The Ariel Helwani Show - Dan Hooker, Dan Hardy, Eric Nicksick, Aleksandar Rakić, Diaz vs. Schaub beef deep dive

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Ariel and the Boys in the Back kick off the show by diving into the craziness kicked up by Craig Jones in the great Brendan Schaub vs. Nate Diaz debate (10:42).Aleksandar Rakic discusses his UFC 308 fight against Magomed Ankalaev, what went wrong with his past two bouts, Khalil Rountree's recent title challenge against Alex Pereira, whether a title shot is on the line against Ankalaev, and more (42:19).Eric Nicksick discusses Francis Ngannou's knockout win over Renan Ferreira, the emotional dump of the experience, enlisting Tom Aspinall to help with strategy, what he wants next for Ngannou, their conversation with Cristiano Ronaldo, how Ferreira motivated Ngannou, whether a Rico Verhoeven superfight is a viable option, Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway, and more (01:01:02).Dan Hardy discusses the fallout from Francis Ngannou vs. Renan Ferreira, whether it was a late stoppage, how many peak years Ngannu could have left, Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway, whether Holloway is better at lightweight rather than featherweight, Johnny Eblen's place in the middleweight landscape, and more (01:29:20).Dan Hooker discusses his recent travels, the fallout from his victory over Mateusz Gamrot, his recent interactions with Conor McGregor, whether a bare-knuckle fight is somewhere in his future, if a McGregor fight is actually a possibility next, where Justin Gaethje fits in the lightweight mix, and more (02:00:51). 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Area Hawaii Show! Back in your life! On this Tuesday, October 22nd, 2000. And 24, hello again everyone. I actually startled myself with that back. Was that too high, Frank? I thought it was perfect. I came out hot. I was like, holy crap. You got something to say today.

Yeah, I'm fired up, Frank. You know why I'm fired up? You know, I'm fired up. It's a beautiful day. It's actually nicer today than it was yesterday. It's a fun thing about doing a daily show. You can update everyone on the weather day to day, not every three days or four days. That's very exciting. Today, I believe high of 27. And you know, people are buzzing here in New York City. Our New York Knickerbockers begin their quest to become the 2024-2025 NBA champions today. Yeah, my son told me yesterday.

It's a very proud moment for me, my son Walter told me that his plan was to wear a Knicks jersey every day that they play this year. Now, there are 82 games in a season, and I believe he only owns two jerseys. So it's a little problematic. It reminds me of young Ariel back in 1994 in the playoff run. During that playoff run for about two and a half months. Ah, yes. I like that. Oh, welcome back on Air Jordan. I miss these lower thirds. During that playoff run, I wore, I alternated between a Ewing jersey and a Starks jersey every single day for two and a half months. A little dirty, a little gross, but you know, you got to do it sometimes for your teams. Now, speaking of our teams as well, tonight it's Helwani versus Burks in the MLS playoffs.

In case you guys didn't know, single elimination, knockout game, Montreal CF going up against Atlanta United at Saputo Field in Montreal. Your level of optimism going into the game, Mr. Burks. Yeah, man, we snuck in nine seed. This is for everything. This is it.

We're going to watch it together? No paraphernalia, no. No, man, I had to support the Liberty, you know, WNBA champs yesterday, and then I had to get my shine in for the dogs, you know, went on the road, beat the number one team. Sure. No one cared. I mean, no one cared around here.

No congratulations. No, no, nothing, nothing. No nothing. Well, we expect that from the back-to-back champs. But this is MLS playoff time. Yeah. If Atlanta United wins, then I'll rub it in your face tomorrow and wear my Atlanta United shirt.

Fair. Winner plays inter-Miami, by the way. So that should be fun. 34-point gap between old between Old Inter Miami and Atlanta United Who's the favorite by the way? God if I know Work on that Now Marty on MLS

Let's get him on the screen He loves when he's on the screen When he's googling Atlanta United plus 175 Montreal plus 140 Draw plus 230 I don't know how a draw would work If it's a knockout

To advance Montreal minus 125 Atlanta United minus 125 There it is There it is You know it wasn't a draw Last night at the city ground Forest winning 1-0

Against Crystal Palace Now up to 8th place In the Premier League No one is laughing now Ah yes There's a nice little update For all of you Forest on fire

Forest is on fire Headed off to play Steve Cooper On Friday Looking forward to that And this is a very special day For me my friends You know why

Because 24 years ago today 24 years ago Kind of blows my mind My good friends and I Josh Neupel Richie Scheim Alan Dudkiewicz Was Brandon a part of it? I don't know I send them an email Every week Excuse me Not every week Every year Josh Neupel, Richie Scheim, Alan Dudkiewicz.

Was Brandon a part of it? I don't know. I send them an email every week. Excuse me, not every week. Every year I send it to them, wishing them a happy anniversary. Let me see. Here's Andrew Kliger, of course. I send them an email every year, October 22nd, to wish them a happy anniversary because we all attended No Mercy,

WWF No Mercy, October 22nd to wish them a happy anniversary because we all attended no mercy wwf no mercy october 22nd 2000 uh we we attended this event and it was a great one because kurt angle won the wwf championship it was all about the return of stone cold steve austin uh everyone wanted to know who ran him over in the car and there was rikishi showing up saying it was me Austin it was me all along and they had a no holds barred match but the real story was over at the Pepsi Arena the real story was Kurt Angle defeating The Rock to win the WWF championship it's true it's damn true he was a year into his his career in the WWF and he made it happen for the first time. I was there in attendance,

and for some reason that date is just, I don't know, it's engraved in my brain, and I always remember, and I always send an email to my friends who we drove down from Montreal to Albany. I think it was like a four and a half hour drive. We stayed at a really shitty motel. We saw Harvey wimpleman

from afar and my friend asked him where his tennis racket was and he said that's jim cornett you asshole it was a great time we had a wonderful time and then we drove back uh the next day some news uh since we so happy no mercy day to all of you uh some news since we spoke yesterday tatiana suarez is out of the highly anticipated fight against Virna Janjiroba on December 7th. I reached out to Virna's team. I asked them if she's going to stay on the card. Of course, she's one of our own. She's one of our own. She's one of our own. There she is right over there. Virna Janjiroro but she's one of our own uh as of now no replacement um so i don't know what's going on in that division it's a weird one is it uh i don't know is she going to

fight for the belt i don't think so it feels like we've been waiting on tatiana suarez to fight for the belt and there continues to be bad news she did refute the report that she was out yesterday on Twitter, it seemed, and then deleted the tweets. So I don't know what that means. That's December 7th, the last pay-per-view of the year. The next pay-per-view, of course, is this weekend, UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi. That's what it's called. Abu Dhabi.

That's what it's called. Do you know what show that's from, guys? Anyone know? Anyone? No, I don't. Garfield. Nailed it. Garfield, really?

Yeah. Yeah, you sing this every year. Yeah. That is true. It's tough. That's the first time I ever heard of Abu Dhabi on the Garfield cartoon show. They're over in Abu Dhabi right now. And how about Alex Volkanovsky?

He's so smart. It reminds me of Alex when he was trying to get a featherweight title fight. He flew from Australia to Edmonton just to be the backup fighter. He flew from Australia to Abu Dhabi to be the backup for the lightweight title fight. And so here he is in Abu Dhabi saying hello to everyone just letting everyone know that he is there just letting them know that his presence is in the building and if they slip up he's ready to step up on short notice Alex Volkanovsky going up to both the champion and challenger in Abu Dhabi do we have any of this or no? There it is. Okay.

Here he is with Max. Yeah, look at them. Nice. Cordial. And we also have him with Ilya Teporya, in case you didn't believe me. There he is. Hello, how are you? All good? Everyone happy?

And so Vogue just going around, shaking everyone's hands letting them know yo I'm here and I'm next keep my belt warm I like it gamesmanship but it also there's Ash also puts him uh puts him in the mix makes his presence known makes his presence felt I think it's very smart on uh Volk and his team's part. Now, as far as today's program is concerned, speaking of UFC 308, we'll have Alexander Rakic on the program at around 1.30 Eastern.

Alexander Rakic returning to action on Saturday, his first fight since UFC 300. Massive, massive fight. I mean, you can make a strong case it's the third most important fight on the card. Main event, obviously, for the belt, Koeman, Whitaker, Shamaev, and then rakic against magomed on khalayev the winner could very well be next for perera especially if it's on khalayev rakic trying to ruin all the plans

and so we'll talk to him at 1 30 at two o'clock we'll talk to eric nixick who is in abu dhabi to corner his guy danny gay he goes goes up against Lerone Murphy. Lerone Murphy will be joining Pizzi on this week's episode of The Crack on Friday. So stay tuned for that. We'll talk to Nixick, of course, about what happened Saturday in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. His guy, Francis Ngannou, who joined us yesterday on the program, had the massive win over Henan Fajeda. We'll talk to him about all of that.

Speaking of PFL, we'll talk to the legend Dan Hardy at 230. He's back in New York. He's helping his wife, Veronica Hardy, prepare for her next bout. Dan Hardy, always a great mind, always a great chat with him. We'll talk to him about PFL. We'll get a little insight into 308. He does a tremendous job breaking down the fights as well. And then we shall end things off with the hangman himself, Dan Hooker, joining us from all the way down in Auckland, New Zealand, one of the countries that I've yet to visit, and I would love to visit Auckland. I would absolutely love to visit Auckland. There's the lineup for today. Four gents joining us on the program, in addition to everything else that we are talking

about by the way speaking of 308 saturday first watch party right here at our hq we'll have gc we'll have new york rick we'll have a cast of characters including the great mysterious frank it begins at 1 45 p.m eastern this sat Saturday and it's an afternoon card because of Abu Dhabi. Did I say Friday? I may have said Friday. I meant Saturday if I did say. What the fuck is that? Yeah, I don't know. I was getting confused doing the crack and all that. It's this Saturday

the pay-per-view UFC 308 and afterwards we'll have a post show and that'll be up on the YouTube channel which you're perhaps looking at right now. There it is. Or up on our pod feeds. If you're watching the channel right now, give us a thumbs up in the chat.

Thumbs up to the chat. Thumbs up to the chat. Thumbs up. Hit the sub. Hit the like. Hit the bell. Sub to the pod feeds. Now, the big story, the biggest story, I would say, since we last spoke, is the simmering, simmering feud between one Brendan Schaub and Nathan Diaz. Who saw this coming? did see it coming because it does date back seven years, but it has escalated rather quickly. There is a lot of back and forth going on. And I thought it would be a good service to everyone

watching, listening to perhaps bring you up to speed as to how we got here. Because like I said, this isn't a new thing that just popped off it's a it's it's it's a feud it's a relationship that dates back about seven or so years so let us go to the receipt machine and take you on a little trip down memory lane you'll recall back in 2017 Brendan Chobb was a part of the the Showtime crew that presented the Mayweather-McGregor card. That was a big deal. Well, Brendan and Nathan had a bit of a run-in backstage in the build-up to that card. In case you never saw it or in case you forgot about it, here's that clip. You're going for him? All right. You didn't know him? All right. Don't even try.

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All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. So tough to make it all out, but as you can see, there's a relationship there. I'm not going to say feud. I'm not going to say there's animosity, but it did seem as though Nate took umbrage with some things that Brendan said about him leading up to that fight. I think it really does date back to the second McGregor-Diaz fight, which happened the year before back in 2016. And so then nothing really happened for quite some time, at least that I know of. It seemed quite cordial between the two of them for many, many years, but things got reignited very recently. Brendan Schaub on his

podcast, I believe the Schaub Show it is entitled, spoke about his very good friend, former training partner and, you know, a guy that he has gone to battle with in the gym, Shane Carwin speaking in the midst of this antitrust lawsuit about some of his health issues and some of the things that he can and cannot do and some of the issues that he is dealing with post-fighting. And honestly, Brendan Chubb was very, he was very emotional talking about this. And I personally thought that there was nothing wrong about it. He was talking about a friend. It seemed extremely sincere and coming from a very good place. He was talking about how

heartbreaking it was to hear about these things. I do believe they still have a relationship. And I do believe that, you know, he is still in his life to some degree. And no one wants to see a friend struggle like that. No one wants to see their health deteriorate like that. No one wants to see them deal with these kinds of issues. So it seemed to me like Brendan was speaking from the heart and it seemed like he got a lot of love for that. Well, he did not appear to get a lot of crying emoji, by the way. So, you know, it didn't sit well, I guess, with Brendan Chobb for him to tweet that. And Brendan even responded on Twitter,

and it seemed like this was just going to remain a Twitter beef, if you will. Brendan responds with, oh, buddy, I probably got 20 pounds on you, so not too far off. I'll snap your neck, set up a grappling match, and let me know how it goes for you. Have one of your handlers read this tweet and get back to me. Dang. So that kicked things off a little bit as well, and it seemed like we were now escalating this feud. Yesterday on the program, you may recall, I asked Craig Jones, the founder of CJI, the Craig Jones Invitational, which by all accounts, very, very popular and successful. Their debut events happened back in August. I asked him about the possibility of booking since Brendan threw out the idea of them grappling. I asked him about the idea of booking, the possibility of them booking a Brendan Schaub, Nathan Diaz grappling match.

Here's what Craig Jones had to say. Are people hitting you up? I want to be a part of it. I saw someone say to me, book Brendan Schaub versus Nate Diaz at the next one. I don't know if you saw that back and forth. Brendan Schaub challenged him to a grappling match last week. Did you see that? I'm interested, but only if you commentate that grappling match. Yeah, sign me up. I'm in. I'm in. If you make that match happen, I'm in.

Obviously, anything entertaining enough like that would be amazing. But Nate Diaz would probably physically attack him before we go to the grappling stage. That's cool. I mean, I feel like you'd welcome that. of the drama you know who knows maybe maybe brandon okay so uh craig seems interested but he wants uh me to commentate uh you know let's see let's see how many zeros are on that check but uh certainly of interest. By the way, in the midst of all this, Brendan also talking about, you know, that he was offered a game bread MMA fight, bare knuckle MMA fight, not interested, he's retired. And so like, you know, this is kind of all just there. It's all in the ether. But then last night, courtesy of my friend, Andrew Feldman, who tweeted the clip,

it seemed to go from zero to 100 real quick, as the great Aubrey Graham once said, because Brendan Schaub just unloaded. I mean, he just absolutely unloaded. And listen, it's exhausting being in feuds like this. I wouldn't know, but this is what I've heard. And so I was just watching it. I was like, wow, it seems to have gotten very very personal so i would urge you all to go check out the show the shop show uh big fan here and and and i i i saw the clip and i was like this is a different side of brendan this feels like a side of brendan that we have never seen before certainly in the in the media career um of brendan shaw because it seems like the shackles are off. He's saying what he wants to say. Repercussions, blowback, pushback, be damn. He's speaking from the heart here. And it's always easiest to speak from the

heart, especially when it's about a topic that is near and dear to your heart. Here's a quick clip or so of what Brendan Schaub had to say in response and with regards to Nathan Diaz. Here's what's real. I will fuck you up. That's real. I'm not asking for this. I don't want to fuck him up. I'm not trying to fuck him up.

End of the day, if you walked in right now, I said, Chin, Case, can you guys leave? Only one of us is going to walk out unscathed, and it's me. There's many of guys that you fucks with. Oh, can you pause it right there? Ask them how it went. I just wanted to pause it right there. Did you guys notice him say fucks? I did notice that, yeah. Yeah.

So I get a lot of flack for saying fucks with, fucks with, but I just wanted you guys to note that, that he said fucks has been noted thank you this is what legitimizes it i think so okay i mean it's just yeah all right okay you can continue ruled with ask them how it went go ahead and ask them very close guys do you ask them how it went but that's real this isn't real and the difference between you and i made a million fucking things don't get me started but the difference between you and i if you start crying because your brother who sct that's getting personal you and i is if your brother and shane's a brother to me if your actual fucking brother came out and started getting emotional or if you started coming out

getting emotional about your brother's issues with ct and fighting and all this shit because we know he has his issues i would support you even though you've been a dick to me the entire time so as you can see very very personal very fired up brendan chubb going off a lot of people said uh you know are we you know it was very mixed i saw some of the reaction is it on the one hand it's like hey are we witnessing the the the baby face turn of one brendan chubb and then a lot of other people said like nah nate would mess you up you know nate is one of the most beloved and popular fighters in the history of fighting, period. And so this is getting really interesting. I have not seen this side of Brendan Shaw before. I have not seen him get this fired up and lay down a challenge like this and make these kinds

of threats. In case you're wondering, it does appear as though Nathan Diaz saw the clip in one way, shape, or form. And he did tweet this early this morning he said i think you'd be surprised with the laughing emoji that by the way is in reference to the infamous uh interview if you will where uh brendan shobb was on the joe rogan show and uh rogan was talking to him about you know him hanging up the gloves and uh he couldn't hang with the top guys at the time. I believe Cain Velasquez was the top guy and, you know, Schaub was pushing back and Rogan hit him with the, I think you'd be surprised how that fight would go if in fact you did fight one of those guys. So that was a good callback. That was definitely a deep cut. And so here we are. Where does this go from here? Where's the next twist and turn going to come from?

It did get us thinking about, you know, just how these two would match up. If in fact, I will admit there is a part of me that feels like there is something brewing here. Are they working towards a match? Is there a big pot at the end of this rainbow? And so we did cook up for all of you a nice little tale of the tape.

Here it is right over here, little tale of the tape. Here it is right over here, tale of the tape. Nate Diaz currently standing at six feet even. Brendan Schaub, six foot four. Diaz around 180 pounds. Last time we saw him, Schaub 245 could very well be more than that. If you're wondering about comedy specials, Brendan Schaub, 2-0 for Nathan Diaz. So perhaps that, that goes in Brendan's favor or not, depending on,

you know, whether or not you enjoyed the shows. The area codes that they represent, 209 versus 303, two very iconic area codes, if you ask me. There's more, though. We're not just doing one tail of the tape here. We actually have a zeroed-in tail of the tape, if you will. Here you go. You got the weight. You got the height right over there. But what about some career highlights?

Nathan Diaz fought for the UFC lightweight title. Brendan Schaub, I think a lot of people don't give him credit. They only know him as the podcast host slash YouTube guy slash comedian, was at one time one of the best heavyweights in the world. There's no doubt about that. In fact, even once knocked out, Mirko Krokop. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. Nathan Diaz, like we said, is from Stockton, California. And Brendan Chobb hosts the Fighter and the Kid show alongside our good pal Brian Kalin and also the Chobb show. We talked about this yesterday. Nathan Diaz, founder of the BMF belt.

It all started with him in August of 2019. That is perhaps his greatest claim to fame. And I don't know if it's apples to apples here, but worth noting 1.109 dB for Gringo Poppy. I didn't put that in there. That was on Air Jordan. That had nothing to do with me. I want no smoke here, okay?

I just want the world to know. I'm just an innocent bystander just trying to call this down the middle. And so I think it's really interesting. One person who has been locked in on this feud, sending me all kinds of content since it all kicked off is our own pt carol who i think has some thoughts on what's been brewing here he has been dare i say uh captivated by it enthralled by it is it is that not correct pt

yeah well i mean it's not really about the fight or the grappling match that's being proposed here, as far as I'm concerned. It's about the resurgence of Brendan Schaub, who, by all intents and purposes, was the most hated man on the internet for a number of years. Obviously, you referenced Gringo Poppy there. Last Saturday, I texted you, right? Yeah. I think it was last Saturday, and I said, I think Shab was on the bounce back. I'd been on Instagram and, you know, it became the butt of a lot of jokes in the comedy circles.

I see like Shane Gillis, the guy who just hosted SNL, you know, one of the most famous comedians in the world at the moment, liking his content as Shab took a more kind of self-deprecating view of himself. So again, this morning, and I text you about this too, I was inundated with people saying, wow, Schaub's really bodied him here. And I'm like, this is the most amount of dubs, even just by some people's perspective,

of seeing Schaub get in a very long time. So I think that's interesting. I do think that when you went through the beautiful timeline there and fantastic work from all the crew taking us through this epic situation. But I do think the lines about Shane, obviously him, Nate slagging that, Shaub was emotional about Shane, and then Shaub adding Nick into the mix, I think that's what has potentially got this simmering over. But honestly, Shaub saying, I've only got 20 pounds on this guy think that's what has potentially got this simmering over but honestly shop saying

i've only got 20 pounds on this guy that's crazy are you joking me mate he's he's a monstrous dude i think yeah as as the graphic shows nate diaz i think his heaviest weigh-in was about 181 or something like that shop's lightest was 245 massive weight difference generally in fighting if the guy is taller and heavier than you He's going to win I know there's some exceptions to that rule And pride And yeah, Shaba decorated black belt

So I could imagine that would be a very difficult task For Night Diaz if they were to rumble In a grappling arena Does it feel like they're working towards something here? Well, you don't start saying I'm going to rip your neck off And stuff like that unless you're going to do it You don't start saying that to gonna rip your neck off and stuff like that unless you're gonna do it you don't you don't start saying that to someone unless you're ready to go there

i never thought job would entertain the idea of fighting again and for diaz like you know we talked about the the idea of someone taking on jake paul from the mma world and then beating jake paul and then becoming you know a martyr because of that this this could be a situation like that for diaz as well as we know even though i've mentioned about this bounce back shop has been a character that has took a lot of abuse in the mma community maybe nate's looking at it like wow this could be uh this could this could rejuvenate the situation for me following the Paul fight if I went in against B-Sharp. I don't know, though. Likelihood of it happening, very low, I would imagine.

I think this could do massive numbers. Like, if I'm Craig Jones, if I'm Polaris, if I'm the Fight Pass Invitational, if I'm Abu Dhabi, I'm trying to make this happen, right? I mean, could you imagine happen Right I mean could you imagine The build up Could you imagine the buzz By the way In case you're wondering Shout out to

Antoine for the The poll If this grappling match Actually happens Who wins According to the poll Thumbs up to the chat Brendan Schaub 37%

Nathan Diaz 29% Comedy 34% That's brilliant That's brilliant I feel like there's something here i call me crazy maybe i'm a pro wrestling guy i feel like there's a seed i feel like they're working towards something and and i for one say i would watch i think i would watch i'm actually fascinated by it

i mean it's kind of old school pride right it's open weight you know massive weight difference i would say nate is the better grappler, but then, I mean, I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but then the size difference makes it tricky for him. This is sort of like DJ versus Bradley Martin in some respects, maybe not that big,

but you get what I'm saying. Rick mentioned the shop shutdown against Cyborg at Metamorris years ago. Yeah. That was actually, that was really impressive. Like Cyborg is a genuine savage like a world champion adcc and shob went in against him and although it was utterly boring without a doubt like it still shows an enormous skill set to be able to keep a guy like that off

you like off your heels off your legs he's great with entanglements like that um what how bizarre is it that the thing that has injected energy into the jiu-jitsu community is Craig Jones and Gabby Garcia? I love it. And Nate Diaz and Brandon Sharplek. This is going to rejuvenate the sport of grappling. Unbelievable. It's almost like the influencer version of what happened to boxing. And these guys are far from influencers so to speak but it just goes back

to show that you need to be emotionally invested in the characters in the storylines and the feuds it can't always just be oh who's the better man there has to be something there there has to be some sizzle to the steak and listen if i'm one of these guys right now i am working feverishly to make this happen i think the build-up would be incredible i think it would be i think it would be gigantic business i i would buy the pay-per-view if it's like 14.99 or something on on on youtube or on some platform i would happily buy that i'm lucky it's 14.99 are you serious yeah if it's 15.99 that's a little too steep there's only so much do you think shove can rejuvenate his career Like honestly

When it was low When it was at a low point I thought there was no way back I'm quite Like I think I think fair play to him I think there's something Happening here

I don't know if it's a Full face turn But I think he's having a moment And if you look at the comments Especially the quote tweets There are a lot of people Saying like Is this the beginning

Of the face turn And you bring up a great point And it's a It's a point that is, it is valid when it comes to any person from any walk of life. If you are self-deprecating, if you are real, if you are authentic, if you don't appear to be trying too hard to win people over, people tend to side with you and tend to like you. I mean, that's really, isn't that Nate Diaz in a nutshell? Isn't that why people love him so much? Because he's authentic because he's real because he doesn't appear to be trying too hard

but Brendan in this battle here, in this war of words so to speak and let's be fair, Brendan has said a lot Nate has sent off a couple tweets but clearly the initial one hit him in his heart Brendan's going for the jugular, like he's making

this quite personal talking about the brother, jugular Like he's making this Quite personal Talking about the brother Talking about where he's from Like these These aren't just words He's making this very personal In fact he's inviting the challenge He's saying pull up essentially right

Isn't that what he's saying He's saying come through That's exactly what he's saying He's saying you and the guy You fucks with Yeah That's what he's saying You heard that right

You pull up You heard that Oh I heard it I can't really do it I think it's more of an American thing. Irish people saying it just sounds ridiculous. I heard it. Do you fucks with those people?

Yeah. I will say this about Brendan and the rant. I was watching it. I was like, it was like that, you know, that meme of the woman who's like, you know that one? And it was going so well. It was going so well until he said Sacramento Instead of Stockton I thought that was a joke I didn't get or something

I was like even I know that I'm from a different country It's crazy I don't think that that was on purpose Oh no I think he just got Sacramento I mean they're close to each other They're both in NorCal It was like oh okay

Sacramento for fuck's sake So close But the nick thing is not gonna yeah you have a brother you know that's like it's a different level yeah yeah you know you can fight with your brother your whole life but as soon as someone else starts messing with your brother things get things get heated very quickly and i think that's the straw that broke the the camel's back for a night and obviously Brendan, very hurt because Nate seems to be taking the piss out of him, being emotional over his friend, but you can completely understand. And I thought he did a great job on the whole thing about Karen, which I said last week.

What do you think happens next? I don't know. Like, what else can happen? More tweets, more videos. I mean, I don't know. We'll can happen? More tweets? More videos? I don't know. We'll see. We'll see, PT. And by the way, we missed you yesterday.

Thank you. I watched it. You said a great chat at the end about bagels. You love that? I really wanted to be part of it about that. We can re-back it if you have an opinion to share. Let me just tease it out for a few hours and then maybe at the back end I can make a profound statement about bagels okay yeah we did mention the fact that you uh had never heard of locks outside of new york i appreciated that and i don't i don't think it's a thing outside of

the wonderful united states of america it's definitely a thing in canada i know that north america whatever you know north america um in a, thank you for that, PT, and I hope that we provided a great service to everyone who was a little bit confused as to what was going on here between these two characters in our beloved world of mixed martial arts. In a couple

of minutes, we're going to be joined by Alexander Rakic, who is just finishing up his training in Abu Dhabi. That card coming up his training in abu dhabi that card coming up on saturday um in abu dhabi they always they always do it big over there they always have great cards and this one no different i love i love this card i love this main event um i love the co-main event and it does appear by the way in case you're worried in case you're wondering uh hamza is there he's in good form he He's in good spirits. I saw how Robert Whitaker looks as well. It appears as though this is going to happen, my friends. It really does appear like this is going to happen. A lot of people are going

crazy over the shorts that were revealed. I wanted to go to our merch expert, Mr. GC, to ask him about the shorts because I saw some people going nuts saying these are the greatest shorts in the history of the UFC. Now our standards have gone quite, quite low from the old days. These are not low quality. This is not low standard. These are unbelievable. What's so unbelievable?

Dude, what isn't unbelievable about them? Adding the bowline, the red and black. I love red and black with the gold trim all over it. I mean, it looks fantastic. And then near like the UFC logo, like kind of in the crotch region, like it looks, it looks like, you know, they added in some sort of like matador design that like a matador wear. These are fantastic. 10 out of 10. I would just say that we have been so ruined as people from the Reebok era that we think that just a little design is something to go with. A little design. The whole shorts

here are designed. But there was once a time where we had like anything. You can literally fight in a kilt. I mean, to me, Chuck Liddell is like the Iceman ones. Yeah. Like those are like the golden... Do you think these are better than the Iceman? No. No, no, no. I don't think these are better than the Iceman. So that's what I'm talking about. I think these are better than a lot from that Reebok era. We once had, you know,

well, Iceman is pre-Rebok, but like we once had in the glory days, incredible shorts, and now people are talking about. I think these are better than a lot from that Reebok era. We once had, you know, well, Iceman is pre-Reebok, but we once had in the glory days incredible shorts, and now people are talking about these are like the most innovative. I mean, listen. These are going toe-to-toe with a lot of the great shorts in history. Hot take, the Max Holloway Hawaiian-inspired shorts might be nicer. Okay, so you're saying this is a one-verse-two, a pound-for-pound shorts battle That we have going on

I like Pereira shorts I like Pereira shorts But I I like Zhang Weili shorts Zhangs are also fantastic Look at you complimenting All these shorts And now

I'm just saying Now they've fully added purple Into the rotation as well Which is a huge development We thought it was just Going to be Ian Gare We thought it was just Going to be

Brendan Allen Now I think Charles Johnson Wore them this past weekend I mean perfect Oh anyone is allowed To wear them now It's a color of the rainbow It's a standard color All I'm saying is I saw everyone Now, I think Charles Johnson wore them this past weekend. I mean, perfect. Oh, anyone is allowed to wear them now. It's a color of the rainbow.

It's a standard color. All I'm saying is I saw everyone. When's pink coming in? I would love pink. I love. Is pink not one of them? O'Malley had the pink one time. Yes.

No, it really should be every color, especially I believe October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so you should definitely be allowed to wear pink in October. My kids' soccer team, they wear pink socks. I feel like that kind of fell out of trend with the NFL. Remember when everyone used to wear sweatbands and cleats and all that? What happened? I don't know, man. I guess the money moved somewhere else.

Yeah. My only point is I saw everyone going gaga over the shorts, and I was like, all right, they're fine. But they're so much better than just red shorts with gold trim one thousand percent the the standard ones that we used to get back in the day a hundred percent i still feel like they haven't got it right with the uh with the with the gloves yeah it's got to be what you said black with gold lettering not gold with black these deporia ones these shorts though i love the bull these are the best ever of the custom shorts these are my favorite shorts though I love the bull These are the best ever

Of the custom shorts These are my favorite so far Yeah By the way Where is the bull? What am I missing here? Is it on the left? Oh

You see like on the back And you can see the horse I guess this is the best picture for it Yeah on the left On his right side Will be a bull Yeah Yes

It's amazing And then like the matador designs The colors I'm a sucker for red and black My favorite color scheme So yeah I mean he's just top notch And we're assuming It's amazing. And then like the Matador designs, the colors. I'm a sucker for red and black, my favorite color scheme. So yeah, I mean, he's just top notch. And we're assuming Max is going to wear the Hawaiian ones.

I'm just assuming that's what's going to happen. I'm assuming too, but it would be nice if they upped it a little bit. Because the last time we saw him was when UFC 300, that's when he debuted them, right? I don't think they're going to up it. You don't think so? I mean, Pereira wore the same ones. Were they the exact same? Yeah.

I wonder where they draw the line. Like, will Hamzat get his own? And what's that going to be? I'm afraid to ask. What will Robert Whitaker's look like? Hamzat's going to have a wolf on it if you have a bull on Elias. Yeah. And Whitaker's going to have the Grim Reaper.

That'd be sick. Yeah. I'm talking for Halloween you want to know what my one of my favorite shorts that's wildly simple was just the John Jones Nike ones

oh yeah oh you see that's what I'm talking about right I mean he had I think he had Gatorade the G right Gatorade on the front

and then the Nike on the back that was that felt like as mainstream as it gets for MMA and they had the bones nose oh yeah shirts you could buy yeah that's that's about That was That felt like As mainstream as it gets For MMA And they had the Bones nose Oh yeah

Shirts you could buy Yeah That's about Look at you calling back To 2012 Yeah yeah I mean people around Like college campuses

Were wearing that And stuff They were Oh yeah You were in college Back then Yeah I was a freshman In 2012 yeah

You were rocking The bones nose Back then I mean I hadn't gotten into my merch phase You're like who's this Bones guy? Yeah probably would have said who is this Bones guy That era plus

Anderson Silva rocking the Burger King shorts Oh that's yeah I've seen pictures those are all timers yeah Getting some mainstream sponsors in there Would be nice Now we've got Who did I see I I saw on Saturday. It drives me nuts that PFL tries to, I mean, they wear uniforms there too.

That drives me insane. You got to give the guys personality. You got to let them shine. I didn't hate the Cyborg Pacheco unis. Okay, you didn't hate it? Really? It was all right. What was up with that?

That was like, what was it, like spray paint or something? What was it? I don't know. It was a little too much, no? Yeah. something what was it i don't know it was a little too much no yeah and what was it were they doing because it was a title fight i don't know man i need some of these answers i only know so much about the uniforms and i definitely only know so much about the pfl uniforms level of excitement one to ten for saturday ten ten yeah dude were you the one or was it rick who said this was his most anticipated fight this is my most anticipated this is it yeah can't wait i i i really don't know what's gonna happen yeah that's the thing oh you dressed up the thing

it just hit me right now yeah we're getting there we're gonna add the artist series poster fantastic one uh from from joe, I believe is his name. Average Joe Art? Average Joe Art, yes. He's a legend. Yes, he did the Artist Series poster this week. Wow. It's phenomenal.

Is it? Oh, yeah. It's like Georgia, Spain, Hawaii, America, Blessed Express, Bull. I'll have to get a full screen of it later. Yeah, no. I would love to see it. I was waiting. I was like, is this it?

I didn't hear you describing it. But yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, 10 out of 10 in terms of excitement. I mean, just like both storylines of whoever wins. If Max gets his belt back, I mean, like, how hot can you possibly get? If Ilya beats Max, what a 2024 he's had. Beat Volk and Max. You know, two of the greatest featherweights of all time in the exact same year.

Especially if he stops Max. Oh, my gosh. It'll be absolutely nutty to continue his undefeated reign. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait. Whitaker, Hamzat, unbelievable fight. Ige, Lerone Murphy, fantastic fight. Maga Ben-Akhalaev, Alexander Rokic.

I mean, the list just goes on and on. Chris Barnett kicking off the card. Yeah. That's going to be a wild matchup. I think it's 5-9 versus 6-6. I mean, that's what dreams are made of. Shara Bullitt. Shara Bullitt on the card.

Jeff Neal RDA on the prelims. Jeff Neal RDA, which is just a fantastic scrap. You got Oralby, Moltebeck Oralby going. I mean, there's some fans. They always put on a good show in Abu Dhabi. What's the daytime card? Yeah, I love 45. You guys are saying 2 p.m.?

We'll be out of here by 5 o'clock. We'll be catching a happy hour on Saturday. It's going to be fantastic. But you're not one of those people who says that if Ilya wins, he usurps Perez fighter of the year, right? I said to Rick before the show today, if he goes out there and knocks Max out cold, I may have to do something.

Serious? Brother, if he starches Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway in the same year... But that's three big wins. Both those wins are better than any of Pereira's wins. All right. We can have the discussion on Monday. We have to see what happens. Yes. Max Holloway is very alive in this fight. All right. We can have the discussion on Monday. We have to see what happens.

Yes. Max Holloway is very alive in this fight. All right, so there it is. The watch party at 1.45 p.m. Eastern time. First one, kicking it off for the uncrowned era. Post-show, immediately following. And in a matter of moments, we're going to be joined, I do believe, all the way from Abu Dhabi.

We're going to be joined by Alexander Rakic, who has a massive fight. Afterwards, we'll be joined by Eric Nixick, who is also in Abu Dhabi. He's there with Dan Ige, who has a massive fight of his own against Lerone Murphy. Obviously, last time we saw Dan Ige, he was on his couch the day of that card, June 29th card. What was that? 303 and then brian ortega withdrew and then there he was fighting like six hours later insane a little longer of a training camp this time he didn't get to fight on the sphere card but he's still getting a a solid solid placement here on this one and then dan hardy and then of course dan hooker who has uh been in the crosshairs

if you will of one conor mcgregor recently um both mcgregor and hardy excuse me and hooker were at the bkfc card in marbella i never realized so many people had uh had such trouble saying Marbella. I heard Marbella, I heard Marabella, I heard all kinds of different variations. But here we are. It was in Marbella. And so that is coming Dan Hooker against Conor McGregor in 2025. We'll talk to Dan Hooker about that. For now, though, let us go to Abu Dhabi and say hello to our old friend Alexander Rakic who returns to action on Saturday against Magomed Ankhalaev, a massive fight in the light heavyweight division. There he is.

Alexander Rakic is here. Hello, Alexander. How are you? I'm fine. I'm fine. How are you, Ariel? I'm doing great. I'm assuming everything going well over there for you in Abu Dhabi and obviously this is a massive, massive fight for many different reasons. It seems, though, after what transpired a couple weeks ago in Salt Lake City,

that there's a potential title shot at stake here, certainly for Magomed. Do you believe that if you win on Saturday, you're the next man to fight Alex Pereira? Honestly, yes, I am. But I don't want to talk too much. I want just to perform on Saturday. And with my performance, every question will be answered. Okay, can I ask,

when you were offered Magomed, what was your reaction? Were you surprised? Because a lot of people thought that Magomed would be next for Alex Pereira first of all I was surprised secondly I was very happy because UFC gave me this opportunity to fight the number two ranked guy in the world and like you said he was supposed to fight there were rumors rumors that he's fighting uh carrera but then when i got the name i was like wow that's that's awesome that's huge and uh i'm very happy because um you know

it's not always winning fights it's always it's also how you uh. And I think after the performance on UFC 300 against Yuri Prohaska, and obviously the UFC liked that, they gave me that shot. And the UFC knew that I was not 100% healthy in that last fight against Yuri Prohaska. They knew everything. They knew that I was on heavy medication and still put this performance. I think that's the reason they gave me all of the opportunity to fight and survive now in Abu Dhabi.

What was wrong when you fought Prokhaska? I got a really bad stuff infection on my right elbow three days before the fight, four days before the fight on Tuesday. Like a lot of pain fever and i was on heavy medication i i drank like antibiotics i went one day before the weigh-ins uh i was in the hospital i had an iv and um yeah uh it is what it is. You know, I went in, I gave all what I did.

I was ready for it. But, you know, my body shut down in that fight in the second round. And this never happened to me because, you know, I'm fighting for so long time. And this kind of feeling I never had in my life. So I would not say the infection is an excuse, but I would say that I was not 100% healthy in that fight. Do you regret taking the fight?

Do you regret, you know, sticking with it and actually going out there? No, I don't regret. I was there. The biggest card of this year and one of the biggest cards in UFC history. I put on a show and you see, I opened my door to another great fight against Anka live on Saturday. And in that fight, you were looking good early on.

Do you think that's what affected you do you you know um do you think the body and and the way you were reacting to the illness and to the medication shut you down and then led to the uh the victory for yuri yeah i mean like i said it's not a excuse but uh i was not healthy and i felt it in my body you know i have many fights not only in MMA, I did it also in kickboxing, and I never felt something like that on UFC 300. How the body shut down in one second. My legs are giving out, my body giving out, and this I never experienced in my life and uh i hope this

never happened again i understand why you would say that you don't regret sticking with the fight because you had not fought in about two years right how did you feel in there just given the layoff how was your confidence oh i mean uh honestly when i look back uh it didn't feel like so long that I didn't fight for two years so it was like pretty uh pretty normal for me like I didn't fight for a couple of months everything went smooth the weight cut went smooth the camp and everything besides that was was was nice but you know um yeah I think the consistency now to fight every couple of months it's gonna be only I'm gonna improve and getting better and better from fight to fight and like we have like now what four or five months after my last fight so I'm into the materia I'm

into it and like the camp was amazing. The weight cut is going really good. I feel good. I have good mood still when I'm cutting weight. I have good mood. The whole team is excited and we have a lot of fun here in Abu Dhabi. How do you feel about the UFC's decision to give the title shot to Roundtree and not to Magomed? I mean, that's up to them, you know.

I don't know why they did it, but in the end of the day, after the performance what Pereira and Khalil gave in Salt Lake City, they made the right decision because it was a hell of a fight from both guys it was a stand-up war and this is what the people want and i think this is also what the ufc want and i think everybody was happy uh accepting uh my woman and her life i think at that day were you uh surprised at how well Rountree did? Oh, I know Rountree is a tough fighter and tough guy.

But I was really surprised about his striking. He improved a lot from the last fight. And, man, the conditioning was also good. But, you know, Pereira, you need to handle Pereira's pressure and Khalil could do it the first three rounds after that of course he got tired and it's also Salt Lake City high elevation I understand everything but he did a great performance I mean against a great champion there is a thought out there that the UFC would rather Magomed not fight for a belt, perhaps because he's not the most popular fighter or exciting fighter, or maybe because he's a bad matchup for Alex.

Are you taking this assignment on to say, okay, I will get rid of this guy for you, and that uh, you know, that, that may make the bosses happy. Do you, do you view it like that? No. And I mean, the boss gave the bosses, they gave me one name.

I accepted. And, uh, you know, because after the year fight, I was not in a position to choose any opponent. Uh, I was like,

uh, uh, I will take anyone who they give me. And in that situation, they gave me Anka Laev, the best ranked opponent after Yuri Bruhaska and Alex Pereira. So it was like, I was really surprised. And I mean, my 100% focus is on Anka Laev. And I will not, I'm not thinking even on the belt or or on Alex Pereira

my 100% focus is on Ancalayev and Saturday and then after this fight then we can talk and then we can uh then we can see what are the next steps you But I believe if I put a great performance, the answer will come by his own. When the fight was announced, Magomed Al-Khalaf went on Twitter and wrote, now everybody knows that I'm not fighting for the title and will fight Rakic and Abu Dhabi. Whoever Mick Maynard gives me,

I will smash their face so that they can no longer deny me if I do my job impressively i feel sorry for whoever is going to fight me from now on going forward do you think he's going to fight emotionally do you think he's going to fight with a chip on his shoulder when you hear this what do you what do you think i mean everybody has everybody has the right to say whatever he wants and to write what he wants you know and in that moment he felt like that. One thing is to say something. The other thing is to do some things. So, yeah, it's up to him if he take it emotionally, if he take it ice cold or if he's going to be calculated, you know uh i'm pretty pretty relaxed about uh the whole situation because i in this camp i focused a lot of myself and on my skills and on my training camp and of course i watched

magomed magomed's fight uh fights and we study him and we know what he's good at and what he's having where he has problems but first of all you know for me is that I'm fighting the one of the best guys in the division and that's him what what's uh what could you tell us about the scouting report? What's he good at? What's he not good at? I mean, he's all-rounded, you know? But this is one good thing. The bad things, it's a secret. Okay.

But you see things. Yeah, I mean, everybody. Everybody in this world has goals in the game. You know, everybody. The best of the best have goals. There is not a perfect fighter in this world that knows and can do every technique and every martial art perfectly. So, and yes, of course, the people are going to say, yeah, but he's undefeated he's that and that

you know everybody has his own vision and how he looked at it and i think i think like that because uh you know mma is a beautiful sport and you know why it's beautiful? Because you have always room to improve your game. And after every fight, you can be a different fighter. So that's the beauty of the MMA sport. And that's the reason I tell you that everybody on that world, in the MMA world, has holes. By the way, just curious, now that you've looked at him closely, who do you think would win, Magomed or Alex, if they fought? Well, I really don't know probably it's it's a tough one it's a tough one i really don't know i would i would maybe give it to alex okay i don't know because you've been more in five rounds

i don't know really okay we go either in more way. More all-round, it's probably going to be Magomed and Kalayev. But, you know, you need to mix things up with Alex Pereira. I did see an interview recently with Jan Bochovic where he said that he thought that they are protecting Alex by booking Magomed versus you. That they don't want Magomed to fight Alex, so they booked him against you. Do you feel like there's something to that? I don't think so i mean first of all you need to fight anybody and i think pereira uh fought the last three guys i mean two times for huska and and and uh and the khalil and um yeah i don't think so you know so we will see okay you mentioned you mentioned a great

training camp I saw a video montage of you training in the mountains where was this I saw this on social media where were you and do you always do this no this was the first time I was in Bosnia and I brought my whole team there and this was on high elevation on 2000 meters I don't know how much feed and I've been really through hell you know like you see carrying sprinting pads and heavy wrestling drills so just to get the gas tank be ready and perform and go like three fives with no problem, conditioning problems. This looks like hell.

This does not look fun at all, Alexander. How long are these sessions up there? One and a half hours, but it was pretty, it was not so warm, so we didn't have so much break in between, so we didn't have so much break in between. So we moved from one exercise to the other one. So basically, we didn't have so much room for recovery. I also saw you with Roberto Soldic on some four-wheelers or something.

Is that in the same spot or somewhere else? Yes, this is the same spot. This the city where roberto soldage is from where he lives i did a camp in his village yes and this is this is uh this is where we also train the wrestling this is on 2000 square meter and then roberto is a hell of a softball as well of course he's a middleweight but he i learned a lot of things from him because he's been to many wars. And I had another great sparring partner, Southpaw. I had Ahmed Kurnic, who signed with Glory, who fought in one FC. I have Agron Smakici, a pro boxer, who was a sparring partner of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. And I had some other guys, some wrestlers.

So I've been like, this camp was one of the hardest physically and mentally for me. Incredible. Well, you appear to be in phenomenal shape and everything seems to be paying off and hopefully we get a great performance. I also saw, by the way, that you met Mike Tyson at UFC 300. Was that your first time meeting Mike?

And what was that like? Yes. I mean, I went just out of the venue, you know, after I lost the fight with Yuri. And, you know, of course, you are sad. You are down to earth. You know, a world breaks down. But when I saw Mike, you know uh he's a fucking legend you know in that's in the whole boxing and mma and mma and martial arts uh era so i was asking him uh hey can

i take a picture with you he gave me his hand i kiss his hand you know just for respect this man did a lot of great things and took a picture and uh it was uh amazing uh it was amazing amazing moment for me you think he beats jake paul next month i'm 100 with mike tyson you know all the time will you watch it yeah of course okay some people say they don't want to watch it they don't want to support it but it sounds like he's uh he's one of your favorites this cost me just a couple minutes of my life you know and i do so many things on on on you know being on instagram or tiktok on social media for for for nothing so why don't spend some time for this you know yeah and it won't be a pay-per-view so uh you're right it's it's it's a

free couple minutes of your life um alexander so happy that you're back can't wait for this fight i think it's a massive fight a massive opportunity for you uh to maybe spoil some plans that's a good spot to be in and so i wish you all the best on saturday thank you so much for joining us and good luck on this uh on this on this massive fight this coming weekend thank you very much and uh talk to you after the fight hopefully looking forward to it thank you alexander there he is alexander rakic um fighting out of vienna austria these days but as you just heard and saw training also out of bosnia with the likes of roberto saldich we have not heard from in in quite some time uh has also done some training with American top team,

currently ranked number five in the UFC's light heavyweight rankings. And if he beats Magomed Ankolaev, he can screw up some plans. There's no doubt about it. I do believe he is a big underdog, right, GC? Isn't he a sizable dog? He's getting around plus 300 right now. Plus 300? Yeah. What's Ankolaev? dog right GC isn't he uh a sizable dog plus 300 right now plus 300 yeah what's uh what's Ankulayev minus 400 coming back dang right now minus 430 Ankulayev plus 300 fair you think that's

fair just given how Ankulayev has looked and and Rakic I don't know Rakic is pretty good yeah I love that fight. I think it's a great spot for him to be in. Obviously, he's lost his last two in a row, but, you know, there was the Prokoska fight he now explained. And again, some might say, oh, you're making excuses. I don't view it as such. He's just telling the story, which is fine.

I'm asking him questions about the fight. And then prior to that was May of of 2022 so almost two years prior to 300 he had the bachovic fight but he got hurt uh he injured his knee yeah i mean he looked pretty good in both those fights up until he didn't exactly and then prior to that he had two uh pretty solid wins he had the decision win over tiago santos and prior to that had the decision win over anthony smith so Two and two in his last four But a massive gap in between them In case you're wondering

Our friends over in the chat 55% say Rakic is winning Put your money where your mouth is Huh? 55% say Rakic is going to beat Magomed on Kalaev Alright let's go back to Abu Dhabi Our guest at this time

He's been spending a lot of time in the Middle East. He was in Riyadh on Saturday. We saw him front and center in Saudi Arabia next to his guy Francis as he had the incredibly emotional and impressive win over Henne Faheda. And then he flew over to Abu Dhabi to, of be by the side of one of his other guys Dan Ige who is fighting this weekend against Lerone Murphy we're talking to the head man now one of our favorites over at Extreme Couture the great Eric Nixick there he is Eric Nixick kind enough to join us uh Eric thank you so much great to have you congrats on Saturday you're in Abu

Dhabi right I got all that right for Dan Ige I'm in Abu Dhabi yep I'm here right now man no rest huh you can't you don't get a second to come down I I slept pretty good last night I was I finally got caught up on some sleep so I feel good obviously different circumstances but I asked Francis this question yesterday I I wasn't sure if he was you know more physically spent or emotionally spent because of everything that went into that fight would you say for yourself just how close he is to you and everything that has transpired over the last few months that it was just like an emotional dump afterwards after the fight was over yeah i think that's fair to say and francis is a very quiet guy keeps to

himself um especially when it comes to a lot of his emotions but that was something that he definitely uh spoke to me quite a bit about at length um all camp long it was it was it i was telling annie that it didn't really have much to do with the fight in the cage it was more the fight um in here in your heart and trying to get to the fight those were the those were the hardest parts that i saw um just from knowing francis the way that i do so yeah it was it was a lot man and just just seeing him get over that hump and being able to realize that um that goal that he wanted to to fight and get that win for kobe it just really meant a lot were you nervous were you worried about him going in no no not at all i i mean honestly ariel like you you and i talk all the time man you're i just i feel like it was already written you know like i i just this guy's destiny

is already written in some some weird way and um i was more confident i think than than any other fight i've had him for and this is just a matter of him just going out and just just knowing what he's capable of and executing and that's what we saw i i appreciate you saying more confident i also wouldn't be surprised if deep down maybe there was a little bit of doubt even putting aside uh the personal tragedy, he is coming off a knockout loss, the first of his career. And so sometimes that changes fighters. You would know better than anyone.

And so that's why I was wondering if there was any part of you. We remember how he looked after the first Stipe loss. And I know that he wasn't with you back then, but it could change you after you lose, and especially if you get knocked out. So I was wondering if you thought maybe he would be, you know, trigger shy or something like that. You probably got a sense of where he was at mentally

in training camp. And so probably all of that went away long before you guys got to Saudi Arabia. Yeah, I feel like the God or fate of the universe puts these obstacles in front of us to, to, you know, not necessarily force you but give you the opportunity to get over that hurdle and i think time and time again that's what we've seen with francis and his resiliency and the type of human being that he is that he's battle tested

so when things like this present themselves and although they're it's a it's an unimaginable tragedy that no human being should ever have to go through. If anybody can get through something like this, I knew it was going to be Francis. So for whatever reason, I just felt like it was put in front of him so he could get through it and go on to the next chapter of his life. What was it like being back in Saudi Arabia for you? Last time I think you were there was for the Joshua fight, right? I know it wasn't the same venue, but any of those feelings come back? No, not really. And it's, it was very different for me. I think the last two fights, obviously with Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, just because of my role, you know, I'm not his boxing coach, I his mma coach um but this one was different because it

was like okay now we get to sit down and go over the x's and o's and hey what do you want to do how do you want to implement this game plan what are your thoughts here's mine um you know i sat down with randy went over some stuff with randy um i actually talked to tom aspinall like there's you know like i just really wanted to make sure that in my mind like i was seeing the same things that a lot of these guys were seeing and how to execute a good game plan and put our guy in the right position to win. That was Francis' thought on the situation. We didn't want to make a coin flip fight where Henen Fajita is very good on the feet.

We knew that he had some good knockouts, but we went back and really looked at where his holes in his game were and where we felt like we can excel, and that's kind of where it presented itself. So this whole fight to me was just very different where I just – my involvement felt more like a part of a normal training camp again. I love that. You went to Big Tom for a scouting report? What did he have to say?

You know, Tom and I are pretty close, close man and i check in with him he checks in with me we're we're pretty close friends and uh um dude he's he's an ally like he's a guy that i actually hit up when we were going to paris and uh i was like hey if you're around man i'd like like to come to have you come out because ufc was fighting in paris that same week when i was there training with francis so i didn't know if the ufc was going to have him out and uh because he was close in manchester he's like oh they're not if the UFC was going to have him out. And cause he was close in Manchester. He's like, Oh,

they're not bringing me. I'm going to be the backup for the card in New York, but I'd love to be able to come. And then he's like, here's a list of some of my guys that I use if you need to use them. So he's been, he's been a great ally. And I think like there's a mutual respect between,

between Tom and Francis that, that, you know, I think that that's sportsmanship side of things. And Tom was writing me and just saying, no, here's what I see in the fight. What do you think?

And here's what I wrote back and forth. And, you know, the fight played out how Tom and I kind of thought. And then, uh, he wrote me, he was like,

Hey, that's exactly what he said, you know? So it was cool, man. He's a great guy. Uh, speaking of the way the fight played out,

uh, it was, it was, it was, it was wild to see Francis shoot for the takedown so early. And some wondered if it was because of the leg kicks. Was it part of the plan to show off his wrestling that early in the fight? Well, it's always part of the plan if it presents itself.

The plan is to make sure that we're ready in all facets of the game. And that was definitely something that we leaned heavy on and understanding that the path of least resistance to us was the wrestling, if we can get topside heavy. And then obviously I have one of the best mentors in the world in Randy Couture and a guy who was in a heavyweight division as an undersized heavyweight was able to take people down and learning the biomechanics of, of how Randy did things. So I take a lot of those things and, and, you know, add it in and talk to Francis, Hey, where are you comfortable? And how do you like to do these things? And really put that, um, put that idea in Francis's hands and allow him to be comfortable in his ground and pound and his ground game. And I'll tell you what, man, it was, it was, uh, it was a tough couple of days or 10, 12 days out there in Paris and getting the crap kicked out of me oh my gosh

i can't imagine um and i know what it's like you you've told us about the the the kicks and holding you know pads for him uh the the the toll that it takes didn't you didn't you have to have shoulder surgery at some point due to the wear and tear yeah i just i had shoulder surgery in june so and it's it's already back to you know it's already sore again oh god um i know you've talked about the story um but but i'd love to ask as well about just being in the back with cristiano ronaldo and again that shot when they went in the broadcast when they just go to the three of you just chilling there i'm like man this is wild like what a life one of the most famous people on the planet um could you could you

tell us and france francis told us yesterday that he was talking about some of the personal tragedy that that he has dealt with in that moment like how does that all materialize does he just walk in and say hey can i chat with you guys how does that all happen man i'll say this like for the level of of star this man is, international star, like he's top three in the world, I think, when it comes to professional athletes. He felt like he was part of the team. And not only did he feel like he was part of the team,

he was like one of the most down-to-earth human beings I've ever spoke to. So like for people that are fans of him, you rightfully so should be a fan of this man. Like he was giving, he was caring, he was understanding. He felt like he really was a part of our team. And he gave me some advice on the things that he went through in his life, which we sat and talked for 30 minutes, man. And he was like, hey, he goes, what's the game plan?

Him and I were chopping it up. And I was like, oh, hopefully we can take this guy down and present himself. And then he was talking about his own personal tragedies in his life and how it affected him. He was talking about Francis' demeanor and how he felt when he saw Francis. And was there any nervous energy? And we're just kind of going back and forth. And this is one of the best athletes in the world. And he was talking about, you know, recently shooting penalty kicks to win a game.

And he's like, man, I was super nervous during this. And just a relatable human being with a star power of a 10, right? You're like, there's no way this guy's this cool and this normal. And he was. So anybody that's a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo should just be's one of the one of the nicest guys I've ever met when you were when you were thinking about the fight like when you were envisioning it did you did you feel like it was going to be a dominant first round win or did you think it would go a little longer when I was doing the broadcast I I set the line for a round and a half and I I went with the under I I felt like he was gonna just completely show his class and and that there's levels to this game what were you thinking um i i hate to say this but yeah i felt the same way i did too you know

i don't i don't want to be like oh i knew my guy was gonna smoke but um i just felt like there was there was a certain way about francis and especially after the face-off you know I felt like Hennon fucked up by my like headbutting him and getting in his face because it really took Francis to a different place it really did like I've never really seen Francis I'm certainly mad but it lit a fire under his ass in a different way and um I'm thankful for Henning for doing that. You know, when he did that, I looked over at Dewey and I was like, yeah, dude, this is, this is perfect. Thanks. That moment where he wins and then he's immediately like just kind of overcome by emotion and you run up to him. And I noticed that he kind of like waved you

off for a moment there. Like, I think he was just saying, I need a minute. Was that your read on the situation? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And like, you know, looking back at it, I think we all just were, were so emotionally invested in the situation. Like, I didn't know how he was going to react. And like, I just wanted to get to him and just make sure he was okay.

And now, and then the moment he was like, Hey, just give me a second. I'm like, I just wanted to get to him and just make sure he was okay. And now, and then the moment he was like, Hey, just give me a second. I'm like, you got it, brother. Yep. I'm right here. And I just, you know, sat, gave him a hug and watched him, you know, and, and just kind of looked around and took it all in. And, um, I can see the weight literally just lifting off his shoulders in that moment what was it like for you like when you saw him like that first when you saw him win but then when you saw the emotion that he was exuding what was going on in your mind i can see it on your face too but like what's going on in your head in that moment oh my god dude sean strickland's gonna rip on me i was uh like i'm gonna i'm like a sympathy crier you If I see you crying, I'll be like, oh man. So just seeing that outpour of emotion by Francis. And we had a little family gathering before we

left for the venue. And it was intense. It was was intense there was like 10 or 15 family members in the team we're all in a little meeting room and we're singing songs and saying prayers and and uh you know i said a little bit of something dewey said something we had like a speech and then francis spoke and um it got real emotional man like i don't want to go into detail but there was a lot of emotions riding right before we left to go to the venue wow and you know that that's very different like you don't you don't i wouldn't recommend that for a title fight right uh so i don't know like just seeing him win and seeing him get over that that hump that he needed to uh to do it just man i you know

dewey trip these guys spent two months in paris um there's so much invested there was so much riding on the line that morning francis said to me uh before he went and shook out he was like you know bub i'm nervous man like i got a lot of i feel like i have a lot a lot of added pressure on me and um i don't know if that was him putting it more pressure on him to perform the way that he did but i think there was just a lot riding on darryl wow and and not something he usually says like tyson fury aj he doesn't usually say that stuff no not even not even like the tyson fury fight was so crazy because like i remember standing in the in the ring with him and then like he's just like leaning up against the like the turnbuckle's all like super chill super cool and i looked over i was like i was like dude

like you did it like here he is he's like you don't how about the fight i was like yeah you are but it's just like no it's very chill moment this one was yeah, you are. It was a very chill moment. This one was very different. It had a very different connotation to it. Even like the walk, seeing him get in the cage, he was dialed in.

There's a big debate now. What does he do next? Which sport does he compete in? Who does he fight? If it was up to Eric Nixick, if he called you up and said, Bubba, what i do mma boxing who should i fight what's the answer i'd take three months off man and just just keep healing you know i think that uh you everybody in the just i mean there's so many options for him out there right now but right the biggest battle for him is just is just to keep healing this heart. That's it.

I don't think that there's Wilder, there's this, there's MMA. There's so many things that he can go and do. But my main concern is just making sure my guy is getting over this the best that he can. I don't think he ever will. I don't think anyone ever will, but time will heal it all. Is three months enough? You never know, man. Honestly,

I didn't know if he would even come back and fight after Kobe passed away. I didn't think he would. And rightfully so. But him coming back to Vegas and then him coming back to train, I think just helped him heal. And being around the team, being around the boys, getting back in the gym and falling in love again with the process of training MMA, I think helped kind of move him along and going, I think I want to fight again.

And then that started the healing process more than anything so you know we'll see what he wants to do next and and again like whatever he decides i'm always going to have his back if it was up to you would he i would love him to stay with mma for a little bit but i i don't blame him if he wants to go back to boxing he's just such a fascinating character in mma And now we see the evolution of his game. We weren't seeing him, you know, shoot for takedowns like that so early in fights and use it to his advantage and win off a takedown.

And so, you know, my opinion doesn't matter, but I'm just wondering your opinion. Would you like to see him stick with MMA a little bit now? Yeah, of course. I would love to have him stick with MMA because he's really evolving his game and we're seeing a complete we're seeing a complete mixed martial artist um and this is something that we talked about four years ago uh you know when him and i went to dinner we talked

about this and how how do you want to how do you want to be remembered by your legacy how do you want to be remembered as a mixed martial artist and how do you want to round out your game and evolve your your game are you just going to be a knockout artist or are we going to be able to you know take people down and that was always one of our goals man is to finish the fight via ground and pound and then we did it so um i would love to see him continue uh in mma because he's only getting better in my opinion i feel like there's one more goal there's that there's a submission win out there that would be nice for him to get. He teased it last week.

He said, hey, why not? And in the end, you know, he was on the road to that, but obviously the ground and pound opened up. That would be nice, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think he had the one with Anthony Hamilton where he almost ripped that poor guy's arm. Oh, yeah.

But was he with you back then? No, no. Doesn't count. Doesn't count. Doesn't count, right. Yeah, well, that was old school. Yeah, that's right. I totally forgot about that one. I was just kind of banding about,

and I threw out Rico Verhoeven as a potential, like, super fight, like kickboxing king, MMA king in a boxing match. And this thing has, like, kind of taken a life of its own. Rico, in fact, reached out to me about it. Glory's reaching out to me about it.

And then Francis told me they've trained together. Was that at Extreme Couture? Was that with you? Yeah, no, we brought Rico in to help us for Serial Gone. Rico's amazing, dude. Like he's a great guy. He came out and helped us for, I think he's out there for like a week, but showed us a lot of really good things.

And I talk to Rico all the time. He's a he's a friend but you know fighting's fighting these guys want to make some money then go do your thing so i'm all for it would you be open to that like a crazy super fight between two of the best in a in a neutral sport yeah of course i i think whatever whatever moves the needle whatever makes these guys money um you know I consider a friend, but at the end of the day, I've fought against a lot of guys I consider my friend. This is a business. So if the numbers match and these guys can make some money off of it, why not?

I want to ask you about Dan Ige. He's fighting this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Much different scenario than the last time he fought. You guys get a nice training camp. Your thoughts on the matchup with Lerone Murphy, who has looked very good in the UFC as of late. Great style matchup. Guys that are, I think, you know, very similar in a lot of ways.

Stance, stances, movement. You know, I think a guy in Lerone Murphy who is like that coming, up and coming guy who you need to go take his o away you know he's tough he's durable so i think it's a good fight for dan to go out and really showcases his skill set i think dan has a little bit of extra things in in his in his tools that he can show in this fight um but you're right it's nice to be able to have a camp and actually game plan against a guy and this is actually the second time we've we've been booked so we've had a little even longer sort of training camp for a guy like larone murphy so we're excited for this fight man it's a it's a great matchup

so when you say uh second time you mean second time with larone that was back in february of 2024 right earlier this year you guys were supposed to uh to fight that didn't happen after the diego lopez fight we thought that dan would fight on the the sphere card was he upset that he wasn't on the card no not at all i mean he he's not upset about anything these guys these guys really took care of him dan dan stepped up and took the fight um i don't think there's any favors that need to be made or anything like that but you know we were we were hoping that we can get on this fear card. It didn't work out.

But here we are. We got a great matchup. And, you know, we got to go do our job on Saturday. And just curious, because you have such a great mind when it comes to this stuff. Same weight class, title fight, main event. Who are you leaning towards, Teporia or Holloway? Great, great fight. Stylistic matchup.

I think the boxing almost evens itself out here here's the thing that you know we were talking about a little bit uh yesterday when you watch the poirier and get his when he gets his finishes he gets his finishes near the barrier he's able to funnel guys to the corner post and the choke point of the cage and that's when you see that that that big flurry um that's where he knocked out damon jackson that's where he knocked out Damon Jackson. That's where he knocked out Jai Herbert. That's where he knocked out Volkanovski. So I think it's going to be more of a chess match of who can own the geography better. And if it's Toporia able to kind of have two separate game plans, how does he fight in the middle?

And then what does he do when he gets Max Holloway to the barrier? That is the chess match to me between both fighters um can max keep it in the center and if he does get pushed to the barrier how does he react and counter react to teporia's pressure so um it's a matter of who wins the geography that that's my big scene in this fight are you uh leaning towards someone god you gotta lean towards max let's just wow. I thought you were going to say Teporia. I thought you were going to go with the young gun. Yeah, I mean, I thought Volkanovski

would win, and then Teporia went out there and just shelled him in the second round. I feel like Max is... I don't know, man. I feel like Max is going to give him some problems, but you never know.

This guy, this guy's proved me wrong. I can't wait. Can I just ask very quickly, Whitaker Shamayev, I'm fascinated by this. What's your, what's your read on that? Man, I've, I've trained with Hamzat quite a bit and, um, you know, he's a special fighter. He's a special fighter. And I say that only because like I've had him in the room i've held pads for him i've been around him i've watched him train he's very special um i think when it comes to his faint game and what he does with his faint game he really ties together his strikes into his level chain everybody's afraid to get taken down by homzat but it's more the way that

he ties into striking when he hits that up down motion so he's very good at that i'm i'm curious to see how rob approaches this um another guy who i mean robert whitaker he's like top three ever in the middleweight division in my opinion so stylistically i'm looking forward to this chess match. Man, it's hard to say. I lean towards Hamzat if it's early rounds. But it being a five-round fight, I think that's going to be kind of the key. Can Rob weather the storm and get this to go in three, four, and five? And then how does Hamzat look in the deeper rounds, later rounds? Always a pleasure to pick your brain.

Excuse me, Eric. It's always great. I really appreciate it congratulations on the win on saturday good luck on saturday with danie do you get to go home after this or do you go somewhere else i don't know bro i don't even know if my wife and kids are gonna be there when i get back who knows well good luck with that as well all right thank you so much eric all the best to you guys. Appreciate it very much. My pleasure, brother. Always good to talk to you, Ariel. There he is, the great Eric Nixick of Extreme Couture. Great stuff, great insight, as always.

We are going to be joined by one Dan Hardy in about five minutes' time. He, of course, is a big part of what they are doing at the PFL, but I did want to update everyone on a story regarding a PFL fighter, a PFL featherweight prospect named Diane Silva. This is from a story written by our own Drake Riggs over at uncrowned.com. According to Drake and his reporting, she remains hospitalized in London following a failed weight cut for a scheduled Bellator bout more than a month ago. Bellator London featured a nine-fight lineup on September 14th. Silva's promotional debut came against fellow newcomer Eman Al-Madouf. She was scheduled to be included on the card, but unfortunately Silva was admitted to the ICU at London's Northwick Park Hospital on September 13th

following a failed cut to 145 pounds. Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulation official and president of the ABC, the Association of Boxing Commissions, Mike Mazzulli, told Uncrowned he was asked to send a doctor to Silva's room 10 minutes before scale closure, 10.50 a.m. local time. The undefeated 3-0 fighter never weighed in and the pre-fight medical staff never performed a pre-fight physical, Mazzulli said. Silva, who is 29 years old, is still being treated at Northwick after suffering kidney failure and being placed into a induced coma. She has never fought below 155 in her career. Here's a quote from Mike Mazzulli. I've checked

on her and was informed she's doing much better But this is the worst part of the fight game I know I would have never let her lose any more weight if I saw her In a statement provided to MMA Fighting Silva's manager Alex Davis gave an update on her condition And what led to the coma MMA Fighting reported that Silva is currently still sedated Brazilian fighter and Silva's weight cut organizer Luan Miao Has yet to respond to the complications this is the

quote from Alex Davis as Diane made weight for her debut in Bellator she suffered an accident due to dehydration she was promptly seen by the doctor was rushed to the hospital in a delicate condition was admitted to intensive care her condition was serious but since she has been improving steadily and our hope is that she recovers fully myself Myself, her team, her doctor, the hospital doctors, and Bellator have been working closely together in support with whatever is needed to help her recovery. We ask all to join us in our wishes and prayers that she recovers fully. As of right now, PFL officials have yet to speak on the matter. And so we're going to monitor this. And it's, as many have said, a horrendous, horrific, ugly, ugly, scary part of the fight game. We have seen some scary weight cuts over the years. We have seen some people on the scales. We have seen some people react very negatively to, you know, to bad weight cuts, to tough weight cuts. We have yet to see in major MMA a tragedy, even anything of this kind.

And so it is scary. And it's a reminder that this is no joke, that the fight before the fight, the fight to get to the scale is often tougher for some of these athletes than the fight itself and so just want to wish her our best and hope that she makes a speedy recovery and hope that you know this this doesn't bring any long-term issues to her life it's a horrible part of the fight game and it seems like with so many fights we continue to see some tough weight cuts each and every time out some some some scenes that are just terrifying and um sometimes it feels like the fights should not continue but it's a scary business the fight business and uh these things are unfortunately a huge part of it um in about an hour's time, we're going to be joined by Dan Hooker. Dan Hooker on some kind of roll these days at 155 pounds. He's coming off a hard fought victory over

Mateus Gamrot. That was back in August on the Perth card in Australia. And there was once a time where it seemed like Hooker wasn't taking the right fights. He was kind of searching for that next big break. He was taking fights on short notice. He was taking the Islam fight on short notice. But he has put things together now. He has won his last three in a row. A solid win over Claudio Poyes back in November of 2022 here in New York City, and then had the win over Jalen Turner in 2023, International Fight Week.

He got injured. He had to take a year off, came back in August, and had a massive win over Mateus Gamrot. By far, in my opinion, his best opponent, best win in quite some time, probably since the Paul Felder-Ally Quinta days. In any event, let us switch gears. We'll get to Hooker in about 30 minutes time. For now, though, let us go to another individual who was there in Riyadh on Saturday, a big part of PFL,

big part of PFL Europe as well. The outlaw, Dan Hardy, is here with us, and he is joining us from New York as he is helping his wife, Veronica, prepare for her next bout. Hello, Dan. How are you? I'm good, my friend. How are you? I'm doing great. Welcome back to America. How is Veronica doing? How are things going as you guys are preparing for her next fight?

Yeah, she's doing really well. We were fortunate to get a couple of months out here before the fight was even offered to her to just kind of work on her overall technical game and you know she's she's really progressed very quickly over the last few weeks and then you know nip back to england for a few weeks of sparring and then we'll be back out here for a week so i'm excited for this one i think she's going to show a new level to her game. She continues to get better. She continues to evolve and it's great to see.

And obviously you're a big part of that as well. You're a big part of what PFL is doing. You were great on the broadcast on Saturday. It was a big week for you guys. And I'm just wondering overall, when you take like the sort of, you know, zoomed out look at the event, the production, how it all looked, how it all felt

as someone who is not just a part of the broadcast, but on the operation side, so to speak, how did you feel it all went down in Riyadh? I thought it was good. I enjoyed it. You know, I think there are going to be a couple of fighters that will look back on their performances and be frustrated, you know, but aside from that, I thought overall the show was the show was good and I mean honestly all the way through fight week and I'm sure that you were discussing this as well there was real jeopardy with the the Henan Fahada opponent for uh for Francis and you know with the weight that he was carrying which was quite obvious even though he carried it so well you just you you you've got to imagine the the you know the pain and the

emotion that he was that he was carrying with him and trying to you know set to one side to remain focused and then right at the end obviously with him to win so emphatically and then have that out outpouring of emotion you know like all three of us myself sean and randy cage side we were we were just about holding it together. It was a real challenge. So, you know, it was a bit of a fairytale ending, really, for Francis. And, you know, probably not the end of the Francis Ngannou movie, but certainly one of the highlights when we come back to watch it in a few years once it's been made.

What were you feeling? What were you thinking before the fight? How did you think it was going to go? You know, I could just picture several different ways of it ending. You know, I thought it was going to be quite a quite a tentative start to be honest. You know, when I saw Francis working those body kicks, I actually said it on the broadcast, he was working body kicks against, you know, with Dewey Cooper on the body shield. And I thought to myself, you know, he might be thinking about a low kick game just to destabilize him and Fahadah. But the real danger for Nganou was kind of

being overexcited and anxious and rushing in straight onto that right hand of Fahadah. I mean, that's what we saw Goldshov do. We saw Ryan Bader do the same thing. And I kind of thought to myself, you know, with the pressure, with the, you know, the time out of mixed martial arts and the excitement of, you know, let's get going. I thought Ngannou might pull the trigger too soon and run onto that

and not necessarily knock him out, but certainly put him in a bit of turmoil for a moment. But I thought he looked very clean. I thought his takedown was well-timed. He drew on the feint and forced Henan Fahida to throw that right hand. So he committed and was able to take him down easily. And what I will say is, you know, Fahida's triangle attempt was very impressive.

That really surprised me. So we can still see that he's developing as a fighter. You know, I still think his peak's ahead of him. But on the night, you know, Francis was the man. I've done hours upon hours of shows since the fight, and I haven't brought up one thing that a lot of people keep hitting me up about and so let me ask you since you were there cage side uh some were upset that the fight went a little too long that merguljada should have stopped it sooner did did hennan in your opinion take too much damage you know i will say i it's always difficult isn't

it because you know dan's a solid referee he He refereed my UFC debut and, you know, was right in there when Akihiro Gono kneed me illegally in the side of the head. You know, I'll be honest, I don't remember the rest of the fight from that point, from that knee. And Dan did a good job of getting in there and protecting me in that moment.

But, you know, I would say there were probably two punches that were a little bit too late for me. You know, it's just, especially when you see somebody that's kind of that they're in a they're in a position where they're kind of they're buckled already you know like like for hado he was still on his knees so it was difficult to judge what was going on in his face but for me the the power in those punches and the way that his body moved for the last couple before he bellied out that was the final you know as soon as someone bellies down thing with you know cb dolloway when he had that fight against was it mortal of belief or i butchered

that name but you you remember the fight as soon as you see a fight for belly down like that it's it's immediately game over i don't i don't think this like we should just get straight in there at that point um you know it's yeah they were powerful punches yes oh my gosh there's one clip of of them like up close to the cage and it just looks it's terrifying the sounds the the ferocity the power the the the speed it's it's all very very impressive and and we saw in three minutes and 32 seconds we saw like the complete game from francis and that why it's been so long. It's been almost 3 years since we saw him in MMA. There's a part of me that understands if he wants to go back and box because of the

paydays, because of the buzz and everything that comes with it, because of the challenge that comes with it. But there is a part of me that as he's getting up there in age, I want to see him continue to evolve in MMA and see how much he can get better. Where are you leaning in terms of if you were part of Team Francis,

what would you like to see him do? I mean, honestly, I would be open to the options. I think there are some really interesting boxing matches out there for him if that's what he decides to do. I saw, for whatever reason, the name Rico Verhoeven floating around today as well on social media.

Yes, that's my fault. I brought that up. Well, thank you for that because that's got my brain spinning in all different directions. Okay, you like it? You like it? I think it would be fascinating, yeah. I mean, obviously, I would prefer I brought that up. him um what i will say is we've got gold sub the pop-off coming up and i think that's a very interesting one we've also got nemcov who's a rather undersized heavyweight but that's always worked that's worked out for some good fighters in the past and he's very technical um you know i think there are some interesting fights out there for him i think the most important thing

for francis if i'm on if i'm his team i'm going activity like let's stay active what is he 38 yeah just turn 38 you know yeah you know and heavyweights do peak later no i'm sure you and i have had this conversation before i think i think wisdom goes a lot further in the heavyweight division because you know slightly less happens and the margin for error is you know much greater uh so you know i i feel like i feel like we've probably still got another two or three years of Francis being, you know, really at his peak. And it doesn't mean to say that he couldn't fight into his 40s, absolutely, especially if he keeps himself healthy. But certainly over the next two or three years, we're going to get the best years of him, I think. If it's MMA, I like the Nemcov fight the best.

If it's boxing, I guess Deontay Wilderer even though he's somewhat of a shell of his former self that's just kind of a fun fight but i brought up rico because it's like the king of kickboxing the king of mma and then they meet in boxing neutral ground uh glory your old friend marshall zlasnik they're interested they've hit us up rico hit me up as well i think i don't know like i don't know if i should take five percent or ten percent i'm still trying to figure that out but there's something i don't know i'm intrigued by it and they've trained together in the past too yeah interesting interesting you know i'm always open to heavyweights they can come out of nowhere right you know all of a sudden there's a there's a guy on the scene that you've never heard of before i mean for a lot of people tom aspinall did that

right yeah you know we've got to keep our eyes open. And, you know, with what Alex Pereira has done in mixed martial arts with very little experience in the sport, you know, heavyweight is a very, very unique weight class, I think. And anything's possible. People can come out of nowhere. So I'm always open to options. Your mate PT Carol keeps trying to push the Phil DeFries, Francis Ngannou fight.

Do you have interest in this? Absolutely. You know, Phil is another formidable heavyweight i think it's been several years since he's been been beaten um you know yeah absolutely would be a very interesting one okay um speaking of pt uh he he was the first person to ever tell me about paul hughes he's been talking about paul hughes for quite some time you guys had a great chat on his show last week and and he wrote a great story about Paul and and correct me if I've gotten this story wrong when when the idea of Paul fighting AJ McKee was first brought to your attention was there any part of you that was like hmm is this a little too soon for Paul is that is that accurate and and if it is accurate now what do you think about how he did on Saturday? Yeah, absolutely. I did. You know, I mean, the global fighter ops team handled all the pay-per-view matchmaking and stuff.

And I remember when I first saw that match on the on the card, my heart jumped for a little bit because obviously I followed Paul Hughes's career up until this point quite closely. And, you know, I was a big advocate for us getting him on the roster. And I just kind of felt like, you know, it was, I mean, AJ McKee is such a dangerous opponent, right? He's been fighting at such an elite level for so long. And I just, I was wondering, honestly, and I completely underestimated Paul. He absolutely leveled up.

You know, he proved me wrong as well as a lot of others. I was more anxious for him than doubting. I know he's got the skills to do it because I've seen him utilise those skills, but there's a difference between applying them against everybody that he'd fought up to that point and applying them against AJ McKee. And the last

time I remember seeing AJ McKee on Riyadh, he went through Clay Collard much, much quicker than I was expecting. And I have a lot of respect for Clay Collard and his toughness and wisdom and durability. So I definitely thought it was a jump up. And I was very, very impressed.

For me, and I said this to Paul, it was a career defining performance. He leveled up to a point where he didn't even look like the fighter that we saw in Dublin. I thought he was a very different fighter entirely. And so with that in mind, I know he signed up to be a part of the tournament,

but I would love to see that Usman fight. And there's a part of me six months ago that said, you know, when he was hinting at it, but now I feel like it would be tremendous. Do you think there's a chance we get that before he goes into the tournament yeah absolutely i mean i think i think the best thing for him to do right now is to ride the crest of this wave the momentum that he's on um the performance that he put in against aj mckee and you you and i know this very well the you know momentum is a lot in mixed

martial arts because it feeds into confidence confidence Confidence is a big part of someone having an effective performance. And I feel like, you know, now's the time for him to, you know, to really put his foot on the gas and see what he's capable of. Like he might be way more capable than any of us are giving him credit for him, including himself, but it's going to be someone like Namagomedov that he's going to really push him and take him to that level. I mean, honestly, I thought AJ McHugh was going to be able to do that, but because he didn't, let's level up again, you know, let's see where he goes next. And, you know, and if it is a step too far, then there are still plenty of other options for him because he's still under 15 fights in his career. You know, there's still a lot of time ahead of him. But absolutely right now, I don't think any of us

can underestimate him anymore how would you assess uh johnny eblin i feel like a little over a year ago we were having the discussion is he the best middleweight or could he beat the ufc's middleweight champion and and truth be told i feel like some of that talk has cooled off a little bit um i think it's always tough when a champion has to fight a challenger twice and and and he's coming off a win over him and then do it again a year later he has to kind of figure out a new way to figure out the puzzle the other guy just has to fight a challenger twice and he's coming off a win over him and then do it again a year later. He has to kind of figure out a new way to figure out the puzzle. The other guy just has to try to beat the guy who we've seen as champion for the last few fights.

Now that you've seen him again against Fabian, how would you assess where he's at and in particular his performance on Saturday? Well, I mean, you know, certainly the first 20 minutes of the fight were very, very impressive. You know, it wasn't until the last round where I felt like, you know, Edlin's efforts up to that point had started to, you know, take a toll on his conditioning. And obviously Fabian probably felt like he was, you know, four rounds down and needed to do something special. Honestly, I think he's got all the skills to be any middleweight on the planet. I really do. I think the only thing that he really lacks, and this is, it was kind of interesting because I did a face-off with them earlier in the week. You know, Fabian and Evelyn sat across the table.

And, you know, sometimes they can get quite fiery. I remember doing the Darren Till, Masvidal won a few years ago. You know, the Lewis McGrill and Dean Garnett one was really fun as well. And both of these guys, they were quite analytical. They're quite sensible. They're quite logical. They're quite respectful of one another. And it's not that that's a bad thing necessarily,

but I think certainly in the modern day, people respond to confidence and sometimes bravado. And I think that's maybe the thing like if Evelyn was going, I'm the best middleweight on the planet, and I dare you to try and prove me wrong. I think a lot of other people would start to echo that sentiment. And I think it's his willingness to kind of go, you know, to put himself among the best middleweights on the planet. I mean, you know, the performance against Fabian was dominant. You know, Fabian showed really good takedown defense in the first fight and Edlin solved that problem. He dominated for 20 minutes. I just, I just, I think that's the next thing that he

needs. He needs to be able to start saying to people, I'm the man and prove me wrong. Do you fancy his chances against the best in the UFC,c the ddps of the world the striklins of the world absolutely absolutely i mean you know i know he's good friends with striklins so he never likes to he never seems to like to you know to talk about where they compare with one another but he certainly puts himself on a level with striklins now the reality is anyone that's got wrestling like like eblin is going to be problematic and it gives him confidence to strike i think he's because he had to lean into his striking more against against fabian i think he's he's grown in confidence there as well um i i just think honestly i think he needs to make the statement for himself and people will start to believe it because it you know any you name

any middleweight on any roster i think evelyn's got a damn good chance of dragging them into deep water and either knocking them out or or just you know just mauling them until the final bell what about chris cyborg making her debut almost 20 years ago and still doing this winning her fifth promotional belt and and and having to dig down deep right she gets the cut pacheco is a freaking beast taking her best shots. I was thoroughly impressed. And I didn't think it was a hard fight to score in the end. I thought she won off the top of my head. Now I think it was maybe 3-2 or 4-1.

But I was just blown away, especially when she hasn't been as active in MMA these days. I was blown away by the performance. How about you? Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. I think a lot of people were looking past Larissa Pacheco coming to this one, much like they were Henning Fajeda. The people that have been watching Pacheco realize how dangerous she is.

I mean, she's very powerful. She's very well-rounded. And with Cyborg, I mean, she's such a tough, durable fighter. She's very much in the pocket. She takes a lot of risks. I mean, she's just, she's such a tough, durable fighter. You know, she's, she's, she's very much in the pocket. She takes a lot of risks. She really opens herself up in a game. And that's one of the reasons why she's got such a, such a big fan base. Um, the thing that was most impressive, I think was coming through that adversity. There are a lot of fighters, especially with the reputation of Cyborg. It's even if she comes out of those rounds with more damage than her opponent, but she's still dominated. I mean, I agree with you. I thought Cyborg, I remember on the night, I was thinking to myself, I feel like Cyborg's taking the first and second. Then I was feeling

like Larissa Pacheco had taken the third and fourth, just purely because she landed some better shots. And I felt like she came off better in some of those exchanges. I mean, if I watched it back, I may see it slightly differently. But that was certainly my feeling sitting cage side at the time, potentially going into the third round, you know, sorry, into the fifth round completely even. And Cyborg was the one that was bloodied, you know, bleeding over and cut over both eyes.

I thought the corner team did a great job to keep her in the fight as well because, you know, one of those in particular was in a very bad spot. And I just think she showed her championship quality but i also think you know if we look at the fight realistically in 12 months time it could have gone the opposite way i think i think larissa pacheco is certainly on the rise and i think she's definitely the person to take cyborg's place when you know cyborg does eventually step aside when did you start with pfl how long ago was it it's a good question uh end of 2022 i think okay so so end of 2022 so it's a my math correct uh like a little over a year to almost two years yeah yeah something like that yeah how's it going how are you enjoying this yeah i'm enjoying it i'm enjoying it i mean, you know, every day, the thing I've realized about myself, honestly,

is obviously when I was just doing the commentary and analysis, I was focused on this is the next fight card. These are the block of fighters that I've got to focus on. Whereas now, obviously, I'm doing a few different things and I'm on a fighter ops call and then I'm on a PFO Europe team call about the next event coming up. I'm just having to switch gears and change. It's a very interesting challenge for me.

I'm enjoying it because I'm getting to work with a lot of different people and people in different specialties that I'm learning from. And also meeting cool people as well. I met Ray Lewis this weekend. It was awesome. I mean, that guy, I said it to the guys before we started broadcasting i used to listen

to his team speeches before like hard conditioning sessions or sparring sessions just to get me fired up um and then sat next to greg rozetsky on the plane on the way on the way back to doha and we literally just called for an hour he was fascinating really interesting guy so these are the opportunities i'm really i'm really enjoying and he's challenging me i feel like i'm i'm growing and uh that's always a positive thing as far as the challenges like what new role or what new part of your role do you enjoy the most um certainly trying to trying to manage the roster and balance the the you know the the right talent on the roster and keep them active you know that's the that that's the thing i'm enjoying the most because there are so many good fighters out there you know what what i really want to do is build

build pfl europe certainly which is you know the piece that i'm i'm working at the moment build it into a broader and more stable platform because there are so many fighters across europe that need activity you know and unfortunately there's just not enough shows you know there are shows that pop up and spend a bunch of cash and then they disappear or there are other shows that are consistent but they don't really pay anything and you know it's a challenge to kind of find that right balance and some fighters expectations are really difficult to manage as well because they see what such and such is making and how much they they're getting from this and that and you know and it's difficult because you know not

all fighters resonate with the fans in the same way so you know managing expectations of fighters is a new challenge for me as well oh man but at the same time you know it's good because i can see a difference i can make in a lot of these young fighters careers creating opportunities for them and you know and making the right matchup so everyone's got a fair shout that's really what it's about i want everyone to look at one of my pfo europe cards and go you know what there's not a single fighter on that card that is not fully capable of winning their fight in front of them and i pride myself in that kind of matchmaking

so you're so busy these days because you're you're at the events you're putting together events you're calling fights you're you're coaching veronica i don't are we going to get a 308 breakdown from you or or too busy for that one on the youtube channel you know i've been very very disappointed in myself uh just not i've just not had the ready the time you know i've been very very disappointed in myself uh just not i've just not had the ready the time you know the raptors are off doing other things as well now james mystery's doing awesome work that you know jamie alls up off doing other things you know got a cool job and you know so i'm kind of when i start doing that stuff back i'm going to be doing it on my phone it's going to be a little bit more rough and ready um i do want to get back to doing it, but I've just been so very busy at the moment.

I might try and get something up before the weekend. Obviously, the fights this weekend are fascinating. And then 309, I think we're first fight of the night, so we'll be having the pizza and celebration dinner as the main event's starting. So I'll try and get something out for those big fights, but it's been challenging at the moment with the amount of things in the schedule. Have you ever been to MSG?

Yes, I have. Yeah, I have. I've been there. When I fought GSP, they took me to MSG to watch a basketball game. Okay. And to do some kind of promotional stuff. And then we saw Dave Chappelle there a few months ago, which was awesome. And we're going to go and catch maybe a rangers game before the event just to kind of get inside there

again and do some visualization but it's it's exciting to be uh to be on that card murder scene garden as i've been calling it oh i love that i love that but so never to see a fight though uh no no no the bmf belt was there right yeah yeah yeah i was there for that okay okay how could i i could not forget yeah yeah i was there for that in fact i was i was crouched down right where masvidal warts out i've got a cool video on my phone that i'll i'll have to post at some point uh when you say the visualization what do you like what are you referring to? What happens there? Being in the space, I used to do this as much as I could wherever I went. It's just very healthy, I think, to try and put yourself in that anxious feeling of fight night,

to be the center of attention in a space as big and as brand and as special as Madison Square Garden. The occasion is not at all lost on Veronica. She knows how much of an honor it is to be there. And also how important it is, you know, for her to represent, given the fact that we're a street over from Henzo's. And Henzo Grace, he's been so awesome with us, opening up his doors and the whole team there have been very accommodating and helpful. So, you know, we want to represent them well as well.

And it's, you know, just to kind of be in fight week and just rehearse the feeling of anxiety and make it as familiar as possible. So we're operating in a space where we're uncomfortable and we're functioning as highly as we can. I mean, we sparred yesterday, Veronica and I, and we did what? 12 five-minute rounds,

and she's just, she's vibrating at a level that I've never seen her before. She's just, she's so sharp. Her reaction time is very quick. She's fluid with her combinations now, and of course with this time spent on the mats in the blue basement, she's leveled up tremendously with her grappling. She's got a tough opponent. She's going to be very very game eduardo mora

um but i i fully expect veronica to be able to finish this fight in in any direction or at least you know dominate and outpoint this this tough opponent to the to the final bell you're you're sparring with her 12 five minute rounds yeah i mean obviously you know i'm i'm a bit slower and uh you know but i make up for it with pressure and with my reach. That's incredible. 12 five-minute rounds is a lot of rounds. It is. I mean, mainly I'm just getting my ass kicked, if I'm honest.

But, you know, I like to keep moving. I like to keep moving. I've still got about 10 pounds to lose anyway. I'm bringing my weight back down again. Especially in this warm weather, I'm no good at being any heavier than about 200 pounds. By the way, Meshuggah, what is that? Meshuggah, they're a Swedish metal band. Oh, okay.

I've been listening to them relentlessly recently. I feel like it's going to be a heavy metal winter. My musical tastes change and shift as the seasons change. Interesting. I'm in my typo negative october rust phase right now sure and i feel like that you know as the weather gets colder the heavier metal starts i might even throw in some you know mad ball and sick of it all given the fact that i'm in new york yeah the new york hardcore scene um yeah yeah all that went over

my head i don't know who any of those people are but but in uh in in hebrew meshuga means crazy that's a hebrew word did you know that is that is that right i was wondering i was wondering if you were going to be able to yes i thought maybe you were you were wearing it for me i don't know that's that's i'd even know there was a band named meshuga that means that means like crazy in hebrew i mean is it is it fitting i mean i'm aware i'm aware of the appropriate sign on my shirt is that what you're saying? No, I don't know. Or I don't know if you're trying to tell us something

or are they a crazy band? Is that why? Oh, yes. Okay. Absolutely. They are. I mean, if you've never heard of Meshuggah before, make sure you check them out on YouTube.

There's an incredible live show that they did in Donington, which is not too far away from where i live uh in in the uk and it is them playing their most recent album which is just a masterpiece i mean it's a symphony of heavy metal um it's very very unusual it keeps an unusual rhythm um so it's not like a like that you can't you know smash your head to it because it's it's quite complex but it's fantastic all right uh i will check them out. I always appreciate your music recommendations. Can I get a small taste?

I know you said you might do it, but Teporia Holloway, what are you thinking? You know, I think it's going to be a very tough couple of rounds for Max Holloway. I feel like Teporia is going to come in and he's going to try and pressure Max, especially because we know Max kind of warms into those first couple of rounds. You know, he tends to throw a few shots

and miss and get his reads. And it's, you know, third, fourth and fifth where Max really starts to put it on people. I feel like those first couple of rounds, as long as Max can get through them all right, is going to be tough. The big overhands of Teporia when Max is up against the fence, as well as the neck attacks, of course, they're going to be incredibly dangerous, but I do feel like Max can see himself through those rounds. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if, if his jab starts to kind of break down the nose a little bit of Teporia,

make him uncomfortable. I don't know. I mean, I was daydreaming about it today and I thought to myself, you know, I could see Max surviving a couple of rounds and starting to get to him, you know, bloody him up a little bit and then,

you know, maybe knock him down and get one of those guillotines like we did against Cubs once. And one of my favorite finishes by little rap guillotine stepped over into man. I could see something like that happening. My only concern on this obviously is the weight of Max. I feel like he's better at 55 now. But you know, that's that that's to be seen. We'll see what it looks like on the scales if he looks if he's got the the the cheekbones appropriate for halloween then i won't be feeling as good about it i'm starting to see those in some of the media already you see it on his face i don't know if you've seen him but uh he is looking slightly gaunt it's not good is it it's the the thriller look you might call it. I don't know.

I just, I feel like you know, weight cutting is, you know, it's getting to the stage now where I think people need to realise that it affects your performance. You know, this is why I mean, people always comment about Veronica being undersized for the flyweight. But the reality is, you know, we've got the statistics. We train with Paul Reed regularly, who obviously works with Paddy and Molly. And we've got, you know, we've got the statistics to back it up. She's in the right weight class. She's elite level when it comes to powerlifting.

And, you know, we just need fighters to realize that they want to be performing at their best. And, you know, I feel like Max, especially fighters later in their career, you know, like Tony Ferguson may have left it a little bit too late to move up to welterweight as well. I think the danger is that they feel like that this is their weight class this is where they belong and I think ultimately eventually your body grows to a point where you you're better performing at a slightly higher weight class um so you know I think if the matchmaking was better with those guys that do move up you know we could we could get more fights out of these guys and enjoy them

for a bit long i keep talking about the masters division at some point hopefully i i think we'll see it okay one last one uh hamza would occur you know i i wonder where hamza's at i don't know whether he's 100 still and that's my concern i i know he's been he's been experiencing a lot of health issues and i know that can affect your training, especially because when you're training a lot, your body's producing pre-radicals. They're attacking your immune system. If he's not 100%, then training is just generally going to be

a bit of a drag for him. We know how durable Whittaker is. He's a very wise individual. He's got great takedown events. Again, it's probably probably gonna be a rough round for Whittaker. But I do feel like he's able to get to the end of that that first round and to my is not, you know, choking him out or pinning him on ground and pounding him. I think we can

start to see Whittaker starts take over in those those the next round. But I'm hopeful that we're going to see a healthy Chima because, you know, he's a scary, scary individual. And I think if, you know, we might always be talking a little bit like Magomed Sharapov, you know, we might always be looking at him at some point thinking to ourselves, we never really saw the best of him, right? But like Magomed Sharapov, another fighter I feel like could have moved up to lightweight

and been very, very impressive. He had the frame to carry it, but I just think he was limited to three rounds when he was cutting to featherweight. But yeah, a very, very interesting fight. I think if we get Chimaev at 100%, he's going to be ferocious for a round and a half. And I think if Whitson can get through that with his wisdom and his takedown offense then he'll start to take over you're a gent dan thank you so much um appreciate you coming on congrats on a great event and you probably were watching but congrats um on the big win nottingham forest yesterday i'm sure you guys were watching you were locked in over crystal palace yeah i was getting photograph updates from my father he was there at the trend 10 taking

photographs and sending them to me. One day I would like to say hello to him there in person at the city ground. That's a goal of mine. So, yes, it's an exciting time. Appreciate you very much. And good luck in the last few weeks of training for Veronica's fight at MSG. Delighted for you guys. What an opportunity.

And wishing her the best as well. Thank you, man. We appreciate it. We're very fortunate. And it's always a pleasure talking her the best as well. Thank you, man. We appreciate it. We're very, very fortunate. And it's always a pleasure talking to you, my friend. Thank you. Same here. There he is, the outlaw, Dan Hardy, the man.

He is one of the smartest men when it comes to breaking down fights and doing big things for PFL as well. So very much looking forward to Veronica Hardy's. He's got Veronica Hardy, his wife, who he's got veronica hardy his wife who he's helping uh you know obviously uh coaching her and preparing for fights he's doing the operational stuff he's doing the tv stuff he's got the youtube channel he's a man of many talents and it's always great to check in with him it is always great to check in with the hangman we have him here i don't know if he knows this we have him right here he's right here and

he's kind enough to wake up early in auckland to join us coming off that huge win over matthias gamrod he's been all over the place let us go and say hello to dan hooker who is joining us early in auckland but he's on his way where are we off to dan i'm on my way i'm on my way to the gym my friend. I've had enough of traveling. I've had enough of planes. I've had enough of different countries. It's time to do some work, mate. Hell yeah.

By the way, did you know that we have you in the studio here, in our new studio? Have you seen this? I did know that. I did know that. The boys picked that out and sent me the picture of that there and there. Made me proud, my friend. Okay, we're showing showing love uh well great to talk to you dan and you know i haven't we've been off for a little bit so i didn't get a chance to talk to you after the the gamrod fight what a performance that was what a scene you were so fired up afterwards i think it was the power of the tattoos that really prevailed you prevailed you to uh to the top there propelled you i should

say your thoughts now two months later, on the fight and performance, I thought it was one of your best. Yeah, yeah, obviously. Yeah, I didn't think I'd perform that well, but, you know, got the result. I said it to my coach after, my coach Tusk, because he didn't look that impressed when I got out of the cage.

But I said, not bad. I said, nope, I just went like this. And I just shrugged and said, not bad for an off night. And then he agreed with, once I said that, he agreed with that, not bad for an off night. So we'll take that. I'll take that. But, you know, off night against a guy like that,

who's top five, top six, to get the win and deservedly so, I think very impressive. What were you not happy about oh just that like had to just had to bite down and and and i feel like i just rushed it a bit much i feel like um like the stuff i worked on should have been should have been a lot cleaner but kind of just had to like had wrong tool, but just had to force it. Had to just make it work, you know what I mean? Had to just make it work because he's such a tricky guy.

Gamma does such a good job of slowing down the fight. So I just had to kind of stay in his face and pressure him like that. We've talked about your maturation, about trusting other people, about taking smart fights, about not rushing into things. It feels like it's all coming together for you now. It feels like the confidence is there, that you're making the right moves.

You obviously had to sit out for a year there to recover, but I feel like it's all coming together for you. Do you feel the same? Yeah, I definitely feel the same. That's the kind of the position that I'm in now. Just don't do anything dumb. When I was a bit younger, in the same position,

worked so hard to get myself to the top five, and really all I needed to do was rest and let the right fight come across the table at the right time and I didn't when I was younger you know I just rushed straight back into another fight that was when I took the Chandler fight

off of putting back to back five round wars you know I had a five round war with Felder I had a five round war with Poirier and then I just rushed it to get back in and yeah it's just, it's not rocket science you can't put

50 minutes of hard fighting in six months and then expect your body to bounce back like that so it's just comes with, those lessons come with experience. Speaking of doing dumb things, was there any part of you when you were in marbella cornering oscar willis for his fight his bkfc fight against ben

davis saying i want some of this at some point i need to partake in bare knuckle fighting oh i can't say there wasn't i can't i can't lie to you my friend and i cannot I cannot say that my knuckles are not getting itchy for that there that looks like some fun that I would do for fun that's not even I don't think there's much of a

question whether or not I would do bare knuckle fighting but that that's my retirement fun because there's a lot of MMA fighters who say that's my retirement fund. Because there's a lot of MMA fighters who say that's too much for me, but it seems like it's right up your alley. Yeah, oh, no. I appreciate the art involved in it.

You know what I mean? It looks quite brutal, but there's quite a lot of skill involved. Yeah, I just think that my understanding of it and the way that I fight as well, because, yeah, it's one of those things like you're going to get hit, you're going to get cut, and there's, yeah, it kind of removes that athlete out of the fight. And it's just like the guys that truly want to get in there

and fight and make it ugly are the ones that find quite a lot of success in bare knuckle. In the post-fight interview after Gamera, you said, I want it all. I want everything. I want all the big names. I want Conor McGregor. Everyone says that.

But bare knuckle, night of, someone's asking him, who's next he says february 1st dan hooker then when i started asking i started asking around and i was like what's going on here so i'd love to ask you what is going on here yeah we kind of snuck our way into the ring um i love it snuck past a few security guards and just kind of danced our way into the ring. And next thing we're in the ring, cracking a few forged stouts with the champ, having a few drinks, having a few beers, and having a bit of a chinwag. So, you know, I was hanging out with a lot of his friends and stuff like that week,

and we seemed to get on quite well. Yeah, like, it's a fight that makes a lot of sense for him, makes a lot of sense for me. And we're obviously both keen on the fight. It's just, I don't know what's going on with him behind the scenes. I don't know what's going on with him and the UFC and their relationship. So that's all I can see. And people, like, people since that rumor started going around people were going oh like don't don't wait don't be another Michael

Chandler like that's not the plan I'm fighting early next year um I told the UFC either January or March and it'll be someone in the top five or Conor McGregor. That'll be who I'll be stepping inside a cage with Come January or March next year since he said that has there been any movement on making the counter fight? Oh I know my managers in He's in Saudi this he's with Vogue in, so he'll get to talk to Hunter, he'll get to talk to Sean, so I'm sure by the end of this weekend, or when he comes back from Saudi Arabia,

I'll have my next fight penciled in. I'll have a name and a date by the end of this weekend there are some who think Conor never fights again there are some like myself who think he does fight again where do you fall in this discussion you were there with him you got a sense for him where do you fall oh we all like

money brother and when you're getting as much when you're getting as much as he's getting yeah a little cash injection of 20, 30 million, I'm sure there'd be not many men in the face of the earth that could turn that down. He's obviously still fit and training and stuff like that. So just the heart of a fighter just keeps ticking, keeps itching. It just comes down for him to fight that make a lot of sense

I guess and if they make a lot of money they make a lot of sense. Obviously he's the biggest name available to anyone but like you said you want to fight January, March. I think it's because you're expecting another child right? In February? Yeah, yeah I just

got another baby dropping in February. So I've told my manager, I told the UFC, that cannot do. The Sydney card there in February, boys, you're on your own. Congratulations to you and your missus.

By the way, do you know the sex? Yeah, yeah I don't know if I'm allowed to Okay, don't say it, don't say it I don't want to get you in trouble Some people announced it before, but don't say it That's great, I hope everything goes I don't want the heat

No, no, I don't want you to get in trouble Keep that to yourself I might get in trouble It's not a new cub The king of the dog box. So if it's not Connor, who do you fancy? Is there someone out there that makes sense in January or March? Yeah, well, I've had a lot of the guys in the top five.

That's the funny thing about it. My position is I've had a lot of the guys in the top five say my name. Armand mentioned it for an interim title. You know, Gage mentioned my name. Boye obviously mentioned my name. And, yeah, I'm obviously keen on any of those fights. Armand's booked for the belt. Dustin, I don't know, he laid his gloves down in his last fight

and then he's coming out and he's saying he'd do another one, but as a retirement fight. I don't know. I'm not really interested in kicking someone on the way out the door. It would be... But KG, that's obviously... That's a fight fan's dream.

That right there, that someone knew fight fan's dream. That right there, that someone knew that it's something that the fans have wanted to see for a very long time. And finally, it kind of makes sense. So Poirier told us last week

he wants to retire in Louisiana, but that would probably be back end of 2025, which means he might have to get another one in between. And so if he did fight you in January or March, that probably wouldn't be the uh the retirement fight does that change your opinion on it at all um well he's like yeah he's got the door half closed okay obviously obviously

i take the fight obviously he's a huge name obviously he's ranked ahead of me and obviously he kicked my ass so i want that back like i would fight i would fight someone for any one of those reasons for the money for the ranking and because they kicked my ass and he did all three so of course of course i want that fight back can i tell you the one that is fascinating to me it's uh it's you and Renato Moicano. You guys have an interesting thing going on. He keeps comparing you to a turtle in a tree. And you guys have gone back and forth a little bit.

What do you think about it? Funny when he's blaming and trying to say that someone put him in a tree. The only person that's to blame for me being in the top five is Moikano because he turned me down, he ducked me in Perth, so I skated right past him and I fought the number five and I beat him. He could have fought me in Perth. His excuse was taxes. So he pissed off to France and paid the exact same amount of taxes

that he would have paid in Perth he took an easier fight a fight that he thought he could skate by and it didn't work out for him he got the win and he didn't go absolutely anywhere so he in a sport of risk versus reward he took the easy path and now he's nowhere you know what I mean and and looking back and thinking that I'm going to take the Moikano fight when I've had three of the guys in the top five say my name in the last couple of months would be, yeah, as we were saying earlier, the only thing I have to do right now is not do anything dumb.

And that would be something dumb. Like, would I want to fight him? Of course. I've been wanting to fight that guy for years. But right now, it looks like that would be looking in the rear vision. Wow. So that was on the table for Perth, and he said thanks but no thanks, and they put him against Perth.

You know how it works. He's saying that he was never actually offered that fight. We know how it works, brother. You both fighters have to, you both fighters have to show some kind of interest on social media before the UFC will offer you a fight. He shut it down.

He shut it down when he said that I called him out for person. He said, no, no, taxes, taxes are too high. Taxes are too high. It's the same tax rate you dumb fuck. What do you think of his performance against Benoit? Benoit's not, I said that leading into the fight,

Benoit's not top 10, top 15 caliber. Like, the guy's athletic, he's tough, he's strong. But, you know, his biggest win before that Porio fight was Matt Favola, and then he kind of got gassed up to fight Poirier. He got thrown in the deep end against Poirier, and yeah, I said that's the coolest thing he's ever done is got knocked out by Dustin Poirier. So I expected that result. Like, Moikano is a solid fighter.

He is a strong, he has strong grappling and a solid game. I expected him to get by BSD like that. So just looking at the landscape, it feels like the one that makes the most sense and interests you the most is Justin Gaethje, because Armin and Islam are fighting and Oliveira and Chandler are fighting. that's the guy right there right that's the one that I think interests you the most. That's the one that I'll tell you that's the one that gets me out of bed called that's the one that puts a warm feeling in my heart. i love it i love it by the way are we

speaking of which uh are we done with the tattoos have we have we put a stop to it or people forget that i was um like i was injured i caught a train i broke i broke my hand then i broke my arm then i broke my arm again so i had I had three broken bones in a row, and they were telling me, don't even go for a run. They were like, don't run, don't move, don't lift any weights. So I was out injured for a very long time.

So I haven't been injured. So I've been skating all around the world. I went to Vegas, watched the Sphere card. Went to another show in Tahiti, TFD. That was an incredible event to support my friend. And then I went over to Spain for BKFC. So I've been traveling to all the fight shows all around the world. There's no time to draw on myself, man.

By the way, did you get tickets to the Sphere card? Because I remember 300, it was kind of a controversy where you weren't getting tickets. So did they hook you up this time? I put in a word. I just wanted to know if it went through. Nah, Ash bought them for me, mate. Come on, Ash bought them for you. Are you serious?

We need to rectify. Are you serious right now? You should be sitting in the front. You're one of the top stars in the game. Yeah, that's right. I saw bloody Justin Gagey down there And Michael Chandler down there And I was going alright

I have to kick one of these guys For some bloody tickets I think Yeah the respect is coming I feel like it's coming It's right around the corner What do you think of Chandler taking that It's coming you can give it to me or I'll take it

I think you're taking it right now I'm coming for it. Chandler Oliveira, are you surprised Chandler took the fight or did he have no choice? Yeah, I think he had no real choice. I think he got told that maybe Conor's not fighting for a while and that's like a big opportunity for him

as well. They've obviously come to him and told him that that's a title eliminator and the next guy that wins that fight will be fighting for the title. But tough fight. Going straight to Charles Oliveira rematch is going to be a tough ask.

I could see a world, Dan, you win this next fight in early 2025, you get another one, you win that. I could see a world back end of 2025, all of a sudden you're fighting for the belt or all of a sudden you're right there. What a difference. What's that wouldn't that be funny my friend what a world we live in i don't know but funny it's just a great story what a world we live in where an average man can bite down on his mouthpiece

and then one day fight for a world title do you do you agree with me do you see that path now? Yeah, I think um Yeah, I think I'm like one fight and someone twisting their ankle off of fight for world title like even anyone anyone in any division in the top five is You're in shooting distance you're in shooting distance for the belt someone someone doesn't want to fight someone gets sick someone Breaks a nail then you're're next in line fighting for a title so it is it is very close to becoming a reality was there a point where you thought it was never going to be a reality um i'm just like a i'm a pretty practical guy like i i on my plate. I eat what's on my plate. I never get carried away. Um,

never get too carried away, but like, it's, it makes sense. Like, it's not really, uh, uh,

you can't tell me that it's never going to happen when you're sitting one flight away from my belt. That's just, that's just, I'll, I'll refuse to believe that. By by the way that year that you were talking about where you had to ink yourself up what did you do to spend like these days where you go to the gym so early in the morning they're telling you not to run how did you not go crazy like what

did you do to release those endorphins i drew on half my body it's kind of like it's kind of like the same rush like it does suck it does hurt it's like going to the gym and training your ass off so you go there and you have to like stay composed all day you get drawn on um getting in pain and yeah it's kind of like uh the same kind of rush i guess so you're just replacing one fix with another okay but does it release the same kind of rush, I guess. So you're just replacing one fix with another. Okay. But does it release the same type of feeling inside, the same type of endorphins?

No, it hurts. It just sucks. I don't... People think I like getting tatted. I'm actually... Ask me a message. She thinks I'm actually quite horrible at it. Meaning the way you deal with it?

Yeah, I think... She's the one that has to come home and sulk and complain about it. Yeah. By the way, can I ask your teammate, Kaikar France, not getting the title shot and it going to, he said it went to the wrong Kai. What was your reaction to that? Oh, yeah, we'll see how things go.

Obviously, they're trying to get some new injection into the top of that division. I feel like he's still in play for a title shot come next year. He's called it for that Sydney card there in February. I could see a flyweight title or whoever gets Pantasia or the new Kai. Kai number two. Whoever gets a win there.

Having to turn around and double back and defend that belt against Kai Cutterfrance at the Sydney card in February. Okay. And no BMF title on the line this weekend, but you've been talked about for like a sort of makeshift BMF tournament.

The BMF champ is fighting, Max Holloway. What do you think of his chances on Saturday against Teporia? You like Teporia? Is he your kind of guy? Yeah, like, oh, mate, if I was that undefeated and I'd be walking around saying the wildest shit, I reckon.

I get a couple wins under my belt and I start getting pretty lippy. But imagine if I was, buddy, 20 and 80. The world wouldn't be ready for it. I'd be walking around like Superman. So what do you think of this matchup for him? I think it's like a 50-50. I like his style.

He's very good at what he does. Very simplified game. Very good fundamentals. Max obviously has a lot of tools. He's obviously capable of a lot more. I think if he can keep the fight at kicking range um he has a he has a pretty solid solid chance i'd say the experience would be on kind of max's side so yeah but i'm i'm i'm looking forward to that one by the way how long is this commute to the gym? Mate, this is Auckland, brother.

You spend half your life in traffic. Oh, really? If this gym wasn't in this city, if they are retired, I'm right out of here, brother. Where are you going? Where's the dream? Where am I going? I'm going to be a man of the world. I'll be traveling all around the place, Gop.

Didn't Brad Riddell do something like that where he got in his van and just traveling all over the place? He sure did. Yeah, that's why he's living over in Thailand now. That's the gypsies. Thailand, Phuket, Thailand is a gypsy's dream, my friend.

You know, of the few places left on my bucket list, if you will, Auckland, New Zealand is one of them. I've always wanted to go there. You have to come down to Auckland and then get out of Auckland and then we'll show you some very incredibly beautiful

places on the countryside of New Zealand. Okay, so New Zealand you're cool with, but you think Auckland shouldn't be at the top of the list that's that's just like another big city it's like you know it's just it's just a big city but when you once you get out to the smaller towns and and the rural parts of new zealand it's some of the most beautiful country um in the world i believe i don't have to say to you, but it's just so bloody far. I mean,

that's the problem. I mean, it's just, it's so bloody far. There's a blessing and a curse. You know, if the world starts

falling apart and bombs start going off, I feel quite comfortable. I feel quite comfortable down here in the corner of the world. I feel quite safe. Okay.

All right. Well, that is good to know. Well, thank you for joining us. How much longer do you have on the commute? I can see it in your... 45 minutes. No, no, we're just around the corner. I don't that is good to know. Well, thank you for joining us. How much longer do you have on the commute? I could see it in your glasses, by the way.

You're still on the highway. Yeah, I am. I am. Are you driving or is someone driving you? Nah, someone's driving me, mate. Don't try to get me a ticket. No, no, no. I was just trying to confirm that in case people, because people were saying it in the chat.

So I just wanted, because I see the other person, I see their hand on the steering wheel. So I was just putting that out there. So all is good. You're doing well. You're feeling good. You're tatted up. You're on a streak.

You got a fight in January, maybe in LA. That's close. Maybe in March. I don't know where that one is. It's unfortunate that the Sydney one is right in between because that would have been somewhat close to home. But them's the breaks. You're having a baby. We don't want to know what the sex of the baby is. Life is good for Dan Hooker. That's the top line here. That's a great summary, my friend. Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Always a pleasure. Appreciate you very much and good luck with everything and always enjoy talking to you. Thanks for coming on. we we got you here by the way this is this is okay by you right because some people oh he's gone all right well there it is he says yeah that's really cool man thanks for having me on you know this is signed that's right it says dan hangman hooker. There it is. Should we call him back? Don't rub the autograph off. No, no. I wish I was so laissez-faire. You know, he just doesn't seem to have a care,

a worry in the world. It's truly incredible. Right? The way that he was like, I guess I'm just going to have to beat them up to get some tickets, aren't I? Just go with the world. It's truly incredible. Right? The way that he was like, I guess I'm just going to have to beat them up to get some tickets, aren't I? It's just go with the flow. Remember that train? Yeah, I'm just going to get tattoos.

Why not? Remember that with 300? He couldn't get tickets. Yeah. He invited us when he came to the hotel. He invited us to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch it with him. I do wonder where he ended up watching.

I should have asked him that. It is remarkable. I wish he'd be like he just seems like the type of friend that you're like dan i need you for the next two hours be like all right i'll be right there like he doesn't even doesn't even question it you know what i mean i mean you spoke about it oscar told him fly to the furthest there it is the world that you can fly to furthest point in the world that you can fly to. Furthest point. And he did. From Auckland. Literally. And was he, what'd you call it? Marabellus. What is it?

What was the flight? Did you guys ask? Hours-wise? Yeah. Yeah, I think he said, what was it, 19 or 20 or something? Something ridiculous. Multiple legs, right? I think it's 200 miles or something.

Yeah. That is, I mean, remarkable. What a friend. And imagine if you're Oscar that you have a UFC superstar just being like, I don't know if he paid him. I don't know. I don't know. Like none of our business, but something tells me he didn't just because Dan's like, yeah, that sounds like a good time.

I'll be there. Yeah, they're friends. And then, I mean, there's another UFC superstar in the middle of the cage who, in the middle of the ring rather, who- It kind of worked out for Dan just being there, right? By proxy. Yeah. I mean, the name in the Connor talk is never a bad thing.

Yeah. So I just said like 1,500 miles. 1,500 miles. That's quite off. I wonder how many legs. But how many miles is it actually? Well, it's 20 000 kilometers which is like roughly 12 000 miles yeah 1500 miles what was i even talking yeah 1500 miles

is that even i feel like cali might even be further than that maybe like three 3k or something yeah um but yeah you know how far like oscar posted a picture of like the furthest point from Auckland being Marbella. So I did it from New York. Perth is the furthest city from New York. So we're going to have to go there someday. Perth is the furthest city from New York. Yeah. It was a long ass trip.

I went to Sydney and Melbourne. It's like six hours to LA. And then I think like 14 It's long I mean New York to LA is long enough And then you're like okay And now I'm going to get on for 14 hours By the way

One go? You just flew and then connected? Yeah There's a chance if I do that I might stay No I don't believe in that Get it over with Get it over with Get it over with What are you going to do? Get out of the airport? Listen man I'm flying economy

I don't get the bed and the recline And the three course meal And the bar to go watch the sports games I'm crammed back there Over six feet tall too As soon as you said the recline I instantly thought of our flight. The guy was reclining onto your lap.

Oh, brother. I can't stand it. Are you, are you, when you, back in your economy days, did you recline the seat that morning? Okay. For the record, the last time I was in Australia was 2015.

And then prior to that was 2010, 127, I believe was, no, 2011 was, yeah, 2011, because 112 was 2010. Newsflash, those were my economy days. The first one, I think I upgraded to super economy, or no, premium economy. I did not I did not fly business Either time These days You won't even

I won't even sniff economy These days it's PJ or bust Yeah yeah These days Believe it or not You joke I've never been on a PJ Yeah neither have I

I've never been in first class Really? When's the last time You flew economy Ariel? The last time I flew economy was Price of milk as well No no no First of all The last time I flew economy, Ariel? The last time I flew economy was... Price of milk as well. No, no, no.

First of all, the last time I flew economy was literally two months ago when I flew home from London with my family. I'm so sorry. Are you okay? No, it was all right. What was the... I know there was some sort of reasoning behind this. Yeah, you think I'm buying five business class tickets? Oh, wow. And you can't do the classic Helwani, the part ways.

It's like the parting of the sea. No, are you kidding me? You get on the plane together and Helwani's just like, see you guys later. Classic Helwani. No, I think that's insane when I see families do that. There are times where they go down the aisle and they're like, Mr. Helwani, you're a 4K member. What are you doing back here? And they actually give me free boxes of food,

like those special boxes that you have to buy. They actually give it to me because they're so apologetic that I'm sitting. They don't realize that you did it on purpose. God, I'm glad Jordan's back. The other week. Welcome back, Jordan. I'm so happy.

Keep that up there. 1,000%. I don't want to fly economy. And it's not because I'm big time. I don't want to fly economy either And it's not because I'm big time. I don't want to fly economy either. It's absolutely awful. When we all went to Vegas, the whole point of this is when we all went to Vegas, I don't have much torso. I'm all legs over here.

So when people recline on me, it's just the worst. And as soon as we sit down, Rick is to my right. Frank is behind me. And a guy just cranks the seat just all the way into my lap. I am just like, brother. Like, I was also trying to do work on my laptop. He damn near closed my laptop. He reclined so far back.

It was just brutal. I felt horrible looking across the aisle. He got up and went to the bathroom. I did a sneaky, like, I just reached forward and just re-aligned it back up. As soon as he sat down he he noticed and just i mean it was like he was trying to break the seat well he wasn't in that thing he wasn't a small man he had some he had some size to him and so he was like getting into it and really like in gc's lap like brother come on man uh just get rid of the button you shouldn't

be able to do it i get angry just seeing it I never do it to the person behind me No way Just get rid of the button please Because everyone's excuse is always Well if they offer the button then I should be able to do it So just get rid of it Eric have you ever flown business? Yeah

PT? Oh no GC and PC We sit back by the bathrooms And take 45 minutes to get off the plane. I'll just take the free boxes. To Vegas, man. Some bad ones beside the bathroom. I have been in hell for 13 hours.

PC, you're flying on the airlines where they charge you for water. You're flying on the airlines where it's rough sledding. The aerials flight back from Manchester last year was a nightmare back in economy. It was like just these kids going crazy. They're throwing chips and cookies everywhere. They're playing in the aisles. It was an absolute tornado of a scene. The flight attendants completely lost control.

There was like a reckoning against this family and all their kids. There was almost fights breaking out. I was barely surviving, and then I get off hawaii's freshly groomed it was that it was it was actually one of the best it was actually one of the best business class experiences he's like did you get the hot pasta sundae for dessert oh the sundae is great instead of the bar bra I was like no they threw us it was an actual bar tea and crumpets at me oh You had to skittle up your nose from one of the kids. Was that Virgin? I think it was Virgin Atlantic.

The flight there was fantastic. Shout out to Virgin. And the flight back, it was hellacious. And I look over. I don't know if I want to name names. Gordon Ryan's back there. Oh, come on. You don't have to name names.

Why'd you have to name names? You know what's funny about that? Actually, we booked it late. This was for the Misfits card. I actually didn't get business going there i was in like premium economy you'll recall a day later i got very sick i lost my voice you remember all that oh yeah it was because i was sitting in economy put that topic bar real quick yeah it was because it was because i was sitting in economy i said never again the hot drinks. It just flows. Connor's fighting

for his life. It's like the Seinfeld episode. You ever see that when Seinfeld's in the front and he's like, what is going on back there? You're trying to sleep and Elaine's trying to get in there and get the cookies and all that. By the way, speaking of it's tough, did you guys see this? I saw this courtesy of the great Twitter

feed, No Context Ariel. Have you guys seen this from sports kita they uh they guess i guess they were recapping something that we were talking about on the program and they included it's tough in the in the quote we've got we've got it right here actually all-time moment in the recent episode of the area hawaii show hawaii discussed a number of topics with marab Dwalishvili, including a potential rematch with O'Malley. However, at the end of the episode, the 42-year-old,

God, am I that old, received a message from Shogun. I love that they gave your age. Yeah, why? I don't know why that matters. Because you mentioned the thing about the wraps and the bagels. It just kind of hits you in the face. God. It took a hilarious jab at the two,

claiming that Diwali Shvili's nose made Helwani's nose appear smaller. I got a text from Sean. This is my quote. He says, Marab's nose makes yours look small. I said, thanks. And I'm pretty sure, Frank,

It's tough. Got picked up into the quote. It has been spoken. Wait, so somebody who's tuning in and doesn't understand. Frank has the, it's tough drop. Ariel's reading this quote. And after he finishes, Frank hits the drop. And that quote made them think that.

Made it. So good. So good. This is my first time I've quoted it. I mean, I can't decide which part of the article is better the it's tough or the 42 year old him reading it just according to him that it says it as he's reading it that being the descriptor for you is just so good that's gonna stick hey shout out to uh josh levitan on twitter who says funny i tune into the Helwani show while in business class on my flight, and the whole topic is business versus economy seats.

Must be nice. Yeah, enjoy it. Have a Sunday on me, Josh. Probably complimentary Wi-Fi too that he's streaming it on. Hell yeah. I will say airplane Wi-Fi has souped up since I've been on it. By the way, I didn't know that you can stream on a plane. That's what I'm saying.

It's up there now. I was streaming on our flight. He's tweeting too. I mean, he's on multiple devices. Oh, tweeting is easy, but I didn't know you can actually stream. That's why I got YouTube Premium so I could download the stuff and watch it.

You can actually stream live now? It's a little dodgy. The airplane Wi-Fi has gotten a lot better. I was trying to watch the UFC card. Ryanair, you're not doing shit. Ryanair, Aer Lingus. I tried to stream the Nochi UFC. Obviously, I had left early and you guys

were at the event and we had the parlay. I was getting sent all kinds of dodgy links because real ones don't... I couldn't buy the pay-per-view and watch it because it's all geo-blocked. I'm messing around with all these dodgy links, man. It was it was awful i didn't know what happened everything just kept stalling out i was waiting for gc's messages it was awful they come on the pa and they're like whoever's trying to access these illicit websites on our flight could you please stop that was it was bad i was

just reloading the whole time um something occurred to me during your show today, Ariel. I have a new map for Francis Ngannou. What does that mean? As in, I have a new roadmap for his career. Oh, please. So the end goal of this whole thing is to force the UFC to, to agree to make this be an Aspinall or Jones or Stipe, whoever it it is it's to try and get that to happen so you have the rico fight oh then then you go to ksw and you fight phil the freeze you know you're doing a co-op with a ksw then you go over to one championship and you try to do a co-promotion with them anatoly malikin is their

champion right their heavyweight champion and so you're slowly just going to all these different organizations like ww what was wcw back in the day yeah or whatever the hell they did and then eventually like look he's beat everyone else the only person left is the ufc heavyweight champion that's that's what i think should happen yeah i mean it would be nice i'm just not holding my breath for this to happen but i do like it a lot in fact rico verhoeven will in fact be on the program tomorrow to answer to these rumors i love how it's just like my idea that gets thrown out wow that was like on a was that supremely loud for all of you we're're going to figure this out, Frank. No, it was just for you. All right.

You wanted it louder. Oh, what? What's going on? Should I pick this up? Who is it? Let me pick it up. Let me just see. I think, okay, I'm going to pick it up.

Okay, we're live. Hey, yo, we're live on the show. We're live on the show. We're live on the show. Oh, look who it is. I'm live on the air right now. Should I not? Hey, I got Rampage here and Cheeto Bear. We're live on the air right now, so don't say anything.

And this guy who looks like me. Come on. This guy kind of looks like me. He looks like a wish version of me. He wishes he looked as good as me He wishes he was one tenth as good looking as me I'm doing a show here Rampage is too busy to come on my show

Cheeto is too busy to come on my show You fucking guys Deal Let's do it Deal You fucking guys Deal Let's do it Bye you guys Love you guys Alright there they are Cheeto and Rampage

Thank you Was that good? It was great man Well I didn't I'm afraid that someone's Gonna text I'm afraid something's Gonna happen

People call me Alright people are Calling me right now Alright people are From business class No not from business class going to text. I'm afraid something's going to happen. People are calling me. People are calling me right now. From business class. No, not from business class. Rico Verhoeven on the show tomorrow. Who else is on the show tomorrow?

Oh, Regis Progray. Big fight for him against Jack Catterall on Saturday. There's another. There's another. Fuck another Does anyone know? Answer it Arnold Allen's on the show tomorrow Yeah

Also Chuck Mendenhall and Shaheen Alshadi Are going to join us to preview UFC 308 I did get a text from I did get a text from I did get a text from Hinata Moikano's manager, Oren Hodak, who tells me, we never got offered any Perth fight. We even asked for Hooker and Turner previously,

and now he's showing me the receipts. So, what do you guys think? Hooker, yes? I have an idea. We should make this a segment every day where it's like you check your phone, take phone calls. You know what's crazy? No, like dependably, you always have things to report on

at the end of the show. Well, you know what's crazy? My phone was down the entire time. And then I'm like, yeah, maybe I should check to see if something happened. And then I see Chido Vera calling me on FaceTime.

So I'm like, do I pick it up or not? I don't know. And you know what they were doing? I guess they were doing his show, Jackson Rampage, and there was a guy there who they claimed looked like me, but if I'm being honest, didn't really look like me.

Dan Hooker, it feels like the Gaethje fight is a real thing. What do you guys think? Anyone interested in that? I'm interested in any of those options that Dan is kind of swirling around with. I know he said he doesn't want to get Dustin on the way out, but Dustin seems not on the way out anymore, right? We kind of reverse course on that pretty definitively. So Dustin, Justin, hell, I'll take Connor.

I'll take any of those for Hooker. Moicano, I'll take that too. I like Moicano, Patty. I like Dustin. I like Dustinikano Patti I like I like Dustin I like Dustin against Hooker I like I like Justin against Hooker as well The other guy we're not talking about is

Fazeev Where does he fit into all of this I feel like he's going to get a fight soon But he's got options And I feel like he's close I feel like he's close to making something happen I did want to address one quick thing before we go. I saw an interview with my old friend Bilal Muhammad.

And it's getting a little bit tiresome, all the lies and stuff like that. He did an interview with Submission Radio where he talked about, we all know the real reason he keeps doing this thing, the real reason why he doesn't want to have me on his show. I've said it time and again, I can't have him on his show. I've invited all those people on the show. They won't come because their manager doesn't allow them to come on the show. The only one who has the balls to say, no, I'm in charge of my career is Kayla Harrison.

She continues to do that. Certainly of the UFC fighters, we've had Derek Brunson, who's no longer in the UFC, come on once he left the UFC. But he has convinced them that if they're in the UFC, they can't go on the show. When you look at the rest of our guest list, it's the who's who of the UFC. Again, don't care. But he keeps saying that I've never wanted to talk to him, that I've tried to avoid him, that I don't give him props, the song and dance over and over again. And it gets a little bit annoying.

In this interview with Submission Radio, he even said, even before I was with Ali, he wouldn't have me on his show. And so then I went and checked when he went to Ali, according to his previous management, they said that he signed with Ali in January of 2019. And I think this is important because again, if you want to call me a shitty journalist, a bad host, all this stuff, I can live with it, but don't make up shit. Don't lie. So he gets to the UFC. He loses his UFC debut. That was in July of 2016. He wins his next fight. He loses his next fight.

He gets knocked out by Vicente Luque. He wins his next fight against Randy Brown. He wins his next fight against Jordan Meehan. He wins his next fight against Tim Means. A split decision. The Jordan Meehan fight is a unanimous decision. There's a chance. a rent counter win in there. And then Jeff Neal's a loss.

So he's five and three at this point by January of 2019, by the time he leaves and goes and signs with Ali. Ali put the kibosh on me talking to his clients in April of 2019. So as of that point, he's a five and three welterweight. He's been knocked out. He loses a couple. He wins a couple. He goes on a little run here. Five and three. I've talked to him at media days. No one was talking about him as a title contender. I wasn't avoiding him. In fact, I heard that he didn't think that I liked him.

I went straight up to him. I talked to him. He'll never talk to you about that. He'll never bring that up. And then he goes and signs with Ali. I can't talk to him at this point. So when he says that I don't talk to him and I haven't talked to him for years, it's because I can't.

It's because he literally isn't allowed to come on this show. And so now he wants to do the whole big thing. Oh, this guy's a hater and this and that when there's countless examples of me showing him love. And I understand that he's asked these questions at times. And so he's not just bringing me up. I totally understand that. But I do see him on his show talking about me in this negative light, saying that I'm a clown and that I'm a hater and all this other bullshit. And it's tiresome to keep making up this stuff when he knows the truth. He knows that he's not allowed to come on. He knows that he listens to his manager. He knows that his manager has told all those guys that they can't come on. And he knows that when I was covering his fights, I was going

up to him to interview him. And he knows that prior to signing with Ali, he wasn't exactly, I was doing a show once a week. I was doing a show once a week. I was doing a show once a week. There were less guests at our disposal and he wasn't exactly in the mix. Now you could do the revisionist history thing and say, oh, you know, I became a champion, but I'm sorry to say back in, you know, 2016, 2017, there wasn't a huge clamoring when you're doing one show a week to have you on the program. You're going to hold that against me for years and years?

It blows my mind that we're still talking about this utter bullshit, but it's just tiresome to keep changing the story and making yourself out to be, oh, the guy that I wasn't giving him the props. Guess what? Who gives a fuck about me? Who gives a fuck about my props? Who gives a fuck about my opinion? Do you, man? But just stop making up this shit about me because it's getting very,

very tiresome to listen to these lies and this violin. Oh, I don't get the props. I don't get this. If you don't like me so much and if you don't respect me so much and you don't care about my opinion, why do you keep bringing up the old shit? You're welcome to come on. You're not welcome to come on. I don't care. care God bless I'll still talk about you I'll still cover you Because I'm able to separate the two I'm able to talk about People who don't come on the show

I don't base my opinion Based on people who Come on the show Or don't come on the show But just stop making up stories You left in 2019 I couldn't talk to anyone in 2019 As of 2019

And so that's why you haven't been on For the past five years Five freaking years It has been this nonsense April of 2019 and so that's why you haven't been on for the past five years five freaking years it has been this nonsense april of 2019 atlanta georgia that event the one that was izzy versus gaslam and uh max versus dustin that's how long this thing has been all because of a stupid tweet um so just tired and I will not respond every time an insult is thrown my way. But when made up shit is thrown up my way

and his previous manager knows, Abe knows, that I tried to make things right and I went up to him and I tried to clear the air and all this stuff, he could speak on it if he wants. I go to bed at night knowing that I've said the truth and that my conscience is clear when it comes to this silly, silly, silly story. So anyway, just wanted to talk about that before we go. And I think that's it. I think there's nothing else, right? I think we're done. Is there anything else I didn't get to? Welcome back, Lillian Garcia. has She has Signed with WWE It appears

Replacing Samantha Irvin And A lot of people Were very excited about that And tomorrow on the show I do want to tell you that We've got On The Nose We've got

The post going up In about an hour So throw us your questions Over there And we'll do a 308 Preview with the man In the myth They used to have their show

together chuck menon hall and shaheen al-shadi who's doing a tremendous job over at uncrowned.com and also over at uncrowned.com just dropped um a uh a story by ben folks on robert whittaker and a great story from drakeiggs, who has been killing it, about the history of MMA's lineal heavyweight championship, which I love that stuff. And it's not linear, by the way. It's lineal. Linear is a TV.

This is like a linear TV. Lineal means like the continuous. Not the straight line. Well, there could be like ups and downs but for the most part it should mean like the connection between all the i got it you know you feel me i feel you uh i can't wait with it yeah way to tie it all together frank uh it was a beautiful moment as i was leaving today as As my kids were leaving, my son said, are you going to the city today? And I said, yes. This is the new cadence, right?

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And he says, does that mean you're missing the Knicks game? And I said, son, I will be there. I will be there for tip-off. That's all I want. That's all I want. That's all I want. All I want is a son, a kid, or two, or three

who wants to watch the Knicks with me, and that is, I'm lucky enough to have that. Jalen Brunson, king of New York. You can't my music, Frank. Not enough. I got that artist here he posted for you. Oh, where is it, where is it, where is it? I'll show.

There it is. Average Joe Art, shout out. Oh, yeah. That's nice oh i like the georgian yeah full blessed express gold gloves great oh i love the blessed express thing yeah and the bull there that's nice swishy was the real poster it's like right there i wonder why they don't just make it it's like right there So epic. You think it's because they have to pay these people or what? I guess, yeah, if you're going to put it everywhere.

Maybe. I don't know, but it's great. Yeah, it's beautiful. Well done. He does great stuff. All right. Boys in the Back on Thursday, we need to clear up the thing with Juliana. Is she going to make a pick or not?

I don't know, she's all confused she made one last week I know, but she got in too late she got in too late I'm actually about to reach out to her right now so that will be on Thursday and then the crack on Friday featuring

the great Lerone Murphy and others. I tell you, this Rico Verhoeven thing is starting to gain some steam. Maybe we'll do a Helwani vision for that. How about that? That sounds fun. That would be great. I would love to do that.

Let's work on that. Thank you very much to all our guests dan hooker eric nixick dan hardy alexander rakic thank you very much to all of you thumbs up to the chat thumbs up to the chat i'll answer all your questions and super chats tomorrow thank you to them back tomorrow same time place doesn't be so bad here