The Ariel Helwani Show - Conor McGregor’s latest scandal, Jon Jones speaks on his future, Ice Wars, more | The Craic

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

The Craic is back with its usual trifecta! Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall and Ben Fowlkes get the show underway by unpacking the fallout from Conor McGregor’s latest nightclub scandal (4:23).It wouldn’t be a Craic episode without a Jon Jones segment, and this time it’s his appearance on the Nelk Boys podcast. The boys discuss his latest comments, which unsurprisingly don’t inspire much excitement for the potential Tom Aspinall matchup (25:34).Pivoting to the other side of the combat sports spectrum, Chuck Mindenhall recaps his trip to BKFC’s Ice Wars, including his rink-side feels alongside boxing legend Tommy Hearns (46:51).The UFC is back too. This time debuting in Baku, Azerbaijan. The guys break down the Xs and Os of the main event, assess Rafael Fiziev’s three-fight losing streak ahead of his bout against Ignacio Bahamondes, and spotlight a few hidden gems on the rest of the card (55:34).To round out the show, the trio dissect the viral Turki Al-Sheikh, Canelo Alvarez, Terrence Crawford family dinner photo, then answer a few viewer superchats (1:06:16).

Crackheads, welcome back to your Friday injection of MMA News. I am Pizzi Carroll. We have a lot to talk about today. Conor McGregor, guess what? He's in trouble again. Did something crazy in a beat that we're going to be talking about that. Guess what? John Jones said something relating to Tom Aspill and we're going to have to talk about that as well. But you know, the more obscure stuff is here as well. Chuck Mendenhall went to an Ice Wars event last week, which saw people dressed in ice hockey gear beating each other up on ice. So we have that to talk about, which we're very excited about.

We have USC Baku to talk about, which is quite a good card. Quite a healthy offering from over there. We're going to be talking about all of that. But as I said there, we are welcoming back Mr. Chuck Mendenhall, who we didn't have him last week. And we also have the great Ben Foulkes, the Holy Trinity of the crack is back. Mr. Chuck Mendenhall. We didn't have him last week. And we also have the great band folks. The Holy Trinity of the crack is back. Lads, how are you? Look at this. We're all together. This is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Chuck, we miss you so much. Look at that three piece right there. Oh my god. You know what? How does this

make Drake feel? You know what I mean? When you're like, hey, here's the golden standard. Now we're, you know, the A-Team or whatever. I just say it when he's on as well. I just go, Hey, this is the best line of ever. I'm only joking, but you know, we love you too. We missed you last week. How are you getting on? Did you miss us? I did. Uh, I kind of regret it.

I should have jumped on because I know Ben is a big hockey fan. So I'm out there in Michigan among hockey people. Let's put it that way. And, uh, it would have been kind of fun to report live from where I was at in mountain Pleasant, Michigan, I think that would have been a good show, but I'm happy to be here and we'll talk about that a little later on. I'm looking forward to it. Yes.

And of course the ice hockey playoffs have come to an end, which I knew, I want to say when Ben came on the call, I knew that information. I said to Ben immediately, I was like, the sport you like, it is over. And I'm aware of that. Did I not say that, Ben? You did say it. I also, you really mark yourself as a fan by calling it the ice hockey playoffs. That just, that sounds supernatural and like you're, you're a hardcore fan of it.

I'll tell you what, I, I'm scared of Michigan hockey, uh, just as like it's state's approach to hockey based on one thing and one thing only, which is playing sometimes on a team and sometimes against a dude in the local rec leagues who moved here from Michigan. And he is constantly getting ejected from games and thrown into the penalty box. And he seems surprised every time. Like, this is not how you guys do it here. This is how we do it in Michigan.

And it makes me think that it must be just Thunderdome over there, like that even the beer league hockey in Michigan, they must be out there cross checking each other, throwing them bungalows. I don't know what they're doing out there, but I'd be scared to be among hockey people in Michigan. I'm glad you made it back, Chuck. I feel like there's at least a 50% chance that he was in attendance on Saturday night at the Ice Wars. This seems like the kind of demographic we were trying to reach for here. He's the only guy I've seen get ejected from a playoff game. He was on our team and when the ref ejected him, we were all like, thank you.

Wow. That was the right call. Sounds like a fucking legend. Ben, have you ever boost anyone up on a noise hockey rink? Did you ever have to trot some hands? You know, every once in a while, tempers will flare, but for one thing, the leagues I play in, nobody's a good enough skater to be out here fighting and skating, you know, like that's not a thing that anybody could do.

Plus most of us are wearing like the full cage face protection. So what are you really going to do to somebody that like, I've seen people throw punches kind of in moments of anger after a whistle. And it's just seems dumb. Cause you're like, even if you hit him. So what, so they were the grills, like college hockey, like the, uh, yeah. Well, if you're smart, I mean, you don't have to, I do. And every once in a while I've taken a stick off the front of that cage and

you're like, oh, if I wasn't wearing this right now, I would have lost many teeth. So it's just smart too. But I've the old guy, the crafty old guys, when they're mad at you, this is what the, the benefit of years of experience. They'll just wait until you skate off and then take a hack at your Achilles tendon with their, the blade of their stick. And you're like, now that guy has learned. Savvy vet, savvy vet move right there. Jesus, that sounds rough boys.

And nearly as rough as a beat Ike little patch did on Monday night slash Tuesday morning when Conor McGregor, as the Sun reported, lashed out. And here we got some video here from the Sun and the Sun. This went everywhere. This on the aerial line show everything I saw. And as you can see, there are two digs to a guy who seems to be leaning in to say something. Um, McGregor, obviously no stranger to controversy. I went through it, uh, as Ariel was speaking about this year, I tried to think

of how many times has he been in one of these situations? I think this is number seven or eight, uh, that we have. And that's a conservative. You're running out of fingers and toes, PC. I know. Yeah. I was like, doing it all there.

Then you wrote a great piece about this for Uncrowned and I was reading it. It came out. I think the day it kind of emerged, I think it was Tuesday. I think he might have had this open Tuesday or Wednesday and it really asked the great question there in the headline. Like is anyone surprised anymore? Like it almost feels like compassion fatigue at this point in terms of how,

how we should be reacting to this. And that's, that's really not a good thing when it's like the most famous athlete in our sport assaulting someone in public, it would seem. Yeah. And especially because he's not doing the sport at all anymore either. So it's that's, I thought it was notable and I pointed out in my column when I was reading the Sun story on it, they referred to him as ex UFC star Conor McGregor.

And I was just like, you know what, they're not wrong. He might still be signed to the UFC. They might still talk like they plan to have him back at some point, but certainly at this point, it feels like he is an ex UFC star. And it's, imagine how much more surprised you would be if they announced Conor McGregor has another fight booked. Imagine how surprised you'd be if they're like, he's going to fight Michael Chandler.

We have a date, have a location that fights going down. You'd be way more surprised at that than at a headline that says Conor McGregor has punched somebody in the club. And by the way, I don't, you said like Monday night and it's from, I don't, more surprised at that than at a headline that says Conor Greger has punched somebody in the club. And by the way, I don't, you said like Monday night and it's from, I don't, you might know more about this, uh, being plugged into the Irish MMA scene over there, Pizzi, but from what I heard, when, when people said Tuesday morning, they meant like really morning, not like well 15 AM. So it's technically Tuesday morning, but like 5 a.m.

kind of Tuesday. Yeah, that is that is the spirit of a beta. These things go all night. Like, I mean, this is this wouldn't be a crazy time for a club to be still open over there, to be fair. I was telling Chuck before we went down, I added some experiences in a beta as a young 20 year old man. I never went back. It was a good time, but I wouldn't be able to do it at this age. It's actually become popular with guys my age again, which I think is a bit weird,

because when I was over there, I felt like we're all very young. But yeah, it's a place people go to party all night. And yeah, I imagine this kind of thing can happen quite a bit. As far as the Sun's report suggested, it was on this exclusive dance floor and the guy just gets taken out, right? Like immediately, like the security guards come and take the guy who's been hit out and leave McGregor there. It's just a crazy, crazy situation. But yeah, it's a, we also got an explanation.

So just to give a bit of context, Wayne Lineker is a guy who is a famous kind of club owner in that area. His brother is famed former England striker, Gary Lineker. He used to play for on air Jordan's favorite team, Tottenham Hotspur, a brilliant goal scorer. He presents matches today. He'd be kind of seen as kind of a beacon of conservative United Kingdom to a certain degree. And then you have his brother who's this wild guy who wants all these gloves. He was like 63, still dressing like he's 21. He had a picture taken with McGregor earlier in the week. And then he put out this explanation, well, this qualifier, we should say, about what

happened and as he says here, this is from his account, this was later deleted, but thought about this post a lot. Obviously started thinking about it again afterwards. But anyway, this is this is my very close friend, Joe Gomez. He has worked at Ocean. That's Lineker's that's Lineker's bar for eight years. He is the most special heart and all of the years that I've known him, he has never raised his voice once. On Sunday night, he took two punches from notorious in Pacha for absolutely no reason.

Let me introduce you to the real champ, Joe Gomez. He took the punches like a champion. A lot of champ talk here. I've since deleted my post of Connor at Ocean on Sunday. That was like a promotional post, I'd say to say I'm disappointed. As understated, we at O Beach will always put our family first. Hashtag we are family later deleted posts. But yeah, I think I saw a lot of people when this came out, Chuck being like,

well, we don't know what the guy said to Connor. You know. Yeah, we don't know that. I mean, that's just a fish we don't have. But, you know, it's like, I feel like people are kind of saying that in defense of Connor, but like we've talked about this article we put together for the ringer a number of times. But we went through that, that list, which was

blowing our minds as we were compiling it, like of all the things that had happened to Connor. And they held it. They held, we were making a list, compiling a list of all the things that have happened, including traffic violations, any court appearances. This thing was like 4,000 words. And we were waiting for him to be booked into a fight to run it, to say like, hey,

all of this has happened since he last fought against Dustin Poirier in what, 2020, whatever it was, 21 or two. Yeah. Um, all of this has happened, but we can't, we had to hold that piece for a long time. And then they finally announced it. We run the piece backs out of the fight. And now there's probably another 1500, 2000 words worth of, uh, of incidents that we could add to that just to give context of what it's like to cover this guy.

Yeah. And it's like, I mean, like, but what I was trying to say, like this idea that this guy could have said something like that is a great, like for me, that's a wild position to take. Right. Like when we know everything we know in this situation to be like, most of the sad, something crazy there because that isn't like Connor, you know what I'm saying? Well, it's like at this point, right?

Like we've seen him do so much stuff and it's like, what was the most justifiable provocation that he, cause it's like, he punched the guy in the pub cause he didn't want a shot of the whiskey, right? Right. Like that was what that one was. This is like reached over there and then took a poke at the guy. Cause the guy was just like, no, thank you. Right. I think the Miami, the Miami mascot though, was I think getting a little sassy.

I thought that was justified. He laid that mask out that time. That was crazy. And then he took out the tidal spray as if he was healing him after he got knocked out. That was insane. Obviously more happened that day as well. We won't get into that now, but yeah, I mean, never far from controversy. It's like, if you do the math though, like you mentioned, it's a beta, it's 5 AM, whatever, you know, it's like, it's in the middle.

Like you put this math together, does it really matter what was being said? It's almost like at this point, you're like, it's in the middle. Like you put this math together, does it really matter what was being said? It's almost like at this point, you're like, this is the kind of situation that he finds himself in. I think you're right. You say, what'd you say you say? Compassion, fatigue. Yeah.

That, I mean, we've been there. We've been there. That's what was good about, I thought your article, Ben, was that that's the way we feel. Like it's to the point where you're like, okay, I can't, your article Ben was that that's the way we feel. Like it's to the point where you're like, okay, I can't, I can't even justify this anymore, you know, I can't justify anything that he's doing because he's not really part of the sport anymore. He's just this, um, hovering presence who makes negative headlines.

And, uh, most of the time when I'm talking about them to anybody who kind of casually follows the sport, it's usually about something he did now. It has nothing to do with a fight. So, um, I thought the tone was correct because at some point you gotta just be like, enough is enough. Isn't it like, this is ridiculous. This isn't even a fighter in the UFC at this point. Right. And that's the thing is that he is still out there

associated enough with this sport and with the UFC that that's what's going to be mentioned when some stuff like this does happen, but he doesn't do any of the other stuff with the sport. Like he does not do any more fighting. It doesn't seem likely that he will do any more fighting. It seems like this is the only kind of fighting he would like to do at this point is punch at people who aren't really in a position to punch back. And yet that's going to, it kind of shows you something about where the UFC is at

that they don't seem to care. Like it doesn't even seem to rise to their awareness anymore. Like remember when he threw the hand truck through the bus window and that one was obviously more directly involved with what the UFC had going on because they had fights scheduled for that event that got called off because of what happened during that bus attack. But the show of indignation from Dana White afterwards saying like, would you want to be in business with Conor McGregor after today?

Now, of course, Dana White later very quickly decided the answer was yes, he did still want to be in business. And we're going to, in fact, use that footage as promotional material. But now, you know, if, if this were another era or if this were an entirely different fighter in the UFC, it'd be like, oh know, if this were another era, or if this were an entirely different fighter in the UFC, it'd be like, oh, yeah, we were aware of this incident. He's cut. We're doing something.

We, we, we give a damn in some way about this happening and the, the bad light that it casts the sport in that this guy is out there still doing this stuff. That's a great point. And they usually at this point, they just don't really care anymore. They're just like, pssst. People know that this is who Conor McGregor is. This is what he does. Uh, if we book him to fight, it's the same people who are going to watch will still watch.

And to me, the thing is it's like, he's been accused of this range of stuff. It's easy, I guess, if you're like, Hey, I'm a fan of damn cage fighting, man. I understand that every once in a while, these guys are going to go wild in a club and might punch somebody and tell yourself like, Hey, that just goes with the territory, you know? But it's another thing when you look at some of the other stuff that he's been accused of, like the, the many sexual assault allegations in different ways, some of them that have a lot of similarities between them. Uh, the, the one that he was found liable for in his home country, just this over the course of this past calendar or the course of the past year or so.

Uh, you look at that kind of stuff and you're like, that's not so fun. You know, that, and if you're telling me. He didn't do all that stuff. He is falsely accused on all of these other charges, but absolutely did all this other stuff where we have video footage. Remember when he punched the old guy, didn't he try to at first say like, uh, punch the needle guy. And then when video came out, it was like, okay, yes, I did it.

I'm sorry. And it's like, if he is falsely accused on all this other stuff, then it seems to be the only stuff he's falsely accused of because we see him doing this other stuff over and over and over again. It seems to establish a pattern of behavior. And the fact that the UFC can just be like, we don't even have to mention it. We don't even have to address it. I think it shows you something about where they feel they are in relation to the fan base and how far outside of the orbit of like the day

to day, like actual reality of the sport they think Conor McGregor is at this point. And to give like just any kind of, you know, indication of what this matters, all the things you just kind of said. He emerges as the face of BKFC. Like he becomes like this guy who like suddenly that they're like, they trot him out and like, check this out, La Courne business.

It just gives you an idea of where we're at, like the divide between all of that stuff, all the checkered things going on in his life versus this persona that he has in the fight game. It's a very strange thing. You brought up a great point, man, because if this is any other athlete, like sometimes you'll see guys, we've seen it a lot where guys who are maybe champions at one point that got into trouble and it seemed like a recurring thing and it's always like, Oh man, how sad this guy has now kind of fallen into this, you know, this really bad pattern of like, you see guys like Pat Militich, right?

Like you keep seeing his mugshot for DUIs, things like that. You see guys like this and the only thing you think is, Oh man, that's, that guy's falling off the rails. He is, he is out of here, you know, but yeah, Conor McGregor stays viable through I would say triple the amount of, you know, criminal things that kind of go on and still somehow we're plugging them into like any kind of vital talks. It's just a bizarre thing. I guess when we talk about an unprecedented athlete like a guy who came through the firebrand who changed and was exceptional in all these ways, we're

talking about this still because I think compared to other athletes who've had problems coming out of their careers, Connor McGregor has navigated it completely differently. Like in fact, he's, you know, he's running for president over there, Pizzi. I mean, like he's just, it doesn't affect him at all really. And the sporting sense and the sense that we hold him in. Yeah. Well, I think like that's a, that's the thing.

Um, the first, the first, um, reply underneath, um, the post I put out today, saying like, we'd be, we'd be live at the top of our, was a guy from Ireland. And he's kind of saying like, I believe his name is Kevin. And he was like, well, why are you still covering this guy? Well, it's for like some of the reasons you've just outlined there. This guy was in the White House a few months ago. You know, this guy is the head of BKFC. Um, you know, another kind of question to the UFC at this point is like, is he

still the biggest star UFC adjacent star at this point? I'd say he is, you know, in terms of following, um, all that kind of stuff, like headline generation, all that kind of thing. Like, is he still the biggest star? Yes, I'd say he is. And I think that's why. I mean, imagine a fight. Imagine him making the walk finally. He turns 37 next month. You know, it's like, the time is winding down on the guy, but like, imagine him making the walk again. You know, it's just, I think the magnitude of him being there, that's what I'm trying to say. Like some, he can somehow transcend, I guess, all of this, all the things we're talking about and he could show up and

you know, it'd be a huge event. So I think you're right. I think he still probably is the biggest star. They haven't done a good job of, um, or they just hasn't, there haven't been any people who come along that, um, command that sort of thing since him and Rhonda in that whole boom period. that, um, command that sort of thing since him and Rhonda in that whole boom period. But, uh, I think you're right.

I think he would be still the biggest star if he made that walk again. I don't think they want another one as well. You know, I think there's part of that. Like he's, he's there Frankenstein in a way. Yeah. He's like, oh shit. Like what, look what we created with this guy. Um, and I get, I got the sense like, and I think that's why the Tom was so

good in Ben's articles, like, yeah, we're all fucking exhausted. Like, I don't, I don't know what else to tell you. Like, but yeah, we still have to do this because he is still that guy. Like, am I right in saying that Ben? Like we, we kind of have to, to cover this guy still, right? Well, yeah. And I mean, especially that he's, is the biggest star in the history of this sport by far.

And so that, even if he had told us he was officially retired and never going to fight again, it would still be newsworthy in this sport if he's out there punching people in nightclubs and stuff. And the fact that, you know, he still is acting like he's an active fighter only makes it more notable, but also it's just the, the idea that you kind of sell us where you're like, Hey, I was going to fight, come back and fight Michael Chandler. Uh, it was going to be a migrate comeback story after breaking my leg against Dustin Poirier, uh, dipping out of the testing pool for a little while, then

coming back, looking, looking thick and tight, as they say, and then that, man. And then I was going to fight Michael Chandler, and that was going to be that big comeback. And then has to pull out of that broken pinky toe, one of those injuries where when you post the proof of the injury, you have to include a little arrow just to show us, like, on the x-ray, like, where the actual injury is. You love it when people do this. You've been putting this out for a long time.

I mean, hey, you remember when male cyborg, Evangelista cyborg, Evangelista cyborg took that knee to the dome from Michael Page? The dent in the head, the skull? Oh my God. The dent right in his forehead, in the shape of Michael Page's knee,

and he posted the X-ray image from that, and he didn't need an arrow, because we looked at it and we were like, there it is. It looked like a freighter on the moon. Yes, it is exactly at it and we were like, there it is. There it is. There it is. Yes, it is exactly what it looked like. So I'm just saying. But then, you know, he went through that whole thing, he's acting like, all right, you know, injury, but I'm going to, when I make the walk, it's going to be right.

Like I'm not going to do it injured. I've done it before. It was a mistake. And then the next time we see you're in a nightclub punching a guy while still holding your drink in your hand, and we're going, it doesn't really look like you're in training. It doesn't look like that. That return is imminent.

So I think it just kind of shows you. It doesn't look like there's a lot of power behind that punch either. Had to punch him twice. Had to punch a guy twice who didn't, who it was a pure sucker punch. The guy didn't know. And he's up on a height as well. He's punching down on the high ground. And, and like the club owner said, the guy took him like a champion, which I, I

don't know if I, here's my question. If you were the guy punched, do you want your boss, even when he's being positive, even when he's saying nice stuff about you, you could have been like, he didn't have to say my name and my Instagram handle and like how everybody knows I was the guy punched, like I could have done without, you could have just gone on there and said, he punched a long time employee and I'm disappointed, but like he didn't have to name me. He's a beta.

I'm being punched. You could follow him here. Yeah. Like I don't need that. Like we, people who know can know, but you don't have to tell everybody. Like this is the first and last day. Well you know the old slogan out there,

it's like what happens in a beta doesn't stay in a beta. I mean, like it goes out to the world. A lot of people would not want that to be the story. The, the thing too is like, when, especially you are a pro fighter anytime and you start using your profiting skills against civilians. Against mere mortals who are not threatening you, who are not posing any need, like you're not defending yourself or somebody else. It's not like somebody's stopping a carjacking, stopping a crime in

progress, using their martial arts skills. You're just bullying at that point. That's all you're doing. And it's a terrible look when you're like, I used to be the tough guy who was on top of this sport. Then I fell way the hell off. And now the way I feel like a tough guy is sucker punching people in nightclubs. It didn't matter who you are.

If you're sucker punching people in nightclubs, it's a bullshit move to begin with. If you're a pro fighter doing it, it's especially a bullshit move. And like, I think it just kind of shows you that's where the guy, like we, we have been on the backside of the behind the music episode of Connor McGregor's life for a long time now. And it's a temperate series. Yeah. You look at it now, and this is something that when I was looking right in this

thing, and I think I mentioned it in the column where it's like, you scroll through the portion of Conor McGregor's Wikipedia page, talking like mixed martial arts career. And it takes less time to scroll through that than it does from like the charges and accusations section. And that was before this part got added. So it doesn't seem like we're headed anywhere good there. I remember talking to Joe Lozon about this very thing, whereas it was like, because he's in Boston guy

and he was talking about you going to bars and people like to mess with you or whatever. But he's like, man, if you train and you're a fighter, it's just, like it always has to occur to you, like I can't, man, I can't get into this because I'll destroy this guy. You know what I mean? I'll destroy this guy and then how's that gonna make me look?

How's that gonna make me feel? How's that going to make me feel? Um, that doesn't seem to cross his mind too much with Connor. I don't know if it's just because he's drunk or what's going on, but man, it certainly doesn't like how quick and impulsive these pieces of video are. It's just like, it's an unhinged thing, right? Like it's, I don't think that that crosses his mind. There's also like an irony to a guy who is political ticket is anti-immigration shown up in these countries and hitting lads. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's been a country adopted the rules about, uh, immigrants and committing crimes that Connor McGregor wants to see adopted in Ireland. He wouldn't be able to go anywhere. We've seen him like he's, you know, he's been in trouble for a couple different things now in Ibiza. Uh, the, had the, the bus attack thing was in New York.

He got arrested in Corsica, uh, on some like sexual assault charge, the, the Miami heat game stuff, like all the places that he would not be allowed. The phone smashing was Florida too, right? What I think it was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. Is it how the phone smashing was Florida too, right? What I think it was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. It's a phone smashing kind of place.

I know. Well, I get it, man. I've been to Florida. I get it. But it's kind of crazy that we talk about this a lot. Where does the fight game end up? It's always kind of a grim topic. Like where do you end up?

You know, and there's very few graceful outs. We've had this discussion a lot, but if you're kind of scrolling through right now It's like you got ronda rouse. He was like, yeah the neurological damage I take a jab and I go blind you know and then you get you know, you get you get this this whole story here with Conor McGregor in this club and Just nowhere to be seen anymore as a fighter It's just all it's all the all the bad stuff at this point. And then of course, John Jones, who's sitting on the sideline and who could care less if he fights again or not.

So don't you start this. Chuck, don't you start this. I knew that was a trigger. This is a perfect segue because last time you believe it, it's a, it's a weekly John Jones segment and, uh, on our Jordan, he said some quite controversial things, I believe you have some beautiful graphics made here for our viewing pleasure. I don't want to say that I'm retired says Jones because fighting's in my blood. Right now.

I couldn't really care less about fighting. That's not what he says. You're not, you're not reading the quote. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Right now. I could really care less about fighting when the itch comes back. If it comes back, then I'll do it with my whole heart. Um, go ahead, Ben.

Okay. I mean, this one, it's so common, I guess, is why the language of it bothers me. Cause it's just like, if you think about it for even a second, you understand, like if you could care less, that means you care at least somewhat. And that, and it wouldn't help us either, because that puts you on the spectrum of caring somewhere between, I care a little bit,

to like, it's the most important thing in the world to me. Anywhere in there, you could care less about something. What you're trying to say is you couldn't care less. You're at the absolute rock bottom of care. There is no care to be found in the tank anymore. You could, it would not be physically possible for you to care any less than you currently do. That's what people are trying to say

when they use that phrase. And yet it just seems like you're so much more likely to hear the wrong version, which when you use that one wrong, you're using it, it's entirely wrong. You're not just like a little bit wrong on it. You're, you're saying the opposite of what you think that you're saying, but here's, here's what I was thinking about my whole life. I've heard this my whole life.

I know. I, the thing about this quote, especially, I feel like if he had gone about a lot of this in a different way, we could feel entirely different about it because what he is really saying there, if he's like, I, I've been in the sport my entire adult life, I've done so much in it. Uh, I've gotten to a point where I don't have the burning desire to do it anymore. If you were just even phrasing it slightly differently and being like, look, this sport is too dangerous to do if you're not all in and it's, I, I owe it to

the sport and to my legacy to not do it unless I'm going to be all in to say, if I were to come back and do it, I would only do it if I was doing it with my whole heart, like that part of the quote. I feel like we could understand that. Like we could, we could even like respect it. If you had just gone about some of this differently and, and said to people, like, look, you know, if it didn't seem like I'm wasting people's time, like I'm enjoying trolling you, like I'm avoiding a specific guy.

If you had just been like, Hey, a lifetime of this, I've had enough. And maybe in the future, after I take a few years off or something, I'll look back and be like, no, I got one more in me. Like maybe that could happen. And maybe in the future, after I take a few years off or something, I'll look back and be like, no, I got one more in me. Like maybe that could happen. But if you just told us like, the fighting has left my body. I've the hostility I was, I was using has been used up and that's it for me for now. Like I, and I don't want to do it half ass just for money or, or just because

people are still interested in seeing me. Like, I think that we would respect that if you went about it in a completely different way, it's just a little bit too late for that now. To be fair. I mean, he seemed like they'd been plenty in the cups. What's that milk boys? Uh, what's the, what's the drink that they are, they're always promoting? They were drinking.

Yeah. It seemed like they were having their share of happy dads. And, uh, there was definitely some slurry slurriness or something going on in that conversation. Um, just to be fair. That's why it may be a little bit irresponsible knowing what we know about John Jones to be like, Hey, come on our, our, our podcasts and drink a bunch. They knew what they're doing. They even apologize for that part of it, right?

They were like, Oh, we should have done this five hours ago, five hours ago. So that tells you about where they were at in their session. It's like, come on. Like if you are inviting Lindsay Lohan, uh, to your, your party, but like where it's like, yeah, we're, we're gonna, uh, do a bunch of substances, maybe throw up on purpose, stuff like that. Like don't do that to her. She's fought so hard to get where she, you know, it was pretty good though.

They were trapping them pretty good. They were like, where's the best place is to party. You know, they were like, oh, I'm't do that to her. She's fought so hard to get where she, you know, it was pretty good though. They were trapping him pretty good. They're like, where's the best place as to party, you know, they were like giving him that sort of thing. He's like, oh man, Miami. I was like, oh, wait a minute. I don't, you know, it's more about being here before we're, you know, he switched

back into the professional, but like he wanted to talk about it. It's pretty funny, man. We have more pearls from that interview on Air Jordan, will garnish us with them. On Tom Jones, Tom hospital. He's not in a position to excite me. If I whoop his ass, there's going to be a whole new fan base of somebody who everyone believes in. That's been a ticket he's been riding for quite some time.

That's just not true. No, it's not. Especially at heavyweight. I know there's nobody else. There's nobody else right now. Let me tell you the one problem we don't have at heavyweight is that there are too many like exciting contenders that everybody is super on board with. That is not an issue that we have or really have ever had at that weight class.

So like, that's not a concern. But also like, isn't what he's describing there, the kind of nature of being the champion? Is that like, yeah, you beat somebody up and then they find you somebody else that you gotta beat up. That's how it goes. That's how the whole system works

is challengers come to the champion. Like that is how it has always worked. And so to be like, I don't know why beat this guy up. There'll just be more guys after that to beat up. And you're like, well, yeah, that is, that's kind of what the sport is built on. That's always been the case. It just didn't bother you until now.

Is it like one of these read between the lines thing. I mean, I know we've already been talking about this, but obviously with the broadcast deal, negotiations ongoing, everything going on, when he's being pressed, even in that situation about, you know, what's going to happen, why aren't they stripping you, that sort of thing. And he's basically saying, I'm a company man. I'm going to, I'm just sitting, my job right now is to chill.

Isn't that like almost reading between the lines a little bit and saying like, the UFC is complicit in this and basically saying like, we need to keep something dangling out there, like of that magnitude, right? That fight, we don't want to put a, we don't want to put a fork in it. If it feels like it could happen, even though he's given every indication that he's not going to do it. Um, but the possibility of it is still sellable, right? And the same thing with, um, I guess, Conor McGregor, to an extent, like being out there.

Do you think that factors in? Because I felt like there were a couple of times in that interview where he just, it's almost, it's the types of answers he would give were almost like, hey, man, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing right now, you know, which is bizarre. I mean, are you still being the company man? Like, does it still count as, count as taking the blame if you tell everybody that you're taking the blame? Right.

Well, that's funny about it, but he's not saying it outright, right? He's just, he's kind of skirting around the edges of that whole thing. But are you suggesting Chuck that like, if this, if this broadcast deal was executed and it's all done, that then maybe they'd be like, all right, Connor's not fighting again, guys. All right, Jones, you're stripped. You know what I mean? Like they'll, they'll, they would kind of not fighting again, guys. All right, Jones, you're stripped. You know what I mean?

Like they would kind of unburden them to some degree to allow them to make these decisions. I think that right now, having those guys' possibilities works in their favor. Yeah. You know, if you shut the door on those types of things, obviously those are two of the biggest stars going. We're just having this whole discussion.

So I think it factors in. I'm just saying like, obviously John Jones is not saying everything and neither is the UFC. Like there, nobody's communicating this and this is why we keep having these discussions. It's clear he doesn't want to fight. I didn't really believe him on that level, but the reasons he's not being stripped, you know, you're just, it's, it's one of those discussions that you're like, there's got to be more to it. And obviously he's privy to that, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, I know Ariel's been kind of saying, like, if we don't hear by international fight week, it's probably not going to happen. Like they have to, they have a few events, right, that they have to fulfill before the end of the year, we're trying to work out like,

where would it even go? Um, I, I have a, I don't know. Like I want to think they'll announce something for Tom around that stage because I just feel, I feel so bad for him at this stage. You know, like you just hope that. What would be the plan B for you? Can I guess? Yeah.

There's nothing though, but that's what I mean. That's kind of where it's at, right? Like, so to say like, Oh, there'd be another guy behind it that you'll all want to see me beat. It's not really true. There's one guy left. One guy, you know, one guy left for John Jones. Well, and you'd make a ton of money if you're John Jones too, is the other part where that tells you that he must not really want to do it because the money you'd make off a Tom Aspinal fight, like the, the pay-per-view points that you'd make off of doing that fight would be huge. It'd be a huge payday.

And to me, it's, it's weird to be like, Hey, my job is to basically not say anything is to not say that I'm flat out not doing it. Cause you kind of are already saying that you've been already saying that whether you said it just like very bluntly or not, like you've definitely given us all, you've never said I definitely am gonna do it. And if you're, and then if you turn around and be like, I'm doing this to be a company man,

which A, I don't know how much of a company man you've been through the years, but like, if you're saying like, I'm trying to help out the UFC now by like not coming out and saying exactly what the situation is, only hinting at it over and over and over again, you're not being that helpful. And then you're also saying what you're doing. Like if I'm the TV partner in the negotiations, I'm going like, Hey, I, I think I know what that means.

Did you tell this guy, did you tell your fighter not to come out and say that he's absolutely not going to do it while you continue behind closed doors to dangle the possibility to us, uh, in order to make a deal, because that doesn't seem like you're negotiating in the greatest of faith, like that you're not helping in other words, if you're John Jones doing all that, but also it's like, if you, the thing Dana White said recently where he was like, hey, if he doesn't come to the table soon and get this fight done, then we'll move on pretty quickly. He said something like the next couple of weeks.

And which to me, I was like too late for quickly. The idea of moving on quickly, making a new decision quickly, that's already passed. So, but if you're Tom Aspin, if you're looking for something to do for Tom Aspinall, I say like, yeah, somebody like Gon would be a decent backup plan. That pipe dream of getting Francis and Gonu back in the UFC. I'll say again, if you could make Tom Aspinall versus Francis and Gonu for what

would be not only the UFC heavyweight title, but the lineal heavyweight title, solves all your problems. It does. Immediately. If you couldn't do that, you could do, if you could do Tom Aspinall versus be not only the UFC heavyweight title, but the lineal heavyweight title solves all your problems. It does. Immediately. If you couldn't do that, you could do, if you could do Tom Aspinall versus Alex Pereira, you know what? We would put our concerns about Alex Pereira's brain health aside for a while, and we would get super excited for that fight.

Like that would be an exciting fight that you can make and that people would get into, like there are like some options that you have there. Uh, but the worst thing is like the idea that you have knowingly kept everybody, including, and especially Tom Aspinall in this bullshit holding pattern, just to sort of help out your negotiations. And while you got the guy kind of undermining that on podcasts when he's, you know, five hours of beers deep in is not that helpful. Yeah.

You know what I don't want to see is the plan B, Cyril Gahn comes in, he beats Tom Aspital, and then you get that tweet storm from Jon Jones. Oh, that's going to happen. Yeah. I know. Like I told you guys. You're like, dude, I do not want to see that. The division is just all over the place.

Like nobody gives a shit about anything. And that's why I propose a heavyweight tournament where if Jones, right, if they strip them and you have Gann and Aspinall, like do some qualifiers on the same night. Like have Volkov V, you know, Waldes, Cortez or whatever his name is. You know what I mean? Like all these guys who are in the background, like bring Pereira in. That's where we're at Ben. That's where we're at.

Not only is that, did you see it like, seeing like Derek Lewis's comments, I think when he was on Ariel's show, and he was like, I'm not trying to get a title shot. I want to keep fighting these taxi drivers and whatever. And then he said something where he was like, I don't want to fight this one dude who says this, but that, and he, and then we had to include in brackets that he

met Waldo Cortez Acosta. That's hilarious. Yeah. Well, like, as in, if they did that, at least everyone could see it all there in one package, right? And they'd be like, oh, these are the guys in this division. You know, these are the other heavyweights. This is interesting.

Volkov, he's pretty good. You know, it's, uh, they've got to do something because it is, it is on low support right now. I believe we have one more quote from the great John Jones. Do we honor Jordan? I think Dana White gets things done. I mean, in this situation to say that alone, it's like, I mean, Ben was talking about that thing.

We're going to get done in a few weeks. That was in February. The first time he said that. Anyway, sorry. Can we go back to the quotes? Right. Uh, I think business speaks before emotions. If Francis and Ghanu presents himself in a humble way, forgive me, sir. Forgive me.

Yeah. What the hell is that? What does he, that, that's such a weird way that sometimes fighters, it feels like they've just been in an abusive relationship for so long that they've just internalized this stuff that where it's like, hey, you need to come back and say you're sorry to the boss. For what? For what? For standing up for yourself, for demanding to get paid what you're worth and then going

and getting it. This worked out tremendously well for Francis Sengado. The gamble that he took on himself in so many ways, which is why it really undermines the claim that Dana White tried to make where he's like, I just think Francis doesn't want to take any risks. And it's like, first of all, you're talking about the guy who left home

and made it to Europe in an inflatable raft and nearly died several times along the trip. That's not a risk averse person. A risk averse person doesn't make it this far from where Francis Ngannou started. But then also the fact that he knew where he stood with the UFC, where things stood as far as his contract situation. He knew that he was on one bad knee when he accepted that gone fight. He knew, hey, you're gambling.

If you lose that fight, it's really going to hurt you going forward. He said, let me go in there. I think I can get it done. He did. He sat out. He said, I think I can make a big deal for myself in boxing. Even when there are all these people, all these, the, you know, the UFC, a lot of people, all these talking heads being like,

no, you need to come crawling back. You need to come back and say you're sorry and accept whatever the UFC wants to give you. And he said, no, I think this can work. And remember there was that period of time where he was waiting for that big boxing match to materialize and it hadn't shown up yet. And people were being like, you know,

guys like Daniel Cormier were like, I think he should come back and say he's sorry and see if he can get back in the UFC. Present himself in a humble way. I'm the UFC. Present himself in a humble way. I'm so sorry. Present himself in a humble way. I was acting like a jackass, you know. Yeah, demanding to get paid what I'm worth

instead of letting you guys keep all the money. And instead, he stuck with it. He got his huge paydays in boxing, did surprisingly well against Tyson Fury. Not as well against Anthony Joshua. No. Still got paid big time, then came back, won a fight in MMA to remind us he can still do that stuff.

Like, he's made so much more money just from that gamble on himself than he would have made in 10 years of sticking around and just taking whatever the UFC wants to do. And it's like, if you think he needs to come back and be like, sorry for doing that, sorry for doing this stuff, which was a great idea for me. And which took the, the huge brass balls that I have to bet on myself in this way

and turned it into cash money. There's nothing he needs to apologize for that at all. And it's crazy to even suggest that like, he would need to come back like hat in hand. Uh, he doesn't need this. He doesn't need the, to come back to the UFC. He's loaded. Yeah, the UFC. The UFC, they could really use him right now.

It would be really great. They should be like, hey, Francis, we're sorry. The breakup got ugly, man. Everybody said some things we didn't mean. Can we start fresh? They should be the ones presenting themselves in a humble way, because he doesn't need this. He could just stay home.

Pee-Tee, before you move on, you think about Jones. Like I know we've, we've touched on this, but like in his legacy, right? Like I feel like he's one of the rare athletes in our sport that we've actually made the Michael Jordan claim. We've made the, you know, the whatever, like big, whatever the big athlete is. Cause remember he was the first guy at the Gatorade and Nike endorsements. He had these big endorsements. He's the longest reigning, you know, champ, all the stuff.

But in terms of his legacy, you know, you think about guys like Tom Brady, you know, he goes to Tampa Bay, he beats Mahomes, the guy coming up, you know, in the Superbowl, like that's what Tom Brady does. That's his legacy. He was a guy who was going to compete. Even at the younger guys coming up, he's going to do that. Michael Jordan would have never backed down from like whatever these guys coming up behind him were right.

Like that was as long as he was there, as long as he was there, he was the guy. I feel like this is, it makes me have to rewire all those comparisons because I'm like, if you really are saying, okay, the guy who's literally your interim champ, who fought in your stead in a big event, won that, you know, that placeholder symbol and was waiting for you and you, you just decided not to want to, that tells me something about if, if that's really how it goes down, I think you have to reclassify him even, even though he's had this reign since 2008, I think you have to reclassify him at that point. though he's had this reign since 2008, I think you have to reclassify him at that point.

I don't think you can compare him to other goats and other sports who couldn't get enough until they, until they just couldn't do it physically anymore. Wow. So you think it's actually getting into the territory where it's tarnished in his legacy, this? I do. Yeah. I think that this will be definitely something like anybody who pays attention,

anybody who pays attention, you know, anybody who pays attention to the sport in this way, that definitely, this will definitely go down. If he never fights Tom Aspinal, who was basically tailor made to face him at this point, if he doesn't do that, this goes down in his legacy. And I think that all those comparisons, you have to factor all that in at this point too. And of course the Nganu fight that he could have had. He didn't ever had that fight either. I think that these things really will factor in in the end. Yeah.

I tend to agree, especially because we love in this sport to sort of look back at what were the dream fights that we didn't get. And in most of those instances, the fighters are not to blame. It's true. You know, the most that you can say about them is they wanted a certain amount of money to do that fight, the promoter didn't want to pay them that amount of money, like that's what you can kind of say about John Jones and Francis and Ghanu and it depends like who you think wanted the most money, who you

think was being unreasonable. I mean, the UFC would have, there was no question about the UFC paying them too much that it would not turn a profit on the event. It's just that it wanted to turn enormous profits on every event, but that by could have been made maybe, and it wasn't. And if you look at all the other ones where you're like, oh, maybe we wanted Randy Couture and Fador or Fador and Brock Lesnar. And it was just like, couldn't come to contractual terms.

Just there were too many things standing in the way, too many, uh, egos or lack of money or whatever to be paid to the right people in order to make those fights happen. There's not too many where it's so clear. Everything is in place to make this fight at this time when it makes the most sense for the fight, except for one of the guys won't agree to it. One of the guys just won't do it. And he's not saying I won't agree to it. One of the guys just won't do it. And he's not saying, I won't agree to it for this money. He's not saying, like, if they come with a better offer,

then we got a deal tomorrow. He's not saying that. He's just saying, I don't want to. Like, the guy doesn't excite me, whatever, I'm not into fighting him right now. Like, that I think will stick with you a little bit. But I also do think fighters sometimes do this. And I know fans and media, we do it.

We think when we come to the end of a fighter's career, that how it ends is going to color the legacy more than it often does. Cause it's like, that's what you hear from fighters, right? When they're going like, I don't want to go out on that one. That was a bad one. I lost that one. I didn't look good. Let me do one more.

And if they win that one more, that just shows you don't need to retire. You still got it. And so that's why you see guys stay too long with that kind of thinking. And really then when you look back and you go, I don't know, do people remember Uriah Faber's last fight that much? Or do they remember kind of the highlights along the way? Now I do think there's some instances where it's like, do people remember Ronda Rousey's last fight?

Yeah. Yeah, they do. Because of like what that meant for like why she stopped when she did and like how she handled it, all that kind of stuff. So it's like, if you go out this kind of way, yeah, I do think it definitely affects your legacy. Maybe not as much as it appears to in the moment though.

That's very, very interesting stuff, boys. And we're going to have to see how it shakes out to two guys. Very controversial to stop the start to show up. We have something that isn't controversial at all. That is universally loved by all combat sports fans. And that is ice wars. And reading from his article here, we got some footage. All right.

Oh, wow. This is my first bit of action I've seen. Oh, oh shit. These boys are throwing. Um, I'll just illustrate this with a segment from Chuck's article. The fighters would grab a fist full of Jersey, then just lead you to war their incoming fists. Lots of jerking, twisting and thrashing a sadistic little tango.

The fist crashing off helmets, fast and furious. Uppercuts finding a home for those who tried to plant their head into a chest, short quick punches, looping right hands, guys wincing, skating off with dangling arms, holding their rib cages from their unexpected body shots or from crashing into the synthetic ice. There was blood which had to be squeegeed off from time to time. I think they actually used the wipe or something like a towel. But that is absolutely spectacular stuff.

You mentioned the color of these jerseys. I didn't expect it to be what it was. Yeah. Nasty boys gear. Yeah, yeah, it's exactly what it looks. And it's like, why the same? Why are we all wearing the same jerseys? I didn't understand that either.

What they had was, it was America versus Canada. And you can see, if you look close on the sleeves, there's a Canadian representation or there's an American flag. Um, but that was it. I was like, why not just have the jerseys be like opposite colors, you know, or something like that, because it was a little confusing. There were times where they're in an exchange and I think the one guy got the better of the other and then they get up and be like, Oh no, that was the other

dude who was very confusing, man. They're wearing the helmets too. And you know, we, in hockey, we always talk about like, well, they, they're going to drop the gloves. Well, in this one, they're putting gloves on, you know, they're wearing four ounce, um, MMA gloves. So it had some variations, which is also very strange because. This is a, an arm of the bare knuckle fighting championships.

So there, there were some things that, you know, it didn't add up logically, but it turned out to be a pretty fun event. Yeah. The, the discussion actually about the idea of the hockey being taken out of. See, I thought I had to pitch this quick. Cause I was like, if I don't, Ben is going to be in Michigan like this. This is right in his wheelhouse, you know?

The, yeah, well, it was your, your, your pre-event story where you mentioned the guy was like, hey, we're taking all the, the hockey out of this. And he, and he kind of made it, he framed it as if like, hey, we all love the fighting and we sit through the hockey. And I was like, I don't feel like that's how hockey fans look at it. So I didn't know like that's how hockey fans look at it. So I didn't know if that was the great, but you're right.

I didn't even think about that about how you're the bare knuckle fight promotion. Here you are moving into a type of fighting that when it is done within the context of the sport that we know it for, is always done bare knuckle. Like that's how we separate it from like, we're doing a little bit of after the whistle jostling to we are actually fighting now. It's like, that's how we separate it from, like, we're doing a little bit of after the whistle jostling to we are actually fighting now.

It's like, that's the dividing line, is when the gloves come off. That fits so well for what you have going as Bareknuckle. Like, it's, the branding is right there, and that's when you decide to put gloves on? Like, and it does change the way you're kind of fighting then, because if you're not as worried, like, what happens to my hand if I glance a fist

off of this guy's helmet, uh, you're gonna be willing to throw a little more, which maybe is their thinking. And I mean, part of the thing, Ben, is like, you're supposed to kind of rip the jersey. You're supposed to rip the helmet. Like if you're trying to avoid hitting the helmet, you're trying to rip that bad boy off so they can start landing on the skull or on the chin, you know? I feel like they got to figure, I was trying to point this out. It felt a little Wild West in the sense that they're going to have to figure

some things out to even make it, um, you know, as a niche sport, kind of stand out. I think you gotta keep it as close to actual NHL or AHL, whatever level of professional, um, hockey fighting that you can. So the synthetic ice, I've pointed this out. I'm like, you can't have synthetic ice. You know, these guys are used to being on real ice. They were using real skates. They're, they're still skating around this like slick plastic stuff they were using.

But, uh, you know, eventually they're going to have to figure that sort of thing out. I think the bare-knuckle thing makes sense. Like you're at a fight, like that's part of it, right? Because unlike what I think that they're going for, which is they see, you know, power slap with the UFC and they're like, there's viral stuff come out of this as a kind of side, you know, a side thing from what BKFC is. We want to have viral moments where it's a hockey fire. People are like, what is this? What is this?

I want to tune in. So to get to those levels, I think they're going to have to do some tweaking, but this was their very first event that was under that umbrella. And you could kind of tell that they were seeing what works. And I was talking about the judging, and there is a criteria, they kind of sent it out, but you talk to the judges, and there are all these dudes, like Darren McCarty, you probably know these guys, Ben, who was a four-time Stanley Cup champion with the Red Wings. I hated him back in the day because I'm a Colorado Colorado avalanche guy and they had a huge rival and he just beat the hell out of Claude Lemieux made him turtle up and it was a big deal. Um, but they, you know, they have these guys and I asked one of them.

I said, uh, so what does your criteria, like, what is the criteria? How does it work? And he's like, well, you just kind of know who won it's judged as a whole. It's not in the rounds, you know, they're 92nd rounds. It's judged as a whole. And I was like, so, so you just, you watch the fight as a whole and you just make of know who won. It's judged as a whole. It's not in the rounds, you know? They're 90 second rounds, it's judged as a whole. And I was like, so you just, you watch the fight as a whole and you just make that, yeah, you know who wins these fights but just by watching them, I'm like, all right.

Well, I don't know if you've ever visited hockeyfights.com, one of my favorite websites. Oh yeah. And that one, especially like when there are, it'll- Don't go down that rabbit hole, Pizzi. You won't come back for a while. During the NHL season, you can just queue up hockeyfights.com and be like, who fought last night in the games across the league.

And then there's fan voting. It'll, there's a YouTube link to show you the fight. And then there's fan voting to say, who do you think won? And most of the time, yeah, you do know who won that fight, but every once in a while you get this, it's like, we're going 52 to 48% on the fan voting, so you don't totally know. It did seem though, I appreciated the line in your story here, Chuck, where you're talking

about the synthetic ice, and you said, the only thing frozen in the room were the daiquiris up top. And I was like, how are you gonna call your promotion Ice Wars, and we don't even do it on ice? Right, I do realize, I mean, obviously, was their first one and you, it did pretty well. I think there's about 1800 people in the room paying. Like that's pretty good. But the ice itself, and you probably know this too, it's very difficult to, it's

very difficult to do this. They're going to have to figure out a way to do whatever it is. 800 square feet, miniature rink, rinky dink, rink, whatever you want to call it. Like where they put these guys in, I think they call it the ice box, but to put these guys in there, they're going to have to figure that part out. Um, I was, you know, any of the hockey guys who were there, like McCarty and, uh, and all those, all those guys there, they were pointing this out. I mean, if you're on ice, there's certain things you do.

And it was also interesting because these guys have fought a lot. And so, well, I was mentioning the, you know, guys going in, like kind of putting their, their head into somebody's chest and just kind of swinging wild. And they're like, man, if you see a guy do that once in a hockey fight, you're throwing that uppercut the next time you see him come towards you, you're throwing that uppercut because you want to like just floor him. And I was like, so there's some technique things where you're like, some of these guys maybe don't have a technique and some of these guys do, which is, um, you know, I, I feel like that's in a weird way. It's sort of like, you know, like, of these guys do, which is, um, you know, I, I feel like that's in a weird way.

It's sort of like the early days of some of these other combat sports where some guys are just in there because they're like, man, I just want to throw down. But some of the guys, this is like a science to them. They know what they're doing. I, you're, I was hearing all kinds of stories about Ty Domi and, uh, um, Parker, the guy for the,valanche, who used to kind of sharpen some of his pads. Jesus.

And he would loosen up the screws in his helmet so like if they punched, they would hit like a screw rather than his helmet. And I was like, man, you start hearing these stories and that's where the gold is, right? Like if you can create these stories and they can get some cult figures, it might have a chance. There was one good, really good fight where it was like, I think it was the seventh fight on a 10 fight card where the dudes went out there, everybody in that place was standing up just cheering because they just, for like, I don't know how long it lasts.

I think it might even went the full amount of time, but the whole time it would have been like, if you saw two rivals drop the gloves and just stand out there for a full, like two minutes just, or like hockey, like the goalie fight, like you saw two rivals drop the gloves and just stand out there for a full like two minutes just or like hockey, like the goalie fight. Like you see them throwing down. It was like that where you're like, this is crazy. How are they doing this, man? So in that moment, you kind of glimpsed some potential

if they play it right, you know, or they might be able to create something. Sounds good. My takeaway from all that conversation, ice wars, not violent enough says Chuck man. Need more blood. Not violent or icy enough. That's a great piece.

Make sure you just get over there to read it. A few fights this weekend, my loves. That's right. We have UFC Baku, Azerbaijan, which is very close to Iran. I just found out one of the things. I put it into Google Maps there yesterday. Terrifying stuff. We have some great fights, though.

It is Jamal Hill v Khalil Roundtree both coming off losses, to be fair. But I do think it's a fucking banger. Like I do. I don't think there's there's any way that this fight doesn't deliver. What do you think, lads? Like, I mean, I can remember we used to get upset. There was this thing back in the day of two lads who were coming off a loss were in the headline fight. We used to get all angry about it, but there's no point in doing that anymore.

Um, are we happy to see these, these two boys who will definitely stand in bang go at it in Azerbaijan Ben? Yeah. I mean, I do think stylistically, this looks like a fun fight. You're right. I don't see how you get a bad fight out of that. I worry a little bit about where Jamal Hill's at these days, just because it's hard to tell if what we've have been seeing from him lately is he's up

against some really good fighters. And you know, that can happen to you when you go in there, you fight Alex Pereira at the top of his game. You go in there and you fight a much improved overall version of Yuri P. Hey, you're going to be out there trading those shots, exciting fights. Anybody can get knocked out, that kind of stuff. But I also kind of wonder some of this damage might be catching up to him. And at the same time, do you have the ability to, to grow into a different

kind of fighter who doesn't have to take so much damage in order to get into these fights? I don't know if he does. You see some of these and you go like, all right, man, this seems like a familiar trajectory that they're kind of putting you on. And I don't know, maybe he goes out there and he is just, I think if he could get to Khalil Raunchrey early, he still has a lot of power. He's, he's a dynamic guy.

So yeah, like he could, he could go in there and he could get back on his feet here. I could also see him feeling like I got about bite down on the mouthpiece and throw that's what everybody's expecting me here. And then you go and you get knocked out again. And then it start this career situation starts to look a little more desperate. It's tough too, cause it's a, an ABC card. So there's a little bit of more of an expectation. You get a, you know, a main event, ABC card, um, two guys

who are known to throw down. So there is a big expectation, even if you're, even if you're like, I'm not going to play to that, I'm going to play a safe or whatever, I don't think either guy really thinks that way. But I'm with you Ben, like I think that the, if you're going to circle like a, you know, something about this fight, it would be that because you're, you got Jamal Hill coming off of two knockout losses and now he's going against a guy who's basically a sledgehammer.

He's going to go in there trying to knock him out, trying to head hunt. And if it goes down that way, I think that now you're talking about, you know, you know, you know, the sort of career eulogy, right, of Jamal Hill. Like, well, okay, that's, that's it for him. Ex-champion now who's, he's gone. He won't be there anymore. Especially though, when you go back, I think the previous fight was against Glover T'Chara.

That was a war. Do you remember that fight? I mean, it was just, it was one of the fights of the year because they just stood in each other and just bang, boom. They're just clobbering each other for that whole fight. And it almost reminds me in these two, you know, return fights, essentially, where he's getting knocked out of the Robbie Lawler effect. During that moment when it was just, he was just the butcher, you know, protecting his belt and everybody he kind of faced, he altered, they were

altering each other in there and I almost feel like that happened. But so I feel like it's almost like a truth moment for Jamal Hill. I think Rountree still got, I mean, what he was doing against, you know, Pereira, kind of going in there for the big shots and having, he had some moments, like I felt like there was no, nothing diminished there at all.

I feel like he's still on top of his game. So to me, it's about, like Ben said, like what does Jamal look like in the beginning? Like, is he, or is he going to be tentative at all? You know what I mean? Like, or is there going to be any variation? If he, is he chinny, if he gets hit, is he down? You know, I think that there's kind of some subplot there and not all of it. Some of it could be sad is what I'm saying.

Like it could be one of those things you're like, Oh man, we're seeing the decline of a fighter here. Are we seeing the same decline with Fiziv? I know you spoke to him this week, Chuck. And the very start of that article, you highlight like what we saw, like I can't remember us being very excited about him. I guaranteed it was like a lock. I remember I was like, Oh, Fiziv was going to go right through Gagey.

This is his moment. Like it was like, uh, it was my lock of the week or whatever. Yeah. And that was three, three fights skid. Um, he's in a big, like it feels like it's flipped now where he used to be the guy that could be made off a guy. Bahamundes now a guy really, really good, really big striker, like, um, in very exciting fights, does it feel like they're setting him up in a way as well?

And similar way to you're speaking about with Jamal Hill. It's very weird too, because this is almost tailored to Fizzi. You've read like he's, he's basically going to have the crowd. It's a partisan crowd, I think for him, but there's a seventh inch, you know, height advantage on this thing. And that's a, that's a very strange thing. Five foot eight versus six foot three. Very different.

And obviously like, I haven't thought Fiziv like, you know, circumstantially. So he loses a majority. What was it? A majority decision. The first one was a great fight with Gagey. It felt like they should play it back, but the circumstances wish they played him back was like very late notice. And he was complaining like nobody else wanted to fight me.

Um, so I was like, I'm going to fight. I want to fight. So he took the fight. He didn't have regrets about it, but I, you can tell that he's like, this is an unfortunate thing. This happened in my career. Cause remember the pre, the, the fight in between was Gamroth where he hurt his knee. So he wasn't able to continue. So circumstantially there's been some things in his, you know, in his path that haven't gone his way,

but nobody's going to remember that if he gets a fourth pink spot on his Wikipedia page, right? Like he goes in there and he gets smoked. I think people are going to be like, oh yeah, he's declined. He's not going to that if he gets a fourth pink spot on his Wikipedia page, right? Like he goes in there and he gets smoked. I think people are going to be like, Oh yeah, he's declined. He's not coming back. So I think his chances where we had him, because I remember talking about him back then.

I think I thought he was a future champion. Um, I think that all goes away. He is in this big moment now where if he doesn't show here where this is tailor-made event for him, he falls into that terrain where it's like a guy who just didn't get there where we thought he was going to. Yeah, but. Sorry, go ahead, Ben.

It's not like Vazivas looked bad in those fights, is the thing. You know, like he's the, the, the knee injury one is what makes it, you know, three straight. And you know, I like how the way you've and your story Chuck, where he, he just seemed to be at a loss for words, perhaps in English, but also just like when he's talking about like, Hey, my body just couldn't, you know, and he's just kind of shrugging like, what could it do? And it's like, if you take that one out, then your three fight losing streak, normally a sign that things are going terribly for you is just two pretty close losses to Justin Gate G, one of the top lightweights out there, which.

That ain't bad. You know, like it is a sharp decline from when you're on this big winning streak and everybody's talking about you as the next contender, then you're turning right around. You're like, how am I over three? But it's not like he's over three and it seems like he's getting worse. Like he does seem like he's still got all the pieces that he had. Yeah.

He could play Gagey to Bahamundes' physio here very, very easy. Like I feel like that could definitely happen. There's some very good fights on the card. And it's a really good open Elliott back from Wales, of course, one of the fan favorites on the card, Melissa Mullins from team Renegades, also on there from the UK, should be a very, very good card. There's also a there's beautiful open Elliott right there. The are in total GC's favorite there as well against Ishmael Nardieff.

Really, really good card. There's also the PFL card. It is, I believe, female flowways, lightweight and bantam weight for the tournament that is tonight as far as I know. Yeah, Liz Karmushvili, Laura Dana and Kevin Lee is in the main event against Rabadonov. It's also got that fight on it. I'm sorry, you know, Mansour Burnley against Archie Colgan, who they are now saying is fighting the winner of Ousmane. The fighting Ousmane and Magomadov next. We've talked about how ridiculous that is many times now at this stage.

There's no point doing that again. Jake Hadley, I spoke to him earlier this week. Jake, a tough little fucker, always was in cage where he's a flyweight, like a guy that you'd be genuinely like just a tough looking fucker. And every time I was around, I'd be like, I'm terrified of this guy. And he was so nice, but he just looks, he's rough. You know what I mean? White Kong.

I did it. Like he was really open in this interview I did with him. And it's like, he, I don't know if you guys remember this, when he was on contender series, Dana White, like qualified before he gave him the contract. He was like, people are telling me not to sign this guy. And ever since that moment, like he was like, that was my relationship with the promotion. Like I constantly felt like, I was like, they don't like me. I don't really know why they don't like me.

No, like I can't remember anything happening. And just to give you an insight, I'll give you a quote that he gave me. You know, I heard they didn't want to sign me. It's crazy to me because I've never spoke as much as two words to make my own. I never spoke to Sean Shelby. Sorry, I spoke to Sean Shelby a couple of times. I guess what I'm trying to say is I have no issues with them, but I really don't know why they have issues with me if that's true.

If that's true. You know, they caught me once. They caught me for not taking a flyaway fight on four weeks notice. The reason I didn't take the fight was because of the weight. I told them I had done a DEXA scan and I've been told I wasn't. I was already too big for the weight division. They cut me for three days then re-signed me. Um, it's, it's a really, really weird situation.

Um, especially a flyweight. We know that like, obviously most of the guys are going to need eight weeks minimum to get down there, but he feels like, uh, as Emily Dickinson would say, delirious born at a bantamweight now he is flaring around. He is. He is fluttering around. He is. Wow. He knows his company. He knows what companies keep it here.

Ben. He pulls off the Scottish twister in his, in his debut. He thinks he's got a very tough fight tonight, but I'm really looking forward to, I'd like to see things go well for Jake Hadley, given the, the picture he painted of his UFC tenure. What about that Dickinson quote though? Beautiful. I was not expecting that one. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. He's got a few things up his sleeve and let's, let's shout it out. I mean, Liz Carmouche ushered in a huge moment at UFC 157. If she doesn't, you know, she's not there. We, none of these women are fighting in the UFC. That's right. You know what I mean? So again, a pioneer.

So, uh, anytime Carmouche is on a card, I'm tuning in. It's got Mendenhall written all over it. You can cut that piece. I think that's all we've got for today. Actually, can we hit you with the picture just before we go? Do we have the picture of the lads having dinner there that are about to fight in September 13th? They're having a press conference. Oh man. Look at this.

That's not what we need. Come on, let's get this done. Let's get this done. Um, do we have the picture of, uh, the lads having dinner there that are about to fight in September 13th? They're having a press conference. And I, Oh man, look at this. I mean, that's not what we need camaraderie. Isn't that's exactly why everyone I think reacted when they saw this. Ah, come on. It does not look comfortable either.

Like it doesn't look like we're really having a great time. Ahead of the table. Oh man. Crazy. Um, yeah, I just wanted to leave it on that app. It's that bombshell. That's great to have his all back. Uh, Oh, super chats.

You forget every time, man. Every time, every single time you forget. I'm not even pretending to forget. It's just so stupid. I am. Uh, Beelzebub, Beelzebub. That's Satan, I believe in some language. Yeah.

Um, best show on the channel, LL. You three together, A plus. Thank you, Beelzebub. Um, I think I've said that a few times, uh, through, through altered states and my teenage years a few times, but, uh, saying it to you genuinely this time. And it was, it was the last time. Yeah. Uh, it was beautiful to have the boys back.

They were excellent as always. And make sure to check out all their work on on crown checkout at Ben's brilliant podcast, which had done this at the call main event podcast. And I did a great episode there. I could tell a fantastic story about my Nintendo switch, which I've been. Reluctant to play because every time I think about playing it now, I'm like, Oh, the shame, the shame. What was the cat's ass thing?

I missed it. What was it like you create a cat's ass or what was the, I always love hearing Pete sees Irish sayings. Um, and this one was, he was talking about his father and brother being really handy and that they're, they're so handy, you know, they could put a second ass on a cat. you know, they could put a second ass on a cat. Sounds better in your accent, honestly. I've told like a dozen people since then,

because I love it. And I love, a cat is the perfect animal to choose for that. Because it's like, if you were gonna put a second ass on a dog, he'd be like, I don't understand why, but I trust you, I wanna please you. So I'll try to sit still for it at least. If you try to put a second ass on a cat, it's going to be fighting you the whole way and they can still get it done.

I was telling me that about your explanation of this, of why you enjoyed it so much. He was pissing himself laughing. He was actually doing work at the time at the back garden, which was pretty funny. And he's standing there holding a shovel, just talking. That's all I do. I just go inside eventually. Him and my brother were out there the other day, and I was just like, all right, see you in a bit, boys.

Just wrecked inside, leave them to it. You don't want me here. I don't want to be here. I'm going to go inside and take off my pants. You guys have fun out here. That's exactly what I did. Anyway, once again, having trouble signing off. You know, this is a part I struggle with, guys.

Thank you all for watching The Crack. It's been a beautiful pleasure for us to speak with all of you. We'll see you next week.