The Ariel Helwani Show - Conor McGregor visits The White House, Jalin Turner, Gunnar Nelson, Morgan Charriere

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Ariel Helwani and the crew kick off the show with the latest news and notes in combat, including a deep dive into Conor McGregor's White House visit and the reaction to it back in Ireland (7:07).Gunnar Nelson previews his UFC London fight against Kevin Holland and discusses his two-year MMA layoff, the way in which his relationship with Conor McGregor has changed, plus more (30:50).Jalin Turner opens up about his MMA retirement in a wide-ranging and remarkably candid must-see interview (1:00:47).Morgan Charriere looks ahead to his UFC London return against Nathaniel Wood and discusses the rise of MMA in France, fighting in enemy territory, his pirate diamond chain and more (1:35:55).The crew rejoins Ariel to discuss John Cena's heel promo in Brussels and the crowd reaction (2:03:09), before closing the show by answering some Super Chats (2:28:49).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Err-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r- And 25, I don't know what that was. Hello again everyone. Hi, Sharer, hope you're doing well. Oh, some weird, look at that. You see that right there? That's a weird shadow. It almost looks like it's on purpose, right? It is on purpose. Yes it is. Yes it is.

It's great to be back for another edition of the program. Happy to be here. Much to discuss as we inch closer to the UFC's return to London town. The O2 has hosted its fair share of great events. I like the one on Saturday. I like the main event very much and today we'll focus on two of the big fights on the card. Back into the program, the last pirate, Morgan Charriere. He joins us at 2.30. He's going up against Nathaniel Wood. It's a former Cage Warriors bantamweight champion going up

against a former Cage Warriors featherweight champion. It's England versus France. And Charriere, one of the, I'd say one of the more popular fighters coming out of Europe, certainly one of the more popular fighters coming out of Europe, certainly one of the most popular coming out of France, and one of those guys who has done a tremendous job of building up his profile without the UFC. We've had him on the show before, talked about the reality show and the gamer who he helped get into shape and all this stuff. We don't need to get into all of

that, but he's done a great job and a lot of these these French fighters like Cedric Dumbé Like surreal gun like Benoit Saint-Denis like Morgan do a really good job of that So looking forward to seeing him back in action and we'll talk to him at 2 30 at 2 o'clock the tarantula Jaylen Turner will stop by and You'll recall last weekend not this past, two weekends ago, he suddenly and somewhat shockingly, surprisingly announced his retirement. Just 29 years young, lost to Ignacio Bahamundes. And obviously we saw him at 300, lost on that card as well,

was once considered a top 10 lightweight, certainly a surging prospect in the most stacked weight class in the UFC and now all of a sudden he's done. And so we'll talk to him about this decision, where he goes from here, all that and more. Jalen Turner will stop by at two. And one of our favorites, longtime friend of the program, Gunnar Nelson returns and he returns to the program ahead of his fight on Saturday against Kevin Holland, which will be two years.

In fact, today is two years to the day of his last fight. He fights once a year, once every two years, but he's still kicking it 13 years later in the UFC. The great Gunnar Gunnar Nelson, the pride of Iceland, will join us. Looking forward to having him on the program very much as always. So there you go. Much to discuss as always. In fact, some breaking news this morning. It is not working. Okay. Nothing's working. But everything's working. We actually did it in our rehearsal and it was working.

Working on the games. Yeah, working on it. Thumbs up to the chat, thumbs up to the chat. Last week when we had Lou DiBella in studio, he had mentioned something about MVP, Most Valuable Promotions, really getting into women's boxing and trying to corner that market, which I think is a very smart play.

Well, this morning we found out that they have signed one of the very best female boxers on the planet the undisputed super featherweight champion the one and only Alicia Baumgartner and they had a great little promo video here it is we can't play the audio because there's some music but it's featuring Jake Paul it's featuring Amanda Serrano she's one of the best fighters in the world she has had issues which have derailed her career a little bit regarding performance enhancers. She was very active up until 2023,

but then was gone for a year, a little over a year, some 14, 15 months. Had a fight this past September against Delphine Pursune that no one watched, if're being a hundred percent honest and Now here she is teaming up with these individuals and and I think it's a very smart play to Corner the market if this is in fact what they are doing of course they have this card coming up on July 11th in New York City all-female card you would think she's a shoe in for that as well There's been some talk about her versus guy Nicholson There's been some talk about her versus Amanda Nicholson. There's been some talk about her versus Amanda Serrano, who is sitting right next to her.

Serrano, a featherweight champion. She's a super featherweight. So that would be, you know, 126 to 130. And there's some big fights for her. She has that it factor. She is someone who has definite star potential. And so they have signed her. And we'll talk more about that signing with Adele O'dipo

at 5 o'clock Eastern on the Dazon Boxing YouTube channel. You know we like to play too on Tuesdays and we've got three guests on that show as well so a lot to talk about and a lot of people to talk to on this Tuesday March 18th. Yes, 5 p.m. Eastern here on the East Coast of the United States, 2 p.m. on the West Coast, but that show is at least for the next couple weeks airing live at 9 p.m. Eastern. No, not Eastern, 9 p.m. BST or maybe it's GMT, I can never quite get that right. 9 p.m. in the UK and Ireland because they haven't moved their clocks forward just yet. They do that on the 30th of March, I do believe,

for some strange reason. I still am not quite sure why but just a couple more weeks. Oh there it is! Okay, is there more breaking news? The breaking news is that the breaking news is working. Okay, wonderful, wonderful. Well, welcome to the party, welcome to the dance, welcome to the party welcome to the dance welcome to the show let's get into some stuff that happened yesterday because I feel like we were reacting in real time but now that the story has come and gone let us let us fully break down what transpired yesterday in Washington DC because it was somewhat of a surreal situation I think we kind of just take these things

for granted now because MMA and politics in particular have become so intertwined. There is no other sport on the planet, basketball, football, baseball, world football, boxing. There is no sport that is more intertwined with politics these days than mixed martial arts. That is undeniable.

And there we were yesterday on St. Patrick's Day and it's Conor McGregor of all people holding court at the White House. By the way, you know I learned something earlier today and is P.T. here? P.T., top of the morning to you. Did you happen to know that originally Ireland was associated with the color blue, not green, and then over time it changed to green because of all the lavish greenery and trees and agriculture in the country. Did you know this? Yeah, yeah, Hon-Air Jordan told me seven minutes ago.

Damn it. This is a pisser fact. This is one you learned at the urn. It was in the thing. It was in the bathroom. I saw. No, I you learned at the urn. It was in the thing. It was in the bathroom. Right. I saw. No.

Did not know that. Wow. You know, funny enough, I wasn't around back then. But since I was born, it's been fucking green. Yeah. Ariel, that's all I'm going to say to you. All right, mate? That's all I know.

That's the world I live in. Looking forward to break down yesterday's White House visit. Very excited for the conversation. You feel all right, PC? Yeah, what's going on? What's happening? Is everything okay? Something seems a little bit different.

You look a bit sweaty. I gotta shave. No, I think I just moisturized. I was in the back garden. As I said, we have an operation going here in the back garden. Me and me out there fucking cutting down trees all day. You're doing it yourself. You didn't hire someone.

No way. Don't do that here. It's like if my family would disown me if I didn't do this myself We had them all over here in Saturday now I'm doing it while everyone else is at work So I have to wash myself so I'd be presentable and I feel like the cream just hasn't really soaked into my Porcelain skin just yet. When they came over on Saturday they make fun of the state of the yard and that's why you're doing it today I was just like can we just pay some like I'll pay some of the dude isn't like here Yeah, the amount of money that would cost you and they all just start working diligently. So it's like are you get a before-and-after picture?

You know right now it looks like well, can we get at least a before did you take a I don't think so No, we had like we bought this house and I had a like a playhouse down the back of it. I actually turned it to a cat brothel. It was just a flop house for all the local times. I don't see a pie house. A playhouse, a playhouse. And then it became a what cat brothel? A flop house.

Yeah. So we had this there's a cat next door who beat the shit out my dog the day we moved in and he's going to control the block He just used he was like the bottom bitch of the brothel He just stay out there like come on in then the fluffy cat from down the road would come in He was a big customer dude. He would be there all day Then we'd have dudes hanging out on the roof of the thing now. We see what it's talking about. Yeah, it is pretty rough there Huh? Yeah, and then and then like since we knocked it down, we knocked it down

Saturday, me and my dad, my brother and and since then, you can see the cats kind of rolling in the garden, looking at it, going, what the fuck? So they're trying to get it into my shed now as an altar in a flop house. So God bless them. I feel like as well, a little tan. Maybe, maybe it was not very sunny today, though. It's still Ireland. very very mid-weather

I believe. You got that glisten like you worked in the yard all day and then took a shower but you still have the residual sweat from being hot all day. Throw in the polo too. Love it. Respect. Yeah the polo. Again. Wow. Nah, don't get used to it boys. Wow. Internet's a little choppy. That never happened. We may have cut an internet cord while we were doing the work in the garden out there.

All right. Well, let's get into it because we're... Listen, I come out for the sound check today and they're like, nothing is working, Pizzi, just to let you know. So is it my fault or is it your fault? The best part about all that from Pizzi is that we found out his dog got the shit beat out of him by a cat. Reggie just took it man. What is happening to your audio?

Holy shit. Your audio is fucked. It's like you're an old kung fu movie. The sound is not matching the mouth moving. Okay, let's get into it. I want to go through the timeline here. Okay, so we wake up and we are greeted to this video here of Conor McGregor walking out on the-

Happy Paddy's Day, America! So this is like the official, I feel like that's the shot where President Trump greets all the dignitaries. I don't know what that building was, but that's kinda how the day starts. We then move along and we start to see that, you know, Conor McGregor is all over the White House. There's the infamous photo right there. Shout out to DJT. Shout out to JD. Look at the paws. The paws look fantastic. Then we move along to the White

House press briefing room, I do believe. Hey, Connor, first of all, did you get in some time with President Trump? And also, I know there's some Irish immigrants in the U.S. without status. What do you think should happen to them? There's some Irish immigrants, some recent Irish immigrants without status. Are we taking questions? Ireland and America, we are siblings. We consider America our big sibling.

So it's important for Ireland to have a peaceful, happy, prosperous country for the 40 million Irish Americans to have a place to visit, to come back to their home. So we wish for our relationship with the United States to continue. And we wish to be taken care of by the big bro You know the United States should look after its little bro. That's how we feel We wish exemption Connor is here to meet with the president. He'll be meeting with him later this afternoon We actually have some stuff that we have to do right now. I appreciate it.

And I will say, Connor is here to meet with the President. He'll be meeting with him later this afternoon. We couldn't think of a better guest to have with us on St. Patrick's Day. We're both wearing our green. This was not planned, but very festive. And as you know, I'll be having a briefing later at 1 o'clock. So we'll talk more about their meeting later. But he's going over to meet with some other administration officials.

He's spending the day in Washington, D.C. So, it'll be fun. I'm here to raise the issues that people of Ireland face. And it'll be music to the people of Ireland's ears. Because never on the main stage has the issues the people of Ireland face been spoke. Our government has long since abandoned the voices of the people of Ireland.

And it's high time that America is made aware of what is going on in Ireland. What is going on in Ireland is a travesty. Our government is the government of zero action with zero accountability. You know, our money is being spent on overseas issues that has nothing to do with the Irish people. The illegal immigration racket is running ravage

on the country. There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop, that have become a minority in one swoop. So issues need to be addressed. And the 40 million Irish Americans, as I said, need to hear this because if not, there will be no place to come home. Okay, so the woman sitting or standing next to him is the press secretary, Caroline Levitt. And like I said, surreal because it's an MMA fighter and it's Conor McGregor in particular,

up there in that very familiar setting with the C-Span logo, holding court, and all of a sudden, what seemed to have been just kind of like a photo op, turns into an impromptu press conference where they're not asking him, you know, when are you fighting again? Or who do you wanna fight?

You know, the typical stuff. They're asking him about real life issues. Now PT correct me if I'm wrong, historically and how do you pronounce the prime minister's name title in Gaelic? It's a shock. Say it. T shock. T shock, which is that is that head of state head of state head of state historically correct me if I'm wrong the T-Shock visits the White House on St.

Patrick's Day yes that's correct and Michal Martin visited days before McGregor's visit on St. Patrick's Day but generally and the T-Shock would visit on the White House on Patrick's Day and it's a big media thing. There's a bowl of shamrocks usually passed from one hand to the other. So I think there begins the issue with the Irish people seeing McGregor being there as a representative of Ireland. Do you have any idea why that didn't happen this time? Did he come a few days earlier so that it could be Connor holding court as the face of Ireland as far as the White House is concerned?

I don't know that. I know that the first time it was made aware, I was made aware of him visiting the White House was when he put out a post on Instagram. I think it was just text like I'm going to the White House. And from there, we had lots of people texting me from different walks of journalism asking me do I know anything about this? I said I didn't. I was like I was going to text them you know like what was happening here.

But alas we saw what happened then on St. Patrick's Day. Okay and so obviously this garnered a lot of attention I believe afterwards. He met with the president himself, his family, his wife, his children. Congratulations, sir. I tell you what, your work ethic is inspiring. Your work ethic is inspiring. Your work ethic is inspiring. A few photo ops. I do believe Elon Musk, we showed that photo yesterday, was involved as well. Mark Burnett of The Apprentice and Survivor fame. The White House is tweeting up. What's that?

Mark Burnett, how could we forget? Yes, of course. There he is. The whole family is there. What an opportunity for them. family only with, uh, president Trump in the middle. Big Elon, not sure what he's holding. Are those cigars? I don't know what that is. Yes. His newest venture notorious. Okay.

Got it. Got it. Got it. Um, and of course, Mr. Kennedy with the make Ireland great again hat afterwards, um, outside now outside now you know there's there's there's press all over the gaff over there starting to ask Conor McGregor some questions this is courtesy of Sky News

Conor the Taoiseach says you don't speak for the people of Ireland, your response to that? I am an employer of over 200 people almost 300 people in the country of Ireland he's an employer of none. Every available metric available to us has shown that the government of Ireland currently has failed the people of Ireland. In 10 years Dublin city centre has gone from one of the most safest cities in Europe to one of the most dangerous. So shame on him for saying that, speaking down on an Irish man. I won't speak about him personally, throw a jab, I could, I could throw many jabs at him, I could throw jabs handily at him.

However, I speak on the metrics and the metrics show they failed the people of Ireland. They do not represent the people of Ireland. What do you say to people who feel it's inappropriate for you to be here, given... God bless Ireland, God bless America. Okay, so as you can see this reporter from Sky News sort of taking the temperature of the people and the reaction and asking Conor straight up about it. sort of taking the temperature of the people and the reaction and asking Connor straight up about it Then here in New York we had Simon Harris

Who's the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Minister for Defense since January of 2025? Hailing from Ireland the the Tanache say for me again what's honest to tarnish it. He's a dick. That's a different role than the T shock. He'd like seconding command going, you know Okay, so here he is reacting to Connors visit here in New York City To the White House, but let me be very clear Connor McGregor is not here in the United States representing Ireland or the people of Ireland. He's here in a personal capacity. He doesn't speak for Ireland. He doesn't speak for the people of Ireland. He has no mandate to do such. And my views on him are very clear, well established, previously Ireland. Okay, so very clearly saying he does not represent us.

Later in the evening on RT News, which is the national broadcaster, a whole segment, I do believe, fairly high in the broadcast, devoted to Connor's visit to the White House. Take a look. That's a strong criticised remarks made by Conor McGregor about Ireland's immigration policies. He spoke of making America aware of the travesty, as he put it, happening in Ireland ahead of a meeting with President Trump in the White House. Taoiseach Miel-Martin said Mr. McGregor's remarks are wrong and don't reflect the views of the people of Ireland.

Conor McGregor on his arrival at the White House this morning. Happy Friday, America! In a social media post before he landed, he said he was in Washington for the most important meeting of his country's future, adding he was beyond ready. During the Taoiseach's visit to the White House last week, the US president, when asked by a reporter, said the mixed martial arts fighter

was his favorite Irish person. I do happen to like your fighter. He's got the best tattoos I've ever seen. I don't know if I'm a victim. Conor McGregor is it? Conor. Well, you have. Conor's great, right? Today, Mr. McGregor was a guest of President Trump.

Conor is here to meet with the President. He'll be meeting with him later this afternoon. We couldn't think of a better guest to have with us on St. Patrick's Day. We're both wearing our green. This was not planned, but very festive. By the way, she says this was not planned. I mean, everyone wears green. Of course.

I put the words right in my mouth. It kind of was planned, to be honest. Maybe not that. Like, what, you two are the only ones wearing green? Obviously, you're wearing green. If anything, she planned it. Maybe he did, but she did. Anyway, we can do it.

Almost 250,000 can do it. What is going on in Ireland is a travesty. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin said Conor McGregor's remarks were wrong. All right, so it goes on and on and on and there's some of the footage that we just showed you. But as you can see this being covered as a very big and serious story over in Ireland. And in fact, P.T. this morning, tweeting out a picture of a local newsstand.

Is that where this is, P.T.? The Irish Daily Mail the star and All all covering this as front page news over in Ireland That's right. What is what is what is gobb da? gift of God like Like an agent like an idiot. Oh jeez. Okay. So so with that, you know, and I don't know, you know with papers you don't know what side they're on, but what would you say is the, in the aftermath of all this,

because we spoke about it last night as it was all kind of developing, what is the reaction to Connor being over there and saying the things that he did? Yeah, it's a bad reaction. But I should, you're looking at the T-shirt and the tarnish to speak in there. Like I don't think that.

If it doesn't necessarily mean like, if you're not a Conor McGregor fan, you're a fan of these guys, if you get me like, it's not a two party system here. There are many people and a lot of people have issues with the government. And there's a lot of people that have issues with the things that McGregor brought up in the safety of Dublin. Immigration issues, all of these things are relevant. You know, they are conversations that are happening in Ireland. However, it's the issue of him being put across as nearly a diplomat,

being able to speak on things like this, getting on the dais and speaking about the country, being in being in a bad place. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, but it's the fact that Irish people look at this. They're used to seeing our head of state meet the American head of state on this day. And instead it's McGregor, a guy who is one of the most controversial figures in the country, is largely an unpopular figure. We have seen his stock being taken off the shelves of major supermarkets across

Ireland, the UK, since he lost his civil sexual assault case in the key to hand November, 2024. Even the hypocrisy of what he said about Micheal Martin, the Taoiseach, with regards to how dare he comment on another Irish man. It's only a matter of weeks since we saw him comment on Paul Hughes and say, in fact, he wasn't an Irish man for representing the Troy color as a, as a dairyman. So a lot of hypocrisy. It's not so much about what he is saying.

It is about who is saying it as far as Irish people are concerned. And that's not to say that that is across the board. Um, every single person is disgusted by his presence there. I'm sure he does have supporters still here and I'm nearly certain of it. Like I haven't met them but I can see them online and so yeah I guess I guess that's that's the reaction of it's been a very poor reaction to him being in that spot in St. Patrick's Day in the White House. Do you think he is campaigning angling

for a position in office some sort of political position? Is this the next chapter? It could be and you know we wouldn't rule it out he has told people that he wants to be the president of Ireland and he certainly said that during the inauguration he was there was a lot of media guys going around I can remember he was asked about it and they said is it time for you to become president of Ireland? He was like, yes. And of course, our own president is going to be stepping down this year. So it'll be a new one put in place. But honestly, like as I said yesterday, the presidency of Ireland is a symbolic role for the most part. Like you sign off on things,

you can't change things. You can't do what Donald Trump is. You don't become the president of Ireland and start being able to kind of organize tariffs and all this kind of stuff. It's mostly like shaking hands, Irish international games. And I do feel like he is using this kind of narrative to harness support in America. Like usually if you look at Conor's tweets, again, I'm not

saying no Irish people are getting behind this, but if you look at the replies to his posts on X about the state of Ireland and stuff, the vast majority of the replies are from Americans who are talking about this invasion of immigrants. Again, immigration is an issue here. I'm not trying to say it isn't, but again, this kind of language I feel is appealing to a US fan base for him, even with the hats then make Ireland great again. It's not something anyone's really talking about over here.

Of course we know that was Trump's big ticket in 2016 and then again in 2024, but it feels to me that he is trying to appeal to a US audience and US Irish people with this kind of narrative So does that mean he'll run at home and given his his stock in the country at the moment? I honestly don't know I guess you know Every horse in a race is a chance. So if he got to that point Who knows I'm curious why you think that he is angling towards like? creating any type of favor with the American audience because let's be honest,

most Americans don't care about the issues in Ireland. They feel like there's enough issues in America. Just like Irish people probably don't care about the issues here, you know, on the whole, they have enough issues. And also, let's be honest, the way the civil trial was covered here in America was nothing like in Ireland.

It wasn't a top story. Most people still in America, I would say the casual sports fan, just like I've always felt if he comes back he's still selling over a million pay-per-views and all that stuff, don't view him in the same light because he's not carrying this flag. He's carrying your flag. And so why do you think he's trying to curry any type of favor with Americans as opposed to to me? I see that and it seems like he's trying to curry favor with his people who may have turned on him He said I'm going to fight for you. He's talking about issues that pertain to Ireland not issues that pertain to America Absolutely, it's it's and again, it's speculation on my part. Well, I do feel as though the language he's using is just and

But I do feel as though the language he's using is just and it's mimicking Trump in a way So maybe that's just his a his strategy to win the people over in Ireland But certainly Irish people have reacted this poorly and so I don't know how much of a good job that's doing for him here Yeah, it's it's again. It's it's something that we have grown accustomed to I mean we we're talking to Bo Nicol yesterday, and you see those photos. Bo Nicol, John Jones, Tim Kennedy, George St. Pierre. And this is not us opining on good, bad, indifferent. It just seems like for whatever reason,

and we've talked about this a lot with the Trump walkouts before the UFC events and how he was covered leading up to the election. For whatever reason, MMA, I talk about the Venn diagram that is combat sports and how uncrowned is in the middle. For whatever reason, there's a Venn diagram of sorts between politics and MMA and it's like this, as opposed to every other sport,

which tries to, for the most part, shy away from it. I mean, you saw it with the four nations, Canada and US, were going back and forth. There have been times where the NBA has really tried to push, go out there and vote, but not really, you know, take a sort of stance on where everyone sits, although, you know, some refuse to go to the White House, etc., etc. In our sport, there is no no there is no type of filter and I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing You kind of know what you're dealing with all the cards are out on the table But I do think it's an interesting thing and perhaps it all kind of flows from the top if if the president if the face is

Okay with that because at one time he wasn't there was once a time where I remember speaking to Dana where he's like We don't talk politics here. We don't talk religion here. We don't talk about these things Those days are are long gone and perhaps they see alright It's okay for the top man to do it to talk about it to just kind of be out with his his thoughts and feelings It's okay for us and then everyone can you know take their cues from there? Maybe that's how you know, maybe that's how it all gets done i don't know uh but it is a very interesting thing and on such an important day for you know for irish people for uh for connor to be holding court at the white house i i found i found that to be interesting especially given what's happened

over the past few months and the the legal troubles and then and then the subsequent reaction to it I found equally interesting so great stuff there from PT anything you want to add before we we put a bow on this PT? Not really I guess in terms of like his presidential hopes and there was a poll done in 2023 that was before he lost the sexual assault civil trial to Nikita Hand and he had a I think it was eight percent eighty nine percent of people polled said they wouldn't vote for him eight percent of people said they would I guess three percent are spoiled or whatever. I don't know if that goes up or down after the civil case I mean we talked about the reaction on here it was quite a big reaction.

I've talked about the boycotts with Tesco, all these major outlets stop selling his things. You'd imagine that would result in a downturn in his bid to be president, but who knows? It is a crazy world we're living in and I guess we'll have to wait and see. Yes, great stuff, Pizzi. Appreciate it very much. And yes, let us continue to wait and see. Again, we don't delve too deep. Usually on Wednesdays, we like to get into politics. Not so much on Tuesdays, but this to me was a really interesting story. And I'm always trying to look at these stories with a clear mind,

with no sort of bias, with no sort of feeling or emotion attached, but just how people perceive the top stars in our sport. And obviously his continued evolution as a figure, both in and out of the sport, I find to be a story worth talking about and covering. So let us see how it all continues to evolve. Now in a matter of moments we are going to be joined by Gunnar Nelson who, like I said, the last time we saw him in action was exactly two years ago today. Would

you believe it? March 18th, 2023. How about that? And prior to that it was March 19th, 2022 that we saw him. So here we are almost exactly two years later, by Saturday will be a little over two years later. We'll see him back in action back at the 02, this time against Kevin Holland. He's kind enough to join us. The pride of Iceland, there he is, Gunnar Nelson, our old friend.

How are you, sir? I'm good, how are you? I'm doing great, long time no speak. It's so great to see you back. Did you know it was two years ago today? Your last fight? Yeah, I did. I did. Yes. And then three years ago tomorrow and it became almost like a yearly thing at the 02. You fighting in March at the 02, although you missed last year. Why has it been two years since your last fight? You know, I've just been concentrating on other things. You know, I've been coaching quite a bit and yeah, focusing on the team and not as much myself. So it wasn't injuries or anything like that?

Not really. I mean, you always have something. I've been fighting for many, many years, so there's always something, but nothing serious, just focusing on other things like coaching and stuff. Okay, and so is it up to you to tell the UFC, like how does the process work? Do you tell them, hey, I'm ready to come back? Do they just hit you up occasionally? How does that work?

Yeah, it's kind of like that. You tell them when you're ready and stuff like that and I was actually looking to fight a little bit earlier than this but Couldn't get mad stop for December and then Yeah, they mentioned London They usually want me here. So yeah here I am How do you you know some believe in cage rust some don't how do you feel about it since it will be two years? since your last fight

Yeah, I mean it's not the first time that I've had a long layover so I'm not too worried Okay, Kevin Kevin Holland obviously a big name a little bit of a quick turnaround for him What did you think of the matchup when it was offered to you? Kevin Holland, obviously a big name, a little bit of a quick turnaround for him. What did you think of the matchup when it was offered to you? Yeah, I liked it. Kevin is a popular fighter. He's a fun fighter as well.

I like the Watson fight. He's creative. He does everything. He's dangerous everywhere. He knows his way around the ground as well. And, you know, he's good, he's fun, he's exciting. You mentioned the ground, that has obviously been a bit of a sore spot for him,

usually when fighting wrestlers, but obviously your grappling is elite. Without giving away too much, would it be fair to say that you're going to try to continue to exploit that, his deficiencies on the ground? Yeah, I'll try to exploit everything I can, but definitely, you know, you've watched my fights and you've known me for some time. It's no secret what I try to do in my fights. Yes. Do you still love the idea of fighting?

Do you still have that same passion? What motivates you at this stage of your life? Yeah, I was actually talking to that with one of my coaches the other day. You have, I've had different motivation like throughout the years. Like right now, I feel like one of the more, the stronger ones would be to inspire my team

and the people that I train with and stuff like that. Did you train for this fight at ATT Europe? Yes. Okay, is that the home gym for you now? No, I mean, I still, my main coach is still, MMA coach is still John, but this time around we decided to go to Croatia to follow my striking coach, Luca, who lived in Iceland for a long time time recently moved back to korea shows so we mean i knew that he had some really good partners for me there and and i decided to go there and and the plan was to go from there to dublin but uh... when we got there we

just uh... like that not a lot and and and to save a little bit of travel we just decided to stay there okay and uh... of course you're referring to John Kavanaugh, the head man over at SBG Ireland, which you've been a part of their team for so long. So will he be cornering you for this fight? Yes.

Okay. Did he go to Croatia too? No, no, we just kept in touch through the internet and stuff and sent some stuff over and we've done that before. We have a very good relationship, me and John. Obviously, I've been friends, very good friends for a long time and he's been my coach from the start. So it's quite easy for us to work together

even though we're not together. Okay. You recently, I think just a few months ago, you welcomed, I think your third child to this great world. Is that accurate? Yeah, yeah. About a year and a half ago. Oh, was it a year and a half ago? I thought it was just a few months ago.

So how many, so you have three now, right? I do. And the oldest is how old? He's 10, he'll be 11 now in May. Okay, and is he training? Yeah, he trains sometimes. He's like on and off, but he mostly focuses on football and he's playing handball now as well.

Amazing. I was just wondering if there's going, you know, we obviously know about your father, legend, yourself. Do you think one of your kids is going to follow in your martial arts footsteps? I don't know. We'll see. I try not to pressure them to do anything, just to do what they love and stay active and just inspire them to do basically what they want to do. So if they wanna do martial arts, then I will fully support them. But if they don't, then that's fine as well.

No pressure to do martial arts, but pressure to eat sheep's head, yes? Of course. Everyone has to do that. When do you introduce that to the youngsters? Like is it at a year or two years? When do you bring that into the- Yeah, basically when they start eating.

Okay, yeah. No, that makes total sense. Obviously, you know, we mentioned your father, the great Halle Nelsen. I saw a series of photos, you and your father, I think 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, you always take the same photo with him on New Year's Eve. Is this the tradition? Where is this? Because I love this. Yeah, yeah, this is outside my parents' home in Iceland. Look at that, same one. Same one every year. This is, yeah, it's a, it's become a tradition for us and we'll keep it. How is he doing? He's good, he's good. He's gonna be here tomorrow night, I think. Yeah, he's happy.

He's getting stressed, of course, like always. Stress because you're fighting? Yeah, it never goes away for him. It never goes away. Do you think he would prefer if you stopped fighting at this point? It would lower his blood pressure for sure. Has he told you this?

As he told me, he doesn't have to tell me. Oh, you could tell. Oh, yeah. OK. How many things in that? I mean, I can definitely see that if my son was was fighting, maybe I would feel the same It's wild because when you when you look back at you know When you debuted and all the cards you were on a lot of those guys are no longer there are no longer fighting even the Guys you came up with that SPG and so I'm wondering how much longer do you want to do this for?

Yeah, I've asked myself the same question, I don't know. And to be honest with you, I'm just gonna go with the flow on this one and take it by ear and we'll see. I still feel very good. It's hard to stop. Yeah, fighting is fun, you know, and it's, there's something there that always calls you back. So as long as I'm healthy and willing, we'll keep going. Is there a chance this is your last one? Is there any chance at all? Yeah, like I said, I'm gonna take it by year. Of course there's a chance, but I doubt it.

I doubt it. I doubt it. Do you like the routine, the cadence of fighting once a year? Is that enough for you? Right now it has been. I've just been, like I said, my concentration has been more on my team and it's a little bit different when you're traveling away.

I always travel away when I'm preparing for a fight and stuff like that. And sometimes I like to just have one thing to focus on, which is hard when you have three kids. But you know what I mean, like try not to divide my concentration too much. So right now it was fine, but we'll see. Maybe we'll get a quick turnaround this time. Okay. Yes. And I'm assuming you don't mind that you're always seemingly on these European cards. Like there's no part of you that says, oh, to fight in America who cares right yeah we were that that's what we're kind of looking at in December but you know we'll see I don't mind I'll fight anywhere really but of course I'm well familiar with London and oh two here and I love it so it's it's

not a problem for me you know it wild? I do believe your last tweet shows your standing in the welterweight division, but it's from two years ago. Most submissions, here you are from March of 23, proud to hold two UFC records, one for submission and the other for striking accuracy in the welterweight division. That's seven submissions and 60.5%.

So this is from your last fight. And you also mentioned maybe not just a grappler with a smiley face. Would you believe it two years later? You're still number one in both those categories. Oh, nice. Isn't that crazy? Nice. We'll try to get it even higher this time.

Yes. But it does show your well-rounded skills and you still maintain that top spot. I did have a little bit of a bone to pick with you because I do believe they consider you somewhat of an unofficial Irishman, right, due to your affiliation with SBG Ireland. But I did see in an interview recently that you mentioned that Croatian potatoes are the best potatoes in all the world and I feel like some of your Irish brothers and sisters would take issue with that so care to I've never heard much about

Croatian potatoes I've heard a lot about the Irish potatoes but not the Croatian so what is what is going on here? Yeah I don't know it's something that just when we arrived in Croatia the food food here, the food in Croatia was unbelievable. Really, really good. And for me, something that stood out was the potato. I don't know what it is that they do with that potato or how they grow it or whatever. It is something else.

Really? Yeah. And I love the potatoes in Ireland. However, I definitely recommend the Irish people to try the Croatian potato and I'd like to know what they think. Compare and contrast. Any particular way you eat it over there? Is it like French fries? Is it just cut up raw? What do you do? No. It's, um, so one of my favorite ways is what they call Pekka. So it's under the oven, they call it. So there's like a big kind of fireplace.

And they have like a steel hood that they put over the food and cook everything like that. That's probably my favorite so far. Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day due to your affinity for the Irish? Not really. Not really, no. No, yeah, you got more important things. By the way, there is a new champion

since you last fought in the welterweight division. What do you think of Bilal Muhammad? Yeah, he's good. He's a good fighter, very good wrestler, and keeps a high pace, and yeah, not too much. I haven't really watched a lot of fights with him, but he's doing well. I feel like you're the kind of guy

who doesn't really stay up to watch these fights. Like, if you're not preparing or active, you're not sitting around on a Sunday morning watching UFC. No, not usually. I have to wake up early the next day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand that. What about the-

I do watch some of the cards, yes. Leon versus Sean, the main event, your weight class. You know Leon, you fought him several years ago. What do you make of that one? Do you have a pick in that one? I like Leon. Sean is another guy I haven't watched too much. No offense, I just don't watch that many fights. But yeah, I like Leon and I mean we've shared the octagon together. And so, yeah, I'd be happy to see him win.

We just talked about your longtime friend and teammates visit to the White House yesterday, Conor McGregor. Have you had a chance to train with him at all in the last few months? Has he been around? No, I haven't trained with Conor for a long, long time. We keep in touch

sometimes on Instagram and stuff like that. Yeah, but I haven't met him in a in a good while. Okay. Years. Really? Wow. Any just any particular reason or I guess him not being active? Well, I guess just life. Yeah. You know, he's very busy doing his thing and I'm doing my thing and yeah, I think it's just life. How do you foresee Saturday going? For myself? Yeah. I'm excited. Yeah, you thinking submission,

you're thinking a striking battle, what are you feeling? Yeah, a little bit of everything. We'll see where the fight takes us, but I'm excited to get in there and feel his energy. Well, we're excited to have you back. It's always fun to watch you fight. I wish selfishly we could see you more often, but I understand why.

And we will cherish these last few fights. How many there are left, we will cherish them. So looking forward to it. Good luck to you on Saturday and thank you for the time as always Gunnar. Thanks very much. Thank you for having me. All right, there he is.

The pride of Iceland, Gunnar Nelson. We've been talking to him for many, many years. His UFC debut, would you believe it? September of 2012 on a card in Nottingham, England. Yes, home to your Nottingham Forest, the trickiest of trees. Main event that night, Stephen Struve versus Stipe Miucic. Would you believe if I told you on that night,

Stephen Struve beat the future heavyweight champion. What a card that was on Fuel TV here in America. Thems were the days. How about this lineup? Stefan Struve versus Stipe Mičić, second round TKO win for the big Dutchman. Dan Hardy defeating Amir Sadala via unanimous decision. Brad Pickett defeating Yves Jabouin via KO, one punch.

Matt Wyman beat Paul Sass, remember the sassingle? How about John Hathaway beating John McGuire? This is a real trip down memory lane. Shay Mills beating Dwayne Bang Ludwig, gruesome knee injury, remember that in the first round? Jimmy Manoa beat Kyle Kingsbury. Akira Korsani, haven't heard that name in years beat Andy Ogle Brad Tavares beat Tom Watson Gunnar Nelson submitted to Marcus Johnson

that was a catchweight fight the Marcus took the fight on short notice Robbie Peralta beat Jason Young in just 23 seconds in the curtain jerker that was his first fight remember that one it was a catchweight at 175 and DeMarcus Johnson came in at 183 took the fight on super short notice he won on that night beat George Santiago beat Omar Ahmed of beat Zach Cummins and then lost a split decision to Rick story he was on that that very memorable July 2014 card in Dublin at the Three Arena. He beat Zach Cummings on that card. I think Pete Tse still has it as his header. McGregor, Cahal Pendred, Patty Houlihan, Norman Park, and Gunnar the unofficial Irishman all up there on the dais afterwards all victorious

What a time that was? Be Brandon thatch the Damien Maya fight was a setback obviously But wins over Albert to Man of Alan job and Alex Ola Vera Had the Leon Edwards split decision loss in 2019. That was on the resurrection card. Masvidal beating Darren Till, lost to Gilbert Burns. But has since won two fights in a row. Takashi Sato and Brian Barbarina. Earlier today outside the O2 arena,

we had Leon Edwards and Sean Brady facing off. As I said, we are inching closer. Here it is. Leon seems very much not into the face off. Kind of looking around like, all right, guys, can we go? Brady looks ready to go. Brady looks pumped. You have to worry.

Is the mind wandering to, you know, to yours? Yeah. Who's the favorite, by the way? Sean Bradius. Really, wow, still, huh? He's actually become a bigger favorite. Bigger favorite?

Yeah. What's he now? Minus 175, Leon number, it's plus 145. Wow, does that surprise you? H now? Surprised me that it's growing this much. I think it would open at like minus 125. Do you think it's because of the wrestling thing? Oh what's going on here? Where'd you get that? Oh this little thing? Yeah what is this? This looks like a real knockoff version of the Poirier hat or the Heist hat. You know what? You would say that. It's actually the non knockoff version.

It is a Poirier hat? No. Our friends at Top Rank sent this to me and us. Anniversary of Hagler-Herns. First round I saw that too. What? Where did you guys get this? That's an incredible shirt. Literally as we were starting the show. Just came.

Oh my god. I love that t-shirt. Pretty sick with the Caesar's Palace logo on it. Yes. Yo, that first round. Shout out to Top Rank, man. If you don't know it, like if you've, if you've heard people talk about it and have not seen it or just, this is the first time, it's, it's excellence.

It is truly boxing excellence. It is the best you will see. Oh my. Rick looks good in a red hat, man. I have to say. By the way. You know what, careful. Careful now.

Careful. No, corner of my eye for a second, I was like, what are we trying to say? You know what we're trying to say? War. What is it good for? Anniversary. They posted that on their Twitter and that's like one of my things. I heard, what movie was he talking about? Bill Simmons was talking about this. He was saying like every time this particular movie

is on, he has to watch the whole thing. I feel that way about Hagler-Hernd's Round One. 100%, can I give you a spoiler? Yeah. He says that about 6,000 different movies. He has created a whole series called The Rewatchables. About that, yeah. For specifically that, like if there's like certain movies

that you go buy on cable, you sit through. You have to finish it. I agree with you though. And also, it's one rep. All you have to see is a short amount of time. It's not like it's like you're sitting there forever. It's three minutes of fucking, I wish we could watch it right now.

That's like today. Is that 40 years ago today? I think it's today. I know it's coming up. No, I think it's April. It's coming up. April 15. So what are they doing?

Are they selling this stuff? Yes. Who sent that to us? Our boy Evan. Top Rank. Who from Top Rank? Just Top Rank? Was it Bob Aram himself? It was signed. Look we have some friends over at Top Rank. By old Bobby A. I love it. By the way it's addressed to us. Here let me just read the letter. It's very nice. Read it. Hey Rick, Ariel, Rick and GC on April 15th we're honoring 40 years of Hagler vs. Hearns with this special collection and we wanted you to be a part of it. Hope you love it. Team Top Rank, so we're gonna give it credit to the entire team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shop.toprank.com. That's where you can get it. By the way, did you, did you bend

the hat like that? No, no, it's coming from... Because there's some people in the chat that are wondering why you bent it so much. I didn't. They're all bent like that. He's trying to make it look like Breaking News. Was it me? Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. why you bent it so much. I didn't. They're all bent like that. He's trying to make it look like breaking news. Was it me? Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I've never seen the fight. You have to.

You need to watch it now. You have to take the- I'm gonna wear my shirt and watch it. I'm gonna sit on my couch wearing- First of all, just watch the first three minutes, like just as a- Don't tell me what happens, no spoilers, please. Okay, it just has like a, you know?

It's so fucking good. Oh my God, that first round. It's one of those things that like, people sell it up to you, cause I obviously wouldn't have seen it in the time that it was happening. It's one of those things that people sell up to you and then when you see it, it delivers.

That's what's so great about it. It lives up to every hype you've heard about it. It truly is incredible and worth celebrating. According to CompuBox, Hearns threw 83 punches in the first round. Hagler threw 82. Hearns landed 67.5%, 56 out of 83. And Hagler landed 61%, 50 out of 82. That's crazy. Pure slugfest. You wanna know something crazy? Jabs thrown, Jabs landed and thrown in the first round. Hearns 11 of 22, Hagler zero of zero.

Yeah. Of the 82 punches, none of them were Jabs. Incredible stuff. Power punches landed by Hagler in the first round, 50 of 82. Oh, that's insanity. Yeah, GC's going to have a good time when he, when he gets on that. Unbelievable.

From the side, this really looks, looks like something. Oh my God. Wait, oh, with the hat? Oh, I thought you meant the, um, Sean Brady, Sean Brady, uh, favorite against Lee forwards. Yeah, style, style wise, you do have to, you have to look at Brady and just be like, there is a clear path there, right? You have to assume if he can get this to the mat or if he can crowd Leon enough that he's

going to have the advantage in those clenches. He's going to have the advantage on the mat. And so I get it. I think it makes sense. I also, let's call it what it is. Like the last two performances for Leon Like he needs to show something here and Brady's a perfect opponent to do it. Okay, but his last two wins We're against quote-unquote wrestlers Sean Brady a completely different fighter. Yeah, I'm not look I

Hope not reading the Colby Covington fight like that was what do you mean? You're not reading it? Colby looks what like shot like yes, but he also doesn't really wrestle anymore. Yeah, he's a pure volume aggression guy and he just like he did not look good. I think it's a really tough matchup. Michael Bisping called it a what do you call it like a nightmare scenario for Leon Edwards because you're going from JDM who you know is a tremendous striker but is not going to try to wrestle you which is playing right to Leon's strengths. I think it's Sean Brady, who I think again, this

is going to piss people off. I think he had a bad night. I think he had an off night against Bilal. I think he's much better. And I think he's proven sorry, not much better than Bilal. He's better than the guy that we saw in that fight, which is his loan loss.

And I think he has proven that since then he screams, he is the guy who is going to fight for a belt does he ultimately win a belt? Why is that going to make people mad though? Oh I mean come on let's be honest anything like yesterday all I mean the most sensitive fans of all time like he came on our show and said to you like the mental hurdles that he was dealing with like on in the lead-up to that the pressure that like it makes all the sense in the world now granted that doesn't mean that if he was to be, like in the lead up to that, the pressure, like, it makes all the sense in the world. Now granted, that doesn't mean that if he was to be in a rematch with Balal Muhammad, that Balal doesn't win that fight.

That's not what's said there. But to ascertain that like, we would see a better version of Shawn Brady, I think that's undoubtedly true. Like that was not a good performance by him. And we would, and I would love to see that fight again. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Like the Sean Brady that we saw against Gilbert Burns I would the pressure the volume I wouldn't mind seeing Leon Edwards versus Balal Muhammad again to at a reasonable hour of the day I wouldn't mind you

can't bring that up you can't bring up the hours I'm sorry it's not it's not it's not allowed um yeah well GC's not. They both had to fight at that hour. I agree with that. Totally. That's not, no, don't. Now you're opening up for this kind of- And Leon did not. He fought on American time.

In fact, in fact, he trains in, in central time zone. It was actually even better for him. It was even earlier for him. He fought an hour early. Now you lost me. But- What are you talking about? There's no way.

Leon Edwards and his team made a massive error in the build-up to that fight. They should have trained in America They should have taken the whole yeah, I know hundred percent. Oh listen, he dealt With the hand he was dealt and he did Leon Leon and his team made a mistake Yeah, they should have moved the camp to Las Vegas or pick a country. Excuse me pick a city in in the United States You can train all you want in the middle of the night. It's still the middle of the night. You're still having to do things. You have kids, you have duties,

they should have just left for two months. And by the way, maybe that's impossible. He has a family, he has things he has to do. Maybe that's impossible, maybe he didn't wanna do that. And yes, I understand that Aspinall and Paddy did well, and the other British fighters who were victorious did well, but he had the most to lose. And he was fighting an American who was able to train. It was a perfect scenario for him. Does the fight go the same if it's happening at 10 p.m. local time or it's happening in Las Vegas?

We may never know, but I don't see why it's such a big issue to bring it up, and I also reject the notion that both had to deal with it. Now only one guy had to deal with it. If they were both British, then you could say both had to deal with it, but look, you got to play with the hand that you're dealt, and he's going to have to live with that. And I also don't know, he said yesterday on the program that he thinks that if he wins, he's getting a title shot. I don't know if it's going to go down that way. Because I feel like if Bilal beats JDM, which could very well happen, I still think they're going to

try to run it back with Shavkat, right? And then I saw Ian Gary, I think it was yesterday, say that he's pissed off that he didn't get a title shot. Maybe the scenario is if Leon wins, he fights Ian Gary. But I would, unless Shavkat's injury is so serious that it's going to sideline him for six, seven, eight, nine months, and that doesn't seem to be the case. His team told me July, August, Leon's probably going to have to win one more if he gets by Sean Brady to get back into that title picture. Anyone disagree? Nope.

Yeah. Ian Gary, uh, said that he was, he was fired up. What was the word that he used? Um, I just saw it on his. Ian Gary said that he was fired up. What was the word that he used? I just saw it on his... Oh, what was the word? I just saw it, I just saw it. Stand by, stand by.

Nope. Nope. It's the microphone in the way? Why are you fighting? I don't care who they want. No, it's fine. I just want to fight. I want to prove.

Why aren't you fighting for the title? Anyway, this is a video. I thought it was in the caption, but it's not in the caption. Anyway, looking forward to seeing him back. Would love to see Ian fight the winner of that fight. Ian fighting the winner of Brady versus Leon makes a lot of sense to me. And then the winner of that fight fighting the winner

of the Montreal main event versus Shafkat because I do think Shafkat deserves it. Oh, okay. Our next guest is here or is he here? Yes, yes, yes, yes. All right, I didn't see that. Looking forward to speaking to him. So we last saw him in action about nine or so days ago and a hard-fought battle.

Eventually it was won by Ignacio Bahamundes, but that wasn't the top story. In the immediate aftermath we found out that Jalen Turner, who's considered one of the best lightweights in the world at just 29 years young, was calling it a career. And obviously very very surprising because we don't see this often and he has spoken about it a little bit in the immediate aftermath wanted to give him some time to maybe process and digest it all have him on the program he's kind enough to come on

so let us speak to the tarantula right now there he is Jalen Turner hello Jalen how are you I'm doing great thanks for doing this and apologies for the mix up with the time zones and whatnot. I thought you were in a different time zone, but I appreciate you being very flexible. And so let's get into it. Here we are, like I said, some nine or so days removed from UFC 313. How do you feel about that night and the decision to make the announcement in the aftermath? Are you still feeling the same way? Yeah, I'm still feeling the same way.

I've been settling in a little bit more. I got the retirement letter from the UFC. And yeah, I still stand by the decisions. And that's just where I'm at right now with it. I saw on the night you did some interviews and you said that you actually considered walking away after UFC 300. Is that accurate?

Yeah, yeah. I took some time off, I stepped away. I didn't fight for about 11 months, almost a year. And I was just trying to figure out if I still had the fire, the drive, the inspiration, I wanna like continue to just fight because there was just so much going on and there's so much going on with me,

just mentally, just the feet always sucks. And yeah, I just had to process some things that I was going through. And I kept trying to find some things that I was going through and I kept trying to find the love for the sport again and find my why again and it just kept dwindling. You know, it kind of would go and you know, it's hard to be at the top of the sport and be inconsistent mentally. You were going into that fight at UFC 300 against Hinata Moekano coming off a really nice win over Bobby Green

And so were you feeling that way going into the fight or was there something about? How that fight played out or that training camp that made you start to feel this way? It ultimately it was how that fight played out. Um You know, I got a lot of strife from the The finish with Bobby and you know, like like the community was strife from the finish with Bobby. And, you know, like the community was like, why didn't you stop? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? You know, I'm a good guy, you know.

So that wasn't my intent to continue to hurt the guy. But that's what you got to do in the sport, you know. You go until the ref calls you off. And you know how it played out in 300 where, I just had a little moment of clarity where I just didn't want to continue to hurt this man. I didn't want to continue to hit him. And yeah, man, like then everybody was like,

oh, you should have did this, you should have done that, try to walk off. And like, it was UFC 300, like such a big show, like the biggest, I think it was sort of, one of the biggest events I think it was sort of, you know, one of the biggest events I was a part of next to Conor McGregor versus Khabib. And, you know, I just really wanted like a big redemption moment, like, okay, I'm going to do this. You know, the USC was hyped for me to be on the card. And yeah, I just felt like I just, just had so much, so much of a letdown on myself, on the people that

believed in me, on the promotion. And it just took a toll. It took a really big toll mentally. And everything just started to just... So many things just got deteriorated in my personal life and just changed up. And there were so many like crazy like transitions and switches and you know it was it was a lot you know it was so much going on and you know ultimately that performance you know like not following up not doing like had I had I won that fight, like had I finished doing those last few punches or this, you know, like from the previous fight, you know, things probably would be a diff, like a little bit different, but you know, like I've already been getting a little burnt out from the sport.

Like I've already been like losing my love for a little bit, you know, but you know, I'm still able to go in there and do what I do, but yeah, just, yeah, I just, I just don't feel it anymore. I feel like my why is gone. I feel like my fire is just dwindled too much to perform at the level that the EOC asked for and demands and where I want to be.

I appreciate you elaborating on that very much. I remember the Bobby Green fight very clearly and I remember the finish and I remember that Care Green fight very clearly, and I remember the finish, and I remember that Carey Hatley, who was the referee, got a lot of the blame for letting the fight go on. I didn't feel like the blame was being thrown in your direction. In the aftermath, though, because you were a part of it,

because you were the one throwing the punches, did you feel like you were at fault? Did you feel like you were getting blamed for just doing what you're told to do, which is go until the referee stops you? In the moment I did it, you know, in the moment I like I saw Bobby still like moving and still a little bit there. And then, you know, after I watched it, I was like, I was like, dang, I was that was pretty bad. And, you know, and then

seeing like, it wasn't too many comments where people were just like, oh, like, you know, like, hey, like, you know, there's people defending me, there are people going against me. And it's just a lot, you know, it's just already a lot. You know, I just, I just felt bad, you know, I felt bad because like, even to begin with, I didn't want to fight Bobby. Like I said in interviews, like I didn't want to fight Bobby. We're from the same area, you know, show him a lot of respect. interviews. I didn't want to fight Bobby. We're from the same area. I show him a lot of respect. And I kind of felt like I got a little push to fight that fight. And yeah, it is what it is. I was one in there to fight and do my job. And yeah, man, a lot of emotions went into that after. And yeah, man, a lot of emotions went into that, like after, you know, I was already like against it

and then, you know, come out and then I get all this like slacks from the fans. I'm like, yo, like it's like, man, it's just, it plays with the mental, plays with the mental a lot. I could totally see that. And you didn't have any of these feelings going into that fight about like losing that fire, your why.

None of that was apparent inside. Yes, to an extent. But anytime a fighter's come off of a loss, we always think, man, we don't want to do this. This sucks. X, Y, and Z. You always get those thoughts in your head. You battle those demons, battle those thoughts, and you can always overcome them. You can always get those thoughts in your head. You like, like battle those demons, battles those thoughts. And you know, you can always overcome them, you know, you can always get over it.

Like, so I was like, you know, who did I, who was the fight before Bobby? It was Hooker, right? Yes. Yeah, so I came off the Hooker fight and even with Hooker, like I felt bad seeing him in the hospital. I was like, man, like, I was like, like dude like I just took time away from this man spend a time with his family you know you have to get surgery like it really weighed it weighed heavy on

me it would weight a lot on me and I you know I started to you know seek help, like, so like talking to therapists for a bit, you know, and, you know, I just, uh, I don't know, a lot of it starts to just get to me, you know, like dang, like, I'm out here hurting people, you know, I don't know why, like, it just, I don't know if it was like a spiritual awakening, like me coming to my faith. It just got rough. It got hard to like want to go in there and like hurt people. And then, you know, I go out there and I do what I do with Bobby. And like, I was just like, like on a more personal note, like it was already like just affecting me as a person, you know, spiritually. So it goes deeper than a lot of people know a lot like then I talk about. So yeah, it's just a little insight.

No, and I can't thank you enough for the insight. I know it's not easy to speak on this, but it actually, when you start to hear you talk about it, it crystallizes the performance against Moikano perfectly. It now all makes sense what happened there, because I think in the aftermath, people were wondering, why didn't you just go that, that you know into that extra gear and finish him off and so in that moment are you are you thinking back to the Bobby Green fight and some of the criticism you received and that's why

you didn't go full throttle? In that moment I just feel like I had like just a moment of clarity you get to a point when you fight where like you're just on autopilot, you don't really Think about anything, you know, you're just kind of like, alright, I'm here. I'm doing my job I'm doing everything I trained to do and you just like just turn on a certain mode and you know I was in that zone and that's when I was gonna fall, you know, I was like, like I just had a moment of clarity I was like, I didn't want to hit him. I didn't want to I don't know what it was My consciousness turned on and you know, I don't know what it was. My consciousness turned on. And, you know, I don't know if it was God,

I don't know who it was, what it was. Like, I don't know what came over me, but I just did not want to keep hitting him. I don't know why. And, you know, people are like, oh, you wanted to do a walk off? And, you know, I kind of seen Herb step in, like, and you know, I've already had Herb as a ref before.

Like, he's done that to me before. So, you know, it wasn't like something I didn't know that could have happened, like where I would have to continue to fight the, fight this guy. I just didn't, I just didn't want to. I just didn't want to keep it. And then same with, with this last performance, like, like Ignacio got me in a beautiful triangle and I had an opportunity to get out. I seen the opportunity, I seen my defense, I seen my time. I just didn't have that extra drive to like fight hard enough to get out, you know?

And I'm aware of it, I'm conscious of it, and it's no, it's just hard, it's hard right now. Hard to deal with. In the immediate aftermath of 300, were you done? And then did you decide to come back for one last shot to see if you still had it in you or did that thought of that final, you know, that finality to the career, did that not fully come to mind? Yeah, it already came to mind.

I was out of, out of an an okay calling it a career then, but I felt like I was doing it more so out of fear of wanting to go back and fight. I didn't feel right with that and I felt like God was like like go out there and fight again you know so um I did and you know I didn't get the performance or the the result that I wanted but um I'm proud I overcome the fear um you know I went out there and uh I tried to do my job and I'm pretty proud of myself. You should be. No, I mean, 0.1% of the people on the planet are able to overcome that fear and make that walk that you've done on multiple occasions.

So you should be very proud of yourself. Did you tell your team, your coaches, friends, loved ones, manager, did you tell anyone that you were feeling this way? Yeah. Yeah, everybody close to me pretty much knew. I talked to coaches about it, talked to my fiance about it, I talked to my family about it, and

you know it was hard you know I to him. I talked to my therapist about it, you know. And I just, it was hard. I talked to Dorian Price. Dorian Price gave me some good information. I talked to him for a bit. He helped me out a lot. And I just got so many mixed results, you know. Mentally I was there, mentally I wasn't there.

And, you know, I talked to my management. I told them like, Hey, like, I don't know if I'm going to fight. Like, I'm, I'm not there. I went through so much. Like, I didn't even have the fight contract signed yet, but the, the UFC was like, yeah, the fight should be good. It should be on, you know, but, you know, I go out to Dubai, I train as if I'm getting like out of this fight. And, you know, like, like stuff gets heavy mentally for me out there. And then I ended up coming back early. I come back to Florida. And then

I told my management, I'm like, yo, I don't think I want to fight. I was like, I think I'm good. And he's like, all right, well, you know, I'll talk to the UFC. And I think like, maybe like a week later, I get the, I get the, the bout agreement. And as soon as I see it, I was like, dang, is this a sign that I need to fight? I was like, I prayed about it. I was like, all right, like, okay, well,

maybe I just need to overcome this fear. And, you know, as soon as I see the bout agreement, you know, a lot of my, of my fear and anxieties went away. I was like, all right, I think I'm good. I think I'm ready to go. And then some other stuff happens during training. I just get a little injury and nothing too crazy. I was like, oh, man, do I still want to do this?

Am I going to be able to do this? It's just a mental battle. And it's the first time I ever had this mental battle going into a fight or training camp where it was winning. I felt like I didn't want to. No matter what came above me or came over me, I don't want to. As prior, no matter what came, no matter what thought came into my mind, no matter what cross of mind that tried to hinder me, I always wanted to. Like I wanted to do it so badly, like as badly as I wanted to breathe, I wanted to do it.

Like I would risk my life to go fight. And I don't feel that, I don't feel that way anymore. And that's really dangerous because you've got to feel like that, in a sense. Not literally, but even just figuratively, in your mind, you have to be willing to sacrifice so much to go in there and fight. How were you feeling in the locker room right before the fight at T-Mobile?

How were you feeling in the locker room right before the fight at T-Mobile? I was feeling heavy, but I felt like I felt a bit at home. I felt a little bit at peace. But then I go in there and they're telling me like Chris Curtis's fight got canceled and I think it was a Chris's Chris somebody else's fight got canceled. Chris's place. Yeah, two fights got canceled and I was like dang I want my fight to be canceled I don't want to go out there this is about to be crazy I was like oh man like I want to have to hear that right now you know and I started trying to warm up trying to like get get through

the nerves get to the feelings and I was like dang I don't trying to get through the nerves, get through the feelings. And I was like, dang, I don't wanna go out there. I was like, oh man. I was like, no, I don't wanna go out there. Wow. And I start moving, start feeling my body move, start warming up, start going through the motions, start hitting pads.

Everything starts coming together again. I started getting my wits about me and I started feeling good. I'm like, okay, this is what I'm good at. I've done this for a long time. Just go out there and move, go perform. And I started breaking a sweat, started hitting the pads hard, I feel good.

I'm just telling myself, okay, it's gonna be like you're gonna go hardspar. Like don't think too much of it. Don't think too much of it as soon as you go out there, as soon as you hear that music, you know, you're gonna lock in, you're gonna be in your zone. And, you know, I'm just standing in the little walkway and I'm just praying, I'm just like praying,

just asking God to like be with me, protect me protect my opponent you know um make sure everything is good and yeah I'm just like asking him just give me courage give me strength and then I walk out and then we go fight and in the fight um I felt so relaxed I felt so at peace I felt so at peace. I didn't feel like, I didn't feel like, normally when you're in a fight, you feel like everything just slows down. You get like this tunnel vision where everything's in slow motion.

Everything that you feel is heavy. Like your body feels super heavy and strong. Like, and it almost feels like when you're trying to run in a dream, you know, like that's how it feels when you go fight. I didn't feel like that. And it kind of, it kind of worried me because I'm like, man, I, you know, like, it just worried me. But it gave me a sense of peace at the same time. I don't know how to explain it. So when we come out and we, you know, we do start exchanging, I felt so crisp, I felt fast.

This was the lightest I ever walked into a fight I walked into this fight at like 173 and I just felt I just felt good and you know I didn't expect him to shoot on me I didn't expect him to try to take me down so we got like that was my goal is to like grapple with him and take him down and then I'm like man I'll think about it I'm like I should have just kept it on the feet, you know? And yeah, just throwing elbows. That was the one thing I wanted to do in this fight. I was like, I want to get in a certain position.

I want to throw elbows. And then we got there. And then like, we go back to guard and I'm just kind of like, all right, I'm just cruising. And like, he kind of like bumps me over one side and I'm like, all right. And I like place my knee too far to the left for too long. And I was like, oh shoot.

And then my coach calls me to grab the overhooks instead of the under for too long. And I was like, oh shoot. And then my coach calls me to grab the overhooks instead of the underhooks. And I'm like, dang. And then like, as soon as I noticed that I was doing that wrong, like he starts adjusting too. I know he heard it. And then he like starts adjusting for the triangle

and then he throws it off. And I sit up and I sit up like this. And I just remember like, I could get out. And like, he starts like pulling me down. And I'm like, I'm like, I could get out. And like, he starts like pulling me down. And I'm like, I'm like, this is, I'm like, it's gonna be a hard fight. Like, it's gonna be a hard fight from here to get out. And if we get out, then I'm gonna have to keep fighting

this guy for the next however many minutes, however many rounds. And I was like, dang, like, do I want to do that? And it's, there's no knock on anyone, like no knock on anyone's technique. Like everything was beautiful. Like he executed everything. I just didn't want to, I just didn't want to keep fighting. And it's, um, it's a wild thing for me to say this experience,

this and talk about this because when I fought Brad Rodiddell, I won't ever forget feeling exactly, I felt like he wasn't there mentally when I fought him. So it always like is in the back of my heart, like dang, I didn't get to fight him at his best, you know, and it just feels unfair. And he even reached out to me after I I haven't ever, I haven't personally talked to him about it, but you know, I did hear that, you know, he wasn't good mentally before we fought. And man, like, you know, that also takes away from, from the victory. It's like, dang, like, I didn't get to battle to get my position from, against someone that was like, willing and ready to lay it all on

the line. They weren't there, I didn't get there 100%. It always takes away from a fighter. And it's, oh man, it's rough. I didn't ever think that would have been me. I didn't ever think I would get to a mental place where I wouldn't be 100% ready to go out on my shield. And I was just, uh, man, it's

just, it's such a mental battle, man. It's such a mental battle because all the skills, all the attributes, all the talent, I know I have it. I got no, it's there. Like I hear all the time. I've heard it since I started fighting. And, um, yeah, man, if, if, if the mental is not there, the body is not really going to facilitate.

Well, it seemed like in the immediate aftermath, aftermath, I think you may have told Dana White that you were done and then he was trying to tell the production team, but then your coaches told you not to say it in the cage? Is that how it all went down? No, he told me to wait up, but I think the security got us out of the octagon when we all went out. And I talked to John Moraga a little bit. And yeah, we didn't get the opportunity

to stay in the octagon because the next fight started to come out. So that was our fault, just miscommunication. But he did tell me to stay in if that was my decision. He told me to wait up. You mentioned speaking to a therapist. But he did tell me like stay in if that was my decision like he told me wait up and yeah, okay You know you mentioned speaking to a therapist. Is this like a a sports specific therapist or a general life therapist? Yes, sports specific. Okay, and so when you're speaking to this individual, are you are you talking about these issues?

Like that that affect you as an athlete or are there other things that you need to explore? I ask you this because I'm someone who's talked about speaking to a therapist. I've done it on multiple occasions for long periods of time very recently as well. And so, not asking you specifically to go into the exact reasons that don't pertain to fighting, but I was curious if you're only speaking about sports-related things or are there other things that are sort of you know

On your mind and making you feel this way Yeah, we we have a good relationship. So we talk about like everything pretty much across the board, you know personal personal it's like Seldom if it's gonna affect my performance as far as sports go it won't both speak on it You know as far as training goes, but yeah both speak on it, you know as far as training goes but yeah, we keep it more on the sports end of everything but you know, just just acquiring the skills and just ways to reset and Keep my mind intact and you know, just overcome the hurdles that that life throws at me

How does your mind feel now now that you you are speaking about it? You have said that you are done Do you feel healthier? Do you feel happier? that you are done, do you feel healthier? Do you feel happier? Do you feel like a weight has been lifted? Yeah, I feel like a weight's been lifted. But also, you know, you know, it's a depth of my dreams, you know, it's hard, I mourn it. The more it's in, the more I think about it. It's like, it gets hard. You get days, bad days. I'll fight back tears talking about it, you know? But I just think it's the right decision. It's the right decision for now. I feel like it's really responsible of me to acknowledge what's going on.

of me to acknowledge what's going on. And, you know, it's not to say that that fire won't come back. You know, I just don't want to keep anybody waiting or anticipating a return if I ever do return because, you know, they never come back, you know. But yeah, I still stand by my decision. A lot of weight was lifted. I'm at peace with it. You know, I still stand by my decision. A lot of weight was lifted. I'm at peace with it. You know, I'm still just grieving. You did write on your Instagram,

we'll see what the future holds. And we know in fighting people come back and you're so young and you're so talented, it wouldn't surprise me if in three, four years you do come back or if you don't. We've seen it go both ways. If in fact you don't come back, what do you think you do now what does this chapter look like ultimately I'm not sure I'm

not really sure where it goes but I do feel like I still be around the sport I'd be involved in sport in some way shape or form I definitely would like to connect with like younger fighters and you know help them maneuver through anything that they're going through and just be a veteran now. Just show them ways and show them things and just help them give back, especially to the fight community for sure. Yeah, I don't know.

As far as your career goes and as far as everything else, I'm not sure. I'm just going gonna let God open doors and just work his way. And yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll start doing interviews or something. I think I'm well-spoken. I think people would like to talk to me, who knows? I think you would be great on this side of the table.

I think that would be a phenomenal idea. How do you feel about the sport? Like, do you think you'll be able to watch it follow it? Do you need a bit of a break from the sport a break from the drip the gym? How do you feel about it right now? Yeah, I think I think I need a little bit of a break I don't know. I wouldn't say from the sport per se but from the gym. I definitely do I got a I got to get surgery soon. I think it's surgery.

I think art scouts have surgery, so we'll see. Surgery on what? My knee. Meniscus tear. Did that happen in the fight or before the fight? Yeah, before. Okay, so you were going into that fight not at 100%. Yeah, I didn't know that it was torn.

I just felt like something happened. But like, even in the fight, like when, you know, went to the ground, I felt it pop. I was like, oh, I'm sorry. Oh yeah. But you know, just, that's no takeaway. Like, I think I'm fortunate for only having three, this would be my third surgery in seven years of MMA.

Wow. And you're certainly not the only athlete, especially in the last few years, to speak about dealing with mental health issues. And I think it's inspiring, and I think it's very commendable, especially as a fighter, you're perceived to be an alpha male,

you're a tough, strong guy, fighters don't want to speak on weaknesses and whatnot, but I'm wondering since you have talked about this a little bit, have you heard from a lot of fighters who have reached out or people who have reached out to say that you have been an inspiration in doing so? Yeah, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback and you know a lot of motivation and you know people telling me their stories and how they struggle, fighters struggling with their own and telling me I can get through it and just being inspirational. I feel like I've been more inspired by them than they've been inspired by me. So yeah, I'm usually an open book, man.

Like I don't really hide what's going on. I know there's people that can relate. I don't care about negative things that people have to say. And, you know, I'd rather be vulnerable in the public eye. So like other men can understand, like it's okay. You know, like you don't have to You can be a fighter and you don't have to be like oh this this tough guy 24-7 because it's just gonna drain. It's not it's not realistic, you know

Everybody's different. There's some men that are like that, you know, there's people that are like that, you know I meant to each their own like I just for me, this is not me. And I don't mind talking about like what I'm going through mentally, you know. The more you understand, like, the more the dots connect, then, you know, I feel like there's more empathy involved, if people can understand that just what I was going through. And I feel like a lot of people just need to open up about it, you know, talk about it, you know, because there are people that care. And yeah, I didn't even think I was going to get as much love from retirement as I got, you know, because the last thing, all I could remember was a bunch of the hate from the Moicano fight,

how many parles I messed up. I can't believe you guys hear that stuff. I cannot believe, I can't fathom writing that to an athlete. And I know you guys deal with it. You're not the only one to mention that and it sucks. it's so unfair you guys don't deserve that and you know I hope that you are now receiving more love and this tends to happen unfortunately it's like when someone dies they get all the love in the world people tend to celebrate you only when you say goodbye and that's not fair in

its own right but you deserve all of that you are one of the the best fighters in the best division in the UFC with an incredibly high ceiling and still extremely exciting. Obviously you want to win all the fights, but win or lose, like Jalen Turner was never in a boring fight. And ultimately it comes down to entertainment and everyone looked forward to your fights. And I know that you probably never envisioned it going down this way and you certainly probably didn't envision walking away at 29, but can you look back on the body of work with fondness or do you look back now with like through the lens of some of the sadness and regret?

How do you look back on it now? Or is it still too fresh? It's still pretty fresh. I look back at it and you know, like I appreciate how far I've come, but also,, but also it's not where I want it to be. I want it to go a ways further. If I think about it too much and I dwell in it too much, I'm just going to get overwhelmed mentally. I might be like, all right, I'm just going to just get overwhelmed mentally. And I'm just, you know, you might be, I might be like, all right, I'm coming out of retirement knowing I'm not ready.

You know, like, it's just, that's not healthy. So it's like, I'm, you know, I still, man, like when I started just in my backyard, like my dream was to be UFC champion, you know, and, uh, I'm, I'm very proud of how far I've gotten though. You know, just a little kid training in his backyard, learned no direction, didn't know what I was gonna do with my life. About to graduate high school, didn't know about college,

just started training in my backyard, training with some friends. And Jim had a fight team trial, man. And I just went, I said, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna give myself four years to find a big motion, make my way. And I did, you know? So just this. I'm going to give myself four years to find a big motion, make my way. And I did. So just looking back at how far I have come

and everything I have achieved and everything I went through, all the adversity I went through, everything I pushed through because I wanted to do it, it gives me a lot of peace. And just knowing that I don't want to, feeling like I don't want to as badly or anywhere near as badly as that young man that started. That's dangerous man. That's dangerous. Can't play with it. Positive. Silver lining. You can now skateboard and

not have to worry about getting injured or affecting your MMA career. You can do whatever you want. You can you can tray, I do believe it's called. Is it called switching tray, yes? Yeah, switch tray. Switch tray foot? Flip? I blew it, Jalen, I blew it. I tried to sound cool and I didn't sound cool.

But you could do those things, which you're very good at. Yeah, yeah, I definitely want to get back on the board. I mean, you know, I got to get this knee fixed and then I can play and then I got some more fun. You know, a member of our team, Alan is very good friends with your, one of your coaches, Ant, Ant Morataya Gonzalez. And he sent us this message to relay to you,

if you don't mind me reading it before we say goodbye. He told us, being in your corner has been an indescribable joy and privilege. From the moment I saw your raw talent and fierce determination, I knew I was witnessing something special. Being a part of your journey meant more than just coaching. It meant sharing in the exhilaration of your progress, celebrating your victories, and learning from your challenges. This sport doesn't just remember champions, it remembers warriors. No matter what comes next, I'll always be in your corner. That's a profound

impact and relationship that you have. Yeah, and incidentally, he's always a man. I love that dude, man. I appreciate that. Well, we... Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah. When, uh, you know, one of my previous coaches didn't want to, didn't corner me. So I asked Anthony to come corner me. I like, we, we had to talk for a bit and, uh, you know, he still was open arms, you know, to, to work on me again. I really appreciate that.

You know, that, That means a lot. And man, like having real genuine love, like it always feels good. It feels good, like unconditional love feels good. And I appreciate it for that. We appreciate you. A tremendous run, a tremendous career. If this is in fact the end, you should be incredibly proud. Not a lot of people get to the UFC.

Not a lot of people are victorious in the UFC as much as you were. So thank you. Thank you for opening up. Thank you for sharing your emotions with us. And we'll just say, see you later. Not goodbye. You're gonna be a part of the sport,

perhaps on the broadcasting side, the coaching side. You still have a lot to give and you're still so very young, so we can see you back in there. But take your time, be kind to yourself, you know, get well and thank you. I know this is not easy and probably not a fun interview to do but I can't thank you enough for being as open as Candid as you have been. Thank you for having me on, I appreciate you. See you soon. Yes sir, thank you Jalen, all the best to you. There he is, Jalen Turner,

really appreciate him very much and not easy to talk about those things, not easy to express those feelings, to hear those thoughts and feelings, but a very real thing that fighters go through, that all athletes go through. And man, if there's one takeaway, if there's one takeaway, if you're that kind of guy, if you're that kind of person that sends a fighter

a message about a parlay or about, you know, a bet or something. Please just don't do it. This stuff does affect them. This stuff does really poison their soul, their brains, their mindset. Why? You thought enough of them to bet on them going in. Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy. Please, for the love of God, if I can ask for one thing, if there's two things that I could wish for, no more apex and no more parlay bet tweets to fighters who lose fights, especially not ones that are that talented, who probably have won you a whole bunch of money. Please, don't do it. Stop. No more. Let's move along. And again, thank you so much to Jalen Turner for that incredible interview. One of the big stars coming out of a hotbed of mixed martial arts right now, France. We've been talking about France, how great France has been, not just in mixed martial arts,

but pro wrestling, boxing, just absolutely on fire when it comes to all things sport, basketball, football, combat sports. Everything is the last pirate we've had him on before. His name is Morgan Charriere and he's going up against Nathaniel Wood. It's a battle between a former Cage Warriors bantamweight champion against a former Cage Warriors featherweight champion. It goes down this Saturday in London at the O2 UFC London. Morgan, kind enough to join us. There he is. Salut. Morgan, how are you? I'm all good and you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you Morgan. Hey. How are you? I'm all good and you?

I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you for the time. It's great to have you and looking forward to this fight. I'm wondering, considering it's former champion at 135 cage warriors against former champion 145, is this a fight that you've been thinking about? Is this a fight that you thought was always going to happen that you wanted? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're right. That's a fight that I was thinking that could happen one day, especially when I see that Nathaniel get up in a wave class. I was like, maybe one day I will face him. I think I was not in the UFC yet when he jumped from a wave class, but I was already looking at him like, no, he's in my weight class. He could be a potential opponent. You're coming off a great win back home in Paris. How are you feeling? Do you feel, you know, it's been up and down a little bit, but are you feeling like your

confidence is high? How are you feeling about the state of your UFC career? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now I feel really confident and really happy about my three last performances in the UFC. Like I've done my debut, I've had a great finishes, a great finish in my first fight in the UFC. Then a fight of the night against Maurice Kyle. That was kind of a fight of the month on the UFC 300 same month. So and then after another performances on Paris again with a big knockout again.

And right now I'm facing Nathaniel Wood here in London that I know well the city and Nathaniel. So yeah, right now I think the state of my career in the UFC is pretty good. Three fights, three main car fights, three bonuses. I couldn't expect better things to happen to me. By the way, did you cut your hair? No, no, no, no. It's just a ponytail? No, they are there, they are there.

Oh, it's there, okay. It's, because I saw in the picture there, but it looks, and that's your brand, right, Outsider? Yeah, that's my brand. That's amazing. What kind of gear, like how would you describe it? It's a brand that reflects my identity, like being the Outsider, just facing everything

and trying hard to, you know, just driven, get as far as you can and just love your passion, be happy and do some things with all your friends and just live the life and be the outsider and embrace it. Why do you feel like the outsider still? Because I don't know why, but each time I fight or I do something, I'm always the outsider or people are underestimating me. In France or in the world, every accomplishment I do is a bit diminishing.

And I always need to do more as the others do. I need to do more to have the same thing. So now I embrace it and it's part of me. And even when you're fighting in Paris, in your home country, you feel like an outsider? Yeah, even in Paris, there's a lot of expectations around me. And they're always really really hard on me. They wait. I don't know whether they want more from me. So yeah, I always feel like I'm the outsider. Do you feel like they are supporting you or waiting for you to fail? It's kind of, of both. It's kind of both. It's like I have big support that the people

that follow me through my journey, that follow me through my YouTube channel or my social media, and there's a lot of people that are just waiting for me to. Really? To go really sideways. Why do you think that is? Cause I always kind of viewed the French fans as some of the most loyal fans, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

Yeah, yeah, you're wrong. Okay, wow. Is that something specific to you or do you think that's the way they treat all the athletes? No, no, that's the way they treat all the athletes. They are passionate people, but sometimes social media, they make them, I don't know, kind of free to throw things at fighters that they want to spread negativity around fighters that are getting too much media or too much hate on them.

They, I don't know why, they wait for them to fall. So quickly they are just waiting to be able to put meme on your face and do bad things. Yeah, tear you down. Do you feel like they're this way towards fighters specifically or like, I think of, you know, Victor Wembenyama and, you know, some of the football players and Bapé and Benzema, these guys, are they like that

to all the athletes or is it just a fighting thing? No, no, no, that's same for all the sport, especially football, for football guys like him, Bapé, it's hard to be in these shoes, no. That's same for all the sports, especially football. For football guys like Mbappé, it's hard to be in his shoes. Really? Wow. Everybody is just looking, trying to wait for him to make a wrong step and he will be in all the media. You know, I ask you these questions because I was in Paris for the Olympics this summer, and I saw so much pride, fierté, you know, like the French pride was so on display

that I thought it was beautiful how it seemed like for any time an athlete was competing, any event, it seemed like the whole country was stopping, but maybe that was just an Olympic thing. Yeah, that's a big Olympic thing, and that's like we have two big sides. There's the big space, the big support, and there's the big negativity side. It's like we have both, you need to have both. That's the balance. That's the balance. If there's passion in it,

there's a lot of negativity if you lose all these things. Yeah. The support when things don't go your way, you go away, then you... It's pretty tough. Like, seriously, when you lose to Jones, he was hard here for me. Yeah. For him, yeah. Is that part of the reason why you consider yourself the last pirate? That's one of the reasons I consider myself the last pirate. Because when I was in the cage, I was trying to make my way to the UFC.

I didn't have a lot of support. I had a lot of support from the guys that was looking through me, through my YouTube channel, all the stuff I was doing. But for the big mainstream people, when I get some losses, it started to get hard for me. The public opinion is really changing like this in France. Yeah.

I remember when we spoke, you were still in Cage Warriors. Has the UFC experience been what you expected it to be or has it been different? No, it's way better than I expected it to be. Like that's the big show. I'm so happy to be here and fighting here against top competition, top level, be there in big event facing, yeah, you know, just leaving the sport like I've dreamed about, just performing in front of so much people and be able to showcase my skills like this

and be treated this well is like, yeah, UFC make you understand that you are really an athlete and that sport is big. By the way, you mentioned your YouTube channel a couple of times, but I think you haven't posted on there in like the last four or so months, how come? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's because I'm focused on fighting. I'm focused on fighting. All focus are on it.

Because I have a lot of experience now and I know that social media, YouTube stuff, all that kind of stuff, that's cool. But it can take from you and yeah, fighting is unforgiven. So I don't want to lose an opportunity or make something wrong at the beginning here in my career in the UFC. I want everything to be perfect. So all my focus is in fighting. I've made the work to be known in France and all of this stuff. So right now all I need to do is ranking of performances on performances and from now I'm doing So even leading up to the fight on Saturday posting nothing No, nothing on YouTube only on my Instagram There would be a pretty pretty crazy trailer video like I know how to do. Oh, but not on YouTube

Yeah, I can't easy if tomorrow there was a a first glimpse that drops at 5pm UK time. And then on Friday, after the wedding, I think 6pm on UK time, there's the big one trailer coming out and you will see what the last PMH is all about. Okay, I look forward to that. By the way, I know you're into like motors sports and stuff like bikes and do you do that leading up to the fight or do you stop doing all that just in case you know to be safe? I don't know if I can say. Okay okay maybe that says it all maybe that's the answer. But you know it's like traffic in Paris is hard so I need to to be on the motorbike at least to go to training.

Right, right, of course, of course. Do you wear a helmet at least? Yeah, yeah. Helmet is mandatory here in France. Okay, all right, all right. All right, you get a ticket. No, it's harder than a ticket. Like, you don't want to go through a bike without a helmet. It's impossible here in France, impossible. Even cars will stop you, no cops. Everyone will stop you if you go without a helmet. Oh wow, okay. By the way, you and I, you know we were colleagues.

We're both on the Netflix show, The Cage, La Cage. You know that? Me and you, we were on the same thing. You saw that? Yeah, brother, yeah. Yeah, we're big time on Netflix. Look at us. Yeah, bro, yeah. Yeah, we're big time on Netflix. Look at us. Yeah, big time.

First MMA series like this was on Netflix, done by a French producer with all the French stars. So here in France, it was pretty big because we were all the fighters we needed. There was me, there was Salahdin, there was Cyril, there was the Lazy King, everyone. Yeah, no, amazing. Really, really cool. And first for me, I'd never been in something like that before. Yeah, no, amazing. Really, really cool.

And first for me, I'd never been in something like that before. Yeah, you like it? Yeah, I wanna do more. I wanna go to Hollywood. Maybe, maybe, we'll know. By the way, why didn't Saladin Parnas, why didn't he sign with the UFC? Our brother is making too much money in case the value.

Okay, were you surprised? No, I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. And he is wise. Like everyone is fighting for his own, own reason. Yeah. He started really young fighting like 11, maybe he has a family to take care of. He has a young daughter.

The sport is unforgiven. So, you know, he's in case the bill is he has a family to take care of, he has a young daughter. The sport is unforgiven, so you know, he's in case the bill is, he has great pay. So for now, I think he's doing the right thing, but I'm not his manager, I'm nothing. I can do whatever I want, but I think taking the money is righteous. Can I ask about someone you trained with, Taylor Lapilouz.

What happened there, what do you make of that situation? He's no longer in the UFC after being three and one. Yeah, I think right now he's fragile. He did not been released, it just his contract finished. So I think they're in talks, but he is looking for opportunity to, you know, get paid more or have bigger fight because right now he's a bit getting older.

Okay. From his career. So he's trying to get some money, some recognition because I think he's one of the best bottom weight in the world. He could be easily top 15, but he hasn't yet had the opportunity to show it. So yeah, he's talking with the UFC and all this kind of stuff. But again, I'm not his manager, so I don't know what their plan is. I just know that he loves UFC, but he's getting older, so he's looking for opportunity or

at least know where he's going. I do believe your team, US Metro Bisot, is that right, or Bisot? Bisot, yeah. Bisot, Bisot, excuse me, I should have known that. You're investing a lot in the amateur scene and trying to bring up youngsters in the French scene. How is that going and how do you feel

about the state of French MMA, from the pro to the amateur ranks? French MMA is exploding. It's like, that's crazy here. amateur ranks? French MMA is exploding. That's crazy here. I think no other country can see what happened here. It started with all we have done on social media, but right now all the kids, they're all in gym. It's like every MMA gym is full, mats are full.

And here in US Metro, we are pushing excellence. It's like, that's really the best amateur who have programmed to develop them. They are specific training time for amateur. And then there's the amateur that are really high-scales or really good, already fighting in big leagues that train with us pro. And brother, their level, it is incomparable of what we have built

us as a matter. It's like the next generation, we have a good French fighter but I think the next generation is really going to shock the world. They've trained on everything and they see what my generation is doing so they are taking notes. We are teaching them everything we know. And so they are as good as me on social media and they are as good as every top fighter. They will be on skill levels. Like they will bring the whole package. They will be crazy kids. Right now just in amateur scene they do things that pro doesn't even do. And yeah, I'm looking out for them. Like you will see in a couple years there will be some bigger names than there right now. I was wondering is boxing as popular? Is it just MMA? Because I hear so much

about MMA in France but not as much about boxing. Some fighters, there was Bruno Soras who beat Rami Mangia in December, but you don't hear about as much of a, I don't know, of a fan base, of an excitement. Is it the same or is MMA way more popular? No, MMA is way more popular. It's like, yeah, we're taking it by storm. Boxing, they are a bit too shy on social media and so they have gotten eaten by MMA fighters. We hit them on the majors, on the show skills, on the show when we are fighting, taking the mic, the thrush talk, all this kind of stuff. Boxing is a bit too in the old school way here in France and they don't talk as much as us MMA fighter to the younger generation.

We're always on, you know, TikTok, Instagram, all this kind of stuff. And UFC, you know, they play a big role. UFC, each time they come here in France, it had something. It put really a lot of light on MMA and there is non promotion in boxing that do what UFC is doing here in France, even one time a year. So yeah, boxing need to find a star in front. There are some really good or young upcoming, there's Bakary Samaki, that really good and also French guys that pushing the sport here, the boxing sport.

So, but thanks to MMA, I think it's pushing right now the boxing scene because since MMA has become bigger, we are seeing more boxing. We are seeing more MMA fighters going sparring with boxer influence. And he made a lot of talk on social media and all of these things. So MMA is helping boxing to get back to where it was before. And yeah, I hope boxing will be bigger so all these guys can have what we have right now. I saw earlier today you were signing the posters.

Is that you, you're wearing a necklace and it looks like there's a person there. Is that you on the necklace? Yeah, yeah, let me get it. That's crazy. Wow. That's the last pirate. How many diamonds there?

I don't know, bro. That's a lot, wow, that is incredible. Who made that? Chain Nation. Is that a gift or you got it? You asked for it. Boss, I would say. Okay. I did not pay for it? Uh... Boss I would say I didn't pay for it but

we made a big collaboration we throw some jewelry for the public with my heart like just this part this part and so I got this as a gift, the last pirate

Did you also get a tattoo of yourself? Yeah. You know everything. I know, there it is. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What does that represent? It represents everything.

It represents the beginning. It's like the last pirate. That's the mask. That's the first time I put an edgy on Instagram. That's the thing that started the world seeing that this mask that I created. And then it just stayed with me all through the cage while when it was COVID time and there was no public, no scene, you had to do something more to get the eyes on you. And when I wore the belt, I had the mask and it made such an eyes on you. And when I wore the belt, I had the mask and it made such an impact when it was COVID time

and everything was closed during lockdown that it's kind of my identity. It came with me, it's part of something I've done. So yeah, I've hit in me now. I love that mask. Do you walk out with it for the UFC events? No, never. Why?

With the UFC because UFC they want to see your face to get a mask on. The mask is great. Yeah. So maybe one day they will let me, but right now I think I'm not a big, as big fighter as I can. Maybe when I would be a bigger fighter, they will let me come to with my mask and I would do some crazy, crazy entrance. Yes, we need that.

I want more of that. I love that. I love when fighters are into selling themselves and are unique, are different. So you wanna wear the mask, they're just saying right now you can't. Yeah, yeah. I didn't ask right now to wear the mask

because I want to wear it for something that means. I don't want to wear it like each time I make an entrance, I want when I put the mask on, you know where you're getting. Okay, fair enough. You're gonna work your way up, I understand that. Do you like the idea of being, you're fighting a Brit, a Londoner in London. So you're probably, and you're French,

you're probably not gonna be cheered know, cheered very, very loud. Do you like the idea of being sort of the bad guy on Saturday? Yeah, I love it. The last pirate is like, I don't care. I am the bad guy. I finish people, I knock them out. I am the bad guy.

I want to help them. So being the, in any meto-rater territory, being these guys, yeah, bring it on. That's my world career. That's my identity. When I started at MeMe in France, it wasn't legal. So I needed every time fighting the local guys in the enemy territory, being Buet or whatever, being in the worst condition you can, the worst local room you can find everything was on me so it's like right now i'm in the UFC and i'm fighting Loder or two arena is like common like easy to do it here and London is not new to me yeah you can they all know me they've seen me fighting here in cage warrior and doing all this stuff now it will be a crazy fight so

yeah i don't think i'm the bad guy here. I think we are both together, but to put on a spectacular show. I love it. How do you see it playing out? How do you see the fight playing out? I don't know. I think we'll do a pretty great striking war.

We'll try to knock out each other. I think Nathaniel has really a great package. Complete fighter, it's hard to finish him. I'm hard to be finished. I think Nathaniel has really a great package. He's a complete fighter. It's hard to finish him. I'm hard to be finished. So we're pretty going for a 50 minute war, I think. But I hope I will get the finish because that's what I would try for.

And by the way, shout out to your, I believe your girlfriend, Julina, who's a world Muay Thai champion, Julina. She do K1. K1. How do you pronounce her last name? Nielusmas. Yes. Do you spar with her? Do you train with her? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One time a week we train together. And when we are on vacation, we train together and when we are on vacation we train together. She is five times world champion in K1, four or five times national champion, three times European champion, indefeated 48-0 I think. This girl is a monster.

How much does she weigh? What weight class? 56 kilos. 56 kilos? What is that? 56 kg. I weigh. 123. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Will she be at the fight on Saturday?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's coming. She's coming. Okay. Well, I look forward to it. Everything you're doing is great. Very fun. I enjoy your personality and how you market yourself. So keep it up. And of course the fights are great as well.

Three bonuses and three UFC fights. So looking forward to another on Saturday night. Bon courage. Merci beaucoup. Yeah, thank you. J'apprecie and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you so much.

Yes, sir. All right, there he is. Morgan Charriere, the last pirate. What a great character and what a fun guy to root for. Kind of marches to the beat of his own drum. A bit of a, you know, an outsider, like Scott Hall and Kevin Nash back in the day. Doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon.

You know, they got a lot of style over there in France. I don't know if you guys know this, but I spent a lot of time over there this past summer, and I was very impressed. Who, me? I did. They've come a long way. They used to not be known to be like very cool, very hip. The French are very hip now.

They're very hip. Very hip. Don't be fooled. I mean, they're killing it on the sporting scene. Wemby, unbelievable. It's true that combat sports was illegal over there? Oh, yeah. MMA, up until very, very recently. It was one of those things, the likes of Czech Congo couldn't fight in his home country. They were one of the last major countries, maybe there's still one or two left,

I think Denmark still, but I mean they were a massive kind of hole in the global domination map for mixed martial arts and the UFC in particular, and it was always talked about, oh, they should come back and fight in the UFC. And I think that's the biggest thing that happened in the global domination map for mixed martial arts and UFC in particular and it was always talked about they should come there but

I don't think anyone predicted this I don't think anyone thought I think people thought it would be like you know a nice little market have a couple stars have a couple people but the the explosion from the you know from the fighters from the gyms from the fansms, from the fans, from the media. Shout out to our friends at La Sueur. I see they do great stuff over there on their YouTube and on their social media, on their website. All the crowds are just unbelievable.

I was gonna say that first show back in 2022. Oh my God. That's what really put them on the map of wow. They take this stuff seriously. When they do that thing, when they start to sing the national anthem in the middle of the fights, I, is there any other country that does that? I don't think so.

Like you don't hear them singing God saved the king in the middle of a fight. Like, will they do that this weekend? Probably not, probably not, but they're singing da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, la Marseillaise. And, and actually he said in his post fight interview after the win in September that he heard them singing it in a previous fight and it gave him like a jolt going into his fight. So yeah, I think it's wonderful. I think it's absolutely great. And yesterday it's not France, but yesterday what a scene it was in Brussels, in Belgium. That crowd. You know, initially I thought, why are they saving, you know, John Cena's first appearance on television

for an afternoon show here in the United States in Brussels? Not known to be a hotbed, but again, they proved that they know what they're doing, we don't. That crowd in Brussels for John Cena's first appearance since turning heel was unbelievable. Like they understood the assignment. They knew exactly. And you could tell, I feel like deep down inside, if you haven't watched it, WWE has uploaded it. It's a 30 minute segment of him coming out. And you could tell, like you could kind of see deep, deep, deep down inside, he's loving this. He's never gotten a chance to play the role. He's become

an accomplished actor now, so he's probably relishing the opportunity of being the bad guy. But that crowd knew exactly what they had to do. And I've never heard anyone do this. I've never. They were singing that. It was amazing. Oh, it was incredible. This poor kid buys the Brussels merch and gets called a total loser by John Cena. And you know what I loved about it?

I actually thought it was brilliant. Everyone thought he'd come out like wearing all black with a beard, change his music. He came out looking the exact same. He came out looking at the exact same. He came out looking at the exact same. It was brilliant. If I can nitpick about one thing, I felt the

promo like there was, if I could just nitpick about one small thing. Tell us, hurry up. Get to it. Okay. So it was a little whiny and, and I understand that, that a heel is supposed to be whiny, but it felt almost too predictable in that it was like, you guys have always played me like a puppet.

You don't care about what I want. You don't care about me. It's like, no, they do care about you. They've had your back. And yes, there was the whole, let's go, Cena, Cena sucks thing. I would have liked if the promo focused more on why he did what he did to Cody Rhodes. Like it's it's less about my relationship with you guys and I understand that's the way you have to go when you're trying to become a heel and turn on everyone. That's what

Hulk Hogan did back in 96. But if they would have if they would have gone back to some sort of period 10-15 years ago because Cody has talked about, Cody has talked about sitting outside a crappy hotel with his future wife Brandy and has talked about seeing the trucks with John Cena's face on it and hating John Cena because he was what he thought he was going to be. Cena was what Cody thought he was going to be. And I believe, I think he told it to us, I believe he had a yoo-hoo, and I believe he threw it at the truck. And this is when he was miserable in WWE and when he knew his time was coming to an end.

And so I thought, and there's still plenty of time, there's still about a month before WrestleMania. I thought he would go back to being like, you've never wanted what's best for me. You've never had my back, and now you're the top guy, and you think that I'm just going to roll over and let you be the top guy when you were trying to do everything in your power to take me down as the top guy.

When you were jealous of me, when you were throwing drinks at the sight of my face, you've always wished bad upon me. So screw you. I'm not going to be a part of your little story. You know, this is all about Cody. You're the American Dream's son. You got to finish your story. What about my damn story? What about my fucking story? I want to be the one with 18 times wearing the belt. I'm the one who gave everything to this business. You turned your back on this company. You went out there and built a competitor to this company. You tried to take us down. You took a sledgehammer and you smashed Triple H's throne on their first show. You're not

the face of this company. I'm the face of this company. And when I come back, everyone's telling me about how great you are, about what you have meant to this company, about you finishing the story, you're in a thing with the Rock, you're on the cover of everything, you're the face of the company, you're the first one to come out on Netflix. No, what about me? Come on, tell me that's not fire. It's good but my question is, is that heel? That's heel. That feels like people will get behind that. People will be like, yeah he's right. I know you were saying it, I was like, yeah he's right. He's right. You're cooking right now, but you're right. You're not healed. You're not healing off. You're

actually, you're speaking truth. You're playing baby face at that point. That's baby face. I think Cody is so beloved that people will... That's fair. I could buy that. People will view that as him being jealous. I feel like he's spitting truth. Maybe he rips it out when he's in front of Cody. Off the top of the dome dome that was a pretty damn good promo. That was a pretty damn good promo. I went from the Yoohoo to this and that to building the competitive to take us down. I think he's got to get the cheap heat right now. Yeah. Just got to get the cheap heat. The kids crying on the on the Twitter. I mean what's cheaper than that? I mean that shit is like nothing I've ever seen. The way the crowd reacted the second his music hit they immediately jumped in and chanting,

Cena sucks. It was like, it was deafening. It was like you could barely even hear the music. You know what that sound reminded me of? It reminded me of, obviously for a much shorter period of time, but it actually reminded me of Brian Battle in Paris, where it sounds like a swarm of bees.

They get so loud with the hissing and the booing over there. We don't have that type of passion in America. If that show was in Chicago or Minnesota or St. Louis or even New York, I don't think it's that loud. I think it's- There's something about the passion of the European fans that is just different. It's different.

I do think a boo could get pretty loud in the- I don't know, like that. Like in Philly and the- I understood. They understood what they had to do in that moment. I feel like there's a passion and there's also a like you they rarely get WWE Yeah, especially in Belgium. So it's all got to be diehard fans pulling up to it I think it's more of an awareness of like how big a part of the show they are, right?

They know we are we are part of this relationship and we are delivering and then they deliver I mean the custom Belgium merch is just insane. So you know that was this thing because he's on this retirement tour right and every city that they've gone to like when they were in Toronto he had Blue Jays inspired merch and and but were they selling it as well? Yeah. WWE sells it in each one. Wow that's pretty damn good. Oh it's brilliant. Yes the last time is good. Yes, the last time is now. And so most people thought, okay, he's a heel now, they're not gonna do it anymore.

Because what's the main thing that we always heard about Vince McMahon? Vince McMahon at WWE when he was at the helm, he didn't wanna turn him heel for two reasons. He was the number one merch guy and the make a wish stuff. Ah, I can't do it. And so for them to continue is not what anyone expected at all. Not even close. Okay, but now everyone thought that he would show up in like black. He would have like, word life. This

is basic thugonomics music, like mean, angry music. It's the same thing. I think it's brilliant. Okay, but here's a question now. That kid probably bought the merch and he's still like, oh, I love John Cena. Does the merch now become for the people who are the heel fans, for the people who are not like, who want to boo John Cena or is it for the support? I can't actually like, it's too meta. I don't know who's gonna buy the merch.

Can you be fan of a heel? Are you a fan? 100%. Yeah, I mean, look at NWO. Yeah. You know, some of a hero. You wanna see the evil guy. 100%. Yeah, I mean, look at NWO. Yeah. You know, some of the most quote unquote popular, it's different now. And the other thing he talked, he said,

this was a great line. And this is kind of the mode that they're in now. I'm not a baby face. I'm not a heel. I'm human. Ha ha ha ha. What a heel line that is. Such a heel line.

But it's so good to mention babyface and heel because people are like, ah. They pop for the wrestling lingo, it's great. The human line is ridiculous. They're breaking the fourth wall. It's so heel. What a heel line it is to say you're not a heel. Man, what a crowd.

That crowd was amazing. God, I love that. You just have to watch the social clip for 10 seconds and you're like, holy shit. The second that music hits, it a crowd. That crowd was amazing. God, I love that. You just have to watch the social clip for 10 seconds and you're like, holy shit. The second that music hits, it's insane. And then Cody was good too. Cody came out, he said, you know. I actually didn't even see it.

Oh yeah, he comes out. Yeah, I was all seen it. And he's basically like, I wanna go up against John Cena at WrestleMania, not this whiny bitch. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of curse words these days. Maybe that was the ploy, like he wanted to sound whiny

and then Cody called him. Yeah, I thought it was like maybe like on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the whiniest, it was like just a smidge too whiny. We're ramping up to it, man. Yeah. We're ramping up to it. So I got a month till WrestleMania?

By the way, yesterday speaking of which, I'm watching Nick's Heat and I swear all of a sudden I'm like, is that Vince McMahon in the front row? And then I type in Vince McMahon, Nick's on Twitter, and lo and behold, Vince McMahon in the front row. Looking good, baby. How about that? St. Patty's decked out.

Oh yeah, he's got the green on for St. Patty's, got a little splash of white on the front. What's happening with that? What's going on in the front over there? Rebrand little rebrand for Venom, but is that is that calculated or is that just au naturel? No, that's calculated. Come on. Like so what are we saying? What are we saying to the barber or to the calculated or he ran out of just for men Like you say don't touch the white. Yeah don't touch the white or make this

more white. Yeah give this a touch of white on the front and then jet black the rest of the way. What a look. Go silver fox man. Just the whole thing? Yeah whole thing. Let's see it one more time if we may. The skin doesn't match the the jet black hair. You think just go fully. Fully white man own into it. The green, how do we feel about that one? No, I love it. So what's green here? What's green here? The shirt is green?

The shirt and the jacket. Oh, and the jacket. I thought it was pink. Your colorblindness is crazy. No, seriously, I can't. I wonder if he It is the greenest green. And what about the jacket?

The jacket's green? Super green. I mean, he's about to turn 80. Let's just go full gray. It's all good. It's all good, man. Wait, the jacket's green too? It's all gray? Yeah, green as possible just go full gray. It's all good. It's all good, man. Wait, the jacket's green too? It's not gray? Green as possible.

What? Green is all green. Now do you think that was a coincidence or was that done on purpose? Calculated, St. Patrick's Day, it's all calculated. We learned that when you wear green on St. Patrick's Day, it's a coincidence. It's a coincidence.

No one does that. This was not planned. No one planned it. We both wore green. Yeah. By the way, Andy, what do you think of the hair? What do you think? Good look or should he just let it go?

I'm a fan of like gray hair in general. Just let it go. Like, you know, X-Men Storm, like that's a vibe. So he should just do it, man. Just run with it. You're 80. Jade Cargill-esque. I think she, she dies.

She might die. Yeah. Do you think she? Do you think so? I don't might die. Yeah, you think she I don't know if it's is it a wig. Maybe she Brandon Phillips is it Brandon Phillips? Yeah, I think Brandon Phillips her husband. Did you know that do we talk about this? I don't know who that is shortstop Cincinnati Reds Cleveland. Wait, what? Yeah for real. Yeah Oh, I thought we were talking about different Brandon Phillips. I'm like oh Brandon. Yeah you remember him Brandon Phillips? It's Brandon Phillips right? That's your husband? Brandon. Cincinnati Reds. Am I right about this? Shout out to the Reds man. Wow. Shout out to the Reds.

Shout out Brandon Phillips. Yeah Jade Cargill uh they have a daughter they met in 2015 they've been together ever since. They own a sports team. Wow, I did know that. I had no idea. A soccer team? Is it a soccer team? What's the name of it? I don't know. This whole conversation and the inflection going up

and up and up. This one? No, I can't see which team it is. I think it's a soccer team. Is it a soccer team? Right in the middle? Unless I'm mistaken. Soccer, soccer team? Right of Philip? Unless I'm mistaken. Soccer, soccer team?

Like is it like a? Oh yeah, the Texas Smoke. Ah yes. Softball, women's fastball. Wow. Someone else owns that. Someone else is in that ownership group with them. Women's professional fast pitch, the WPF?

Yeah, Texas Smoke. Shout out to Jenny Finchman. Oh yeah, she in it too. No. professional fast pitch, the WPF? Yeah, Texas Smoke. Shout out to Jenny Finch, man. Oh yeah, is she in it too? No. She was like the face of softball back then. Pleasure, pleasure. I didn't know there was a professional fast pitch league.

I know you do. Thanks to Brandon Phillips and Jade Cargo. It should probably be WPFP, because fast pitch seems like it's two words, is it not? WPF, WPFP, WPF, because fast pitch seems like it's two words, is it not? WPFP, WPFP, WPFP, anyway. Shout out to all of them, and if you didn't watch that segment, I thought it was great. I'll say it's an 8 out of 10. 7.5 out of 10, is that fair? I think the boys over at Uncrowned.com weren't blown away by it.

The vibe was a little bit different. Go check it out. HeelJohnCena has officially arrived. Did his big WWE Raw debut miss the mark? Oh, they've been killing it over there. Crowd was 10 out of 10. Anything else I don't really care about. Well, I mean, you want to know about the,

the evolution of the character. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not speaking about the article. The article is great. It's incredibly informative. I'm talking about my rating for it. The crowd was 12 out of 10. Yeah, crowd was 12 out of 10.

Coming up later today, my friends, we will have multiple guests on the Ariel and Ade program, including Sebastian Fundora, who is also in action this weekend, could be next for Virgil Ortiz. Shanika Sugarnichs-Johnson, who was involved in a very bizarre ending of her last fight returning.

She's on that Sydney card in, on match Ramon de Zone this Saturday in Sydney. So we have much to discuss. In addition to that, some talk about a Tank Davis-Lamont Roach rematch on the 21st of June, potentially that's being thrown around and a lot of stuff that happened over this past weekend. I can't really shake, I got to be honest, I can't really shake the emotion and the feelings and connecting, like the connective tissue between the Bobby Green fight. Remember how controversial that was,

but it wasn't really his, like I didn't feel, and obviously we're not in his shoes, I didn't feel like he was the one getting the heat. I felt like it was the referee, Carey Hatley, who was getting the heat. But then the connective tissue between that fight and then the Moive tissue between that fight and then the Moicano fight,

and then what we saw two Saturdays ago is kind of wild. And I had not made that connection. Obviously we needed him to spell it out. But that was, you know, I was reminded a little bit of like, do you remember, Rick, you remember Frankie Perez? Yeah, there was a few like that. And I was trying. Guys who just out of nowhere retired, you know what I mean?

Yeah, but also the, one of the, the threat through lines is, and we've heard it before and I was struggling to think of who we've heard it from, but I don't want to hurt people. Yes. It's a very specific thing for, to hear a fighter say something like that. And it's not the thing, like naturally, when it

comes to Mo, when, when everybody saw the Moekano fight, instantaneously, it was, ah, he was trying to be cool. You know, he was trying to walk off. He was trying to be cool. And he said as much that everybody, you know, was, was saying that, but it was a completely different thing kind of going on in his head,

and it's not something you would often hear from a fighter. In fact, very rarely, and most of the time, not open enough to say that. So yeah, it, you know, back here, I was definitely reacting in a way that I just appreciated Jalen Turner's openness and honesty about that, because you don't hear that.

You really don't This feels like a great Ben folks article him talking to a few guys who just kind of lose that That killer instinct that that desire to hurt people because it is something that you have to wrestle with and we have met so many guys who are so calm so so docile so you know just So pleasant so nice and then you're like, when does the flip get switched? When does that happen? Um, and how do you balance the two, your, your, your personality that is so completely different than the person we see in the cage.

And I feel like most MMA fighters are actually quite like that. Just sort of like mild mannered calm. There used to be this, the stigma that they stigma that they're barroom brawlers, but not the case. Very, very introspective, very smart, very thoughtful. And the way it kind of led him to doing the opposite against someone that he didn't even want to fight in his friend in Bobby Green is just crazy.

It really is wild, because I mean, he is one of the most vicious dudes at 155, and to hear behind the scenes that he isn't even sure he really wants to even hurt people. And honestly, him being that open about just 313 and how he was like, man, I did not want to go out there. It was touching stuff from Jalen Turner, for sure. A couple of other things we want to touch on before we go.

What about the Dracus Duplassi watching the Alex para fight against Magomed uncle live and saying that the aura was gone Do we agree or disagree? Disagree, I thought it was a bad performance But yeah, let him let him go spark someone in round one the very next time out and the same guy The aura will be right back the same guy if he comes back and back and beats Ankalayev, he's right back there. Yeah, if he gets redemption and knocks out Magomed Ankalayev, it'll be like it never happened. Yeah.

He was probably upset. And he said it, that a potential super fight out the window, and it may not be, I mean, this could just be, you know, a roadblock, a blip on the radar. He is getting up there in age. But I never felt like we were close to getting DDP versus Pera anyway. it's not like it was oh you

got to get by if anything it felt like oh you know you get by him and now we're talking about Aspen all Jones Usyk that type of stuff yeah it felt more like Alex would be the one steering that by the way I was closer to Alex going up than DDP right I agree well DDP has work to do at Middleweight but man he's he's killing it right now. It came to mind, the person who I'm thinking of. Rory McDonald. Rory McDonald. It was Rory McDonald. Yes, yes, yes. I remember that. And then from there, King Mo saying the Rory Convo inspired his own. And that was what was coming to mind for me. The Rory McDonald Convo. Now the difference

is Rory a little older. No, yeah. Jalen Turner's also, by that time, already more accomplished, right? Rory had already done so much in the US. Oh my gosh. Went over to Bellator, but there was a, you just, there's certain guys who open up

about the idea of like, I just lost that will to hurt people. I was there, and Turner said it, He knows skill-wise, he can hang with anybody. Physical gifts, like you just look at him, you see the frame that he has, you know that he's equipped to do this, but just lost the will. But respect for the brutal honesty with himself, respect for him opening up to us about that. And wish him well, just in life. Like, you know, this fight game is not the be all end all, and good on him for recognizing it.

So you know what's wild? I say Rory was older. Rory first said that, if you recall, in the cage after the draw against John Fitch in 2019. He was 29. Oh, there you go. But he actually stuck around. He stuck. And then he, he said this again.

And it just kept feeling like he had, after that John Fitch fight in April of 2019, he had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight more fights. Yeah. And went something like two and five, if my math is, is correct, or maybe three and five here. So wow, that's a great. I feel like it was really the end of the Bellator run where that kind of solidified for me.

The Fitch fight was his third to last Bellator fight, then he fought Gracie and then Lima. Ah, that's a perfect one. Now also Rory like, you know, took a lot of damage and a bit of a different career, but fantastic. Absolute great comparison there. Ian Gary, I was talking about him. Here's the actual quote, courtesy of an article

on MMA fighting, quote, I had a chat with my agent, that's Lloyd Pearson. I rang him when I heard, when they told me this news. Now he's referring to Jack Della getting the title shot against Balal, and I was livid, still am am to this day I had a number one contenders fight where the guy now has to get his knee or knee reconstruction surgery and is out for a year but you know it's not my fault I didn't stab his knee 20 something times and boot the leg off I'm not fighting for a world title because

I'm coming off a loss and they're giving it to a guy who's been injured for a year and they think that's more exciting but they are wrong the world title because I'm coming off a loss and they're giving it to a guy who's been injured for a year and they think that's more exciting but they are wrong. The world title was meant to be Shavkat taking on Bilal Mohammed for the world title but Shavkat apparently is out injured. I wonder how that happened. Which they then cut to an image of Ian attacking Rachmanov's knee that's back in December. Now they're pulling in a guy who hasn't fought in a year because he's had an operation on his forearm because he broke it in his last fight. Hasn't fought in a long time. Hasn't been active. So they're giving it to Jack de la Maddalena to fight Bala Muhammad because

I'm coming off a loss. That's okay. I'll get you all. You're all mine. Do I think I won the fight against Shafqa? No. I believe on that night and to this day that Shafqa won three rounds and I won two. Respect. But I was very close to winning that fight. In my mind, I was a takedown away from winning the fight and I would love to run it back one day. And I would love to avenge that loss and I'm excited because I believe that guy is going to hold the belt one day. We said it, we both knew and I said it that fight week. I believe me and Shavkat are going to meet each other far more than once in our careers He ends by saying I would like to fight international fight week June 28th I don't care who I don't care who they want to put in front of me

I just want to fight and prove that I am the best in the world By the way, I don't think he has a you know, I Like I don't think he's off base. I think he has a case. He could have been called. I don't think people, do you think people would have been up in arms if he and Gary got the title shot over Jack Della?

No, no, not at all. There was no clear next guy. It was Shavkat. Yeah. And so I don't think anybody would have been up in arms, but nor do I think it's a particularly compelling case to be like, I should have been the guy. I don't agree with that either. Like, I think it was just next man up.

When you bring up the fact that, you know, you had a main event, you had to reconfigure things to adjust, he did lose a close one to Shavkat, but lost fair and square. Jack Dilla hadn't fought since, you know, March of last year. He has a very strong case. If Jack Dilla had been on this long winning streak and just fought in November or December, hadn't fought since you know March of last year he has a very strong case if Jack Dilla had been on this long winning streak and just fought in November

December he'd be like yo this guy's been active he's been but it's it's a it's a compelling case he seems pissed that he wasn't I think there was a phone call for him to fight Leon and I think Leon confirmed that yesterday but I don't think he was interested in that I'm not as compelled I wonder how the people would have reacted to it I think people would have been fine I don't think he was interested in that. I'm not as compelled. I wonder how the people would have reacted to it. I think people would have been fine. I don't think anybody would have been upset. You don't think? Because I don't think like is anybody going ah Jack Della thank God he got it like nobody's you know particularly in the camp of this person had to be the one. It

was Shavkat or whoever. Honestly the fact that Ian took that fight against Shavkat and was that competitive with him gives him a claim to the title in these circumstances. I wonder who he fights again I think he he should fight the winner of this fight both guys have a history with him both guys have wanted to fight him and I think that could be a number one contender fight. This fight you're talking about Leon and yeah Sean Leon and Sean sure there's still tomorrow out there float I'd rather see Leon and Leon and Sean winner versus Buckley oh actually Buckley's

out there there's a lot of guys actually you might have got me with that I want to see you know honestly I want to see Buckley versus Usman and and Leon Sean winner I'm fine with that let's do that I'll run thatley versus Usman and Leon, Sean, winner versus Leon. I'm fine with that. Let's do that. I'll run that. Like use Usman as a way to get Buckley over if he can.

And then, you know, he's still like build them up just a little bit more and Ian fighting the winner of. Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian versus Leon would be incredible. Yeah, I like it. That's what we'll call it. Ian, the Ian battle. I want something about that matchup and the history of there and the backstory and the training. Yeah, I like it. That's what we'll call it. Eon. Eon battle. There's something about that matchup and the history of there and the backstory and the training. Yeah, I think that would be fun. Irish versus English.

Yes, and I think Brady versus Ian would be great too. Remember Brady after he beat Gilbert Burns called out Ian. Now they're both managed by the same guy but doesn't really matter. They would fight. They would fight. Oh, hell yeah. I just think Lloyd probably wouldn't want it to happen. No, it's true. The same predicament that Tim was in when they booked Jack Della. It can't be fun. You just have to stay out and you just let them do the business.

Tomorrow on the program, we will answer your questions as always. ariahawani.substack.com is where you can send said questions. ariahawani.com where you cancom is where you can send said questions. ariahawani.com where you can get merch, which I don't have any here. We will be joined by Corey Sanhagen who is going to be headlined the much talked about UFC Des Moines card which we found out yesterday everyone's going to except for me. It's gonna be a grand old time over there in the, what is it, the- Actually no one is going except for me and Rick. Well you said there was one other person.

Oh yeah, camera guy Nick. I don't view that as part of the team. The Corn State? Is it? There's no chance. What is it? Oh no, it's Iowa State. The Iowa is-

Quad Cities? Is that? No, that is- They are the Hawkeye that is the Hawkeye State the Hawkeye State what's the Quad Cities the Quad Cities are the moine there is a there is a yeah, thank you there is a Triangulation there is an area where those Quad Cities are Well, I learned about the triangular trade with my son where those Quad Cities are. Well, I learned about the triangular trade with my son. This was the 13 colonies with the West Indies,

with Africa, and I think with Europe. You're doing like history homeworks. Yeah, we're doing that. Now, who are the Twin Cities? The Twin Cities are Minneapolis and St. Paul. Okay. Yeah. What are the Quad Cities?

Quad Cities, I'm gonna say- Quad Cities are Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline, Rock Island in Illinois. Oh, it's Illinois and and Bedenorf in Iowa and Moline Rock Island in Illinois. Oh it's Illinois and I was forgetting Moline. It's a border. It is a specific area. What even is a Hawkeye? I forgot about Super Chats. Thank you for that Frank. Yeah what is a Hawkeye? Also shout out to Bedenorf. It used to be a hotbed of mixed martial arts with, you know, Pat Miltich and the squad over there, Monty Cox. I mean, this is a whole other era.

Quad Cities, by the way, a bit of a misnomer. Actually, five cities included in the Quad Cities. Oh, what's the fifth? We also have East Moline. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Moline? Moline, Moline, you know, tomato tomato. I think it's like the song Moline, Moline, Moline, Moline. Frank's sending a message here.

No it is, and it's written about the Quad Cities. I just wanted to finish the lineup for tomorrow if I can. Corey Sanhagen is going to join us, so looking forward to that. What a guy, always love those chats. We're going to have some breaking news. Can you say it's breaking news if it's 24 hours in advance? I don't know. Regarding a major combat sports promotion, so stay tuned for that.

And extremely excited about this one, the man himself, the originator of the spear and the jackhammer, the one and only, the guy who had the longest winning streak in the history of professional wrestling, Bill freaking Goldberg. Goldberg, also a product of the University of Georgia. Damn right. Are you getting him on to talk NCAA tournament, our first appearance in 10 years? It's exact, is that really it? Is it, wow, holy crap, I didn't realize that.

Yep, he's a fellow dog, he's a fellow Falcon as well. Shout out to Marundi, had a cup of coffee. Big Bill Goldberg fan. Yeah, the man. He'll be joining us tomorrow. Very much looking forward to that. I wonder if he'll have a thought or two on the John Cena heel turn.

Could we pipe in some go brrr, go brrr. They used to pipe that. I think we're just gonna do it. All of us will get on mic and do it. And of course a fellow MOT, if you know what I'm'm saying I do believe we have some super chats before we go Frankie We do we only have 60 seconds hard out there 330 come on hurry up already doing it Oh, look when right since Frank can't be bothered to filter these being bop boom boom boom bop bam yep No, that's accurate. Thank you appreciate that point out

They were like didn't Ariel give Frank shit for filtering these before so I just want to know yeah the chat No, I see you. I appreciate you Mason Bickner, right? St. Pete's Day driving the cats out Wow Is that because of the snakes because yeah, yeah, uh-huh Sledo says just watch the Hagler Hearns, meh, prefer Rose Carla too. By the way, I like how you refer to it as the Hagler Hearns. The Hagler Hearns. Did he watch the MMA too?

The same pizza you just got to me, that was great. What else? Ben Hatch says, boys in the back appearance, Orlando PFL round one. Wow. A real invited. Watch this one. Okay, now you're just just now you're just mocking me with this shit All right, first of all, I mean come on. Do you want to go worst part of all time?

We go to Disney World to you know Universal Studios. That's where it's at. Wow Universal over no, no, no, no, the card is happening on the law. Oh, yes Why are they doing it's on a freaking soundstage at Universal Studios circa WCW 1996 era What else is it? The final super chat there won't be any more after this is from Jake from Windy City Ariel I agree with you as much as I loved inside the NBA It has run its course for me so much hate now you UEFA Champions League with Micah, Jamie Terry and Kate on CBS has surpassed them now

How do you but you UEFA UEFA UEFA? It's close. What's all this tick turns laughing at the fact? I've never heard that why why is this the last one? It's the last one for the day because you're always like is there more and I'm like, oh gotcha gotcha gotcha I thought you said last one of the week. No, man. And I appreciate Jake. Come on, guys, has inside the NBA jumped the shark? I mean, what's going on over there?

Last week, a whole controversy, Shaquille O'Neal talking about the Pistons, gives credit to Chauncey Billups for the resurgence. Chauncey's the coach of the Trail Blazers. JB Bickerstaff, former Cavs coach. Yeah, shout out JB. Coach of the Pistons. JB Bickerstaff, former Cavs coach. Yeah, shout out JB. Coach of the Pistons. And then, as I think it was Candice Parker,

who I think does a great job. She's fantastic by the way. Yeah, this was on the Tuesday edition. I pay attention to all of this. Says he doesn't coach them, he coaches the Blazers. He's like, I don't watch the Pistons. Like what? What are you talking about?

Now we all kind of assume that they don't watch. And I always kind of find it weird that they make them do the college basketball stuff, you know, on Turner and CBS. You can't tell me those guys are watching college basketball year round. I mean, there's no way. You can kind of tell.

Chuck is actually watching it for the first time when the tournament starts. I don't watch, look, I can't say I'm like every night with Inside the NBA, but I'm not watching for Shaq's analysis of the post-shows. I used to watch, I used to sometimes tune in just for the post-show or just for the halftime. But you're tuning in for the vibes, right? You're not tuning in for them

to really break down the game. The vibes are negative. The vibes are- Wow, negative aura? You don't think so? I don't have the foggiest, I don't watch it at all. I only watch Hawk's local broadcast. The vibes are not as, they're always complaining

about the Knicks, they're always shitting, they're picking fights. Oh, now I see, now I see. No, no, no, they keep talking about Bowl Bowl for some reason, like throughout the NBA All-Star weekend. Pace? He talks about Bowl Bowl? No, they kept talking about Bowl Bowl over Wemby.

It was because there was like this internet debate that Bowl Bowl is as good as Wemby, but he just didn't get a shot. Enough already. He kept bringing them up. Oh it's so great. Now I will say this they're infinitely better than the ESPN halftime and post because ESPN does it in 30 seconds like 30 second intervals like you can't even watch it it's just commercials. There are no there are no good shoulder programming things for basketball outside of that. So it is the best.

It is still the best because there is nothing else. I am looking forward to next year, clean slate, NBC. Hopefully it's the Prudential Halftime Report. We're talking about Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, some new young voices. Mellow, can't wait for that. Mello's third act has been unbelievable. I mean, even yesterday. Ambassador. Even yesterday, he's bringing in, no one on the Knicks had any balls to stick up to

Draymond Green and defend their guy, Kat, and it's Mello bringing him in after the game being like, don't forget who you are. Now, I don't what exactly what he said, but the visual was great. I love, I love, I love this, this version of mellow here, dad ambassador, um, FIBA ambassador. Love this version of him. I think he's going to be great on NBC. Um, I'm looking forward to, I just want a fresh clean slate. I'm tired of the same old.

You mentioned Candice Marker. She's fantastic. She is great. She is really good. Iron Eagle, no Eagle. You know, we know we love the greatest. The goats. Dwayne Wade was great. Like we just, yeah great. She is really good. Iron Eagle, Noah Eagle, we love the Eagles. The greatest, the greatest. Dwayne Wade was great. Yeah, Wade is also very good.

All right, so inside the NBA is dead. No, but they're going to ESPN. We're killing off Ernie. No, I love Ernie. Ernie is the best. I feel like it was six months ago. This was like the Untouchable show. They're untouchable, they've jumped the shark.

No, no, no, I'm not ready to go there. Jumped the shark? Jumped the ship? What's the difference they've jumped the shark. They're still, no, no, no. I'm not ready to go there. Jump the shark? Jump the ship? What's the difference? It's the shark. Flip the switch. By the way, can I tell you guys something?

It is flip the switch, yeah. You guys will love this. Yesterday, I'm watching Nick's and Heat with my boys who their love of basketball makes me so happy. And my son, his name is Walter. I got him a Walt Fraser jersey for his birthday last month. Anyway, throughout Knicks games, like usually in the third quarter,

they'll have like Clyde's magical moments presented by Puma. He's a Puma ambassador. And it was a highlight of I think like the 1975 playoffs, Knicks bullets, I think. And the highlight was very underwhelming. It was him making a layup and then shooting a free throw. And I'm like, guys, look at this.

And I rewind it. I'm like, look at the form. Look how pure it was. No three-point line. Look at the fundamentals. This is that. And they're like, this is so boring. They're like, this is what my two kids were saying about me.

Look at this guy. Look at this guy. He thinks he's unk status. He wasn't even bored. He wasn't even bored for this game. And he thinks he's Unc status. He wasn't even bored. He wasn't even bored for this game and he thinks he's Unc, you're not the Unc. I'm like, what did you just say to me calling me Unc, thinking that I'm Unc status?

They said this about me. They're saying, look at this guy, about their dad. They're talking amongst each other. They were flaming you. Yes. They were flaming you, yeah. They were talking about me, like I'm some guy on the corner of the street, look at this guy. Yeah, they hit you with the Unc status. He thinks he's Unc status. No, you're not even good enough for Unc status. That's what they're saying, you're talking about me like I'm some guy on the corner of the street. Look at this guy Yeah, they hit you with the thinks he's on status. No, you're not good enough for

Like look at the game back then 1975 like you weren't even born Talk about how you weren't even born We do have to talk about how trash to take it is to try and pretend that that basketball was good I was so good. So good. So good. I love it. That shit was that. It was amazing. Straight garbage. Me and Connor are about to roast you as bad as you're doing. They're wearing like the high top Pumas that got the short shorts. Don't need it. Don't need it. I was watching- There's no nostalgia. It's just bad.

Wemby would average like 38 points. Luca would average 42 points, 15 assists, and 97 rebounds a game in that. When do I get to be UNK status? You gotta earn it man. Like is there an age? Well yeah when you are actually referencing grainy video that you were alive for. So if I talk about like the 1983 NBA finals. Yeah I think real UNK status comes in like another like 10, 15 years when you're looking back on old UFC highlights. Have I reached on status in MMA or not yet? The fact that your own sons won't call you onk is tough. I'm not sure onk is good though. I feel like you don't want to be Unc, but now they're saying you're not even good enough to not be Unc.

I feel like early 30s you don't want to be Unc. 40s is cool to be Unc. Yeah, yeah, I like it. I have to say, Sugashan and Timbo, they call me Unc. They call me Uncle Ariel. Like they're like, yo, Uncle Ariel. And I kind of like it. I kind of like it.

Yes, you're, I mean- They're the only two that do it. No, but now you're certified. If Sean O'Malley is saying you're Unc, you're Unc. So you don't have to ask. Yeah, you're, I mean. They're the only two that do it. No, but now you're certified. If Sean O'Malley's saying you're ank, you're ank. So you don't have to ask. Yeah, you're MMA ank. All right, you're in there. I feel like that's a new show idea.

MMA ank status. The MMA ank, and it's just you. Like if I talk about, I was there when Gunnar Nelson fought Zach Cummings at the three arena. Y'all don't know what it's about. What is ank talking about right now? What is ank talking about right now? That's what we'd say. Pilot this Unc talking about right now? What is Unc talking about right now?

That's what we'd say. Pilot this with the boys, see what their reaction is, and then we'll know if it's Unc or not Unc. How about Gunnar Nelson, man? They had a few words. No nonsense. So much spoken in those few words. And the biggest pop.

He was probably respecting the hard out. So he was like, I don't want to be long winded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Biggest pop you got from him was Irish potatoes versus Croatian potatoes. Oh yeah, yeah. The smile, he exploded. He asked him about his dad with New Year's Eve,

he's just like, yep, same house. That's us. Same picture. Last thing I'll say about the kids, cause they are always on YouTube, that's all they watch. I was like, by the way, do you guys even subscribe to my channel? Uh-oh. Oh God. Uh-oh. Damn. Now do they have their own accounts watch I was like by the way do you guys even subscribe to my channel oh god oh

damn now do they have their own accounts or is it on your account now they have their own oh boy it was a period where they were uploading random stuff like roblox and in Minecraft they got to subscribe can I tell you one last thing well I don't know if I should say this on the show we were talking about this we were talking about this on Friday I don't know how it came up. And my son, he's 11, he just turned 11. And he said something to the effect of, what were we talking about?

We were talking about like, oh, I was trying to tell, I think it was my daughter about like, oh yes, okay, this is it, this is the story. So apparently there was an accusation that like one friend told my daughter something and then she told the other people the story that the friend told her, right? Telephones.

And I'm like, you know, you gotta be a vault. Like in my career, I'm a vault. I'm a vault. I keep things, that's why I'm still around. People trust me with information and things like that. And I swear to God, my son Walter, the 11 year old says, oh yeah, but what about UFC 300-something, Alex Pereira, you leaked the news.

I was like, what? What did you say? What? Yeah, yeah, he said, you leaked the news, right? You leaked the news. Dana White got mad at you. I was like, oh, man. We're gonna have... Oh, my God. This is the moment that Dana talked about

when he was talking to Matt Stenner in 2016. This is the moment that Dana talked about when he was talking to Matt in 2016. This is the moment they get fed this stuff. I was like, I'm not explained to me how you got to this. He said he, he saw a tick tock. No, he searched his name on YouTube. So he searched his name on YouTube. Why? I don't know.

And then this comes up and I'm like, yeah, search his own name. Search Walter Hawani. Who was the messenger on telling the story? He wouldn't he wouldn't tell me because then he started to get afraid that I was gonna take away the Which I did, you know, which I did threaten but I was trying to explain to him like you're watching people talk about me Yeah, and this this will happen more often just come to me How long have you been sitting on this information and he he doesn't even understand. He's saying Alex Pereira, UFC 300. Yeah, he's got it all wrong. He's got it all wrong, but he's got something there. He's like, Oh, I saw it a few months ago. And then, and then the tricky

part is like, I could feel like he was getting defensive because his eyes started watering. Like when, when you kind of try to like, you know, get something and they can see that you're, you're feeling some sort of way, you know, I hit them with the I'm disappointed, not upset. You know, that one always tends to work. And I just said, just come to me because you're going on YouTube, any jabroni out there could post anything. And we're in a situation where they could post something about me and you're going to see it and you're going to think some sort of way.

Just ask me and I'll tell you the truth. I'll tell you if it was good, I'll tell you if it's bad. I'll tell you the whole story about what happened here. How I did nothing wrong, how I was misconstrued, yada, yada, yada. Just come to me. But what's scary about it is they're now in this era, and this is part of the reason why my 13-year-old

doesn't have a phone, because they could just go up there and read anything and not know what's right, what's wrong. It's a scary thing. Okay, important question now. It's a scary thing. Are you going to proactively start telling the stories so that they don't find them and then have the wrong information? No. You're just gonna let it go, like, yeah, no interest in just being like, here's some things that... I'm not gonna say, let me sit down and tell you about the time that Brendan Chob and I went back and forth.

Alright. Like, no, it's... I feel like that time lag's dangerous gonna be on that tick-tock and all of a sudden they're gonna find something it's a scary thing if you YouTube his name that that is some of the stuff that comes up yeah it's crazy Brendan job Ariel is one of the best you know it's a be a love teaches loyalty to Ariel Hawhonnie yeah why didn't wait he's here oh yeah that's probably the one Ariel Hawhonnie disses Brendan job let's let's upload some more positive stuff guys, all right? Let's just start tagging Walter Hawani and all the positive.

Yeah, please. The kids are watching out there, all right? No, clearly not. They don't subscribe, so they're getting it from other people. Well, they're getting it. I mean, if you just put the algorithm, it's feeding it. So anyway, there you have it.

There's the story of my life. We have to go, we have to get ready for a show. Last week I went way too long. Everyone got mad at me. And am I okay here? Is this a sweet spot or is this still a little bit too long? We should just stay in the chair so we can just go right into the next one. Unc.

Unc Ariel. I kind of like it. I think 40 to 50 you're kind of happy about being the grizzled veteran. 50 you start to get in your feelings about being too old. Nah, hell no. No? 60? You get progressively less, like, by 50 I'm not gonna give a shit about anything.

By 60, like, I'm just gonna be, like, living the best life possible. I don't care at that point. We have to protect at that point. Just let it go. Alright, fair, I'll tell, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh You have to protect at that point. Just let it go. All right, fair. I'll tell all. Oh, Unkwani is a good one. Apparently, Rick has a new nickname, according to the chat.

It's New York Sick. Wow. Got him. Never been sick, so how could that be my nickname? He says through clogged nostrils. No, it's not a clogged nostril. It's sniffles. Whatever, it's something, but it's not sick.

It's something. Never been sick. It's something. Jason Carney asks via the Super Chat, Ariel, are you working the MVP Netflix card in July? No. I'm pretty sure I was like, that's the last Super Chat. No more Super Chat. Well, it came through.

Why? Why no? Because Carl Froch said I shouldn't. And you know, I... Hey! Carl! Good to see you! Well, I saw the Happy Gilmore 2 trailer. Did you see it? You don't get to watch that. Not until you watch the Adam Sandler special are you allowed to watch any other Adam Sandler movie.

Fair enough. Thank you to all our guests today. Thank you very much Gunnar Nelson, Jalen Turner, Morgan Charrier. We'll be back in a little over an hour over on the Dzone Boxing YouTube channel for now. Back to Marseille Toy Places!