The Ariel Helwani Show - Dana White & Francis Ngannou's fractured relationship, Ngannou's next move, more | The Craic

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

The Craic is back! As usual, Petesy Carroll is joined by Chuck Mindenhall and Ben “Big Time” Fowlkes.This week’s biggest story is the escalating back-and-forth between Dana White and Francis Ngannou. The crew breaks down their interviews and what the exchange really means (5:05).Next up, the lads tackle whether Merab Dvalishvili still deserves Fighter Of The Year after his loss to Petr Yan, and who might take the spot instead (38:48).Another end-of-year competition comes to a close with the Uncrowned MMA picks, and Ben Fowlkes addresses his disappointing bottom-of-the-table finish (49:21).Finally, Petesy and the guys preview UFC Fight Night: Brandon Royval vs. Manel Kape (53:21) and answer your Super Chats (1:09:30).

Hello, everybody. It is the second last, or penultimate, as we say, episode of the crack for 2025. It's very emotional here. Oh, what are we going to do on these Fridays over the festive season? What are we going to do? I don't know. It's none of my business, honestly. Figure something out. I mean, there's lots of things to do. I mean, do you remember the streaming services? Anyway, sorry. Hello, welcome to the crack. This is Pizzi Carroll. You know me. We got a bit of beef going here. I don't know if you've been on social media lately. Francis and Ganoo and Dana beefing again. Beef intensifies. Is that Ariolwani guy? I've always said he was an instigator. I mean, Francis shows up on Wednesday. Cool. Nobody's worried about anything. Now the MacLyfe are talking to Dana. Dana's saying all this crazy stuff that we'll get into later. There's lots to talk about, guys. It's been a long year.

But the beefs keep coming. The talking points keep coming. And here on the crack, we love to break it all down. And I couldn't break it on down. My two favorite colleagues, Ben, folks. Sorry. Excuse me. I haven't given him his full title.

New name. Big time. Ben, folks, and of course, the man that chook men and all, the reason why big time Ben folks has been bestowed with his name is because he's very big time, Ben. Is this not accurate? You know, it's interesting. A guy tries to just be like, hey, I got some things on the calendar, work things on the calendar that he's trying to like give everybody a heads up, like, hey, I got to, you know, squeeze in this before I get back to the rest of my job. And then And next thing you know, everybody says, oh, look at the prima don'tado over here, trying to do his job.

I get it. It's fine. You know, it's, if you want to keep calling me big time Ben Folks, I think it fits. I think it has a nice ring. I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it. I think it gives me an air of authority that is frankly unearned, but very welcome. So I'll take it. What do you think, Chuck?

Could we keep this big time Ben, Ben, folks? Yeah, because I'll tell you how he's at least one-upping Ben Folks, right? because we were watching football last night. We were having a friendly discussion. What has Ben watching? Something about a ballerina documentary or something like that. What was it, Ben? It was a documentary.

Well, I'm going to put documentary in air quotes. I have some issues with this documentary, frankly, about German choreographer Pina Bausch, a favorite of my wife, who is a professor of modern dance at the University of Montana. And she was like, yeah, no, this is a great documentary. What it is is mostly people just doing the dances. And I learned nothing, almost nothing, about Pina Bouch as a person, except that in every clip you see of her, she's smoking a cigarette,

and it won't shock you to learn that she died of cancer. But other than that, I was just like, I don't think documentary is the word for what this is. It'd be like, if you were like, I'm going to watch this Bruce Springsteen documentary, and it was just other people playing Bruce Springsteen songs, you'd be like, nope, that's not what a documentary is. Sounds like we did better that Pigsaw with that.

Game was pretty good last night. Game went off. After we're just like, well, this is shit. I wish I was watching the ballerina documentary. That game just went absolutely crazy. But look,

ballerina documentary sounds fantastic. I mean, what a job. Again, not a ballerina. Not a ballerina. You see how he runs with it? See, this is how you piss off dancers. I've found out, is if you assume that any kind of dance

is ballet. Uh, no, weird German avant-garde modern dance where, you know, you don't know what the hell they're doing a lot of the time. That's, that's what you're talking about. Ballet, totally separate thing. We're learning here. Yeah, I mean, let, let me talk about the fights. I mean, what a combination, by the way, a guy who talks about people beating the shit out of each other for a living and his wife is this, uh, you know, a, a lecturer of the beautiful art of dance. I mean, this is a beautiful combination you've got going to. on here, band. There must be a very eclectic mix of conversations at that dinner type.

You know what? And she's learned an awful lot she never wanted to know about fight sports. So it goes both ways. You should tell her that what's the person's name again that it was centered around? Peanut bouch. Yeah, so you should tell that's the Carlos Proches of, you know,

that's what we do with. We got one of those. Sadly, the way she remembers which fighters are which is basically like, was this guy arrested for that thing you were telling me about or you know if ever there is anybody who has been even slightly mean to me during an interview she will always remember them negatively uh even when i try to be like hey me and chel son hunters are just having fun in some of these clips like we've known each other a long time

and she's just like i don't like it i don't like it i don't like that he talks to you i want him dead i want his family dead sounds well speaking about people who don't like each other there's your segue piece here we go francis and dana lads it's going off the the physical altercation at the centre of all this we have to we've we've put together myself and on our Jordan who isn't on vacation this week which is very exciting we have

a little video sequence we're going to hit you with here just to break down how this got out in the public and basically how it has developed and somewhat changed over the course of time here's Dana when he first revealed the physical altercation on

Andrew Schulz's show and I believe Honor Jordan has the clip here. Everybody has this thing about Francis and Gagnos. Francis and Gagnos is a bad guy. He's not a good guy. He plays the whole, I don't understand the language, and he tries to come off like he's a fucking nice guy,

you know what I mean? And people go all the language barrier probably. No, there's no fucking language barrier with this guy. He's a bad guy. And I told my guys, you know, I wanted to cut him early. And two of my matchmaker guys are like, oh, no, you don't understand. I said, guys, let me tell you a story.

When somebody shows you who they are, believe them. Believe them. And this guy has shown. So he's going in to fight Stipe Miochich in Boston. And he knows he's going to fucking kill Stipei, right? So after the press conference, we're walking down this hallway, and he comes over to me and he grabs me. And he says, let me tell you what's going to happen. His English is fucking great.

Okay? No language barrier whatsoever. When this fight's over, you're going to book me a private plane to Paris. And I said, I laughed. And so, yeah, he goes, I'm not joking. You're going to book me a private plane, Paris. So, okay. So we go our own ways.

Steve Miochitz beats the fucking shit. out of them. So that ended that whole conversation. And he had just fought and he comes up to my office and, you know, he's in the hallway or whatever hanging. And I said, come on. What's what's going on? And he was pissed off that he didn't get a $50,000 bonus in his last fight, that he didn't get the bonus of the night. And I said, well, Francis, you didn't get it because this, that. And he's in my office and he's arguing with me and I'm like yeah this guy got this this guy got that and this is why the conversation's over I'm starting to leave and he grabs me by my shirt fuck and like pushes me back in my office and I said dude get your fucking hands off me those were the words

you came out of you when Francis and God grabbed you by the shirt yeah there we go that is the first injection of information that we have for you today ladies and gentlemen Can I just say, I love Shul's. That sends a chill up your spine a little bit, doesn't it? My God. It's terrifying. Shills' reaction when he's talking to him, he kind of leans back and goes, oh, you're not really good.

Someone, like, that's when you're really hard agreeing with someone I feel. Like, the lean back, I's not, for me is my favorite. That's what I want to see people doing when I'm telling the story. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. When did anybody ever say that language barrier was a big issue for Francis and God? Because he speaks excellent English and he has for years.

Like, we've all known that. we've all like he does all the interviews in english he i don't ever recall that being a thing that people were saying that seems like a thing dana white made up so he could refute well here's the thing this was kind of out there and people had their opinions francis went on ariel's show on wednesday and you know if you're watching this you have to let's just roll the footage they talk about this afterwards i kind of like at some one feel very ignoring to just have to be responsible of what people say basically like if dena say this then i'm out here going to basically defend myself of what diana said or whomever i

think uh whatever he said if he's in peace with it's okay but one one might say that he's trying to like hurt your character right this these aren't nice things to say about someone, if not true, if not true? Again, why am I not surprised? Right. So you don't want to address any of it? No, I don't find it, I don't find it important in it. I don't find it necessary.

At some point, he was, but over time, it's not anymore. So this is Francis kind of, it's put to him, did this happen? This is what he had to say. And then we have a MacLyth interview, which come out yesterday, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong on Air Jordan with Oscar Willis and Dana White. And he tells like a, I don't know, I think there's a slightly different version of the story.

He seems to be underplaying the physical element. As far as I'm concerned, let's have a listen to that one. Let me be clear on something, too. When I say the physicality, it's not like Francis and Gagnan who came in here and, like, threatened us, you know, or, or did anything like that. But as men, everybody who was a man knows there's these situations with, you know, we're in there and he's telling me that I deserve

the 50,000. I want the 50,000. I said, you know, again, this guy fought whatever, whoever the fight was on the card, we had determined that they were going to get the 50,000. And I'm in there with them for however long we're talking, and I'm like, I'm done. And I had another meeting. And this guy just used to walk around, wander around UFC headquarters like this was his house. This guy literally spent the whole day here. Breakfast, lunch, fucking dinner, you know. So I started to walk out and he put his hand on my chest.

He says, we're not done talking yet. And I said, oh, we're fucking done talking. You know, it's not like, you know, Francis and Ganyu came in here and was like physically, but that's what went down. So safe to say, no interest in bringing him back. You know? I don't know how I can make an any more fucking clear. that's changed right like that is a that is a very different thing than grabbing someone with a scruff in a neck right like i'm being like this is what's gonna fucking happen like oh yeah no like if someone does that to me in dublin i'm like they're either gonna stop me now or something's gonna happen am i crazy come on lads please this has changed significantly right i don't know i mean it's it's like kind of change of degree rather than type you're you're saying like okay it wasn't like quite as like dramatic or whatever

To me, this is a weird thing for us to get hung up on about whether he put his hand on his chest, whether he grabbed him by the front of the shirt, all this kind of like, it's, it's, for one thing, it's fascinating to me that Dana White has turned this into a conversation of whether or not Francis and Ghanu is a nice guy. And when did that become the, the, the bar to clear for whether or not the UFC wanted to be in business with you? Look around. The UFC is gleefully in business with a lot of awful people. Awful! They're trying to get people's ankle monitors off them in time for them to come and fight after their latest domestic violence arrest. And that's just regular business day for UFC. So to turn around and be like, I wanted to cut Franciscano because he's not nice.

man nobody said he was there to be nice the reason why we thought you might want to hold on to him because he was the best heavyweight in the world he was your heavyweight champion he knocked your previous heavyweight champion who had set the record for consecutive title defenses into the land of wind and ghosts we all saw it no that was why we thought you might want to hold on to francis and gano suddenly it's like no i don't want to be in business with anybody who's not nice well, then you've got a lot of pink slips to send around in the UFC, my friend. That is a weird thing. And to get into this conversation about did Francis kind of grab him,

then he just put his hand on his chest, I don't know, man. Maybe the fight promoter who is always kind of bullying other people in the organization and it's an organization full of just like professional tough guys, maybe every once in a while it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If he was reminded that his person is not inviolate, that maybe somebody will show up. here and he would have to deal with them face to face and they are a big scary dude maybe that

wouldn't be the absolute worst thing in the world especially some of the things that we know dana white has done to others so like it's strange to me that we even end up in this conversation where it's like there's a there's one expectation of behavior from francis and ganoe in a completely different one for basically everyone else in the sport that's wild i uh i literally wrote just posted a column about this very thing about when did it become all about he's a bad dude he's a bad man, you know, that's what's so strange. Because if you look at the evidence he's given you, right? Okay, I want a private jet. I want to go to right after this fight. Some guys say stuff like that. Like, you're going to want to get me a private jet because I'm your new champion

and all the stuff, right? Like, some guys, that's how they're going to communicate. The thing afterwards, and obviously, like, it did take a little bit of a lesser degree in that second telling is like, okay, whatever. The guy, maybe he's a little bit like that. But the bottom line is, would you classify him as a bad guy just based off of that? Like the evidence we're getting is, hey, take my word for it, guys. Francis is a bad guy. Never mind the Francis and Ghanu Foundation that he started for kids in Cameroon. And never mind the while guys are dancing off with Kada Rav and playing with guns,

like he's out there, you know, helping that community or that he re like he replaced all the equipment and mats at the extreme couture gym. Like he changed Eric Nixick's life with a change. check that he'd never thought he'd receive and every time Eric even talks about he starts to cry what evidence is there you're just saying like he's a bad guy man trust us this is a bad man it's it's a ridiculous narrative and uh I couldn't help it I was like man I have to say something about this because I don't I don't really understand don't you feel that we need more of a story like he keeps kind of hinting at it now he's reluctantly talking about but I'm like well

if you're going to throw if you're going to try to assassinate a man's character I think you better come a little more correct with the details. It's also like we seem to like superstar prima donna behavior from some people. It seems to make them cool. When Connor Greger does it, it's the double champ does what he wants, which is show up an hour and half late till your press conferences, throw a hand truck through the bus window, all this kind of stuff. And then when you're angry at someone and you don't, what it really comes down to is he's not

in the UFC anymore and they cannot make any money off of him. So now you want to tear the guy down. And he might have been a jerk to people at times. He might have gotten too full of himself. He might have believed I am a superstar. And we expect that to some degree from some people in the sport. It's interesting when we decide and where we draw that line and when where we're going, like, I can't believe he would think he deserves this special treatment.

And it's like, I don't know. I mean, if maybe, it seems like there's a lot of that going around. Why are we so upset about this? Why does this one prove there is a fault in his character? And the, and the kind of like, well, let me fortify this little bit. This guy thought he owned the P.I. I mean, he was there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like, so what?

He's carrying his shower scrub around. Like, who cares? Like, what does this guy has a sense of entitlement? So to like so many of your best fighters that you don't seem to notice. Just wild. It's just a wild thing. When Andrew Tate, okay, this is why I pointed this out. Like, if we're going to believe the, you know, Dana White's meter for who's a good guy, who's a bad guy?

Who's the first guy that he, like, you see in a public shaking his hand when he arrives on American soil? It's Dana White shaking Andrew Tate's, it's ridiculous. Like, how are you even supposed to, how are you supposed to use his gauge, especially without the details of who a bad guy is? These are all great points. I do feel as though it colors the exit. why Dana feels so harshly about this situation more than anything else because Dana has a massive eagle

there is absolutely no doubt about that and the idea I thought I sensed that like through some of these but the idea that Francis would do something like this to him right that would absolutely like especially if it's in this setting where it's in the office and people have seen Francis and Gano like having some

kind of situation with Dana Hoyt like this I can imagine that being a very he would take that very personally. And a lot is being reimagined about the Francis and Ganu story now. And I honestly like hand on heart, I thought the interview he did with Ariel gave all of his haters, all of the ammunition in the world. I agree. I thought it was one of the worst interviews I've seen him do. And look, the guy has had a horrific year. He was involved in a car crash in which a woman lost her life earlier this year. And not to mention the year before he'd lost his son. Obviously, a lot seems to be

going wrong with the PFL too, but this interview didn't do anything to mitigate the negative sentiment that is around Francis and Gano as far as I'm concerned. One thing that is very interesting that's come out in this MacLyfe interview is this kind of revisionist history on how Francis and Ganu left the UFC and what it was that led to him leaving the UFC. We actually have a clip from, I believe it is, 2023 with Dana Hoyt speaking about how it came to be that Francis in Ghana who left the UFC. We've been working on a new agreement with Francis for like two years now. And we had gotten to a point where, you know, he was going to fight John Jones and many

who believe, including me, that he's the best of all time, you know, for the heavyway championship. And John Jones has been willing and ready and able to fight anybody. He didn't care who it was. Could have been anybody in the head. heavyweight division he was ready to go um and francis we offered francis a deal that would have made him the highest paid heavyweight in the history of the company more than lesnar more than anybody um and he turned the deal down so right so the the situation dana's put forward here is

he's offered him the biggest contract in the history of the ufc more than brocklesner here's what he said to the mac live yesterday when he talked about francis and gannu leaving the company So safe to say No interest in bringing him back I don't know how I can make it any more fucking clear I do wonder how PFL feel About him going out and saying that his contract's nearly done There was nothing that made me happier

Than throwing that guy over to the fucking PFL Let me tell you what If we let guys go Feel bad for the fucking company that gets them We let them go for a fucking reason Yeah I get it I don't have to let anybody go Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to be in business with guys that I don't like and that I don't think are good guys.

I mean, that's the gist of it. It's like he doesn't want to be in business with guys that he doesn't like. I don't have to let anybody go is a weird thing to say, man, because you're kind of saying that once they sign any contract with the UFC, I can hold them indefinitely and just keep extending them, which is kind of what you've been accused of doing. in some of these antitrust cases. It's what you paid hundreds of millions of dollars to make go away. And now you're kind of bragging about it. That's weird. It's also just like, he's managed to change the conversation. For one thing, he's managed.

And I think that part of what it's going on is when he goes on some of these podcasts and stuff, especially like these like, you know, non-MMA kind of podcast, they just, they'll let him say whatever he wants. They'll let him define the boundaries of the conversation and say, this is what we're talking about because if he's trying to turn this into a thing of like, I don't want this guy in the UFC because I don't like him personally. I think he's a bad guy. I think he's not nice to people, which again, that's not a standard that you're applying consistently. But also, what do you think the UFC is in business to do? What do you think your product is? Your product is fights. So it seems like you should want the best fighters. You've offered

him more money than you've ever offered any other heavy way in the history. of the UFC, you said. That's how much you wanted to get rid of them. You are there to put on fights. You are not there to hold up a series of nice guys. There's tons of nice guys in MMA that the UFC has not been interested in or has not stayed interested in because they didn't win the fights. That's what this business is. We all kind of realize that. It's how we justify to ourselves when they keep putting some awful guys back in on TV and main events. and all that stuff is because we say, hey, look, this is a fight sport. This is about figuring out who the best fighter is.

It's not about figuring out who the nicest guy is. And then he just wants to flip it in this one instance where it's a conversation about, like, is Francis nice enough to people? Like, that's not why you were willing to pay him all that money. It had nothing to do with that. You just want to make it about that now. But isn't he like, you tell me, Chuk, what you think? Is he trying to say, like, oh, I didn't actually offer this going money at all.

there was no contract negotiation. I just wanted rid of this guy who was not a nice guy. Well, that's how he just made it sound. I mean, that's how he made it sound, but I don't think that's the case. In fact, if you, it's been like, it's fairly documented, right? I mean, like, if you talked to Ingon on the team, I mean, and there was a lot of, remember, there was a lot of different things going on. There were stipulations. Remember that Francis was.

Markiel Martin was vilified, like, his manager was being vilified because he was, like, playing hardball with him at the time. Exactly. So, you know that this all went down. It's documented. I don't really, I don't understand the sort of shrug off of, yeah, we just kind of punted him over to the PFL, you know. It's just, that's not really the way it went down. I don't know why this is one of those classic ego things, though. I was trying to think an equivalent.

I don't know, obviously the magnitude of what Francis represents, so the OSEA is probably bigger than anything we've ever dealt with. But I was trying to think of somebody that he's had the ongoing vendetta with, like, and you know, you think of guys like Tito from back in the day and stuff. But can you guys think of anybody that he was doing this? this with her as like, hey, I just don't like him. I don't want him here. And I need to figure something else. So he's a bad guy. You guys, half of you are going to believe anything I say, he's a bad guy. Trust me on this. And you got half the people literally

echoing that, you know, like saying like, well, he's, he's a bad guy. Dana said it. But did he have Diaz? Do you do it with Diaz when he missed the press conference for BJ Pan? Was there a bit of that sentiment around? Like, oh, this guy, we can't rely on this guy. I do remember him. That was a big time thing, but I felt like he got over that. Yeah, he'll get over it pretty quickly.

Like remember when McGregor threw the hand truck through the window and he was saying, would you want to be in business with him after today? And it turned out the USC very much did want to be in business with him after that day. Yeah. Still do. After everything that's happened. He's won one fight in nine years. And they're like, guess who's headline the White House guys?

If he can make it, he will be honest. But you don't, we shouldn't understate that he did not help himself. Like, you're right. that appearance he had on Arrow's show I don't know have you guys have you talked to him before like there's a little bit

I think he was a different fighter when he's coming up than he's kind of where he's at now right like but he's also almost like a boxer and how he looks at himself now like it's a different thing from a top MMA guy

there's going to be a little bit more of a I don't know like you treat yourself as a brand and he just didn't come like it was almost like he had no interest in come across as a sympathetic character in this you know like he he just kind of he almost bristled you know like at some of the question you're like

dude this is your chance to like say something in your defense or whatever he almost bristled at the question like that the audacity of the question it was weird wasn't it like that that felt weird to me it's like and there were all the questions that he must have known he was he was going to be asked on this show and it's kind of like i know he's not with markele martin and stuff like i wonder who is like managers are important in that regard like to be like this is what they're going to ask you like we like we should probably run through what we're going to say here because and look based off the interview i don't think he's going to fight with the pfl again and to dana's point like he's not completely inaccurate in what he's saying there in terms of

the ingano situation with pfl has not gone well i think igano situation has gone pretty well after leaving the ufc like he made a lot of money he fought tyson he fought joshua and obviously he got very bad beating at the hands of Joshua. But I mean, this is what he left for, like to make massive money, to have massive boxing matches, and he did all that. But tell me, like, if I'm wrong, Ben,

but, like, PFL watching that interview, that must have been a very hard watch for their brass, like watching this guy being, like, basically I'm available for the winner of Jake Paul and Joshua, if it's coming. Yeah, don't think I'm going to fight PFL again. Yeah, I would be surprised if PFL didn't see that coming before this interview, though, right?

Because it's like, that's, I think, what a lot of us have felt that this was headed in that, like, hey, look, you're not seeing this guy again. You know, you got, you got one fight out of them. You know, maybe ought to be lucky. Consider yourself lucky that you got that. Because there are just so many other opportunities for really big boxing matches that he could do all the time. This is another one that I think is a little weird that we've gotten into with the conversation

around Francis and Nano and PFL was, because we're being like, well, he's not. doing right by the PFL and it's like what do we think his responsibilities are because he signed a contract with the PFL like he's a prize fighter always the rule for prize fighters should be do whatever is going to make you the most money next if you can if you have that kind of contractual freedom like if you can look around to be like well hey the situation is different now than it was six months or a year ago what would be the fight that's going to pay me the most money the very next time, not over the course of the next three fights, over the course of the next five years or whatever. How many more fights do you think Francis Ngano has in him? At his age

and just the money he's already made, it's got to be something big to motivate him to even get out there and do it again. I mean, if he had one more fight in either MMA or boxing, I wouldn't be surprised if that's it for him, just because he doesn't need it anymore. He's made a ton of money. That is the goal. That is what these guys are out there trying to do. It's weird to me when we kind of flip it and we're just like, what does this fighter owe to this organization? When we know how this works in so many other aspects of the sport, the organizations do not feel like they owe anything to these fighters other than what is written on the contract. We will give you this much to do this. And it's like they don't, they don't feel any responsibility toward them.

We've stopped asking them to feel any responsibility toward them. And it's just we kind of turn it around here because it's convenient. And, you know, because he's not doing a great job of kind of helping himself. I think you mentioned the role like a manager could play in something like that. Part of what a manager could give you is a little bit of outside perspective that could be easy to lose in a situation like Francis, where you need somebody to be like, here's how you're coming off. Here's how you might want to come off. Yeah. Absolutely.

I think the thing that sucks, though, in the end, for guys like us and for fans, right, is like you really do get the sense like, oh, it's not going to happen, right? Like, it's just not going to happen. I don't see a solution. Well, Ben just pointed out, what is he, 38 or 39? He's getting up there. But, like, this being as far as it is from, you know, being fixed, I'm like, I just don't see a scenario. And I think there was part of, we've been talking about this, whispering about this for years,

like the last couple years, well, wait until, you know, he'll come back eventually and he'll fight. You know, we were talking about when Aspinall, we're like, maybe it'd be Asimov, but they got to bring him back. This is the, this is the key to having all the best heavy weights in one place. You got John Jones there and all this. I just feel like this part of the. scenarios, it's done. Yeah. No, I agree with you. And I agree. Like, I think it's, I've closed

the door on my mind now. As soon as I hear Dana talking like this and about this physical stuff and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, it's not going to happen. To the Ben's boy about the PFL, he is right. And I think there was a certain amount of naivity on their, their side when they went into this contract negotiation. Like they, it's like the most bespoke situation of ever seeing a really do for finally they're going to launch BFL Africa and stuff like that and you know

if things weren't going well which they weren't when they launched there like the reason you set up this guy he's not there and you know people at a field day and Gano haters had a field day with that but that is naivety on the side of the promotion

to some degree as well like this is a cut throat business and to Ben's point the people are usually getting their throats core the fighters so why should we kind of be like oh my God how dare this guy, you know, who basically have to swim from Morocco to Paris to keep himself alive. Like, how dare he decide not to go to Africa this time for this event?

It's like that stuff doesn't exist to date at all, like that whole thing. The whole marketing idea behind him and all that just doesn't exist for him. It's kind of, it's going to like, I still think it doesn't matter what happens in terms of this stuff and it's not going to take away from the amazing story this man has, but there is just one more thing I want to talk about on the Francis front. The Jake Paul thing, the fact that this fight seems to have been offered to him, the one that Anthony Joshua now has. Or was it? I don't know. Well, I mean, he initially said it wasn't and then he said it was. We have five minutes of video here, but I think we've already established what's happening there. But I mean, just something you said earlier, Ben, like in terms of like he might only have one more left. Do you think that's why he might be turning this down? As in like, you know, there will be another fight coming. I think everybody agrees.

that if Joshua does what everyone thinks he's going to do to Jake Paul and Gannu might be the guy that could get a piece of Paul next unless the whole thing, the wheels come off and like, do you know what? He is not fighting anymore. Like, is this a tactical thing from him or do you subscribe to the belief that he fumbled the bag, Ben? Well, first of all, it's a little bit presumptuous to even assume there will be any of Jake Paul left to have a piece of after he fights out of Joshua. That is by no means a given. Uh, I, The way he phrased it made me sound like, did he not think this was a serious offer? Because he kept getting hung up on them going, hey, Jervanta Davis is out.

Do you want in? And he seemed to be caught up on like sort of the contrast, the hilarious contrast between going from a diminutive man in Javanta Davis to basically one of the biggest dudes we can find in Francis and Gano. And he was just like, wait, how do you go from that to this? This doesn't really make sense. Maybe he got hung up on the idea that he was being treated as a substitute, a plan B or something. I don't know. It seems like it would have been really good money. And one of the most winnable boxing matches he is likely to be offered.

So I would have said take it. If I was advising Francis Santano, I would be like, this is easy work for us, man. If you're at all close to being in shape now and can get there by the time this fight is booked, then let's take it. Let's go knock Jake Paul's head off, get some fans. There's plenty of people out there who would love to see you knock Jake Paul's head off, especially a lot of people came out of that Tyson fight on Netflix. I think we underestimate the extent to which the prevailing sentiment among a lot of casuals and just like general sports fans, people who don't normally watch fights,

was anger at Jake Paul for doing this to Mike Tyson, who somehow for a lot of people still remains like a very beloved figure. And, I think that if you were to be the guy who steps in after that and beats up Jake Paul, you kind of get a lot of the shine from that. You could have really done something with it. And it would have been good money and probably easier money than other real heavyweight boxers that you might be looking at fights with. So I would have said, let's go ahead and do this. He seemed like he just couldn't get past the kind of mental hurt of it.

How weird was that, though? I mean, come on. He's a guy who I think presents himself like, I'm a businessman, you know, to. too. I'm a businessman. But somebody's presenting you, the best piece of business you're probably going to get. And you're like, oh, wait, I'm way bigger than that, dude. I mean, it doesn't make sense. Some of the, he's not known for his footwork, but why the fancy footwork on this whole thing? I'm like, dude, this was a slam dunk. Wasn't it? Like, this should have been like, oh, this is how I come back. And everybody, I'm reminded everybody on Francis and Ghana, you do this service

to humanity with the Jake Paul thing. It's just, it's a crazy. That's where I'm, I first was lost on this, but to hear him talk about it, I was even more. lost. I just, what's he going to do, beat it? Like you said, if he beats up the remains of Jake Paul after this fight, it's like, you know, he's kicking through the leftover balloons and stuff. The party's done, right? Like, he's not really, he's not really beating the guy anymore. He's just beating the dude who once was. It makes no sense. Oh, man, that's very funny. What if he beats, if he beats Joshua, though, like, for some reason, which it won't happen. But I'm saying if he were to do that, then I don't know, maybe we've got

something there. Oh, come on. Like, I mean, there won't even entertain it. to talk about. There's going to be something to talk about. I won't entertain it. I will not entertain it. No. It's happening, boys. If it goes down three rounds, I'm going to lose my shit. I will be flipping tables in my fucking house. But it's, look, I will say, right, the one thing that I heard Ryan Garcia talking about him getting a phone call from MVP during the situation. And he, the way he describes it, I don't know if this is true or not. He is like, they are having a meltdown because they're like, we've, we've, lost this fight. Netflix, this is a huge opportunity for us. We need someone. And he was like, they're calling him, relentless. He's saying, take the fight, take the fight. And he was like, no, I'm not fucking doing it. Like, what are you crazy? He was just like

how, how frenzied the kind of call was to get him involved. I wonder if that has anything to do with it too. Could be. Where, like, where Francis is like, hang on, what? Like, you know, like, please come in and he's going, like, did he know that Joshua was in the running? Because I'm almost like if he's comparing body

sizes. I doubt it. I felt like if they're best negotiating with it, well, Joshua wants to take it if you're not, if they would have just said that up front, you would have been like, all right, I'll take it, you know? Yeah. I think that maybe that's, part of me wondered, does Francis and Ghanu think he's going to have a different type of boxing career than what we think he's going to have at this time? Like, is he thinking like, hey, this is not something that a serious heavyweight would do because you're right, Anthony Joshua takes and it

proves that, yeah, it kind of is something they would do if the money's right and it's easy enough work. But it also seems like, does he think that he's crafting a heavyweight boxing career where he has just slid in there among these top guys in the division? And he's right there. Yeah, like, because I think the rest of us kind of go, you're having this incredibly lucrative boxing career now at the kind of the end stage of your career, like the, your success in MMA and in the USC allowed you to kind of have this boxing career.

but it's not going to be much of a career. It's going to be a handful of fights that you can monetize extremely well but it's only going to be a handful of fights and they will all be a little bit of a curiosity more than you etching your name right alongside guys like Tyson Freire and Alexander Usick. Like that's not really going to happen.

And it kind of seems at times when he talks about it that maybe he thinks that that is the kind of career he's had. It's crazy too because he's already had that fuck you moment. Like that came in the Tyson fight. That's it. Yeah. It will not go. above that. It will never will again because the

expectations on him were he was going to get destroyed. He was carrying some kind of flag for MMA going into that situation. He was, for anybody who's ever thought that the UFC, you know, ruled his fighters, he was standing up for those guys. You know what I mean? Like, he had everything going against him. He had everything

going for him. Like, there was such a convergence of attitudes about that. For him to go in there and drop, you know, Fury and like, for the fight to go down the way, we're arguing, like, who won at the end. I mean, that was, you're never ever going to top that piece of theater yeah yeah it's it's a wild well situation and look i i think it's still there for him but just the interview i think it was a bad one

you know it was a bad one yeah we'll have to see how it shakes out of course jake paul could beat joshua and then it's like yeah you know can we take the step down now for francis no now that he's in line to fight usick you guys don't see that out of it yeah but um speaking a great fighters. Marab one loss this year but three wins like Icarus you know, flew too close to the sun in many ways.

Ben, big time Ben had a take on this in his mailbag this week and it is a, it's a debate that is running through the sport at the moment. Is Marab still the fighter of the year? I'm not allowed to say because there's a certain show coming

up in early January. Why can't? The people are waiting then. I wish I could how I feel about this, but we're not going to have to pass this over to you, my friend. Yeah, you can't just give it away that easily, you know? Oh, give it away. Give it away. I think the argument that you could make in favor of Maram is, hey, he tried to do it, you know? He had a great year up until this Peter Yan one.

Like, if he hadn't taken this Peter Yon fight, I think that we would have said hands down Marab was the fighter of the year. You know, three title fights this year just really cemented himself at the top of the Bantamweight Division. And I don't think anybody would have been like, only three, why didn't he go for four? You know, like, that's not anything that was on anybody else's mind other than him. And so I think that it would have been a real easy call. I think, like, I understand the impulse that some people have where you still want to give him an add-a-boy for trying, for being willing to step in there four times in a year where you're your UFC champion, you don't have to do all that. Like, that is impressive. It's admirable.

he put on a hell of a fight against Marab. That was definitely one of the fights of the year, if not the fight of the year. The fact that he was still standing at the end of it tells you just how incredibly tough Marab is. I don't know how much we want to attribute the work rate, the pace that he had this year to him losing this one. I think I'm inclined to say Marab didn't look bad. Peter Young looked great. And so I still think it's very hard for people to think of you as fighter of the year when the last thing they saw you do is lose, that the last thing we saw really sticks in our minds, you know, and three and one

as a champion doesn't sound as good as four and oh or even three and oh. And so I think that that'll hurt him a little bit. But the question is, if it's not him, who, right? Because I think you can make kind of a case against a lot of other people. Honestly, in a weird way, somebody was responding when I wrote that up in the mailbag by saying, like, why not Peter Jan for a fighter of the year because he sort of put himself back in title contention, went in there as a big underdog. Nobody was given him a chance. Nobody picked him, except for big deal, Ben, folks who picked him in the staff. Big time, Ben, we know why you picked him. We know why you picked him. Because I saw it. We'll be, we talk about that a bit later. I gazed into the crystal ball and I saw

it and it came true. I mean, like, he actually has a pretty good claim because that's an amazing performance. That's a career performance by Peter Yon to come back in there where everybody thought, all right, you had your time with the belt and that time is never coming again, especially not. I mean, really what you could fault him for was like, you'd want to see like one more fight on the record maybe.

But other than that, it's like, do you say it's Islam Makachev because you know, he beat Hanato Moikano, which that was not exactly anybody's idea of... Moni Moikano? Huge, huge win. And that's not, that's not Islam's fault.

He was, a few hours notice. He was going to fight Arm and Sarukian, you know, he, he was willing to do that. And, and then it was out of his control that it ended up being Moikana, so you don't really want to take anything away from. He's still fought, you know, on that card. Yeah. And then he goes up a weight class, but against a guy who had not really had a chance to solidify himself as like a champion who we all thought of as by far the best 170 pounder in a world. He absolutely ran through that guy. So that's good.

you know like he had no competitive fights in the year really like that's impressive you know that that's just dominance right there you can make a case for him there um i don't know it doesn't seem like anybody after the marab loss has a rock solid case where you you know you could say it's got to be this guy can't be anybody else it used to i mean we've had years where it's very clear cut and i mean obviously if marob goes in there and wins this it's clear cut right like you would just been like of course it's him four and oh makes history it's really strange though I like the discussion because at three and one, you're like, well, that's still, that's still good enough for him to do it because of what you said. He's chasing it. If you switch the order of any of that, he probably still gets it. If he loses it the first year, but he avenges himself, but then he loses it the first year, but then he avenges himself on this last fight, we're probably giving it to him anyway. It's just, it's really the momentum of not having the belt going out that we look at and we say, like, well, we can't do that. It's just, it's conditioned. for people to perceive things that way.

Well, he's coming off a loss. There's no way we can give it to him. But he does, out of all the times we've ever done this exercise, I think he does have a pretty good argument. I think I hadn't really considered, because I haven't sat down and done this exercise yet, but I hadn't really considered yawn as a candidate, but in a weird way, I think that he should be, you know, like you mentioned, I think that he kind of, he's probably in that top space.

Once you break it all down, I think he's going to be a name that's going to be a finalist in that. Well, yeah, I mean, the thing is his. His Figueredo win was 24, and so it's like the other win of the year was Marcus McGee, which was not exactly, you know, that's not one of the names where you're thinking like, all right,

that absolutely puts you up there. Yeah, I'm coupling the, I am thinking of Figuero is happening this year. Former champion. November 2024. All right, so edit that out and we'll fix it in post, Chuck, don't worry. Yeah, and who suggested that?

That's ridiculous. Another one I heard was Vann, but I find that very difficult because maybe breakout fighter, but he's had a great here, we didn't see him beat Pantosia. That's the reality. He's one of a technicality. Had he beat Pantosia, absolutely. I think it would have been a home run for him.

But you need, he did not be Pantosia in a fight. But Pantosia's body gave open him, so I can't see that one. Okay, but this is another thing that came up in the mailbag and I want to take the opportunity to say it to people who do not like to read and just

so that it gets, it gets, it gets, gets to everybody here. 90% of our demographic. All right. People need to lay off Joshua Van for how he celebrated after the win over Pantosha. Because I get it where you're going like, hey, why are you running around acting like you won the Super Bowl?

The guy just got hurt 30 seconds in. He didn't really do anything. But you have to understand in that moment, all the pressure, all the fear, the doubt, the anxiety that those guys are carrying into a fight. It's a young guy like that in there in a title fight against the guy that he's looked up to as a champion. There's probably a lot. It's probably a heavy load on that guy's mind and

on his heart going into that fight. And in that immediate moment, all you're probably registering is it's over and you won. All the bad things that could happen to you in this fight, none of them happened. The best case scenario happened. You won, you got the championship, you didn't get hurt. It's over quickly. Like in that moment, you're just reacting, I'm sure, on like, relief and elation and he's just going, oh my God, I can't believe that it actually happened. And I'm champion now. Afterwards, it kind of has some time to set in. And he's said as much where he's just like, I didn't really get a fight with him.

I still want that fight with him. Obviously, he deserves to come right back in for a rematch whenever he's healthy and he's ready for it. Those are all the right things for him to say. People gave him too much shit for how he acted in that moment when you're just like. I knew they would as well, though. Yeah. Yeah, we were mentioning this. It's this sport.

Dude, if you're 23 years old and even if you're doing it, in like a wheelbarrow race or something and you like actually bunch of your buddy and he goes topling off the hill you'd be yeah you know you imagine this dude just realized a dream and in the moment he's like oh my god i won you know it was just you cannot fault the dude he's 23 years old like he hasn't even been seasoned in the uh the idea of sportsmanship and on a larger level yet you know yeah and just to that point as well like the relief and everything like that and this like I've talked to fighters who said the difference in them

when a fight is over compared to when it starts it's like night and day right that's one of the big reasons where I hate these fucking restarts like the Walo Cortez Acosta one against DeLay and like you know

when you're just like all of this anxiety rightly or wrongly has left DeLia's body at that point he's like celebrating with his guys like oh my God fucking all the weeks we train oh we're gonna go and get some beers like no you're gonna fight again

okay I'm going to send you back in there with this lunatic with a lightning bolt for a right hand. How do you feel about that? You know, it's not good. Yeah. It's the last sport that that should happen in, honestly. Like, it's just such a, just voiding yourself of such tension and anxiety in that moment. And then to be like, no, actually, let's go again.

It's just, it doesn't make any sense. Do you guys consider Dakota Dacheva in the conversation this year for Friday of the year? Or did you not see enough? Like, who did you fight, Chuck? I'll stop your hand there. I don't remember. There was somebody who was like. of summer.

Otherwise, milk carton. She's a really good fire. There's no doubt about it. I mean, the previous year, she was our, I think, pretty unanimously, right? Like, she was our breakout fighter of the year. Yeah. For her to fight one time in 2025 has got to be one of the greatest crimes that we've seen in the sport.

Is that the biggest cross-promotional fight you could make now? Like if it was PFL and UFC, Dakota and Valentina? I mean, I still think in the all. alternate universe where you could do Francis and Ghanu and John Jones or something like that. That would be huge but... Never heard of them. Samiko Mabai, that was it, wasn't it?

That was the person's name. Yeah, it just occurred to me. Yeah. Just came to you. I had it right there on the tip of your tongue. It's like, what? This is a movie you've seen recently or? I've never heard of that person beforehand or after, you know?

We need to give someone this flower. in this show today, right? So there's this thing that started that's the entire of the year, you know, on Crown. I'll shout he was like, let's do this thing where we all pick, you know, a whole card of the main cards of every paper view and we'll see who will be

the winner at the end of all this. And I just want to say, none of the three men before you are the winner. We need to congratulate Mr. Drake Riggs. Congratulations. Dres. And second place, we have the great Connor Brooks of the Boys in the Back podcast. Congratulations, Connor books. But there he is. The great Chuck Bendenhall on the podium representing the crack. Thank you so much, Chuck, for keeping us legitimate. It is a brilliant

thing you've done there. And you'll see me in mid table there like Manchester, you know, the last season, like a coiled spring ready to attack in 2020. What's the kids table that's highlighted down there? What is that? What is that yellow thing? Now see, look, and now I want to switch from talking to people who don't like to read to talking to our beloved editor Shaheen al-Shadi why you do us like that man you didn't have to do that you didn't have to make a special thing to highlight that we were at the very bottom people could look at it themselves and draw their own conclusions you don't have to draw that's where the eye goes immediately it doesn't even go to the top of the table it goes right to the bottom because you see the yellow highlighting you didn't

have to do us like that that was uncalled for and unnecessary any further comment on the fact that you don't appear to be on the bottom though then like if i was looking at this can we just bring it up there real quick again i'll be like hang on a second um who's come last it's it's oh that's the executive producer of this whole thing that's uh eric jackman um i wouldn't think my mind wouldn't go to ben vokes there like i mean how do you feel about his placement there because he did voice similar concerns you have uh earlier this week on the ire to the fact that the winner Drake Riggs has not been highlighted in the manner

that others have but you went you weren't all the way down there Ben as far as I'm concerned different different situation second to last that's way better I think that it has to be because of the incredible momentum

with which I finished the year that's what I thought is well actually glass half full I I structured my picks for USC 323 in such a way as to at least give my a chance to move out of the basement, even if it meant taking some big swings, taking some

risks, and it paid off, damn it did. It paid off. I picked Peter Yan. I was the only one that helped put me in a tie with New York Rick there. Now, here's the thing that I want to say. Oh, well. That was the last pick of, you know, since we only do the pay-per-views, that's the last one of 2025. Congratulations to Drake Riggs, all that stuff. But in 2026, it's a zero-zero It sure is. You know, like Michael Jordan said, let's see if all that, that shit talking starts up again when it's zero, zero. You know?

Is this when it became personal for Ben? And I, I saw the little yellow box, and I took that personally. Pizza, don't be full. He's a bad dude. All right? One time when I met him, they were talking about his grip strength. Grabbed Ariel Boy the collar. That's what I heard.

If you've seen any videos of Dana recently, no color. No polo shirts. No button downs. All V-nex around next. Yeah, he's fucking, he's not wearing that. He's not giving anyone even an opportunity anymore. I do look forward to having an additional pick. I think Shaheen said that we would go ahead and do that. So we'll have six picks for each card, each paperview. I like that. Are you going to keep on cranking this up? Chuck? Like next year, you're going to add another. I'll probably add something else. Like a guest pick or something. I don't know. Let me think about it. That's great. We do have some. Big big shout. out, by the way, to Mysterious Frank, like, wasn't he in the basement for like forever Nelson? He was being used as the butt of a lot of jokes along the way here as well. Yeah.

He smoked me anyway. Yeah, he smoked all of us. Came back. Honestly, fucking Jan Blahovitch won that for you. I should have fucking had an extra point. I should have been out of a draw. This is absolute fucking bullshit. I'm all right.

I don't know. Who is better than Jan Blahovic at coming up with draws in fights that he seems like he kind of won, but also kind of didn't? you know like he has a knack for that nobody's better than he always like when they read out the thing he's like oh yeah whatever i'm nearly 50 i don't give a fuck what's happening lads we do have some we do have some fights this weekend and that's right and you spoke to the great roy valent self chuk a man who is one part of what many people believe is the four of the year against the aforementioned Joshua Van

seems to be fired up based on what I read earlier. You know, it was fun talking to him because I wanted to just almost highlight. Like, dude, you stood in there. I thought it was awesome, right? Because it was a last, not last minute, but it was a shakeup. He wasn't supposed to be fighting Joshua Van.

Van was coming off, you know, three weeks from beating another guy. All the media seemed to be about Joshua Van. And yet he was kind of the rock. Like, hey, guys, I'm here right. I'm here too, and he was like, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to put on a show because you're all overlooking me. And so I kind of wanted to talk to him about that.

And the fight played out. Do you recall like just, it was like, it was, they were just boxing. It was like more strike, like clean shots flush to the face kicks. It was just back and forth again and again and again. And obviously he lost, but I thought, you know, I'll talk to him a lot about that. And he said, he kind of separated. Like, you know, from a specific mindset, I look at him like, dude, I said I was going to on a five night. That's exactly what I did. I went out there. I boxed this guy. Everybody

think that would be stupid. But from my coaches standpoint, I'm a complete idiot, you know? And he went on this thing. I screwed this up majorly. And, you know, he wouldn't have got dropped late in whichever round it was. He wouldn't have got dropped there. You know, he was, it was like he was half, like, I love what I did and half lamenting the fact that he didn't just stick to a game plan. So it was, it was an interesting conversation. But I think in the end, he was, I think that he sees it like well if van is the champion for a while everybody's going to remember that we put on that fight and that hopefully if he wins you know give him a chance for that rematch down the road it's it's a really good fight um with man ill cape i call him cape people

call him cap i'm i'm not too sure what it is i'm being completely honest uh i never know either ben don't ask me how to pronounce people what would you go for i'm just ask you what you go for Capet. You know, you know what I think happens all the time to me is I get one pronunciation in my head either erroneously or because someone that calls them that on a broadcast once, but it doesn't seem like we have a thing in the UFC where sometimes guys will show up and you're like, okay, wait, we've come up with yet a third different pronunciation of this guy's name. Like some of these guys that seems to change every single time they show up. And so I never know which one is. And for me, I just feel like my brain at this stage of life just seizes on whatever

the first thing is, and then it's hard for me to talk myself out of it. You know, we'll say Chuck, you made that point about the great fight and not following a game plan. When you think about it and you think about the various fights of the year that we've seen over the years, how many of them were the result of people following a smart game plan?

Like almost always, those are the kind of fights where the game plans just go completely out at the window, and the chaos of it is kind of what makes it the fight of the year. Very rarely do we see some guys where he was just like, he had a smart game plan and he stuck to it the entire way. Didn't take any unnecessary risks. Leonard Garcia once I was like, he's like, man, I always have this game plan.

My coach is like, Leonard, please, just at least for a while, follow the game plan. Just try it, you know, just try. He was like, okay, man, he would make these swears. And then he'd go in there and he'd say, like, he'd get punched the first time and it was just, you just threw it out the window every single time. Like, he just couldn't do it. It wasn't in his repertoire. I remember it being at the Jackson Week Gym at one point when.

And, you know, he, we were talking about how the bonuses had really incentivized Leonard Garcia to fight that kind of a way. And he was continuing to do it even when the returns weren't that great for him. And when I asked Greg Jackson about like trying to get him to stick to the game plan, he heaved the heaviest sigh and looked at the ceiling as if trying to, like, he didn't even want to put himself through it thinking about it again. I was like, okay, I'm getting a sense of what it's like to try to get that guy. You're like, you just said everything. I needed for that. Yeah.

Yeah. There actually is some nice, nice fights on this car. Chacazi v. Vallejos, uh, Sharia and Costa's a great fight. And Chuku v. Bccecha who fucking needs to do something here,

man. We don't know how many, I don't know, B.J. Freaks were losing their shit about Buccecha coming to the UFC. I know. That was Martin Boudet

absolutely beat the shit out of their feelings that day. It was just like, nope, this ain't happening. Gonna jab the shit out of your 15 minutes. And in the end, Buchetcher is not even fucking trying to take him down. He's just like,

well, fucking, you know, I'm here, I'm standing here. Guess who's the worst guy you could fight if you succumb to a game plan like that? The seven foot tall Kendi and Juku has a job like a piston. Best of look, Bucce. That is

I feel so sorry. Well, you know what they say, Peece, every fight starts on the ground, so. Something about sharks and you swim there or something. But I mean, this is a flop, though, Ben. You're a BJJ guy. You know how much people lose their shit about Buccecha. Like, one of the greatest heavyweight jihih Tzu players of all time.

This is, this is not gone well. Yeah, but at this point, this is what you deserve for getting too excited about BJJ guys, decorated BJJ guys coming into the USC coming into MMA. You got to know. There's so many ways to get disappointed from him not using the BJJ to him trying to pull guard and just do a bunch of stuff that works in tournaments, but that is not ever going to work in a UFC fight like there's so many more ways for it to go wrong than there are ways for it to go right like it's it's tough to be a specialist at anything in this stage

of mama's development um and so you really got to figure out like how to do you got to deem and mya your way to that shit where you figure out how to craft the rest of my game to funnel it toward the one place i actually want to be giving up on dylan danis i see all right let's see and Dennis with his cartoon ass shoes is not I don't think the BJJ community claims him anymore. I keep thinking about those shoes too. What the fuck? I'll tell you what.

You look up those shoes. You look up those shoes. They are not as expensive as you want them to be because they're going to be like foyer brown. They're like 130 bucks, which is like not cheap, but it's also like if you're not careful, you could have a couple

too many cocktails one night and buy those shoes. and and and wake up the next morning like oh god what did i do i got these john pork doesn't see you wearing i got these plato ass shoes that now i got to wear or something um i wanted to hear what did he dm you is that what you said yeah yeah he said the pizzi's dms for irish man you shouldn't talk about me like that i was like you're half hondurin what are we talking about yeah i know i was like sorry i just didn't write back because i figured that would annoy him more than anything else. I just looked and I went,

all right. You got to, before we get out of here, you got to mention the other big sporting event that's on everybody's minds this weekend other than the final UFC event the year of these, another ending at the apex.

Are we talking about? We're talking with the return of Chris Seiborg in Leon, in France. I mean, Nemcoff and Henan Ferreira fighting for Francis and Gannu's vacant heavyweight title, perhaps the emergence of new superstar,

Patrick Habirora. from Belgium as he goes in against Kevin Juseth, a UFC veteran who absolutely brutalized one of my Irish homies, Kiefer Crosby. Is that what you're talking about Ben, folks? Uh, sure, that, but also... They look like Francis O'Garmer. The Montana Grizzlies host the South Dakota Coyotes

in the quarterfinal round of the FCS playoffs on Saturday afternoon. And me and Chad Dundas and a whole bunch of our friends are going to be there. Oh, baby. We're going to be right in there trying not to freeze to death. I was going to say, what is the temperature going to be? It's actually a little bit unseasonably warm, but it's also the kind of thing where it's just like,

you got to show up there ready for sleep, snow, rain, anything that might potentially happen to you, but you got to also show up and support the Montana Grizzlies. Team of Destiny, if we win this one, we go to the semifinals, probably against the in-state rival Montana State Bob. That's what you won. We want a rematch. We want to rematch with those guys. We think we're the better team. Think we can get it done.

It's a big one this Saturday, guys. Love it, man. Big one. I can't fucking find it, man. I was trying to watch it. And I couldn't, like, there's nowhere to watch it here. The last time when you went, I'm shocked.

I'm shocked to learn that there is not a dedicated broadcast partner in Ireland for FCS football playoffs. 7.5 point favorites. A lot of win this one. And I'll tell you what, North Dakota's sake got knocked. out of the playoffs and a shocker last week, a huge upset. So with that, the field is wide open now.

Anybody could win this championship now. And you're not going to get a better opportunity to do it than this. So the grid's got a capitalized. Now, is this big enough for you got you and Chad to, you know, shirtless and storming the field and all that afterwards? Or is not quite that big? Last year. You're getting tased on the fields. I think

it was either last year or the year before, I went to their playoff game at home against, I think it was against North Dakota State. The best football game I've ever seen in person in my life went to double overtime. It was freezing cold out there. And there were some North Dakota State students sitting nearby in the section I was in who did the shirtless chess painted, like green and white kind of thing. And you could tell by the third quarter they were really regretting it. But they also, like, they can't put shirts on at that point because everybody is going to see you and be like, ah, you couldn't you couldn't stick it out,

could you? Do it. And so they had to, I mean, I was there in like three layers and I was freezing, and they had to stick with it. And you just know when this thing was going into double overtime, they're like, why? Why did it have to be this? Couldn't even enjoy that.

Like, no way. Well, and their team lost on top of all of it. So put your shirts back on and go home. Did you guys play sports in the winter when you were young? Did you have winter cream? Did you have that over there when it was... Winter cream? Yeah, like, it's like, um,

it's not like Tiger Bam, it's something like that, but we used to put all over our legs and we're playing football in the, in the, in the winter. And it would just make your legs go. Icey hot, that is what you was called over there. We used to just rub that fucking all over us. And then you'd rub it in your eye at one point. Oh, God.

So you're waiting for a corner, you'd be like, oh, I can't see anything. The ball coming in just completely... Just fall for it every time, too. Yeah, yeah, fuck. But, yeah, yeah. Them boys, that's what I'm saying. That was good of, a bit of that on.

I was more of a basketball guy when I played growing up, but I know Ben played football for a long time. Yeah, but in Southern California, we were like, it rained one for one of our games. And we were like, what the fuck is this? These guys were slipping and sliding. Where did you play? What was your position?

I played linebacker. So we were just fucking guys up. Fucking guys up. That's the job. Much better to hit somebody than get hit, you know? Yeah, that's right. And but just on my PFL show there, lads, it's actually quite a good card.

And, you know, Nemcoff, Ferreira. It's very Fader-esque, right? his apprentice fighting this absolute giant Chris Seiberg who is in our pound for pound table there can she make a move who knows this guy Habirora I'm telling you if he can put away you say he is the new you know PFL have done a good job of this like with Dakota Paul Hughes

Doom Bay in Paris too I saw this guy fight for the first time in Paris on that doombay card against Bakke with 20,000 people there this guy from Belgium got the second loudest popular night and 7-0 knockout artist he is very famous in Belgium it seems to me like he's nearly like the spark that lit the fuse for MMA over there

like I see these clips of him walking out on stage at a music festival of 80,000 people and they're all screaming his name. Tough test against you set. But I'm interested to see. I look forward to reading the piece. I didn't get a chance to look at it before the podcast. But whenever you actually write something,

it's like I got to read it, you know? Every four weeks. but I wonder right will ban folks watch this card because we know you know PFL I think Chris Cyborg might drag him back in though tell us how you feel about it with that you know well this is one of the rare times where I haven't gotten any emails from Chris Cyborg ahead of a Chris Cyborg fight so I'm a little bit let down that you guys get those real ones right where it's yeah sometimes DMs she used to DM me yeah that's what I used to get I love the emails because it makes it the email like the the account that it

comes from makes it look like Chris Cyborg is personally email you, just like she thought you'd want to see her training montage headed in this fight. She wants to make sure you know she's fighting outside. I didn't get those this time, so I'm a little disappointed. I also, what time? What time is this fight card going to be going off here in the North American time? Oh, it's going to be 9 a.m. I think it's going to start your time, mate. Well, well, I'm going to get in, I'm going to get in pregame mode. I'm going to be going down there to, uh, to, to, to the tailgate, the dual worlds that I occupy, as we reference at the top of the show, make it so that I also know there's a performance of the Nutcracker on the University

of Montana campus and people are very worried about how parking is going to go for the matinee show. So I'm going to be down there being part of the problem and not the solution. Can I just say? That's a full day. The Nutcracker. Elaine made me go to see The Nutcracker with her in Copenhagen and Tivoli Gardens. Beautiful. Now, did I have eight beers before? Yes. And did the literal queen and king of Denmark walk into the building as I'm sitting there,

shit-faced? Yes. Wow. It was, it was stunning. Well, Timmy Gardens is like a stunning, just environment to be in in general. So, like, that would be a great place to see anything. It was fucking crazy. It was absolutely insane.

Pissed all over at Edinburgh's Christmas Market, man. Jesus Christ, that was dangerous. I'm going to say, knowing nothing about who is performing in the Nutcracker at the University of Montana campus, the level of execution probably going to be a little lower than it was before the king and queen of Denmark. I mean, I couldn't get a fucking book to them. I thought it was a bombs scare or something. When they walked in, I shook, I shit myself.

Everyone just stood up and I was like, oh, what the fuck is going on here? Oh, my God. And then I wish somebody had a camera rolling for that. Something, something good is happening. But, uh, listen, lads, we're not done. We're going to be back next week. We love you all very much. I mean, it would be Christmas without the crack.

I mean, what I'd do is I'd just start again. You know, if you miss us, just start again from the first one we did and just play them all the way through. And then by the time you're finished that, it'll be January again and we'll be here for 2026. So, uh, thank you very much. I have planned this that it's like, you know, Ben had this big hard out and he's in his email and say like, don't you go a second over 10 minutes past the hour? I will fucking lose my shit. So I will finish the show here.

Thank you all very much. We will see you next week from Chuck, Ben, myself. Hang on. Do we have any super chats? Oh my God, I was waiting for it. I was waiting for the music to come in. Like, boy, are we getting no music. We can't hear the music, Jordan.

It doesn't make it. We need to hear it. All right. Can we try that again? No. I can't hear. I got nothing in my ear. I still can't hear.

all right but it looks like we do have some pizza do we have some this nice do you think boy pass will eventually close yeah does seem to be trending in that direction a little bit right which would be a shame because honestly like the fight pass library that's the whole thing especially for us i mean you got you have to be able to reference fights and it's like if it did go away where would that library be it's not like the UFC to take a thing that anybody is still watching or paying for and just be like, no, that's gone now and it's not somewhere else. Like, we were kind of told a little bit like ESPN's going to have the library and it's like, no, not really. They don't, and it's not usable the way fight pass is usable. So it would

be a real loss for us not to have like such an easy resource to go back and watch some of those fights. And unless you're telling me, we're moving absolutely every bit of it over to Paramount plus and it will have an easily searchable tool that you can find whatever you want. And, then it would just seem like just a net loss for the entire sport. I love fight pass. Hmm. Weren't we told that ESPN was getting all the fights too? I mean, it didn't quite.

You know, they did this with, they did this with WWE where I remember I got the network for something like a WrestleMania years ago or whatever. And people were telling me, oh, you should watch this on this thing and everything. And I was like, well, Yeah, this is really cool. And they stack it with ads as you're trying to watch some of the old stuff. But it, but like, it was all there and it was easily searchable. And now everything's moved to Netflix here in the UK and Ireland.

And it's shit. Like, you can't search it. Like, it's all over the fucking place. And I love Foy Pass. Like, I can remember when I got Foy Pass. I went back to all the pride shows I watched when I was first getting into the sport. And it was like, this is amazing. Honestly, a month of my life was just like, oh, let's watch this.

Yeah. It'd be a real fucking shame. I'd be very upset about that. Shout out Aunt Evans, who was instrumental in... There it is. Yeah, now we got it. Now it feels like a super chat. The ringer show can finally rest.

What, did someone kill it? Oh, there's Aunt Evans. I have been proved 100% correct. When Aunt Evans says it, believe it, give me my Ws. Do I need to tell you guys what this is about? Yeah, I have no idea what he's talking about, which is like 60% of my conversations with Antonis. Well, he made a call about Francis and Ganu a long time ago.

he was in fact a bad guy and I was I was about to say that earlier but it's like we should have had aunt Evans on this one because there would have been a strong counterpoint to everything we were saying he's just like on a throne once again I am correct I knew watching that fucking interview I was like all I could think of was like aunt Evans must be smiling from ear to ear open up with WhatsApp three messages from Anto's like yeah he's fucking happy with that of course me when you got a minute yeah yeah yeah um um Oh, my God. What a guy. What a guy. Do we have anything else, John? That's it. Well, thank you to everyone for sending us those super chats.

Ben, we've kept you three minutes over the time. I hope we can still be friends. I hope you don't beat me. Like Dana, I will not be wearing colors for a long time, especially if I ever see you in the flesh. We love you very much. Pete's a bad guy. It's a bad guy. He's a fucking asshole. That's all true, though. We love you. See us next week for the last show, the last crack show of the year. We love his muck.