategy moving

forward. But I think a lot of YouTubers specifically always say, hey, just do 100 interviews or just do 100 videos, get your reps in, get comfortable in the type of content that you are creating, and then start looking at the analysis and then start to figure out a game plan moving forward. But you have to enjoy what you're doing. If you're not enjoying it, then it's just another chore, then you could be doing anything, right? And I came from that world where I was, you know, doing jobs or working for companies that felt like a chore. It was great. The money was good, but I wasn't happy. And I'm just so happy and thankful now that everything I do in my life, all the energy and time that I spend being productive has something to do with

what I like or have a passion for or an interest in. And that's a blessing in disguise for me. When you were working for companies like that, where it wasn't as fun, but you were making good money, how do you decide to stop working for a company that doesn't necessarily bring you so much joy, but the money's good? One of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make in my life, because in my 20s, I was working for one or two companies and in sales, corporate events, in sponsorship. I was earning really good money. I was traveling a lot. And I always said to myself,

if I was ever gonna go all in on MMA, it had to be a situation where I was able to generate enough money to take care of myself and my family, and I can't sacrifice that if I was 18 19 20 no problem I can take a spin at this but I was just in a position where I had some serious responsibilities and I couldn't just say goodbye to the corporate sales job so for the longest time I was actually juggling both lives like I would be working for this company nine to five and then on my lunch break evenings weekends I'm just slowly starting to kind of climb the

ladder and try and get into the business in MMA media and that at times was you know kind of like burning the candle at both ends I had to make some sacrifices uh from a social perspective in terms of hanging out with you know friends on a on a Saturday night because I wanted to stay in and cover a UFC event but ultimately that's what led me to the position I am in today so in hindsight it worked out but everyone goes through a different journey and breaking into this business is extremely hard and difficult and challenging and it's think, even harder these days than it was 10 years ago for me, because so many spots have been taken in so many sectors of the biz. But for me, it was a situation where when I knew I could make enough money to say goodbye to the sales job, that's when I was able to make the flip and make the switch.

In my own career, and I can speak on behalf of people i've also had this conversation with i i've wondered like would you rather have a job that you're not super passionate about but pays you really well or a job that you are super passionate about but doesn't pay you well i'm trying to figure out really like what is the role of work in all of our lives and i think the pandemic forced us to start asking ourselves a bunch of questions about the ways that we've been operating and the roles that work plays in our lives. Because we realized, wait, there's a whole lot more to life than just work. So many people just got taken away from us in the pandemic unexpectedly. It was this major slap in the arse.

Oh, my gosh. Like this thing can end at any time. I want to have the best life possible. And whether work brings me that or not, I don't care. But I want to build something outside of it. How do you view the role of work in your life? I think it comes down to the individual, right? And it's how you view your responsibilities responsibilities whether it's an individual responsibility or

responsibility to others so i can only speak for myself like i said like for me i've had financial responsibilities to both myself and my family since i was like 12 years old and so that's always been paramount um and takes the um the forefront of all of my decision making that I've done in my adult life as well. And I've also seen a lot of people just kind of say, hey, you know what, the pandemic's happened. I can just now be at home and I can do whatever I want to do. And I don't want to work in an office nine to five, you know, Monday to Friday. And I have friends that, you know, work in the corporate environment and they are now working a few days from home because it allows them to have a bit more work-life balance. It's always a gutsy and ballsy thing to do to say, you know what, I'm not happy, you know, even though this pays me well,

I'm not happy. See you later without a plan B or, you know, without a security net or without a viable option of something that you're going to do next i couldn't do that i'm so risk adverse when it comes to doing anything like that i need to make sure that i've got something there ready for me before i exit whatever situation i'm thinking about leaving um and i feel like and again i'm going to be 40 this year so i can only speak for myself i feel like if you can have side hustles a part-time this and a part-time that which i've had my entire life right that's a good thing because in multiple revenue streams then you're not relying on just one pot um and i like yourself i'm not as a minimalist as you but i have adopted a somewhat minimalist life over the last like five

or six years and as i've gotten older i've become very, very frugal when it comes to my money and spending my investments. And I think that also alleviates any stress and pressure at the end of the day, you know, depending on where you live, like I've just, you know, five years ago, I left London, one of the most expensive places in the world to live. And I moved to Toronto, also one of the most expensive places in the world to live, right? So you've got to figure out, you know, what your situation is, what your responsibilities are, what can you make work, what's going to make you happy. And it's not the worst thing in the world to perhaps sacrifice a little bit of your happiness, because you're earning a good paycheck as long as you are putting some effort into getting to that place of 100% happiness where you can do what you want to do with your life, something that you have an interest in, a passion in, that also then helps you generate revenue and income as well. We shared a text message exchange recently about the differences between UK work culture and what you've noticed in the US work culture. You've never lived and worked in the US, but you've worked for US companies and have spent a great deal of time in the US, particularly in Las Vegas. What are some of the big differences between how the u.s approaches work and how a place like the uk does based on my experience i just feel like with brits there's just no nonsense and everyone

there's no bullshit everyone kind of just gets along with it and there's no work face you know people are who they are and there's a lot more time spent socializing with you explain what work faces well a work persona a work personality right and what i mean by that is i feel like i know like when i've worked with certain north american colleagues in certain jobs i feel like i know them to a certain extent just through their job role job title, my relationship to them as a colleague, and that's it. Whereas in the UK, I always felt like the people that I'm working with, whether it be spending time with them outside of work, having lunches with them, coffee with them, sharing, you know, experiences outside of work, it allowed us to have a different bond and a

different relationship and actually form legitimate friendships outside of just being you know colleagues in the work environment so I've been in situations where I've worked with North American colleagues and when I went back to working with predominantly British colleagues at BT Sport it felt nice it felt good and maybe that's because I'm because I'm a Brit and I kind of come from that kind of work culture and I missed it and maybe that's because i'm because i'm a brit and i kind of come from that kind of work culture and i missed it um and maybe other people can't compare the two because they haven't had a different experience they've only been you know in north america but for me it really comes down to just more genuine real no bullshit no nonsense relationships with your colleagues

and there's really no power play when it comes to hierarchy of position like there are some people that i work with at bt sport who from a position from a job title standpoint are kind of higher than me and there are also some that are perhaps lower than me but you couldn't tell you the way we work together we're just like one big happy family and i love that and i've actually had that experience multiple times working with british colleagues for british companies i love to ask people on the show because this is honestly a recurring theme in my life where should i live next so on last week's podcast to my guest uh alicia i presented boston portsmouth new hampshire I presented Boston, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, London, New York City.

She recommended London. She said, you know, I just felt like you weren't done with London. You had such a good time. There was more to do. Not wrong there. I, since that conversation, have whittled this conversation down to London and New York City. I love London. I would rather live in London.

However, if you want to live in London for a long period of time, there's, you know, as a U.S. citizen, there's all sorts of complications that present themselves that I'm not necessarily sure I would be able to work out with my employer, Spotify. So with that backdrop, knowing where I, you know, what industry I work in, the companies I work for, where would you recommend I live? Oh, man. Like, I feel, Troy, you're a bit of a globetrotter. And I feel like everywhere you go, you're getting so many valuable new life experiences. So I would say, why go back to a place you've already been? Why go and live in a part of the world where you know what the experience is and what it's like. Why not go somewhere completely new? And whether that's a city or a specific state in the US, whether it be Canada,

Vancouver is a beautiful part of Canada, Toronto is beautiful. What about Brazil? What about Rio de Janeiro in Brazil? Like, I don't know. Like, or how about Mexico? Like, I feel like you're lucky and I feel like we're also part of a generation now.

There are so many people that are so fortunate and lucky to be able to work remotely just where where we are with technology and it doesn't even need to be a long stint it could be a month it could be two months it could be you know half a year i don't know but i would say while you are still in a place in your life where you're only responsible for yourself, right? Why go back to London? Why go back to New York? Why not pick a different path? Go work in Bali. It's a beautiful part of the world. I had a great vacation there with my wife. Like go work in Indonesia or Australia, like New Zealand. Go hang out with Izzy, one of your favorite fighters and the ckb boys for a couple of months i'm sure they'll take care of you like why limit yourself to just a few places

that you've already spent so much time in already dang it said dude i was down to two options i'd finally gotten rid of all the anxiety and just whittled myself down to two options and now here you are opening up the entire can of worms again let's do it like the thing is like i feel like this is part of your gimmick now like you gotta keep going to a new place right i know i can't tell it whether ariel you know i never know whether he's serious or not when he's talking to me but like i maybe this is actually happening or i'm just imagining it but i feel like he and my other podcast hosts are are like judgmental of me they're like why can't you just stay in one place so that i know i can rely on you and get your time zone right and that you have good wi-fi connection that we know that works i

feel a bit of judgment so i have to deal with that yeah well the thing is it keeps him on his toes it keeps everybody on their toes like even me working with you like hey what time is it there what time can we lock in this interview you know it's keeping everybody on edge and that's a good thing honestly i one of my favorite writers uh is ryan holiday who i don't know if you're familiar with him but he basically said if you want people to be interested in you leave an interesting life so that's what i'm trying to do that's a great quote on your toes yeah yeah and plus with what you're doing it's like there's always hey what did you get up to in hawaii this week troy right because because you do spend extended periods of time like most people when they travel around it's like a weekend or a week-long vacation and again what you're doing now wasn't possible 10 years ago

right what you're so lucky and so blessed to be able to be like yep i'm gonna pack up and leave and i'm gonna spend three months here and i've always said to my nieces and nephews and i feel like one of the most valuable experiences i've ever had in my life is the amount of traveling i've done being able to travel with family through work and see different cultures and cities and countries and absorbing all that knowledge. I would not have moved to Toronto and I would not have decided to myself, hey, I can up and leave and spend the rest of my life in Canada had I not visited here in my early 20s. I fell in love with Toronto on my very first trip. And then I had multiple trips for like weddings and other reasons

I've got family and friends here then I just came I just became very lucky that the woman of my dreams who I fell in love with ended up being Canadian and ended up being from Toronto one of those bizarre you know kismets and I would not have been as comfortable as making that decision had I not spent some time here first so So again, traveling, I think, is the best education anyone can get in life. And I know everyone's got different circumstances in terms of the ability to travel, which is why I'm so envious and so jealous of you that you can actually travel as much as you want to. It's all down to you, my friend.

You've given me something to think about. Sandu, what is the scariest thing that you've ever done oh the scariest thing i've ever done honestly it's probably getting into mma media and just trying to go on that journey and i remember my some of my very first interviews i was just shitting my bricks um i think my first few interviews was with like Paul Daly and with Jimmy Manua at a I think a Bama event in the UK and they're both very intimidating guys and like I know them now so it's easy but back then like when I was thinking about interviewing these guys I was like whoa like I was still in awe of them because like I was a fan first before I wanted to get into this industry. So going from being just a pure fan

to, okay, now let me try and be a professional. Now let me actually try and do this the right way. Like getting those early reps in. And I think it's for anyone, like, especially when it comes to YouTube, social media, content creation, or whether you're on camera or whatever, it's the most sweaty thing you can do where you are so nervous and you don't know. I hate the sound of my voice. I hate the way I look on camera, all that kind of stuff. And I'm sure everybody kind of has that anxiety, right? But doing that from an early stage of my career to, you know, to a point where I'm covering you know the Maymac world tour and I'm interviewing Floyd and Connor and at that point I'm like I got this right but those early

early stages of the career when I'm interviewing fighters for the very very first time I was so damn nervous I was so scared about you're saying the right doing the right thing, not stuttering over my words, asking the right questions, starting to form relationships with fighters and people behind the scenes. Super, super scary. Because up until that point, like I said before,

I was living a very comfortable professional life. Great job, great company, benefits galore, good money. And to step out of my comfort zone to try and do this on the side was a very, very scary thing. And again, in hindsight, it worked out. But God bless anyone that starts the journey, because I know how that feels. And I know what that feels like. There's a word that you throw around a lot that anyone who works in this space throws around a lot. This is not me having a gripe with you by any means.

I hate the word content. Do you want to know why I hate the word content? Tell me why. It feels very ununique. It feels, you know, everyone's creating content. I've always been a person who like zigs and when other people zag or whatever the phrase is like, I like doing the different thing. I don't like my podcast, my substack writing, my work. I don't like calling it content.

I know that's that's what it's labeled as in this space. But that just seems like just another thing that's being thrown into the algorithmic abyss along with all the other stuff, many of which is hot garbage. I don't like associating my work that I put a lot of time, thought, energy, a lot of honesty and openness into what I like to call is art. I mean, this is art to me. This is, you know, people sometimes criticize me for like in my writing or on shows being too honest, showing too much of myself, wearing my heart on my sleeve like the fighters do. There's some things that you should keep to yourself. There's some things that you should keep hitting. You don't need to say everything. But in my eyes, if I'm not saying what's on my mind, then I'm not being me.

I'm not saying what's on my mind then i'm not being me i'm not being authentic and if i'm not being authentic then then why am i doing this then i'm just putting on an act so you know i i grew up you know as an art fan vincent van gogh is my favorite artist and the thing that i admire most about him as a painter is he paints a scene whether it's a self-portrait, a landscape, the stars in the sky, and it is a reflection of how he's feeling emotionally. Now, it's very open to interpretation, whereas maybe the stuff I do is more black and white. But I like just putting your own stuff out there for other people to view it. And that feels very artistic for me. So that's why I don't like this word content. And I'm very strategic in my use of that word. I love the fact that that's your mindset. I wish that I had

that same mindset that I can think of, for lack of a better word, the content that I produce as art. I think the word content is, you know, when I use it, I use it very broadly. Like, for example, we work together on a podcast, on a show. It's a weekly episodic series that we're working on together. And yeah, when I describe it, I'm not really describing that specifically as content. But I feel like when people ask me, what do I do? I'm like, well, I wear a few different hats. You know, I work social media for BT Sport and I'm also creating content on my own platforms but when you get into the minutiae of it what kind of content are you creating oh I'm creating assets

for Instagram or for Twitter or I'm creating long-form episodic you know shows on YouTube and Spotify so I think once you get into the more nitty gritty of a conversation, that's when I can be a little bit more loose with how I'm describing things. But when I use content, it's very much a broad term. Gotcha. Yeah, no, that's that's a really good way to to explain it. Thank you so much for your time. I've got one more thing for you. I'm developing this new segment. I call it the bit for social and so we're gonna do uh something called word association okay okay i say something you say the first thing that instantly comes to your mind okay you you got it troy i wonder where you came up with that idea

yeah i don't know it's very original jake paul versus nate diaz nate Diaz. UFC. Best in class in MMA. Poutine. Not feeling it. London. The greatest city in the world. Smack Talk. With Sandu.

Sandu, thank you so much for joining me today i will hopefully see you soon at international fight week i don't know what your plans are but thank you for joining me for being so open and honest and for creating great content over on your youtube channel i can't wait to to follow along with your journey and do more stuff with you i really hope to see you at international Fight Week. And if I do, that'll almost be the one year anniversary of us meeting at International Fight Week 2022 when we first struck up the conversation about potentially working together. And I love working with you. You're a fantastic pro. But I always say to you, we are friends first before we are colleagues and collaborators

on our show and the podcast. And I'm just blessed to be working with such an incredible artist like yourself.