The Ariel Helwani Show - Conor McGregor comeback, major UFC fight announcements, MVP MMA viability | The Craic

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

The Craic returns with its regular trio: Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes. The boys get straight into the recent wave of fight announcements, including Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland for the UFC middleweight title (02:45). At the press conference for the Netflix superfight between Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano, Rousey weighed in on the state of the UFC and its matchmaking. The lads share their thoughts on her comments (19:40). Another superstar potentially nearing a comeback is Conor McGregor, raising the question of whether recent fan discontent has pushed the UFC to move on his return (31:27). With the UFC’s White House card approaching, concerns have begun to surface over the stability and security of the event amid the current political climate, giving the guys plenty to unpack (44:45). That leads to another question: which event looms larger, UFC’s White House card or Netflix’s Rousey vs. Carano? The lads make their cases (49:21). To round things out, Chuck shares details from his recent conversation with UFC Apex headliner Kevin Vallejos ahead of his fight this weekend (1:07:00), before the boys answer your Super Chats (1:14:21).

The crack is back, ladies and gentlemen. How are you crackheads? There was a slew, to quote Ariel O'Annie, a slew of fight announcements last night. A bit of a departure from the old IG, just straight into the phone. We had a whole sit-down situation going. Very formal compared to what were used to, I'm being honest. But a lot of fights announced a lot of very good fights as well. Namely, Shemaiah v. Strickland, May 9th, Prudential Centre.

I've been there. What a wonderful place, New Jersey is. I mean, I think I'm. I made an impact on the jersey and the jersey certainly made an impact on me. Shout out Harrison. Okay. But listen, that's not all we got to talk about. Since we spoke last time, we got the whole White House card. And I know we spoke about that on the post-foyed show on Saturday night and we spoke about it on the Ariel Hwani show this week. And I've been looking around and a lot of people seem to be echoing what we're saying here with the, you know, kind of wanted a little bit more here. there's a lot to react to

with the Netflix situation Rhonda Rousey speaking out about the UFC John Jones being left on the bench Oh and what about Connor McGregor Ariel Hohani had a report earlier this week stating that things seem to be going well I've had a few chats myself and we will update you on that

later on but I think we need to get into these fights first let me introduce my fantastic co-hosts Benfokes and Chuck Meninhall lads I mean what a time to be allowed with all these fights I mean, look at the excitement in the room here. My God, Chuck, I mean, pretty huge. I think you need to visit more of New Jersey before we start saying that it's a good place to be.

You know, I just kind of stuck on that part. There's some pretty bad parts of New Jersey. I'm fine, boys. How's everybody else doing? Look, New Jersey is lovely, okay? It's just, have you been to Blanchardstown is what I'd ask you, okay? Well, okay. If you haven't, go to New Jersey and look.

I've got some spray paint for my trip, I'm planning to coming up here. You know, as soon as he said that he thinks, thought he'd made an impact on New Jersey, and New Jersey had made an impact on him. It suddenly occurred to me, yeah, a guy with Pizzi's collection of track suits absolutely would find himself among hindered spirits in New Jersey. It makes perfect sense.

They actually really enjoyed my tracksuits over there, I have to say, a lot of people, very impressed by what I brought to the table. Chuck, we shared beverages together in New Jersey. They were only slagging me last week, in fact, for us staying out all night. But back in my day, that was a cool thing to do. That meant you the coolest guy there.

We're still in your day. Don't let him tell you different, Pete. We're still in your day right now. Thank you. Thank you. Staying out all night drinking will never not be cool, okay? But we need to talk about these fights guys. Is fair to say, Shemoya Fee Strickland is the dozy of the group here, Ben?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's an interesting choice and the kind of thing that tells you a little bit about where we are, what we're looking at. for with some of these matches because they had options. We had options for who we could have chosen to get this next middleweight title shot. And you ask yourself, what are we looking for? Are we looking for a guy who feels like he has clearly earned number one contender status and the champ fights the top guy in the division and that's how it goes?

Or are we looking for the guy who will do a little bit more to go out there and help sell it? The thing is for me, I look at this matchup on paper and I go, I don't see how this ends up been a terribly competitive fight. Now, I've said that about Sean Strickland fights in the past and been right sometimes and been wrong sometimes.

Sean Strickland's style has proven to be tricky for a lot of people to deal with. He freases them a little bit. Sometimes people get confused, can't quite figure it out the way they thought they could. Hamza Tchamayev seems like

one guy who is not even going to think about his style long enough to get confused by it. He's going to come, march across the king, He's going to put himself directly in front of you. He's going to pick you up and try to slam you on your head. And he's not going to stop trying to do that.

Do you guys think Sean Strickland has in his bag the means to stop that from happening? Chief. No. No, no, no, no. One of the problems is that Sean Strickland, he's a little bit, like, volatile too, in terms of, like, what version you get of him. And it's funny, man, when you look, I think Ariel pointed this out when he was talking about it. But you look at his trajectory and it's like, you know, get into a tight to fight lose.

Get back into a side of fight, you know what I mean? Like it's like he kind of is following this pattern. And to go back to your original thing, it's a little surprising only in that sense. Because when he went into that Fluffy Hernandez fight, I think that from my perspective anyway, Fluffy was the only one kind of playing for a, in my mind at the time going in was probably the only guy fighting for a title shot there. But then you see Strickland at his very best. And so this is, when he does this, and you think about that Israel at a Sanya fight, right? Like when he does this, you, it opens up the imagination of, oh, okay, wait a minute.

Maybe this guy can compete, you know, against anybody. Maybe he's better than we understand. You talk to, like, his coach, Eric Nixik, and he'll tell you, like, he's very hard to hit. Like, you know, the numbers kind of back it up. And you go through this whole process. But the problem is what you're talking about, Ben, is none of that matters against a guy like Shemayev, right? So what he wants to do has nothing to do with standing and trying to find your chin. He's going to be in on your hips in the first few seconds of this fight.

And probably if he gets you to the mat, you know that a pattern has established. And I think as good as the fight looks in terms of attractiveness of the options, it lacks it in competitive balance. So like the thing that you're mentioning is kind of rampant right now. A lot of the matchups of the key players, the big champion names and stuff like, that they're going against guys they should beat, and this has kind of been going the themes for this year so far. And this one,

as sexy as it looks off of Strickland's win, kind of has that same vibe to me. But no, I don't, I do not like Strickland's chances in this fight. Very hard to freeze a Shemoyev double leg, you'd imagine, you know?

Yeah. The most explosive takedown in the UFC at the moment. It's a good card. Volkov v. Cortez Acosta and the Komen. I don't really feel that Komeni vibe off that, But Brady v. Buckley there, that is a, that is a quality, quality fight. Behoves v. Gustavs v. Guzcoff 2, King Green v. Jeremy Stevens, and Atiba Gautier v. Ozzy Diaz.

Yeah, very, very good. A bunch of fights, as I mentioned, guys, Charles Arjordain against Kailor Phillips, April 18, Comain and Winnipeg, Al Jolmaine Sterling v. Yusuf Zalalalalal, April 25th, the main event of the meta-Apex, your favorite Ben. Benil Darius, Quill and May 2nd in Perth. I'm reading these from Aaron Bronsetter, I should say. He did a great job of just lining them all up there for me. Arnold Allen.

That's a good fight. Yeah, this is a really good fight against Costa on May 16th at the meta apex. May 30th in Kau, China. Song you down. We've gotten a good look at it by this point. Yeah, what about this though, right? I know, we're speaking with the Apex, so this is a good time to bring this up. Balal Mohammed, who G.

G.C. informs me was champion this time last year against Bonfie. At the apex. I mean, man, life comes at you pretty fucking quickly sometimes at the UFC, doesn't it joke?

It always felt like poor Balal was kind of cut out for them meta apex in a weird way. Like, it never got over in the big sense as a champion.

So I do feel bad for guys like that though. Like, there should just be something in their contracts that says, you know, after you become a champion,

you will not appear at the meta apex, right? Yeah. Do you need to start putting a no apex clause in your contract? The same way,

no hockey players have a no trade. clause or something. It does seem like when you say life comes at you fast, it comes at some people fast in the UFC. Other people, they get to keep turning up in interim title fights over and over again, things like that. And the opportunities for redemption in big spots in front of big audiences are kind of endless.

And just doesn't seem like the UFC was ever willing to give ball that opportunity. They seemed like they begrudgingly were like fine Here's your title shot oh crap We can't believe you won it Now what and then when they when he lost it They were like okay well we're not letting that happen again That is so true man that is so true They never wanted to be in the ball ball business and there are certain guys like you think about

Imovov for instance like him getting looked over for this This title fight coming up And that's part of it right like you're like well If Imobov goes in there and wins now we're gonna have like this champion who nobody nobody's talking about really I mean they would start to talk about him but you know what I'm saying like he's just not the same marketable type of fighter and it seems like they're trying to avoid that

type of thing this year it really does yeah I mean I wonder how it feels to be imovov today five fight win streak looking the part has that big moment in Paris and it's like nope we kind had a feeling though right as soon as the streets and fought the way he did the kind of right but also like does it in your minds right like we do a lot of this MMA math and like we try to come up with it. The fact that Strickland beat him involved, even though it wasn't at 185, does that factor into this?

I mean, to me, that was kind of like, okay, you know, it made a little more sense and that, given that they'd already fought and Strickland's the victory. But what did you guys think of that? I think it was long enough ago that it doesn't really matter that much anymore. And especially with the pace of UFC events, how many people remember that they fought without being told? I don't think that that necessarily dictates the matchmaking. The thing I was wondering about, and this is not on PC's outline, I don't think, or if it is, maybe it's late later.

I'm going to totally. There's a script, Ben, I need you to stick to it here. I skimmed the script. I look it over. It comes in pretty early in the morning for me. I glance at the script. I go, all right. I would space for more free-form conversation.

I want to tell you that. Like, think about that now. Every time you get the list, notice the lack of bullet points compared to other weeks. that's to explore the conversational space. I don't know. I was looking for the part where it's anecdotes from the lads and I didn't see an entry there for that one. That's where the pressure was.

Yeah, not just any anecdotes. They have to be hilarious, okay? The thing I was wondering is we make things big, like just dump of announcements, right? You know, less than a week after we announced the White House event. And I was wondering about the timing of that. Is this a thing where we were kind of, kind of booking the White House event sort of right up to the deadline, which is what it sounded

like when we hear these descriptions from people who were involved in different negotiations. It sounds like it was a school project we left until the last minute. And then we were kind of, we were looking around and going, mom, do we have any poster board? It's due tomorrow. And so we kind of got everything together at the last minute. And was it we were putting off announcing some of these other fights because we don't know what we'll need.

If the wrong people are saying no to us for the White House thing, we can't get those deals done. We might have to reach for some of these other fighters or some of these other fights in order to plug some gaps in the White House thing. Or did we really quickly, after the underwhelming response to the White House card announcement go, we should make people move on. We should announce a whole bunch of other fights, flood the zone with fight announcements, force all these MMA websites to write some new headlines that say stuff like,

here's all these fights booked so that we can sort of throw a little bit of a wet towel over the conversation about people not being blown away by the White House lineup. Sounds like wag the dog a little bit here. We're trying to take attention off of something. I'm saying the Trump administration and the Dana White administration have learned things from each other back and forth, I think. That's so true. If that was the objective to quell the distaste and disdain for the UFC Boyer House card, How's it worked you? Like, were you seeing all these announcements last night and go, well, they did it again.

You know, I had my, I had my doubts, but here's the fastball. No, I mean, it was novel in a sense, like, because I can't remember, like, I know they've done this before. Well, they'll announce multiple fights coming up, and it's always kind of back in the, you know, in happier days. You know, it was always kind of like, oh, wow, there's so much to digest. This time it did feel more like a dump. Even though they, you know, they set it up a little different with this being and, you know, talking and it over. But it felt like an information dump. And what I worry about on stuff like that, and I'm not trying to just be critical because I was fine with it.

But it's, you know, how do you give any one thing the shine it's supposed to get when it's just all of it at once, right? Like, so they could have maybe stretched that a little bit. But at the same time, I do think that bends on to something. I think that they were, they're like, hey, man, it's time for us to show up and force. And here we are, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You can think about all these things. And to an effect, that is still how the MMA space works. You could see everybody kind of pivot.

And go look at the websites today, and you'll see a lot about these announcements, right? So it worked, you know, to an extent. I mean, I don't think that it has the same, you know, pull that it used to when they would announce fights like this. There's still, like, some baseline understanding what's going on in the broader escape. But I do think it was a it certainly diverted attention enough towards them again, right? It also made you wonder, because there had been such a long period without many fight announcements. We were looking, hey, what are we doing this year? What's the plan?

Where are the title fights, all this stuff? And it felt like for a while that we sort of put that conversation on the back burner because we were going, well, maybe they're saving a whole bunch of good ones for the White House event. And then when we saw the lineup, we kind of went, And that could be just sort of any other UFC event. It'd be a good UFC event, but that could be any other numbered event. So where's the rest of the fights that we were told you were holding back? And so then you put this big dump out there afterwards, and it kind of seems like, oh, there they are. They're scattered across all these other events coming up.

I will say that you guys tell me what you think. A lot of this feels like the, you know, torch passing type of matchmaking. Like a lot of it has got like, you know, know, a guy who's been around a long time who's been used to fighting in the top five space of whatever division, and yet now he's facing a guy that you hadn't contemplated me because that guy's been coming up, you know what I mean? Like Arnold Allen's fight, right, with, with, Costa. Like, that's one of those examples of a guy who's been up there, Aljo's fight. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of these guys who are just, they've been kind of near the top or they've held championships or whatever. Now they're fighting the guys

who have been coming after them from the lower rungs and are finally there. So I find that intriguing. I like when you get that sort of, you know, you get that sort of mix and it's just not the same guys facing off against each other. Well, it also seems, I mean, that's, sorry, Pete, that's a known way to do matchmaking. And you look at this fight card on Saturday at the apex and I think you see a few of those as well. Yep. All right, that's right at the end, okay?

You can't just decide it's, it's time to talk about that now. Okay. There is space for free form conversation, but the order is the order, Ben, okay? Ben, you know who else used to go off script? Your boy Bobby Deval, like he did a winning a tender mercies. I was just reading about this. He had a lot of, he had a lot of problems with that director because he wanted off script of being the character.

I appreciate this. I think you're one of those guys. Thank you, I'm an artist. Pizzi's trying to pen me in and you can't do that. I'm flowing. I'm trying to get in the flow state, Pizzi, and you're interrupting that. I was listening to someone earlier this week speak about Stanley Kubrick. And he never got great performances out of these brilliant actors that he had because

he over directed them. That's what I'm doing with you, okay? People are going to look at you in the role of Ben folks on the crack and they're going to say, you know what? Pizzi just strangled them with that goddamn order. That's what fucking happened every week. But, Chuck, you made a good point earlier. Imagine being one of the fighters that was announced on this card that wasn't Shemoe F or Strickland, right?

Like, imagine being Brady or Buckley. And you're like, this is a pretty big fight. Like, this is a big. And you're like, 12th down on the totem pole of discussion here. It's just like, yeah, that's going to be on the card as well. You know, like it's, uh, not that it would be. Not that we had big hopes for the UFC, giving all these fighters all this love. And believe me, we have examples of that lack of love as well coming up later on.

Sorry, Chuck. I think that fighters are used to having, you know, like you mentioned that it is a real thing. I mean, like a lot of times one of the big shine moments, right, is when the fight gets announced for these guys and they're like, hey, I've got one coming up. I've been sitting on this guys. You know what I mean? It's a big moment for them. That is something to factor. And you got like all these guys, I don't know how many names, how many fights they announced.

but, you know, you have a lot of people that didn't get that moment of shine. That's got to hurt a little bit. Yeah, but don't you also think that you announce so many fights all at once. We can only hold so many in our brain at one time. I've already lost half of them. Yeah, I know. I wrote down a bunch just in case we're going to talk about because I'm like,

I'm not going to remember all these, man. And especially where you're announcing these events that are like weeks and weeks out. So there are a lot of them that are going to be lost in the shuffle initially anyway. And what you've got to hope is that when that week rolls around, that DOC kicks it into gear and is like, all right, this week we're focusing on just this fight car, just these people. As we've seen, especially with these apex events, that doesn't always happen. The one you're seeing this week where you're kind of rolling out of like, you know, a big event that you had into one of the apex events, the ramping down of energy and attention is really noticeable, especially when there's other topics to discuss. And so the OSC itself doesn't even seem like it's all that interested in turning that spotlight around, at least not until day of, day before maybe. Do you remember people used to wait with the anticipation for Dana White on Monday to be like, fight week on his Twitter?

Like people like it was a big, yeah, it was a big day. Oh, yeah, we're kicking on on a Monday before the Saturday. Can you even imagine doing that anymore? Like it's just that seems like a different life. It doesn't even seem like it belongs in our timeline anymore. The era of him doing those video blogs is a different life. And you've got to imagine at some point, somebody in the legal department at the UFC was like, these are something bad is going to happen before something good happens.

Oh, man. Speaking about potentially good things happen as far as the USC are concerned, Ariel Hawaiian, he updated us earlier this week in terms of the Connor McGregor negotiations. We knew they were happening. He was reading the tea leaves. He said, you know, we have not heard an outburst from Connor this week. That is usually what we hear when things. haven't gone well,

well, O. Pedy's done some snooping around today, having a few conversations, and everything seems to be going very positively. People I'm talking to seem very confident that this will get over the line and it's only a matter of time before it does. Something would have to go catastrophically wrong

for McGregor not to be announced on a UFC card as far as I'm concerned. And that will be music to UFC's ears because it has not been a great week, as you two guys have been pointing out in your articles on Uncrowned because this week we had a bit of a press conference, we had a bit of Ronda Rousey, we had John Jones,

all of that stuff. Let's kick it off with a bit of Ronda here, spitting some game at us about how it is to be a UFC fighter. It used to be that UFC was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly. And now it's no longer, it's one of the worst places to go.

It's one of the, it's, it's, why so many, of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It's why their champions like Valentina are selling pictures of their titties on only fans. You know, like these people are, a lot of them at the ground level, they can't even, they can't support their families. They're living poverty level fighting full time. And this company just got $7.7 billion. Like, there's no reason that they can't afford to pay their athletes, at least a little. living wage and not even that to least be able to match what these athletes are making it at other sports.

Why are you going, why would they expect to get the best athletes and these best aspiring kids that want to be something into MMA? Why not go into football? Why not go into boxing? Why not go into anything else? And so they're bleeding talents because of their short-term greed. They're thinking about the next quarter. they're thinking about the shareholders

and are not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the future of the sport. Shook, you wrote about Ronda Rousey this week and her being at the center of this MVP promotion. How crazy is this for you to see, Rhonda, in this situation, giving how glowingly she spoke about Dana-Woy

for so many years, their relationship and the UFC up until this point, you'd say? I mean, she was still sort of in a round, about way glowing about Dana White. Like she kept saying, you know, I love him and he loves me. That sort of thing. Like it was bizarre, but she's just pointing out that he's caught now in this, this new era of

TKO. And like he's, she was basically saying that he doesn't have the power that he did. And it's hard to dispute because what she's talking about. And I mean, of course, there aren't a lot of like established big name free agents that the UFC is trying to get, right? Like they're not. So to come to the UFC after you've had a. career elsewhere and they're not showing you the love.

That's, that doesn't happen that often because usually they get the guys that are younger and they're bringing them in. It's within that balance. The end part of what she's talking about there is absolutely true. I don't know how much the UFC stewards, you know, its own like, its own product in this sense. If you've watched the prelims, especially in the last, 2006 of these fights, you see a lot of pretty bad MMA. I'm not saying all of it.

It's not across the board, but there's been some pretty bad MMA where guys just don't seem to have the same, you know, they just don't look the same as they have in the past. And so things like that, they do strike you, right? And then as far as the pace structures themselves, man, unfortunately, there just isn't too many MVPs out there. Like, I know what she's saying, like, you know, it's probably better if you go elsewhere if you want to get, but there right now still isn't that. I'm glad there is an MVP. Like, you get happy that right now there's some, there's a league out there that maybe is trying to change, change that, or at least Jake Paul has been basically on a campaign to spotlight fighter pay his whole time.

He's been in the spotlight for boxing, right? Like he's been talking about this with the UFC. So it feels like her words kind of, you know, at this point in time, when you've got Tom Aspinall, everything going on with him, you got John Jones basically being low-balled, using that word, Francis Ngano used the word low-ball when he was talking about it. It certainly raised, you can't fault what she's saying, right? Like what she's saying is basically true. at this point.

Ben, you also zoomed in on the back of what Chuck's saying here about Rhonda's attitude towards the UFC. You zoomed in on the John Jones situation. And I think this is all very interesting because it pertains to Connor's situation. We'll get to later. But you wrote an article about what we learned from the John Jones situation, him coming out, obviously very displeased with what Dana White suggested. You know, he was talking about his hips. Look at this guy.

He can't even run anymore. He was never a real option. What did we learn from this John Jones, the latest John Jones debacle, shall we say? Well, one thing we learned is that he's still a relevant guy in the UFC, even though he had told us he was retired roughly this time last year. So after, in the first few days after the announcement of the White House card, the whole question of what happened with John Jones and negotiations there really dominated the news cycle. and he's not on that fight card. That's a little unusual that we weren't sitting around talking about Alex Pereira afterwards, and we weren't even really sitting around talking that much about Ilya Taboria and Justin Gaiti.

We were talking about what happened with John Jones. And especially, I think the U.S. does not help things with Dana White giving these sort of conflicting answers about it, where he's saying John Jones was never going to be on that card, I told you guys. And then they're saying, well, are you saying that you guys didn't negotiate with John Jones? Because he's saying you did. And he said, I never said we didn't negotiate with. them. What the hell kind of sense does that make?

Dana White's trying to have us believe that the UFC matchmakers, at this time, when they're trying to book the White House event, they got some stuff to do, you could say. They're not a lot of free time for those guys right now. He's saying they reached out to John Jones to make offers, throw numbers around just because, just for the hell of it, just to see, just to have the option out there. there's no way. There's no way they were in that level of negotiation with John Jones where we're talking about actual numbers if there was no chance in hell that he was ever going to fight on that fight card the way Dana White insists. And instead of just coming out and saying like, hey, we may have been offered, he wanted a number different than the number we wanted so it didn't get done. It's like an ego thing where Dana White can't just be like, hey, we tried to make that deal, couldn't make that deal. He has to be like, no, I said no and I meant it. And that's the end of the conversation. Clearly it wasn't the end of the conversation. And then for him to pivot from that and try to add on a different explanation, well, his hips are bad. The guy can't fight.

You heard him. You saw him try to play flag football. Look over here. Look at this hand. Look at this hand. Cover a post route. How can the guy possibly hope to compete in the UFC if he needs over the top help and can't, can't cover as a corner out there on an island on his own? And throwing that on there, I think is actually like a big mistake for them because as John then points out, he's like, look,

If you're saying the reason you won't put me on this car is because you don't think I can do it anymore. You think that I'm old and broken down and I can't fight anymore, then release me. You got no use for me. You're saying you won't give me a fight because you think I'm old and broken down. You can't keep a guy under contract and just deny him the opportunity to make a living. If you think he's done, let him go. Because I'll tell you what, if you let John Jones go, he's fighting Francis and Ganu on an MVP card or he's doing something else like that before the years. out. And I think the UFC knows that.

They don't want that. And so kind of trying to have it both ways there. I think we've seen them go through this before. You remember initially after Anderson Silva took his last loss in the UFC and Dana White was saying, that's it for Anderson. We don't want to see him fight anymore. We don't want to see any more of this. And Anderson Silva was saying, all right, then you're going to release me.

And at first the UFC was saying, no, we are not going to do that. And then it just sort of built up enough where he was willing to push it. Other people were willing to push it on his behalf and saying, look, You can't just say, I'm not giving this guy any fights anymore and yet keep him under contract. And look, Anderson Silva ended up having like a pretty lucrative second act outside of the UFC. And so I think that you might have just talked yourself in that situation with John Jones and at a time where there would be other people out there willing to offer John Jones some lucrative work. It certainly didn't help that Francis himself had put out a like a tweet basically saying, hey, you're 30 million. you're worth it. You come get it over here. You know, you can get it over here. I mean, that was pretty good.

Well, and it's a interesting contrast that we've drawn before, right, is like the path that Francis and Gano followed versus the path that John Jones followed. Because you remember when they initially were first looking like they were going to collide where John Jones is saying, I'm giving up the lightweight title or light heavyweight title. I'm going up to heavyweight. It's going to be John and Francis would have been a huge fight. And the USC couldn't get it done. Blamed each side at various points, accused each guy of not being willing to fight. when it was just a matter of, you know, we're not willing to pay these guys what they want in order to do that fight. John Jones eventually retreated, came back into the fold, says, all right, I'll be good, I'll fight whatever fights you do have for me. And Francis Angano didn't. Francis and Gano kind of stuck to his guns there, managed to walk out of the UFC still as heavyweight champ and as lineal MMA heavyweight champ, went off, made millions more in boxing. and I think you see, like right now, they offer pretty good comparisons. It's like one guy was willing to push it only to a point

and then came back home. The other guy said, no, I'm going to push it all the way, bet big on himself, one big on himself. And now we find yourselves back in sort of the same situation where Francis is going to say, you still have a chance to make this choice again. What are you going to choose this time? It's funny that Dana came out so hard against Jones

that he's actually made him such a simple, that he figured to the point that Francis in Gano, one of his arch nemesis is saying, you should be getting way more than this. I know. And so is Tom Aspinnell. Tom Aspernel is like, you deserve it, buddy. You know, Tom, whose career has been kind of hurt by John Jones, just sort of putting him off to the side,

refusing to engage in that fight. Tom Aswell has more reason than anybody to want to talk down on John Jones right now. And even he is saying, like, yeah, he deserves it. It's just all glaring after Dana White for that whole year was on this campaign of like John Jones John Jones you guys are crazy

arguing with reporters not like when it wasn't it was an apex events you know and he's arguing with reporters that you're saying that he's not the best pound for pound going you're crazy you remember this the whole thing

he goes through this whole thing just to defend basically the matchmaking with Miyochich which nobody wanted right and you get that fight and then it's just been so botched now you're on this whole other level I think it always like the biggest thing

when you're mentioning John Jones' relevancy because he wanted to fight fight on this card. And the UFC's old motto, I don't know, maybe some of the young people now following the sport that come into it, don't know this, but the UFC's motto was always, we want to put on the fights that everybody wants to see. This was the counter to boxing, right, where it was so difficult to matchmake between, you know, the different, the different promotion, sanctioning, all that stuff. Like, it was, it was tough to get two guys in the same ring. The UFC was always like, we will do that. And they have not been able to do that.

And it was just so glaring like, the John Jones was the dangling carrot to kind of put things back on course and they found a way to botch it, you know. Yeah. It's, um, it's really interesting. And I've done this in a roundabout way because I wanted to get through Ronda's comments, through John Jones's comments and we touched on Angano's comments there as well. Because it feels like, as we said, Ari led report earlier in this week that he taught things were going well.

I was speaking to people today and I heard that the McGregor note negotiations going very well and they would be very positive. They think that something is on the verge of, of happening. They said something catastrophic would have to happen for it not to get over the line at this stage. So with all that said, with the Ronda situation, with the Francis situation,

Ben, do you think that's incentivized UFC at all to make this happen based on the reaction to Ronda, obviously being on this big Netflix show, and then Jones, there's been a big outpouring of emotion regarding whether he should have been on the White House card?

Do you think that's gave them a push to make the McGregor fight happen? Absolutely. And I think it should because right now what you want to do is book a big fight that feels like a big splash and gets everybody talking about it and excited about it, especially because one of the criticisms recently has been that the UFC does not have stars. And who do you have that's anywhere close to a star right now? I would argue Alex Pereira and Ilya are right up there. You just booked them both for the White House card and had everybody going, this is less than what we expected. Where John Jones is? All the buildup. Yeah. You know, just because it's one thing to have stars, but you also got to have interesting fights for those stars.

And there's magnitudes of stars. And so to come out of that where you just sort of took the two closest things you had, you put them on the same fight card and it still didn't make a big pop for you, you do have a lot of incentive, especially with the MVP stuff happening where you want to remind people, hey, we're still the 800 pound gorilla in this industry. A Connor McGregor fight feels like the most realistic option that you have that would accomplish that. And it also makes sense to me.

You know, I agree with what Ariel is going to say him for a while that it makes sense. You have Connor McGregor. They don't want to spend him on a fight card where they're not going to be able to sell tickets. We're not going to be able to sell out in arena with it because you know you will. You'll get huge ticket prices and you'll still sell it out, no doubt. to me it's it's going to be interesting to see who you get Connor McGregor to fight against at this point just because you you're not going to get him out there in some squash match where a young hungry lion is coming for Connor McGregor he's not going to like that he's going to be able to see that you've got to give him somebody who has some kind of a name right but you also if you're trying to pick winnable fights for Connor McGregor at this point I don't know if there's a ton of options to choose from just because he's been out of the game so long we don't know if his body can even stand up to a full training camp at this point i'll be really

really interested to see who we end up with might be Nate right but this before that can you imagine can you imagine it would be like mutiny if they cannot get karnem o'griger now at this point wouldn't it it would just be like i just if you thought that the backlash was bad for not getting like you know finding out later that they didn't that they could have had wrong Rouse, they could have had John Jones, but they weren't able to get that done. But just all of a sudden, you're not able to get a deal or you're not able to get a fight going with Connor McGreg. Can you imagine what this is going to look like? I seriously doubt it happens. But it would be, if you thought that those guys went hard in the paint with kind of their response, imagine what McGregor does. He's the one guy who's going to communicate how disgruntled he is in a way that everybody will hear louder than John Jones and Ronda Rousey put together. You know what I mean? Like this would just be, when you say the word catastrophic, I really think that that's actually a pretty accurate word to use. I just, I can't imagine.

If they can't get Connor McGregor to kind of, I guess, clean up some messes and to refocus, you know, whatever they're trying to do here, it would be bad, man. That would be a bad scene. If I'm Nate Diaz and they come ask me, because you read that is the matchup where you're like, you could see it. Both guys are sort of not who they were. Both would look at the other guys being not as dangerous as previous versions of him. And you have the history there. You have both guys bring some fan base to the table. And maybe those are even somewhat different fan bases.

If I'm Nate Diaz and they come to me offering that fight, I'm not doing it on a budget because I know they need me. They need what I bring in this situation. Yep. I think that is the plan as well. Like get Connor over the line and then Troy to sign night. You know, like let's get this sort of it sorted and then we can go to him with it. And, you know, you mentioned young hungry lion. Ariel said this early on the weekend and the people I was talking to today,

he said the same thing. Like he said he would fight pratchez. Like that was, that was a real thing they were having, you know, I don't know if they were formal, informal chats. Like he, Connor was like, yeah, I'll fight pratches. Here's the thing, like, I've been saying since the start of the year, there is more incentive for him to fight than ever. Like he needs this.

Like, McGregor, for his brand, for PR, everything around him gets a massive of week of publicity when he fights. He has all this enterprise around him. When he fights, all of that gets brought up. That's, of course, what he's trying to do, given what's happened in the civil case, his brands being taken off the shelves in England and Ireland. Of course, that's what he's looking to do.

So I do think he's eager to make this happen, which will help the UFC as well. But, Ben, how do you think Paramount would feel? We're talking about how bad it would look for the U.S. How do you think Paramount would feel if they don't get Connor over the line? He's the one telling people, I'm negotiating, Ariel's report, like the negotiations have happened. Like, if they don't do this again, Paramount just having signed this deal and coming off an

underwhelming White House announcement, surely they're kind, I know it's very early on, but surely they'd get pissed off at some stage about this. You know, I think that a lot depends on what Paramount thought they were getting with the UFC deal and how much of that they feel like they already are getting are on track to get. Because, you know, you're getting 3 million people or whatever to watch these fight cards, when you're doing sort of these simulcasts, we put in a portion of it on CBS, you put in a portion of it on Paramount Plus.

You have some stuff coming up, like the White House card that you think is going to drive some subscribers. It can't be that they thought they were going to make a billion dollars a year in combination from advertisers and new subscribers on Paramount Plus just from signing the UFC.

That can't be. There aren't enough MMA fans in the world to give you $12 a month subscription. that are going to equal $1 billion a year. So it must have been part of a strategy and not necessarily the entire strategy for Paramounts. I think that they probably look at it right now and go, we're pretty much getting what we want.

You know, we're getting, we've moved in the direction that we were hoping to go with that signing. I still think you probably overpaid and maybe they're okay with overpaying. But I think that they are looking at like, hey, there need to be a couple tent pole events coming up where the people who are holdouts who haven't yet come over,

who haven't yet hit the subscribe button go, all right, damn it, I got to do it. But ultimately, what you have to be counting on is people subscribing and staying subscribers. They sign up for one month of Paramount Plus just to watch Connor McGregor fight. You get their $12. You know, you get their email. And then they piece up out when you don't have anything the next month. That's not going to do it for you. So the UFC just has to be a part of that strategy.

and you do need some of those big events to bring people in the door, but that can't be the whole thing. I do think that one of the things like with Paramount Plus would just be like, if they're going to be pissed, they'd be like, look what Netflix is about to do, right? It'd be like, we're going against, that's what they're looking at too. Like, they're also looking at how are we going against our normal,

you know, these streaming services that are competition or that you're trying to catch. And I think that, you know, Netflix come in. in and having something that could actually pale, you know, some of the numbers COC is doing, that would piss them off. I think if you're looking at, you know, just kind of like head to head, like, you're going to look at something and be like, where's our event that's like this? Where is it? Is it the White House? And I know the White House will draw, like you're mentioning it, it always comes down to subscribers. But it's going to be those subscribers all come into like the night of the event, how many people are tuning in? Are we going to be able to put out a press release

and say, like, these are unprecedented in numbers that we just did? And I feel like, like that's probably where they're concerned is. You know that there had to be been a little bit of a confidence that if anybody was putting on MMA events and through any streaming service, it's going to be the UFC that was going to be kicking ass this year. This new wrinkle of the other thing, you know, and this other entity, I think that that's where it starts to feel like. We don't want to be second, right? We didn't pay $7.7 billion to be second. So I feel like there be some of that going on within their meetings, you know what I mean? Like without being there. But I mean, that seems like it strikes me as something.

that would piss them off. I don't want to fully go through the way else thing. We've all done it. I know I saw, obviously we did on the post-vite show

on Saturday. I know Ben's done it on the common event podcast. I saw Chuck doing it with Luke on Morning Combat as well. But one thing I just keep thinking about and it's because

of the card not being this six title fight situation that President Trump suggested it would be. What happens and this is tiny one,

what happens if either Ilya or Alex pulls out of this fight? Yeah. Like seriously. That's a bad. That would be bad. Yeah. And that is always the thing in this sport, right?

When you're, especially, you were announcing a spike card three months ahead of time. And fight card subject to change is, you know, you might as well have it tattooed on your forearm. Or as Jake Lamato would say, uh, write that down and put it in your hat and it'll explain a lot of things to you. because we've how many times we say and that used to be the strategy. I remember when we got to look at a lot of the investor documents for the UFC after the initial sale when they were sort of pitching this other to other potential buyers to want to buy in and get a piece of the UFC. And part of the investor deck explained, hey, we did have some problems with the UFC at a point where we're losing a lot of fights due to injuries and late card changes and it was hurting pay-per-view revenue. But we figured that out.

And one of the ways we figured it out was by paying backups on retainer to stay ready. I wonder to what extent we're doing that for this because you can't have a situation where you lose one or both of the stars that you have on this thing. And that can always happen. Once you go in that gym, you know, I imagine you're probably telling those guys, hey, if you agree to this one, we do need you to show up. So be careful in training. Don't do anything stupid because signing on the dotted line here means something.

But at the same time, you go in there training, you break your hand, you break your foot, something like that, you know, these guys have a lot to lose. If you go out there, you fight hurt to do one, to do a solid for the UFC and you lose, there's not going to be a ton of sympathy coming back. We've seen how that goes. Even if you come out afterwards and be like, hey, I had a serious injury, but I didn't want to do it. disappoint. So I came out here and fought anyway. Fans are going to be like boo-hoo. We don't want to hear it. The UFC may or may not give you a little slack down the road because of it.

That loyalty is not necessarily going to be repaid from all sides. And they know that. So like that can always happen. Do you have backup options in place? God, I hope you do. Because you know what the UFC knows as well as anyone how that's going to always happen in this sport. Especially with an event that's basically a 60 million. dollar, if you believe their price tag

run a one-off, right? Like, it's a one-off now. They're going to put special emphasis and promotion into this because they've even given it its own distinguishing name, you know, Freedom 250 and all this stuff. There's going to be a much wider

promo push for something like this, which is going to involve, you know, the players, and they're going to want to plug that as far as they can. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's going to be much more than usual and for somebody to fall out, all of that then needs to be altered. And that's one of those things that you're like, man, what a nightmare situation.

Obviously, if all of a sudden you've got Justin Gaichi against, and I don't even know if they would, like, if they would even, talking about John Jones and like his reliability, if they would even plug Armand Sarukian into this, just given his kind of volatility. And, you know, they've been falling out at the 11th hour against Islam last year. Like, I don't know if they would go with him. But can you imagine suddenly it's Gaichie versus Armand or, you know what I mean? like you take out Pereira and you have Cyril gone. This is the problem with having the B sides kind of being like, eh, all right, I guess. You know, when you get that element and you lose your A side,

now you've got a truly, you know, you don't have a big fight, right? Like you no longer have a big fight with whatever they'd plug in against Cyril gone at that point. So you're right, man. If something falls out of those two main fights, like you mentioned, Ben, these are the two biggest stars maybe in the league if you get outside of Connor McGregor. If you lose one of those, that's going to be a bad, bad look for the US and I have no idea how they would handle it

unless they kind of like, they have enough time to actually put together another fight of that magnitude. Well, we have concerns about matchups. Andy was showing me earlier, a quote from Joe Rogan. Far greater concerns on Joe Rogan's side of things. Do we have that slide, Andy, where Joe is,

here it is. I know it's going to be very high security and high stress. And we'd have a fight at the White House in the middle of a fight. fucking war. I would hope the war will be sorted out by June, but quite honestly, I'm not confident that's going to be the case. So that'll be weird having this high-proval event where everyone is at one place at one time. That's Joe Rogan via MMA fighting. I mean, I made the world prediction at the top of the year, but I don't think anything is going to stand

the way of this car, the closer we get to it. I think this, like, I think Trump and Dana are so adamant that it will like, no matter what happens, I feel like they're going to be like, we need this to happen. It is it is for America essentially. Does anyone disagree? No, I mean, I do think I think Joe is right that it will feel weird if we're still at war and this is what we're doing at where the president's having a birthday party essentially. And it also, I'm sure, is a huge security concern because you know how we like to do these things where it's not just Trump at them, you know, you'll see cash Patel there. You might. Pete Hags, that they like, they like to get a lot of those people all in the same building.

And if you're concerned about an attack from an enemy, you have just told everybody where the president of the United States and probably a lot of his cabinet is going to be on June 14th, are probably between these hours and these hours. Like, that's, that ought to be the kind of thing that keeps secret service agents up at night. And so that's wow. Not only will be like a weird vibe, I think, in a lot of. of ways, but probably like a really serious security situation. And if you're the UFC, you're trying to use this opportunity to really get some of the

spotlight to rub off on you. You really did trump a lot of favors. And during his campaign, you were really putting your back into it to help that effort, giving him fighter walkouts essentially at these events, keeping a camera trained on him. You probably look at the New Jersey. Yeah. Pretty cool. Pretty cool.

You, you, you turn right around and you're having this event and you're going, all right, we're losing money on this event, but it's still a good deal for us because there's going to be a ton of people who don't watch this sport normally, but go, well, this sounds weird and crazy. I got to tune in and see what this is. And you're probably going to get a lot of those viewers, like a lot of people just for the novelty factor of it are going to show up and watch. And you're hoping to make those people fans. And if there's something terrible that happens at this thing, or if it's just like, or, if it's just like, are, such a weird vibe that no one can concentrate on the fights and appreciate the sport just for what it is, you're probably not going to get that out of it. So that's got to be a concern. Well, the good thing is that EOC is trying to keep this a little bit non-political bin. So, you know, if we can do that.

If we can separate those two elements for the White House card, I think we'll be okay. Well, we kept Colby Covington off of it. So that's, that honestly kind of made me sad. I don't know if Colby Covington appears anywhere on PC's outline. I don't think he does. but hearing some of his comments afterwards where he was like, I really thought I was kind of a shoe in for this card. I was walking around Times Square in a MAGA hat with my UFC belt.

He said that basically he told Hunter Campbell I will fight any living human being on that fight car. Just get me on there. Except for Bo Nichol from Bo Nichols' perspective. He claims he wasn't offered Bo Niggled, but it's like, which that would have made sense. Like a Bo Niggle versus Colby Covington. If you booked that, I go, okay,

I understand what we're doing here. I understand why we booked that fight. And if you're Colby Covington, are you sitting around feeling like, what did I do all this stuff for? Like, all of this seemed like guaranteed to get me an invite to this specific party. And I get left off the guest list. They're telling me, hey, maybe you can, maybe you could be one of the 85,000 people who gets a free ticket to watch it across the street. Like, I'd be, I'd be crushed. Surely, you've got a ticket here for you somewhere.

Colby, I don't see your name. How do you spell it? I mean, the way they're treating him is like, hey, sure, we'll get you over there. You walk out the back door to where the car is supposed to be waiting, and then you just hear the door close and lock behind you. And you go, oh, I'm just standing in an alley alone. Well, I got the best possible consolation prize with the Dylan Dennis. What, wrestling match? Is that what they're doing?

I forget. I saw that they're going against you. Sure, Dylan Dennis will definitely show up for this one. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine? Two cool guys. I'll tell you that much.

We touched on. Netflix and you made the point earlier, Chuck, that Paramount Plus will probably have an eye on that. Probably thought it was an open goal that they would have the most viewed MMA event of the year with UFC Woyos. Along comes Rhonda, Gina and Francis

and Ganoo and Netflix. Philippe Lenz. Sorry, Philippe. Philippe Lenz is also there. Who would be brushed aside in a matter of seconds if they found a way to release John Johns from this contract just immediately.

Thanks for standing in, Philippe. We'll be in touch. We'll give you 500,000, whatever, just go away. But you, again, your article on Ronda kind of focuses on this element of it. I understand, right, the newer fan, be it a lot of new fans come to this sport via the pandemic and, you know, Dana White's saving sports. So they probably didn't see the Ronda days. If they didn't see the Ronda days, they definitely didn't see the Gina days.

So they're kind of going, what is this? Two icons, of course. but from what you've seen Chuck is this something to take notice of despite these people going oh these guys are past it like it does feel significant right that you Rhonda Gina and Francis all lined up here on a Jake Paul promotion for MMA

yeah and kind of aligned in like this I said it was like tis the season to you know air your grievances with the UFC because that's literally it wasn't even I would say it was that press conference was more directed at the UFC than it was for MVP right it was like everybody was just talking about the need for this kind of thing and, you know, the kind of nonsense that other fighters are dealing in and, hey, come on over here, that type of thing. It felt significant. And, of course, like, we've mentioned this before.

We were talking about this. I really don't believe that Jake Paul's trying to form some kind of fight league. But I do believe that he's interested in putting on these tent pole type things, right? Like, you put on one big event per quarter, whatever it ends up being. And maybe this is in an MMA. And that in itself, when you're going against a competition where somebody paid $7.7 billion for your services to run 40-some events a year, but yet you have three or four big events that have the ability to almost drown those out. I mean, that seems significant. This is a different kind of competition than the UFC has ever had.

And really, I can't remember a time where the biggest names have such an opposition to the UFC, you know, where they're being so voting. vocal. Now, of course, Rhonda and her advance in Gina, of course, they haven't fought in a decade each. They're such a move that you can kind of be like, oh, well, whatever they wanted to. But Francis isn't that far removed. And then you get John Jones, which was kind of a subtextual kind of like thing going on within this as John Jones's situation. And it felt significant. You know, it felt like a moment in time where you're like, hey, people aren't happy, man, the fighters and the fans. So, I mean, you guys tell me, that was kind of my take from it. was just that this was not, you know, not necessarily like a declaration that they were going to do a ton of events, but or anything like that, but more of a declaration like, hey, we're

going to make these things count. You guys should be paying attention to what is really available to you, like that maybe some of your big names over there, your glass ceiling is just, you know what I mean, that it's a glass ceiling on this side and over there you're stunted, that sort of thing. Yeah. No, no, I agree. And, you know, one of the people obviously, you mentioned, Francis and Gano, very, The lineal heavyweight champion of the world.

Ben, you wrote about this exchange he had with M.M.A. Junkie, I believe it was, who kind of suggested, look, a lot of people are question you're a legacy, Woody. You know, you're very difficult to work with all this. Did you feel that flare up? And do you feel like that's an accurate line to take when it comes to Francis? I think it's a fair question to ask him, to ask what he thinks of it. You know, when I wrote about it and I wanted to get some perspective, especially of other fighters who are retired,

because I think that we sometimes forget your legacy can look one way at whatever point in your career that we happen to be in right now. But it doesn't mean that it will look that way later when you've been retired for five or 10 years. And that's when legacy really, to the extent that it matters, that's when it matters is when you're done fighting and when the wet concrete has kind of solidified. And that's when you care, to the extent you ever care, what people say about you. And when I talked to Chal Sonan about it, and he always has, you know, insightful stuff to say it. And he said, hey, I've talked to Francis. Francis cares. I know he cares.

All these guys say, I don't care. I've said it myself. But what that means is I don't care enough to choose legacy over something else like money or like freedom contractually, that kind of stuff. That's what they're actually saying. And I get that, especially because, you know, in Gray Mayter pointed this out where he was like, The promoter would love to have you prioritizing legacy, especially if they can get it in the fans' minds and they can get everybody else to agree that legacy is a currency that we alone can grant. It only exists in the UFC. It's the stuff you do in the UFC that makes your legacy.

That's great news for the UFC, for any promoter, if they can get everybody thinking that way. Because that means, like, hey, we can convince you to take less money, allowing us to keep more money because what we're giving you here is, legacy, it becomes sort of like a company script where we're paying you in legacy. We're paying you in exposure, essentially. And you can't get that anywhere else. You have to stay here to get it. And that lowers, you know, you're negotiating value with us. So they would love to have that.

But I also think when people try to use that as a reason for a fighter to turn down money, turn down actual money for the next fight, they have to also remember, nobody gets to say, for sure what the legacy is right now. Legacy is changeable. And Chale brought up a good point where he was just sort of like, whenever somebody initially retires, the legacy seems to take a hit, especially because most people do not retire on a win.

You know, most people are retiring on losses. And so we see you down at the very end and we go, maybe this guy wasn't that good. You can go back through anybody's record and poke holes in it. It's not until a few years later that we get a little bit of a nostalgic glow for you. And we go, oh, yeah. No, I really remember watching.

that guy fight, he was really good. The legacy sort of rebounds in those moments. But fighters put a lot of emphasis at times and sort of fans at like what happens last. And yet when you think about it, if I go back and think about Chuck Liddell's career, there was some sad moments there toward the end, but that's not what I think about. If you asked me, like, tell me about Chuck Lid's career. I think about it was when he was the ice man, when he was knocking out Randy Couture, when he was a big star for the UFC, when he was knocking out Tied Ortiz.

I remember the bar I was at when I watched him knock out Tito Ortiz. I don't remember exactly where I was at when I watched him get knocked out by Rich Franklin. You know, that kind of stuff, like that's what legacy ends up being. How will we remember Francis Ingano? I think we'll remember him starch and steep to become heavyweight champion. And I think we'll remember that he stood up for himself against the UFC, walked away, bet big, one big, had that run in boxing, took Tyson Fury to the limit, made a whole bunch of money, like got his whole plan to come together. I don't think we'll be thinking about his PFL bout. or and maybe not even his bout with Felipe Linz

at this MVP thing. I think like legacy is a lot more complicated than we think and it's a lot, it's not so much a choice as like, hey, let me stay here because imagine Francis and Gunnew had stayed, got knocked out in his next fight with the UFC. He would have had to win like what,

somewhere between five and ten straight title fights to make as much money in the UFC as he is already made outside the UFC. So that part of the. that part of the conversation is more complicated than I think people want to admit. Yeah, the legacy thing in fighting especially is, but it always boils down to what are you remembered for? Like, I mean, like, everybody wants to like, so what are you remembered for? Everybody's, you know, everybody in their lives is going against the void.

Like, I just don't want to be forgotten. You know, like once I'm gone, I'm going to be forgotten. What legacy is is what people tend to, you know, what do they remember about you? And you're right, with the Francis and Ganoo thing, as it's still unfolding and obviously like he's still doing something, he had a crazy backstory and I mean that will definitely that still plays into it right like just here's this guy who made a life for himself and kind of succeeded at every level and went against the UFC in a weird in a weird way that's legacy enough it's outside of the bounds of just being a UFC fighter right but it's like it's a larger legacy in that sense um even if you don't want to place it within the great the greatness of within his UFC career right like um it's it's interesting i think it was uh gray maynard who basically pointed out maybe that's in your piece, he was like, maybe that's how he'll be remembered, you know? Yeah. So it's a, it's an interesting thing.

I'm with you, though. You mentioned, like, Chale's son, for instance. When I think of him, I think of the first time I felt like real blood, life blood, was pumped into the UFC before UFC 117, because there had never been somebody poking a champion the way he was Anderson Silva. To me, that was like one of the craziest and most fun moments in all of UFC history. It was watching him, this wrestler who's coming for him. you believed him at some point, like he's going to go in there. He's not going to try to, he's not going to fight Anderson's Elvich. He's going to beat Anderson.

So you know, he's like, he's telling you these things and you're like, okay, this is crazy. Nobody's talked about Anderson. He's been nothing but revered, you know? So like he kind of put the playbook out there on how to handle yourself when you're building a fight, how to create hype, how to dress mediocrity up and like, I'm not trying to badmouth them because he was, but he wasn't the greatest record in the UFC. But like how to dress mediocre up for like to look really great. You know, he did that stuff.

He showed the blueprint. So like you look at him as a key figure in the UFC. And to me, like that's kind of the legacy, you know, like what you did. And I think you're right also to point out that Francis Ngano is a man who crossed the Mediterranean, basically in a raft twice. Yeah. Because he got sent back the first time into a refugee camp to go be homeless on the streets of Paris just to chase this dream. And if you turn around years later and say to that guy, aren't you worried? that fight fans might say some things about you that you don't like,

he's going to say, no, that is not among the great worries in my life. I am not concerned about that, especially because what are you saying? You know, you've heard other fighters say it, you can't eat legacy. You can't eat the belt. You know, the money that he's gotten and that he's going to continue to get outside the UFC, the freedom that he's going to get to choose what he wants to do, the ability that he has to like turn around and use that money to do things for his family or his community or whatever that I'm sure ranks way higher for him than where fight fans rank you when they're having these Batman versus Superman type conversations 10 years from now

and I will say that he doesn't even look at the prices on menus anymore he can afford anything on that menu he's getting apps every time they're saying hey do you realize the Caesar salad comes with an upcharge it's not the house salad he's saying why are you wasting my time just bring me the Caesar salad please as you guys are talking I'm just thinking like legacies in terms of like think about someone like Jake Lamata and all of the things that were in the press

about him before Raging Bull comes out and then you synthesize his life into these astronomical moments these fights we're not talking about throwing fights to potentially get title fights down the line all this kind of stuff and even though he's portrayed as quite a negative person in Robert De Niro's portrayal of him,

it's still like, the takeaway is like, what a fucking legend this guy is. You know, you move away, at the end of it, you're like, what an incredible accomplishment.

If they fucking did a motion picture of Francis Ingano's life, which is very likely. Like, just based on what Benz just said it. Like, it's fucking insane the shit that this guy had to do. He winds up in Paris

and he's just like, oh yeah, I fancy boxing. And then five years later, he's basically the UFC heavyweight champion. It's fucking insane what happened with this guy's life. I'd like to see one more.

Mark Kerr movie before we see that. But yes, I would like to see that eventually. I think there's still unexamined territory left there. I think it is, especially because when he was asked this by the M. M.M.A. Junkie reporter and he was saying, what is legacy to find that for me? And like, who's an example? And the guy said, Muhammad Ali. And he was like, yeah, the thing is now everybody wants to tell you how much they love Muhammad

Ali. And that part of his legacy, a big part of his legacy, was not just that he was a great fighter, arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, a big part of his legacy was the social stances that he took, the price he was willing to pay personally and professionally for standing on those principles. And that was a deeply unpopular stance at the time. It's easy to see now that he was on the right side of it and that, you know, he took the right stance and to applaud him for being willing to do that. And yet that's, that's retrospect. People who were alive at the time with te and if you go look and you look at what people were writing and

saying about him at the time they hated him for it absolutely hated him for it and so that's another reminder that legacy isn't necessarily the view from right now legacy includes a lot of other stuff and it's going to be a conversation it happens down the road do you have like the new york times like um time machine type thing like yeah yeah because that's so it's so fun to go back and see kind of because you can pick up tone if nothing else what people say the quotes it's up at the tone to of like go look at go look at all of mohammed all these stuff man there's such a negative tone to it all um including him like the stuff where he was doing good work like you know the wats parade thing that they were they were doing in 1967 like there's such a negative tone about him

because nobody liked him at this moment in time it was so bizarre man but yes retrospect now he's the legend right like he left this legacy but it was certainly not that way at the time yo tyson even an example. Like I was trying to have written that Kregal book about Tyson. He's talking about being like,

um, the designated villain of the world, basically. Like this is the guy. It's just like, yeah, this is the guy that you hate. Like he is there.

He has given us plenty of reason to do it. Go for it. Completely changed through Netflix. Which brings me to another question about Netflix. Jake Paul and Engano are going at it. This might be a purest point of view from me, but I think that's a bad idea. I think if you have Angano and you can make MMA

fights and obviously Felipe Lenz is not lending himself to that conversation as you can make captivating M.A. But do you think it's a bad move to make a in Gano v. Paul fight if you're trying to take on the UFC and be the established name in MMA or I'm all just... I just don't have any interest in it, man. You know, I... Like, the Jake Paul thing, okay, he's doing... I can appreciate what he's doing right now, like putting on fights.

But, you know, you just watch the Anthony Joshua thing. What else are we waiting to see? Like, he gets his jaw broken. I'm like, at some point you're like, what are we just watching Jake Paul get beat up by big guys now? I mean, I just don't really have a big interest in it. Hang on, you're selling me on this. You've sold it.

Wait a second. I take back my previous guy. Then what you do? Well, also, isn't one of the things that we learned from that Jake Paul, Anthony Joshua fight that these weight classes exist for a reason? Yeah. And so if you were going to say, like, all right, I couldn't beat that bigger, stronger boxer.

But what about this bigger, stronger boxer? And especially the case for the fight would essentially be what I didn't get beat as quickly as that guy got beat by Anthony Joshua. Right. I mean, I think a lot of people would also turn around and be like Francis was fighting like he was trying to beat Anthony. That's nitpicking, isn't it? That's part of why he got knocked out as quickly as he did is because he went out there fighting like, I think I'm going to knock this guy out. Jake Paul went out there fighting like I would like to survive. That was clearly all he wanted to do in that fight.

And so, you know, there are those comparisons, but it is, I mean, Jake Paul's a great salesman for Jake Paul. So I don't doubt that he could get people worked up for a Francis and Ghana who fight at some point. I guess I would wonder, is that really what you want to do, Jake? Because there's other work out there for you that would probably. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, also I'll say, I remember doing a story about this about broken jaws and why it's such a difficult injury, especially psychologically, the recovery where you have your jaw wires shut for six weeks. One of the things I learned doing that was that once you get your jaw broken once, it's a lot easier for it to happen a second time. I mean, I think I talked to four or five guys who had gone through the broken jaw, and all but one of them had later suffered another broken jaw in training or fighting.

So, you know, heads up on that one. Francis is the kind of exception to the rule, though, don't bite the hand that feed you or whatever. Like, here he is wanting to, like, beat up the guy who's paying him a ton of money to come over. I mean, that's all, that's weird, too, you know. It's just, it's such a weird. It's a weird day never. Every time you speak, you're selling me on this way.

Every time you open your mouth. What I'm saying is they need to book this for third quarter, fourth quarter, somewhere in that range. We'll be there. Sold. Sold. Look, we don't, look, huge things happen in the UFC. We had to talk about all.

this stuff, you know, this, you know, negative some people would say, Ronda Rousey, John Jones, what that means to the McGregor negotiations, but there's a positive story to end this all because there's one man who is very, very excited to be fighting in the UFC. And Chuck, you managed to speak to him. Uh, Vichahos, I believe is how we say the name. Andy, I'm correct there. Is a Vichaehaus? Can you speak to that? I think that's correct. Veshae-hose. I'm like a fucking... I call him Kevin.

I mean, we're just like, yeah. Kevin's a lot easier. Yeah, I talked to him. I talked to him and, yeah, that's what struck me, honestly. It's like the rest of the world's burning down around him in the MMA space. But here, he was like, you know, just glowing with this opportunity and, you know, basically having a pinch me moment that he gets his own main event. And, I mean, it's always fun to talk to a young dude. I think he's 24 years old who's in that spot.

and fighting a veteran guy where you're basically supposed to kind of take that dude's juice and now you move into the top spaces and like you see what you can do he was very much into that

you know and I think that he's of all of the cynical stuff and all of the you know bad things going on like you talk to somebody like that it helps refresh your like you know give you a little bit

of a refreshing course and like what it's supposed to be like and he certainly has that attitude right now yeah you know the part that that jumped out to me was this quote where he says to be 24 years old after only my third fight I'm already in a

main event and have my name and my face on a poster I'm excited I'm happy not just for myself but for my family because they've been behind me all the way so very excited very happy with the opportunity that was given it reminded me of here to see that movie the Adam Sandler movie funny people

where he plays basically an Adam Sandler type character and Seth Rogan plays the up and coming comedian who he's hired to help him write jokes It seems like a great movie. It has a great first two-thirds. They didn't exactly land the plane in this one, but it might still be, it's worth seeing, and it's also worth seeing that Adam Sandler has a sense of humor about the kind

of career he's had and some of the choices he's made in it. But there's a part where he's flying the guy with him on a private plane, like from L.A. to San Francisco to go do a gig. And, you know, he's looking at how excited this young horror comedian is about all this stuff, riding in a limo, flying. in a private plane. Oh, my God, this is very exciting. And he says something along the where he's like, you're excited, huh? And he's like, yeah. And he's like, I remember I used to be excited. And it's, it's, that kind of a thing where it is good to see somebody like come in

where he's just like, yeah, he's 24. All this stuff is so new. He's not looking at it and being like, oh, great, I'm on an apex card. He's looking at it being like, I'm in the main event of an apex card. They put my face on a poster. That's exciting. That's also new. And that is one of the things that I think that you can get the same way like you look at how your kids get really excited for Christmas and you go oh yeah okay I'm kind of seeing it through their eyes I get some of that excitement to rub off on me I'm just glad that that you wrote this story about him chuck just so we can kind of get that secondhand excitement off of it was that was exactly what it felt like you're like you're looking through his eyes from him like you know it isn't so bad this is gonna be fun you

know your name on a poster that's cool man I can't wait I'll be watching you know I did say I swore off the apex card but I will be just coming by from a big boxing event. Well, real quick, but Ben, which other fights on that Apex Guard are you circling, man? Which one should we keep our eyes on? You know what? If I was Victor Petrino and I had been in the heavyweight rankings. He actually had one.

He's looked at it. All right. This joke failed. Go ahead. I had been in the heavyweight rankings. I had a fight booked, but nothing had happened at heavyweight for weeks. And then I look one day and the week before week leading up to, my fight, I was out of the rankings and Tai Tui Vasa was back in, I'd be like, what the hell?

What are you guys doing over there? Let me go in there and take somebody's head off and remind you that I should be in the rankings and not Taito Ivasa who hasn't won a fight since, you know, the Biden administration almost. It's probably about right, actually. That's one I'd be circling, but then I know, I know better than to be circling heavyweight fights on the impacts. It's a fair point. You get what you deserve if you start looking forward to those. It's an educated take, to be fair. I'm sorry, Pisa.

You're talking about your event. Where are you going? Oh, yeah, sure, yeah. I'm going to, there's a big boxing event on in three arena this weekend. Jazza Dickens v. Anto Kikachi for the World Super Featherweight title, I believe. Well, it's interesting for a number of reasons because, you know, pro boxing in Ireland, like in Dublin, in the Republic, pretty much stopped around 2016.

when there was a shooting at the Regency Hotel, a way in, David Burund died. It was actually an attempted assassination of Daniel Kinnahen. And basically after that, the Hutch and Kinnahen feud broke out. 18 people were killed in this feud. And insurance companies, the police themselves were just like,

we don't want boxing here at all. So Katie Taylor comes back. Yeah, crazy. Katie Taylor comes back in 2023 with Chantel Cameron. And that was the first time. and it took someone like Katie Taylor, like a national icon, to make boxing happen again. But since that first Cameron fight,

this will be the fifth fight from then. And really, like, if you were looking at this card as a boxing fan, a lot of names aren't going to be jumping out to you, but that speaks to the appetite that's here now all of a sudden. You know, suddenly people are casually going to boxing events. This is a sold-out event. I'm very interested to just see,

there's great fights as well. Pierce O'Leary, people are telling me this guy, he lives about 200 meters from the three arena, a real inner city dub. People are telling me he basically sold this thing out himself. Obviously, a title fight as well against Maxie Hughes, a big knockout artist, a lot of people very excited. But for me, it's like,

this kind of speaks to urge boxing being revived, at least in the south. Belfast's always been a big boxing city, but in Dublin itself, in the south of Ireland, this is a huge deal. And basically, I'm going there to get a kind of finger on the pulse of what boxing people are saying or feeling about this because it could all help towards this natural climax.

It could happen at Crow Park that Eddie Heron is telling us is going to go. This is what I was going, where you were telling me there's boxing happening at three arena. I was going, oh, yeah, not at Croke Park, the mythical Croke Park. What a surprise. It doesn't exist, by the way, Ben. What a surprise that we're not doing yet again. We are not doing a fighting event at Croke Park.

For those of you don't know, Ben doesn't think Crowe Park exists. God damn narnia it might as well be I've been hearing about it for so many years All this all they're always We're always just about to book a big fight at Croke Park No, it never happens Since the days of Mike Shracher 2026, boys

It's the year it's coming home Boxing is coming home Yeah I mean Over at all boys once again we fucking nailed it We smashed the shit out of this show Crackheads I mean What a pleasure I was just about to...

There it is. He was getting his sign-off kind of... I was in a sign-off. I think he was going to... You were going to remember, I think. It wasn't, though. Thank you. All right.

Well, good. Good. You had that coming, though. What have we got? Has the lack of a raven cost involved? There it is. There it is. There it is. Exactly.

Imagine how much more attractive a number one contender prospect he would be if we all knew Nasradi and Mimovov as the guy who goes around with a mysterious raven on his shoulder and refuses to explain it. Wait, now wait, wait, wait, wait. This wasn't just pulled up. Did you talk about this

somewhere? What am I missing here? I've mentioned this before on the CME. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it. Oh my God. I was like, that's a per, that's really then I was like, no, no way we're just aligning visions here just suddenly. This was a suggestion. This is a suggestion we made to Nasur Dian Mival because we realized the situation he was in.

He's winning all these twice, right? He's clearly very good. He seems to disappear completely from our imaginations in between fights. Like, nobody really talks about him until he has a fight booked or until there's a situation like this where you're going, why didn't he get this fight booked? Imagine how much you could change that if you just, God, you had a pet raven. It rode around on your shoulder. You refuse to explain anything about it, but you're also never without the raven.

Every once in a while, you'll be at press conferences or something. People ask you a question. You turn your ear. The raven appears to be whispering something. something in your ear. You nod and then you answer the question. We never find out what is happening between you and this raven. When it's fight time, you walk down to the cage with the raven perched on your shoulder. You get to the Harley Davidson prep point or whatever we're calling it now. You're shaking hands. You're checking your mouthpiece, getting the Vaseline on.

Just before you step into the cage, you and the raven make eye contact, the raven flies up off your shoulder into the darkness of the rafters of the arena where it presumably stays. Everybody in the crowd is going, is that raven up there somewhere right now? Like, do we need to worry about that raven? Maybe in between rounds, you come back, you sit down on the stool, the raven flies back down, perches on the top of the cage, you're just kind of looking at it. And you seem to be communicating with the raven, flies back up into the darkness. If you were that guy, if you were the raven guy, Nasor-Demimimov, we'd remember who you are.

You know what I'm saying? We would all know the Raven guy. This is brilliant. This is brilliant. I took notes. I'm going to fucking suggest this stuff to him. Tell me you wouldn't want to see Massardine the Raven imov against Hamzot Chamaev. I love it so much.

Especially the question we're always asking of the Hamzot, right? Who at middleweight could possibly stand up to this guy's pace and pressure? Who has the game plan to stop him? It doesn't seem like it's going to be Sean Strickland. I think he opened as like a four to one underdog in this fight like most people would against Hamzot. But if we got in a situation where we're all asking ourselves, but has Hamzot ever faced an opponent who had a mysterious relationship

with a possibly supernatural raven before? No, we don't know how his game would match up with that. It's a great unknown. I am sold. Whoever asked that question just got the best part of it. He just got the best segment out of this. I had no idea about the raven, but dude, that is brilliant. Short answer, yes, he would have a little shot if he had a raven.

Yeah. We would have already had a title shot. A couple of them. He'd be the champion. Yeah. Happy St. Patrick's Day, Pizzi, much love from Boston. Ah, Beantown. Boston, tell you who knows the thing I do about Boston?

Big time, Ben, folks. Let me tell you something. All those cool runs Doritos. Yeah. I had a great time in Boston. This guy. It's harder than you think it is. I tell you.

Try it. Try to point to that football helmet over your shoulder, see if you don't, you don't mix it up. I don't even want to try. one of the things that I really appreciate I want to know Chuck you mentioned I think maybe last week or the week before what Francis Ngano made per second

to fight in the PFL I want to know at this point in his career how much is Alexander Ovetkin making per stride out on the ice because I saw your highlights he doesn't log a ton of ice time he's mainly out there on the power play he'll play the entire power play

he's out there once in a while but his shifts are not super long And I've never seen somebody do it. You know, you've seen somebody do it like an unc walk and an unc run. He does an unc skate. And he's just completely not concerned. Yeah. He's just, he's really efficient with his energy out there. He's not skating one single stride more than he has to.

I would love to know what he's making and what it works out to every time he does this with his legs. I wonder how much he's getting paid because it got to be pretty good. seats man that's what i was wondering did you see his seats pizzi yeah ridiculous i'll tell you the other the other best part about it was getting to see the boston bruin's goalie jeremy swamann and his very intricate very oCD routine every time there's a stoppage and play and he gets to come over to the bench

he has it like we we got to watch it enough times where you could be like okay now he's going to get us water bottle he's going to do one squirt in his mouth and one squirt on the ice he's going to scan the crowd he's going to tighten his glove he's going to switch water bottles uh The best part is that at the very end of it, pulls his helmet back on, leans up, says something to the backup goaltender who says something to him that makes him smile and laugh and relax a little bit as he skates back off. And I'm wondering, does the backup goaltender think this is a part of his job duties? This is what he does to help the club is I got to have something funny to say to sway men every time he comes over here. Dude, goalies are cut different, man.

Yes, they've known some. And they all have their superstitions and they all adhere. to him completely. Like it's a, it's a, it's a nutty lot over there, man. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you understand how big of a compliment it is

for Chuck Mendenhall to be complimenting your tickets. You ever see this fucking guy at games? I mean, for fuck's sake. I mean, you know, you, those are nice seats. You've got really nice seats. Yeah. That's right. I'm always in the nosebleeds, guys.

If you just want to, you know. And he wore it like Washington, Gary. This is a guy who goes at Rabel Riles. He's not there for pocket. I was in my Ovestkin shirt. A woman asked to take a picture of it. So, uh, I'm not afraid. Fair play.

I've been to the TD Garden. I saw the Celtics play, the Chicago Bulls in 2015. It's a good game. Did you buy yourself a $14 beer or whatever they are? I tell you what I dropped on just a few soda pops at this game. I'm used to this, man. It's like it's everywhere now. Pizza, you didn't go to the TD Garden to see your boy, McGregor fight?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was actually. I was in way better seats. I was right there. Weird. I would have thought they'd have something like that at Croke Park. Yeah. That's as fictitional as the Raven right about now.

Don't have any slat. Okay, Crow Park's a big deal. I'm going to bring Connor Brooks there so he can say, yeah, I did see it. It's a real place. Connor going over? Yeah, he's going over in the first week of April. Hope he likes drinking. That's what I'm going to say.

I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so. I love the show, gentlemen. I have a semi, sorry. I have a semi personal question. What non-sports books? Sorry.

How did you fuck that up? It's a book question, too, and you can't read it. Let me go back. Let me go back. I'm sorry. I was like, what a time to pause. Love the show, gentlemen. I have a semi-personal question.

What non-sports book have you most recommended to your friends? Ooh. God. You don't want to get me started. I was going to say. Because I won't stop. I'll say this, though. One of the books that I recommend to people a lot and have given as a gift

people a lot is the sisters brothers by Patrick DeWitt which is a really like very good but also somehow very hilarious novels about a pair of brothers who are hired gunslingers in the Old West and it is as fun as that sounds so

that's a good one man that was a good one yeah you know another one something exactly this has also been folks favorite and he recommended it to me it's this one right here do you remember oh yeah I love that book absolutely I don't know if that one is for everybody in the MMA adjacent audience.

I just got a lot of books on my desk. And I was like, I know Ben mentioned this one before. Department of Speculation by Jenny Offel. Jenny Offel is really great. It's one of those books, though, where you pick it up. And for the first 40 or so pages, you're going, what are we doing here? I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know. But it is very unique, very unique. It's good, though. I mean, it's too many. There's too many to name. I mean, most books I read are not sports books. So it just depends on the circumstance of what you're looking for, I guess. Give us one joke.

He wants a recommendation. They just give him... Anything by Bernard Malamude. I think that, like, he's like one of those writers. I feel like he has no duds. Like every book, The Natural. I mean, I guess that is sport. It's about a sports.

But like, the magic barrel's very good. Like any of his, they're all very good. I would also say you kind of can't go wrong with Anthony Dore who wrote, all the light we cannot see a great, like a rare one where you go, I don't want to read another World War II novel, but this one is different than any World War II novel. you read and it's amazing. Even though he's one of those guys where he can write a 500 page book that doesn't feel like a 500 page book because each chapter is two or three pages.

And his more recent one, Cloud Cuckoo Land, also really great. Yeah. I'd recommend anything by Ervin Welch. He's my favorite writer. And one of the best things I ever did was my friend, Sance gave me a copy of trains button when I was still in school when I was 13 or so. And the way it's written completely colloquial spelled out, Scottish pattern.

Unbelievable. And he releases books in that series to this day. I mean, he might take a few books off, but he comes back to it. I love all of his stuff. I've never loved an author like I do, him. So anything by him would be my recommendation. I love Evan Welsh.

I love it. We need more of those questions. That's fun. Love you guys. Thanks for the show every week. Thank you, Tom Tanaka. I believe your name was. Went too quickly.

Thank you, Andy. Well, lads, another beautiful day spent in your company. Chuck off Gallivan next week. So, Ben, you can't let me down. Imagine just show it's just me going with the list. This is like, you know, the White House card. Me not being there's like losing to pouria or something like that. It's not that big a deal, but it hurts, you know what I mean?

Losing me is like losing Docus. You know what I mean? No, he's going to. Al Dawkins is on the card. What? Yeah, what the fuck? I don't know if you guys have seen his response on social media. He's playing it right, though.

He is. He's nailing it. He's absolutely killing. He's funny. Andy, thank you so much. Ben, thank you so much. Chuck, thank you so much. Oscar, thank you so much.

Thank you, Crackheads. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the fights. We'll be back next week, not Chuck, but the rest of us will. We'll see you there. Love it. We fucking kill that show.