The Ariel Helwani Show - Dana White reacts to UFC gambling controversy, Michael Chandler, Gable Steveson, Lou DiBella in studio, On The Nose, more

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with On The Nose, answering your questions about the UFC’s betting scandal, Ronda Rousey’s bitterness toward MMA, Most Valuable Promotions’ decision to remove Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis from the Jake Paul fight, and more (06:14).Promoter Lou DiBella joins Ariel in-studio to discuss boxing news, including ‘Tank’ Davis’ latest controversy and Most Valuable Promotions’ position, not being in favor of three-minute rounds for women’s boxing, TKO’s involvement in the sport, his reaction to the Ali Revival Act, gambling in combat sports and suspicions of fight fixing, and more (58:25).Michael Chandler is back to talk about his major movie role in "Road House 2," his upcoming wrestling match against Chad Mendes for Real American Freestyle, still wanting to compete on the White House card and potentially sitting out until then, his confidence in fighting Conor McGregor, his reaction to Rousey’s stance on MMA fandom, and more (1:59:23).Gable Steveson, fresh off his knockout at DBX 4, is back to break down his budding MMA career, training with and learning from Jon Jones, his next fight, Jones’ potential meeting with Alex Pereira, and more (2:29:27).After some news and notes, Ariel wraps up with more On The Nose questions and Super Chats (2:49:00).

Ladies and gentlemen, now, welcome to the Eriawadi Show. Back in your life on this Wednesday, November 5th, 2000. And 25, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It's great to be here on a lovely. lovely Wednesday fall Wednesday fall Wednesday but if I'm being honest a nice fall Wednesday you know it's not that cold it's actually pretty damn warm outside it's nice it's nice what was that what was what was that it was an accident was it was it a woodpecker or something

yeah it's it's it it's just move past it it it it was a very big accent I'm sorry so I've been working hard on my posture around these parts and uh now I realize like in the rehearsal when we're framing things and be like my posture but then I just kind of go into a group so now I feel like there's too much headroom you know what I mean okay that's fine that's fine on air mic's not working uh working through the Kings working through the Kings thumbs up to the chat thumbs up to chat thumbs up we got a lot to discuss it's been another crazy 24 hours in the world of MMMA there's a lot to get into a lot of new things since we last spoke it's been a great week of shows it's been an interesting week not the type of stuff that we usually

talk about around these parts, but listen, different strokes, different folks, you got to evolve with the times. Back into the program, Gable Steven, who is coming off his big win at Dirty Boxing six, seven days ago. No, it was six. I just wanted to do that. I just wanted to do that, you know, the kids do these days ago in Nashville. He'll join us to talk about, okay, now what's the next step? How far away are we from signing a big deal with a major promotion? It seems as though he has a site set on the UFC. How far away are we from that? He's now had one MMA fight, one dirty boxing fight. Seems like we're not quite there just yet, but we'll talk to him about it. Prior to that, we'll talk to Michael Chandler. Michael Chandler, been in the news as of late. He's now part of

the second roadhouse. Technically, it's the third house. The third house? No, it's the third one. It's the second, it's the sequel of the reboot. But it's almost like when we talk about the Alex Pereira is the Adasanya rivalry. It's like, did they fight four times or did they fight twice? It's actually the fourth. This is the fourth? There was a Roadhouse 2. Oh my God.

Wow. There was Roadhouse, Roadhouse 2. Then there was the Roadhouse with Connor McGregor. And now there is a new Roadhouse, too. And do you think that this Roadhouse 2, the one featuring the likes of Michael Chandler, Tyrone Woodley, Wonder Boy, Town, will be the reboot of the original Roadhouse 2? Who's to check? That's where the accident came before.

It's a new one. Let me hear that from Bob. Who's to check? Yeah, that's right, Bob. That's right. I mean, who could say it better than that? I don't know. Who's to know?

Who's to know? No, but really, what is the premise of the second one? By the way. Wait, the original second one? Yeah, the original second. And is there even, was the, Okay, was the original with Swayze had nothing to do with the Jake Gyllenhaal Connor one, right?

The character is based on that. Oh, it is. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. But there's no MMA. So what is he? He's like a boxer. Oh, Jesus Christ.

The movie's only been out for 40 years. He's a bouncer. He's a bouncer at the bar. So could there be a connection between new two and old two? Or are they too far away? The reason why you said three is because that second is not really like a acknowledged. Is it straight to DVD?

Yeah, straight out. Roadhouse 2 is, you know, $1 bin at Walmart type material. Do you think

new Roadhouse 2? Uh, instant classic. No, no, no. Do you, well,

because this one went straight to prime, which, you know, no knock, but do you think this will go, like,

straight to VOD, like a hotel, you know, paper? I mean, too tape? Disrespectful. Disrespectful.

All right, it's going to be, it's going to be an all time classic. Pitsy, what are they saying over there in Ireland

about the road house. About fourth house? Yeah, yeah. Third house, I think it was. Yeah, Fort House. Oh, now it's four. Yeah, you're right, you're right. I got a lot of texts, actually.

They rang you? People rang you? You know, they've replaced Connor McGregor with all of his rivals, it would seem. In this one, I wonder how he felt. Did you guys hear about Habib getting at it? Oh, my God. Could you imagine? Wait, Pizzi's face.

My favorite thing was when Pizzi says that he got a lot of calls about something. And I just have a, I have, like, this vision of PT just, like, answering a whole bunch of phone calls and, like, sitting back in his back garden, just like, you know. It's not calls anymore. It's like, uh, WhatsApp voice messages, uh, taking the place. It's not the same. It's not, I don't have the chance to cut them off mid sentence. It upsets me. But, uh, actually, a lot of calls last night about the new fourth house or okay. Okay, good to know. Good to know. Uh, anyway. How are you just getting on over here, but away. I mean, we're all good. Watching this show yesterday, it's, it's, uh, it's gone very. CSI, hasn't it? My God. I mean, what a situation we have. A lot of calls about that. A lot of calls about that, too, would you believe? We're going to keep them on background, but very intrigued

to hear the latest developments. Yes, and we have a Dana White interview with TMZ to react to as well. Lou DeBelle is going to join us in studio. It's always a treat when Big Lou comes in studio. Hall of Fame boxing promoter and boxing executive. A lot to talk to him about regarding, hey, I want to ask him about this gambling thing, but also the Ali Act stuff, the Jake Paul Tank Davis stuff that he's been vocal about, a lot to get into with Lou. So it's going to be another fun day here on the program. Let's just rip the seal off regarding On the Nose so this can officially, you know, signal the start of On the Nose.

Time now for everyone's favorite segment of the week, it is time. It's time for On the Nose. So I always debate, like, by mistake, usually when we do On the Nose on a Wednesday, I'll publish the post, I'll schedule the post to publish on a Tuesday so that it's a fresh like, you know, 18 hour, 19 hour, 20 hour, stretch of questions and not posted too early because then I feel like the questions are a bit outdated if you post it on Monday for a Wednesday show. By mistake on Monday, as I was scheduling it for Tuesday, by mistake, I published it on Monday. So there's, I think, some that are a little bit older. And then some people get mad at me when I don't go with the most, you could either, you could either sort them via most recent, you could sort them via oldest, or you can sort them via most liked.

And so right now, I'm going to go with most liked. And if they seem outdated, then I'll switch it up. probably TMI for all of you, as they say in the business, but I just wanted to share all that because I was annoyed that I posted it early. Here's Sussie, who says, when Leon poked belal, you seem to think the fight was a foregone conclusion after seeing only one round of Leon winning. But for Aspinall, it's different. Also, you bring comparisons of eye pokes to NBA files like charges, but then you say DJ bringing up different sport isn't applicable. Make it makes sense unc. All right, Tussie. Let me explain this to you, all right. Real, real fast. Not all fights are the same.

So, like, yes, a lot of MMA fights happen. They don't all actually play out the same way. You see, like fight A and fight B can actually play out differently. And so when you ask me about the Leon fight, yeah, I say that he was winning that round, he was dominating that round, he was well en route. It was two different classes of fighter, on route to a victory. Aspinall was not. He was not winning that fight. He was not winning that round. Godd was beating him. Two different fights. Two different fights. Like, they're not the same fight. I don't know what else to tell you. They're not the same fight. So, I still think, I'm perfectly okay with both fights ending in a DQ and the guy who did the poking lose the fight. I'm totally okay with that. Totally fine with me. They ran back

the other one. Leon lost. That's all good. Totally okay with that. So you're not tripping me up on that one. Now, that still doesn't take away from Leon was winning that fight, and it still doesn't take away from Cyril was winning that fight. So in that regard, there is a similarity. Now, as far as the DJ thing is concerned, again, you're not tripping me up on anything. What I'm trying to tell you is, in every other sport under the sun, when someone does something that is deemed illegal in the rule books, there is always a ramification, a punishment. Fifteen yards. change of possession, ball goes, you know, is going into the hoop, gold 10, you get the two

points, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In our sport, there's a whole, you know, discussion about intentional, unintentional. So what I'm trying to tell you in all other sports, when there is an illegal foul called, there is an automatic punishment. Yes? Yes. DJ is talking about martial arts and he's saying, look, when you throw a punch, you know, in kickboxing or Muay, you throw it like this. You don't throw it like this. Okay, but DJ, you're wearing closed fist gloves. And oh, by the way, DJ, you've never done it to anyone. You've literally never done that to anyone. So if you were able to figure it out and all these other fighters were able to figure out, why are you offering excuses for people who are poking in the eye

recklessly? I really think that this is all tomato, tomato, apples and oranges. Yeah, I understand that you do this when you're fighting in Muay or kickboxing, but your gloves are closed. So if there's a rule that you can't poke someone in the eye and you're fighting in MMA, maybe you should keep your hands like this, or maybe you should just not do that? That's what I'm saying. He's talking about a different sport the way an athlete in a different sport would use, yeah, of course, but there's something closing it. So it's a non-issue in that sport. in our sport fingerless gloves

anyway I can be fired up about this nonsense Steve Buscemi Ariel did you happen to see Ronda's comments about Joe Rogan, Habib and all of the above you see this is one that I think was asked before we talked about yesterday but anyway why is the chip on her shoulder so aggressive

any thoughts you know I said that she looked she came across as like Miss Guy to Miss and Miss it for the truth is she comes across as bitter and that's the bottom line, right? She is for some reason just bitter towards MMA. And I think she's just kind of like a bitter person, to be honest, because she has the same sentiments towards wrestling fans as well.

And that ultimately is what's confusing about this. Why are you so bitter? You have had an amazing life. You told us when you came into MMA. By the way, do you remember what the sentiment was, guys, when she came into MMA? The sentiment was, U.S. Olympic team didn't pay me. They didn't treat us well, all that stuff.

She was bitter about them too. Do you remember that? and then she comes to MMA and she makes all this money and then she becomes bitter about this and then she goes to wrestling and everything's great and then she becomes bitter about that there's a bit of a theme here and so I don't think MMA fans

or Joe Rogan or anyone Chhabib that has drawn her eye including myself should take it personally it just seems like I don't know what else could you say other than she's a bitter person you get what I mean PT

yeah I think you did a great job this goes on yesterday and Chuck wrote a great column about it last week. You did. And, you know, one thing we were talking about in the crack last week, and Chuck was kind of like, is it that hard to say, like, I could have handled that situation better? Like, that's really all it is, right?

Like, for Rhonda, like, everything that happened, she could have handled the situation better. It's not everyone else's fault that she reacted to adversity in the way she did. Like, none of us did that. Like, the fan base, she was beloved. She was an absolute, the Trojan horse of women's MMA, as Chuck put.

put it. Like she was an absolute trailblazer, meteoric success. She was you know, compared to Tyson, giving all the love in the world. If you don't give back to the fans, fans want to hear from you. Like, you know, UFC 196, Connor happens four months later, a completely opposite

reaction to his first loss. And he gets lauded for it. Like, I think honestly it's as simple as that. She should have handled the situation better. And I don't, I think by blaming the media and blaming the fans and blaming Joe Rogan and, and of course, your lovely self. I think that's a lot easier

for her to deal with them, just say, like, yeah, I probably could have handled that better. 100% right. 100% right. Here's James Portland. Hey, Ariel, I'm in the camp of sports betting, has ruined sports. Ruined is a harsh word. But you know what I mean? It's annoying

when you're watching a great game with your friends, but one guy is pissed off because his four-leg parlay didn't hit. It's true. I mean, it's kind of like watching sports with people who are so invested in fantasy. You know, like, I'll be watching with my kids who are just sort of figuring out what fantasy is and it's like, I don't know, Nick's Pacers

and they're like, oh, yes, I'm happy Pascal Seacca, I've got a three-pointed. I'm like, no, you're not happy about that. We're Knicks fans here. Oh, but he's on my fantasy team. Who cares? Ultimately, who cares? What is going on here?

And so, yes, all this stuff to a degree, I can understand why it would be annoying. You just kind of have to not let it bother you or not watch with people who are so into it like that. I would also argue like to me it's weird you're watching the world series and before the first pitch the announcer Joe Davis is like here's our fan dual parlay of the game and like that just is weird to me you know what I mean yeah don't you think that's weird yeah my dad was saying you came over and watched the Super Bowl there a couple of years ago and he's like all you guys

the game is the game is in your mobile phone like you're missing the game yeah I was like that is such a great point it's true I think if you're going to if you're going to gamble in a group setting like that, all of you put money on the same thing. So you all know what it is. You can watch the game and it's something simple. It's not like 18 lines of like, you know, Pascal Seaccom gets seven rebounds or whatever. You know what I mean?

Like just this going to win or whatever. It just makes things a lot easier and it kind of adds to the group element of it then. But you don't have to gamble to enjoy a game. 100%. No. Like to me, I get, I mean, this is just me. The anxiety, the stress, the happiness that I get at. out of watching my team play.

And that's why I always say, I have no interest in watching the Cardinals and the Jets play. You're different than me, Pete. You love it. I just want to watch the bills. And that's enough for me. Three hours of that is enough for me every week.

Obviously, when you get to the playoffs and the Super Bowl, it's a little bit different. But give me my three hours and I'm good. I don't need to sit there for 12 hours. And the NBA is probably the only sports league where it's like, oh, yeah, you know, like the Spurs are playing the Mavs, and I've got nothing to do.

I'm interested in that. I like that. I like watching, you know, the players on those teams, et cetera, but I'm happy with the Knicks playing 82 times and just following that. I don't need more, you know, and some people use gambling or fantasy as their sort of why and like, oh, I need to partake in this to enjoy sports, but I say like the joy that I get out of watching following my favorite teams is enough for me. I don't need more than that. And I know not everyone is built the same, but that's why I don't ever feel compelled to do that stuff. I don't need that extra shot of adrenaline, that extra reason why. Speaking of gambling guys, Dana White spoke to TMZ yesterday about this ongoing gambling

story. Some interesting thoughts. He did as we expected him to do, which was distance themselves from it. And I think tried to position whether true or not the UFC as the ones who initiated the, you know, the fire alarm to the FBI. He said that, you know, after the fight, he confirmed what we said right here on the program. They spoke to Isaac once the questionable and exaggerated gambling activity was coming out before the fight, spoke to Isaac, spoke to his team. He said he spoke to his lawyer as well.

Isaac assured them that nothing nefarious was going on, that he was 100% going in there to knock this guy out and all this stuff. Dana says he sees the fight, he watches it unfold, he immediately goes to the back, calls the FBI, and thus the investigation begins. And, you know, whether that happened or not, that's his word, we'll take his word for it. But as opposed to, you know, the FBI getting these reports from this service that monitors this stuff and them initiating it, he kind of put the UFC at the forefront. Anyway, we have a snippet from the interview. Here it is. There's no proof that he's done this yet, but I can tell you this, it doesn't look good.

It definitely doesn't look good. You know, we approached him before the fight. He and his lawyer, and they denied that anything, you know, from everything, are you hurt? You know, are you injured in any way? Do you owe people money? Have you been asked to do anything, you know, illegal? We asked them all the questions, and everything was absolutely not hell no. So the fight went on.

And then like I said, fight ended by finish in the first round, literally walked out from the octagon into my room in the back and called the FBI. I don't really have any problems with anything that he said in that interview. What about you guys? Rick, what about you? No, I thought he handled, like yesterday we were talking about on the show what you do if you're the UFC. This is exactly what you do. You distance yourself from this, right? The UFC is not involved in this.

You explain what happened, which is that this was flagged. You follow the protocol. You ask the fighter. The fighter assures you nothing's going to happen. And then the fight happens, and it looks fishy. And the first thing Dana says that he did is called the FBI. So I don't think he could have explained that or handled it better if this was exactly how the protocol was followed. The only question I have is, is that the standard operating procedure, right?

Is the standard operating procedure to go to the fighter themselves and interview them and ask them in this capacity? I guess the fact that he had his lawyer with him probably gives me some confidence in the credibility there, right? because now somebody else is a party to it. But yeah, like, this is exactly what you need to be doing if you're Dana White. We are not involved in this, and we are cooperating with the FBI and the investigation. Petey, one thing that he did say was, you know, there's some tweets out there saying that the FBI is investigating hundreds of fights. I have not been able to confirm that. But he did say that that is not true.

And the other thing that I thought was interesting was that he said, like, hey, like, all the – he acknowledged that there are people – coming out, you know, fighters coming out saying, you know, I've been approached. We talked about Vanessa Demopoulos. We talked about Vince Morales, Lando, even Edgar Chares posting on social media. And we could get to that in a moment. And then the people that, you know, I've talked about as well and others have as well. And he's like, why are you, why didn't you tell us? Like when you got approached, why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you tell the authorities, even more so than us. Why didn't you run?

And to me, it's like, fighters especially, Petsy, as you know them as well as I do, like, questionable things are happening all day, every day. They're not going to go run until the cops every single time someone walks up to them and says like, hey, would you be interested in this? Like, imagine someone goes up to you in the gym and is like, hey, you want a shot of this testosterone? Let me go run and tell the cops right now. It's a little bit rich to then, you know, in the aftermath, be like, why didn't you tell us?

Now, you could be upset about it to be like, maybe he should not talk about it publicly like this because you're only going to get a phone call or something like that. But I don't think it's necessarily fair to say to his fighters like, hey, you should have run and told us or the feds when people are reaching out to you like this. Yeah. Could you imagine? You know, a fighter having Dana's number and calling them every time something about where it happened in this fucking sport. I mean, it would happen all. Look, the hundreds of fights being investigated. I can understand where he's coming

from that position because I think in fairness like, you know, DC, Kiaza, other fights, we kind of know when something weird has happened. I think from Dana's point of view,

like, you know, he's trying to protect the legitimacy to the sport. I think you guys did a great job of kind of breaking down how damaging this could be to the UFC,

to MMA as a whole if, you know, this is as bad as some people are speculating it is to be. But it does feel very big this whole thing. And I don't know. I'm surprised

Cash Mattel wasn't sitting right there. The head of the FBI. I know he's been at events before. But yeah, I mean, it's just a really weird situation. I heard you say this yesterday as well about feeling naive. That's how I feel at the moment. Because like you, I've been doing this a very long time. I've been embedded in gyms. I have relationships with fighters over these. I've never heard of this in my life. Not to say I never thought it was going down, but I have never directed.

had someone say to me, this is happening. And, you know, based on everything we're hearing from you primarily over the last few days, like there are a number of people with these stories. Like, even yesterday's show, you were getting text messages during the show. It's making me feel a bit out in the dark, to be honest. And I want to also say this. This is not, in my opinion, a UFC problem. Obviously, something happened on Saturday. And obviously, a lot of the fighters that have come out our UFC fighters but like let's this as easy as it is to get to a UFC fighter

it's just as easy to get to a fighter who works for another organization or fights for another organization and we all remember that there was an issue with PFL fights that were taped and were still you know available to be bet on and that was a huge thing and then PFL fights were you know

not available to be bet on for a period of time and so the reason I bring that up is you know someone someone reaches out to me it says like, oh, yeah, take a look at this fight, and it wasn't a UFC fight. You know, it was not a UFC fight. And so this is not, like, people need to recognize, as we said on Monday, there is not any part

of me that thinks that the UFC is doing this. Absolutely not. Dana is 100% right. It's just absolutely insane to try to fix fights if you're a promoter. I mean, you're done. You're finished. Not only you're going to jail, your business is done, right? It just so.

The regulation too, right? Like, they spent so much time trying to be recognized. No, there's just, I mean, they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars, these guys. Like, what, there's no losing for it. That's the best point. Consider the logic, right? We're talking about gambling. What kind of gamble would it be to risk $7.7 billion in rights fees on a few, on a few million dollars.

Like, it just does not make sense. There would be, you'd have to be absolutely insane. You'd have to be self-sabotaging to be involved in this from a UFC perspective. And so the only reason why I say it is, like, when we talk about, about this gambling problem, I think we need to call it like a gambling problem in the sport. It's very easy to reach out to a PFL fighter, an LFA fighter, a one championship fighter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This is the problem, though. The UFC benefits a great deal from being the primary fight provider of all of MMA, right? They benefit greatly from how many people they have on the roster for how many fights they do for how much activity they do.

And there's oftentimes that people say, instead of MMA, say the UFC, this is the downside. When things go shitty, this is what happens as well, right? This is the other edge of that sword, which is you benefit greatly from MMA being equal to UFC in most people's eyes. This is the days where it's not as good, right? Where we have a problem in the sport of MMA, but the casual person is going to be like the UFC has a problem. Yeah, it's Kleenex, it's X, X, X, et cetera. It's been, it's been, there's been stories about boxing. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, it's part of the fabric of the sport is how dirty it is. Like, back in the day, it was regularly fixed. Like, there was fixed fights a lot. You know, to think that this is just a USC thing is absolutely absurd.

Like, this is, same thing as you were explaining yesterday with the, with the training facilities. Boxing gyms are like that as well. Like, you can go to your local boxing gym walk in and there's probably like some kind of contender training in there. That's how it is in these sports. They're literally boxing gyms here in New York that have contenders training on them that you can just walk into and train at. Well, as you're saying with this example of the boxers and the gyms,

it's a fighter issue. It is not a promotional issue. A fighter could fight for the UFC and throw a fight there and two months later be fighting in PFL and throw a fight there. It has nothing to do with the organization. Again, I'm hoping that it has nothing to do with the organizations, but it is much more likely that this is happening at that level and they are not involved.

And as Dana White said, first thing he did, or again, this is his account, but first thing he did after that fight went off was he was on the phone with the FBI. I do wonder why the FBI wouldn't have known before. Like if the service is being alerted

of suspicious gambling activity, you would think that they'd be connected. It's curious to me that it's up to the UFC, the way he positions it, to then alert the FBI. You would think that, because like maybe a promoter doesn't want to alert the FBI. You would think that the independent entity would

alert the FBI. Well, that also comes into play. Why is Dana White or the UFC team the one questioning Isaac Delgarian? It just feels weird, right? Like, hey, are you going to fix a fight in my promotion? Is that? And what's he supposed to say? It's a very odd thing. Yes. And we did, well, we did see the same thing with Eddie Hearn. Yeah. And to be honest, I still don't understand why they didn't pull it. Yeah, like they said, okay, I'm going to be, but like, come on, man, look at the actual evidence. Look at the actual evidence. All of a sudden,

a flurry of bets come in on a very specific result that is an absurd result if you just look at the two guys' history and their skill set and it just pulled the down fight. The only part I would point to is we talk a lot about fighter rights

and them, like, he doesn't get his paycheck. Now, he's not getting, based on reports, he's not getting his paycheck anyway. But if you, if Isaac is not involved, in anything and you tell them you're not fighting because I noticed this thing, it would be

understandable, but it would also be contrary to the idea of like these fighters have to make the money and we have to give them the opportunity to do it. So it's a tricky situation. I ultimately, if I was in his shoes, if I was Dana White, I probably would not have let him fight because of the potential liability and risk and just said, hey, we'll take care of you, we'll pay you anyway. But it's a dangerous dance. That's why I'm saying it shouldn't be Dana White making that call. Like, it should be somebody else. It should not be the promotion themselves. Do we think Mark Montoya should have done something?

No. That's not his job. He's backing his guy, yeah. He has to trust, he said it to you on the show. He has to trust that fighter, and that fighter has to trust him. That relationship, that thing is the most important part of being somebody's coach or being in the trenches with somebody. If that person is lying to your face, that's a situation you have to assess on the other side of it.

But you have to take their word. Otherwise, how could you go to battle together? If this guy is the one that you have to relax. on to be in there and represent your team or on the other side of the coin, your coach is the one that you have to rely on. That honor, that truth, that transparency is the most important thing. So I personally would not put that responsibility on Montoya just from the perspective that if Isaac tells him something, he has to trust it by nature. That is his job to trust it. The same way we talk about like throwing in the towel or not, if a fighter comes to

you and says, I don't want you to throw in the towel, you have to accept that, right? You have to go like this is your team this is you guys have established the rules here and so i don't i don't fault mark in that scenario the other the other thing in all this is it's like this this one makes your head spin how did this all start this started three years ago with derrick minner and james crouse and jeff melina right and and and and now you started digging more and more and more and who found isaac delgarion many years ago it's james Chris Kraus. James Kraus is banned from the sport. Delgarian goes to Factory X. Mark Montoya has a longstanding relationship or did with James Krause. Every single one of the fighters that

has spoken up and retracted are Arridium fighters managed by Jason House. James Kraus managed by Jason House. Delgarian managed by Jason House and people are starting to bring this up and ask questions regarding that. Why does it seem to be, Jeff Molina was another Jason House manager. Now, I reached out to Arridium's PR and asked if they would provide a statement to these questions, accusations, if you want to call them that, and or if he wanted to come on the show and talk about it, which obviously would be the most ideal scenario and they declined to comment. But there's just a, there's a lot of like, you know, item A, B, C, D, E, F that are all interconnected, it seems. And I'm not trying to imply that he had anything to do with it or that

there's something going on there, but there, you can't ignore it. You can't ignore the common thread between all of these public, I don't know what we want to call them. Confessions, not confession. I don't know what it is, but also these stories dating back to 2022 and who they were all connected to. So yeah, a very, a very interesting story. And I'm very curious to see how it all plays out. Dana did confirm that the FBI is investigating, obviously, because he said that he alerted them. And he did also say in that interview that, I think he said, like seven FBI agents were at the office yesterday, Tuesday, unless that interview was done Monday. But, Whenever he was doing the interview, you said earlier today, there were seven FBI agents.

That's wild stuff. And not the best kind of stuff to be dealing with as you enter into a new TV partnership and with the White House card looming in the background and whatnot. I don't think any of this puts any of that at risk, but it's just not the right kind of PR that you want. Andrew Feldman posted a clip on Twitter from after the UFC 282 press conference and Dana addressing it basically just like there's an investigation going on I don't know anything they're not going to tell me anything

we're just going to see how it plays out and ultimately we get to the point now where it feels like nothing really came from that other than a couple of suspensions and a couple guys out of the sport for now for now it's still ongoing it's not ongoing correct

if you guys had to predict like do you think more comes from this one This one feels like there's more eyes on it, but I don't know if it's just because it's fresh. Like, it's like a wave of, it just happened this past week. So that's why it feels like it's so forefront. Does a massive card happen? And then we just kind of start forgetting about it. And then time goes on, and then we just start forgetting about it.

And then we're three months down the line. It's like, whatever happened to Isaac D'Garian? I don't know. I haven't heard from him. Oh, he's fighting on an FAC card this weekend or something. Sometimes it goes down that way. If Jack Della knocks out Islam, you know, next week, like how old, How old does the Tom Aspinall I poke story feel now?

You know what I mean? Yeah. And how old is it going to feel the Monday after 322, you know? And then by the time Ilya fights Patty, hopefully in January, how old is all? Yeah, so. And we're all on Paramount Plus at that point. You had a month off from the sport. And it's just like, yeah, like what, in two, three months, what does it feel like for this?

And the truth is, the interesting thing about media, like so, so Pablo Tori is getting a lot of attention right now for all the work that he's doing, looking into the LA Clipper. and prior to that, Bill Belichick has a great podcast called Pablo Tore finds out if you don't know about it. You probably do if you're a sports fan. I mean, even Pizzi over in Europe. You know who Pablo is, right? Rick, pull me on to him, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, and that's a byproduct of how big those sports are. I don't think there's anyone looking at MMA, you know, from a, you know, a 10,000-foot view. I think that, you know, you'll have your odd Dana White on 60 Minutes interview and stuff like

that, but I don't know if anyone's like sinking their teeth on a national level into this stuff. And so, you know, it ends up almost being us. And that's why, you know, when, when guys like aunt are like, oh, the MMA media this and the MMA media, that like, there's, there's a lot to cover. There's just a lot to cover. And you're tasking people who are covering the day to day and the week to week of the sport with also the, the, the big picture stuff. And it's just, it's just hard to do both. You're, you're a human being. So there's, all to say, there's no Pablo Tori is looking at this story, at least to the best by knowledge, not right now.

I'm waiting for that text from like a friend who isn't into MMA but like it's kind of into sports or like a mom or dad that keeps up on the news. Like I'm waiting for like someone outside of this space to be like, what's going on with this? Has it happened yet? It has not happened to me. And yesterday I was with someone, uh, work comes up

and we're just like kind of chit-chatting about work and like they essentially just know Connor McGregor and I was just like man. Like that is just like tip of the iceberg type stuff. Yeah. 100%. It's um, is it not imperative, though, to give us some closure on this, just to G.C.'s point, like, it is a good point. The James Crows thing, as much as we know, it's still active, we haven't got a lot of information on it. And now this happens, well, that's

still ongoing. Is it not imperative from the UFC's point of view to get an update on this, to give some closure to the fan base? Because as we said, like, it's the legitimacy of the sport, and maybe the UFC that will be called into question because of this. I think the UFC and Dana White in particular handle it like the way they handle judging or refereeing stuff is like this is not us this is nothing to do with us

you know they probably should you know they probably should in fairness you know not great times by the way guys speaking of not great times UFC legend BJ Penn

arrested for the six time in six months this is this is not I mean this is just it's hard breaking stuff. There's the latest mugshot. This is from uncrown.com, former UFC two division champion. BJ Penn was once again arrested Tuesday afternoon following an alleged assault in Hila, Hawaii. Penn has now been arrested six times since Memorial Day weekend. Penn is being charged with third degree assault after allegedly punching and kicking a man

at a residence in the early morning hours of Tuesday. In a statement released Wednesday, Hawaii police said they responded to the scene at 1 a.m. after the alleged victim was able to leave the area and contact police. The victim later sought medical treatment for his injuries at a nearby hospital, and Penn was arrested without incident. The following afternoon, Penn's bail was set for $1,000, which the UFC Hall of Famer posted. His court date is scheduled for December 2nd. So, not good stuff. latest incident continues a troubling year for Penn who's been arrested five prior times by Hawaii police since late May in relation to an ongoing dispute with his 79-year-old mother in which Penn claims that his family has been murdered and replaced with impostors.

Penn currently faces multiple criminal charges from the series of incidents, including abuse of a family member, refusing to comply with a police officer and violating a restraining order. So, troubling stuff, very troubling stuff regarding BJ Penn. The other story that is ongoing, guys, is the search for Jake Paul's next opponent after the fight against Tank Davis was canceled. Yesterday, Nate Diaz tweeted something to the effect of, fight accepted, you're dead. And people ran with this as being some sort of announcement. but I understand that there is no fight. He was definitely someone that has been considered and discussed,

but there's no offer, nothing's set in stone. There's no fight. And I don't think he's the frontrunner right now for whatever reason. I know that they're still trying to make a fight happen in mid to lateish December, but I don't know if he is the top dog at this point. So who is? Wanted to shine some light on that. I mean, I think that they're considering a few.

I mean, honestly, all, the vast majority of the names have been reported already are the same names that, you know, I'm hearing Francis, Nate. Who else came out? Terrence came out. There was another one. Oh, Ryan Garcia came out as well. Like those are all real things. Oscar talked about it and all that. I'm curious which rabbit they're going to pull out of their hat.

And we're going to talk about this with Lou, but the takes on this is so interesting to me because the vast majority of the people online are saying that this has nothing to do with morals. It's all about economics. The reason, the only reason why they pulled this fight is because it wasn't selling well. And that part is a fact.

The fact that you can go online and see the blue dots is a fact. 100%. But to suggest that that is the only reason and that what happened with Gervante Davis, the allegations, the lawsuit have nothing to do with it, is crazy. And I could just break it down like this. What do we think the gate was going to be for this card? Two million, three million, four million. Is it going to be more than that? I don't think so. In Miami, let's say six million, just for the sake of it. Now, how much money do you think that MVP was getting from Netflix to put on this one-off event? They don't have a long-term deal with Netflix. It's not a, you know, a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal or anything like this, but these one-offs, they're, you know,

they're costing a pretty penny. They're earning a pretty penny. Just ask, you know, TKO and Turkey, like they got a lot of money for that deal to put on Canelo Crawford. Ask Jake and Tyson. Ask Katie and Amanda. Not all of them the same. But what I'm telling you, what I'm asking you to consider is, do you think the gate was going to be more than the Netflix money?

Of course not. The Netflix money is way more. multiples of two, three, four. And so even if they had to paper the entire arena, it would still be worth it. You're talking $2 million in gate revenue. That's the only thing that was at play here. The rest, all the Netflix money, all the advertising, all the stuff, the sponsorship that's attached to the event.

You think they're going to pull the plug on a Netflix card because of poor ticket sales? Netflix already agreed to do the fight. They have the pick of the litter. They're involved in this process. We don't like this. We don't like that. So they were already in. So whether or not it's in an arena that is completely papered, there's not a single ticket bought for the event or a sold-out AT&T stadium.

doesn't really matter to them. One has nothing to do with the other. And so I think you just have to think about the economics of all this. Is it a fact that those tickets weren't selling? Absolutely. But I think that they would have moved ahead with it, drop the ticket prices, paper, whatever it is, and still made out like bandits because of the Netflix fees

attached to putting on these massive events. We'll talk to Lou DeBella about this. he's coming up um kristov guttintag ariel just my two cents on the discussion about fight placements during the night

that usually pops up in regards to bow nickel not everyone is watching from start to finish maybe you meet up for just the main card or for example in Germany UFC is on the zone they only stream the main card unless someone from the German-Austrian Swiss region is on the prelims. I believe the best fights should be on the main card.

However, people will always find a reason to complain, so maybe just a different perspective on that discussion. Thanks for the content, Christoph. I get that. But ultimately, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Oh, Irish lad. Ariel, I think I have to call out some bias this week. You say slap fighting is the dumbest sport in the world,

and you're not wrong, but then you'll do a dock on fight circus. Guys fighting while drinking beer equally stupid in my opinion. opinion. My point being, I believe a slap was promoted by anyone other than Dana. You wouldn't feel so strongly about it. Thoughts. First of all, you have no idea what our fight circus thing is. I'm not promoting fight circus. I want to know what it is. And by the way, I would do a slap one easily. It would be great. Yeah, I would do it easily. I would do it tomorrow. Don't think fight circus is putting people at such no defense danger as slap is.

No, I think people will be surprised once the fight circus thing comes out. the next one is. No, I don't know what they're talking about. Who's to check? Yeah, that's right. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Bob. This is a great one. This is a great one. Also, dropping a you'd be surprised in there. I mean, this is all coming together here. I just think one has nothing to do with the other. And by the way, just because I think it's dumb, it doesn't mean I don't want to cover it. And it's like, man, the BKFC thing. It's like, you put out a BKFC puff piece. There was hardly any commentary from me on that. I was giving you my eyes and years, like what I saw and experienced, that's what it was.

I can't alter Mike Perry looking the way he did afterwards, or Jeremy Stevens looking the way he did afterwards. I wasn't there to do a 60 minutes piece on the state of BKFC. It was, what is this, who are these people on this particular night, this particular card in Newark, New Jersey? And that's that. And so, by the way, if they want to have us at a slap fight, I would go tomorrow and and ask these guys, okay, so what is this and why are you doing it?

And how do you feel about it? And what's the pay? And let's find out. Why are you weighing in, most importantly? Oh, yeah. And how do you prepare it? And how do you prepare it? Like, do you do any preparation? Do you do any training for it? That would be the best one. That would be amazing. I think you should look into that. Measuring cocaine intake for all the failed drug tests as well. It would be. Speaking of which. Oh, really? All right. No, no, no.

First thing, I want to say, big, well done on the BKFC film. I really enjoyed seeing it from a different vantage point with uncrowned films now off and running. Could we see the return of your walk-in-talks, a la Jones, Eddie Connor from back in the day? Absolutely, 1,000%. KC was the one that shot him. Given your newish-found affinity for Nottingham, I would love to see a film on Team Roughhouse. You could even end it with a trip to force or maybe even a debate with Flat Earth Frotch whilst in Nottingham. Hey, Carl

That would be cool Good to see you Also, on Forrest There's a pub named after their new gaffer Sean Deich Not far from me The Royal Dutch Deich, it's named after Sean Deich

Pizzi I don't know I'm at that point I mean we'll take it About an hour away from Manchester Surely it would be rude for you To not have a pint in there If you ever

Is it in Burnley? Is it all the team To just put one there? Yeah, I don't know Where is Burnley by the way? Ah, somewhere around there Cheers Ladd and Frank

Why have you stopped uploading OTN as a separate video slacking lad Oh man That's a good question They expose you Frank They certainly did

Certainly Yeah let's start making fun of I developed a speech impediment this morning And this is not This is not a healthy workplace Ultimately I think we broke Ariel

Yeah, Ariel's... I'm trying to read the other ones. He's written some other... Oh, I love this guy. Kyle Grant. Do you guys remember Kyle Grant? He was on his way to Game 6 of the ALCS, then gave us the update afterwards.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Kyle says, fellas, World Series Game 7 update for you. My wife and I went to the game was standing room only tickets. Got in the ballpark when it opened three hours before the first pitch, got a good spot on the 100 level

near the right field foul pole. Stood in that same spot for the next eight. Hours. I'm happy to say I attended a World Series game seven. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. However, I'm absolutely heartbroken. We dominated all game long, but kept falling short of adding runs. We let the Dodgers keep hanging around and then gave up the lead when we were four strikes away from winning the World Series, still devastated. P.T., I know you don't understand baseball, but this game was truly baseball's version of Anderson Silva versus

Chale Sondon, with the Blue Jays snatching defeat from the Jaws of victory. It's actually a great analogy. I now truly understand when Ariel talks about the Buffalo Bill's losses, when G.C. talks about the Falcon Super Bowl loss to the Patriots. When Rick gets upset about nobody agreeing with is Ronda Rousey comeback of the year take? No question this week. Just to thank you for the work you all do, loving everything uncrowned. Keep up the great work. We're going to get a redo on that one, buddy. Don't worry. Hang in there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's coming. It's coming. 2026. We're going to get a part too, baby. This is going to be one of the great comebacks of all the time. this actually being

a relevant award winner Ronda Rousey is 2026 comeback fighter of the year and I'm going to have New York Ricks 2016 comeback of the year take as my comeback

fighter of the year It's going to be amazing The vibe Most improved maybe You know who knows We'll see Oh yeah most improved Maybe both

Maybe both Most improved fighter Comeback of the year Is she gonna No no I meant my take But also Rhonda as well That too

That too Performance of the year As well By the way Did anyone here my guy Mad Dog Rousseau in his take. You guys kind of ignored it in the chat. Oh shit, I wanted to watch it.

I was like, I saw it. I mean, he literally said verbatim, word for word, what I said about Joe Davis hosting the parade. Like literally said it word for word verbatim what I said. This is unbelievable. Let me just say without giving away too much about myself when you have the same take as Mad Dog. Yeah, yeah. No, I felt good.

Look inward. Look inward when you have the same take as Mad Dog. I felt vindicated. Yeah. By the way, yesterday I had a great night. I went to see some students over at the new house building here in New York City. Yeah, so the hat, man. Yeah.

Sick. I was talking to the youth of our country. Actually, the future, the future. I was talking to some students who were juniors, seniors, and we were talking a lot about social media and journalism. Ah, it reinvigorated me. Great students. Thank you very much to them. Thank you to my old new friend, Cheryl, for inviting me.

She said she knew me back in school I was like I was like I don't know I didn't talk to anyone I didn't talk to anyone I was just like Amen It was amazing

So I'm very happy to be reconnected with my alma mater Go Q's And yes It really did Warm my heart Hoop starting soon It started already

Monday All right Let's go Yeah Kion 15 points in his debut Oh wow You're tapped in Let's go Yeah, we're watching.

We're making a trip up to the carrier dome? I would love to. She actually, it's not called the carry dome anymore. It's called like the something wireless. Yeah, this is like calling Staples, Cropro Arena and whatnot. The GMA wireless stuff. Nah, no, no. Great name.

It's the carrier. Awful. All of it. Ariel, this is from Coleman T. What's one thing you feel you're very good at and how could you get even better? Interviewing? I think I could get much better. I think I'm good, right?

I think I'm good, right? I think you get much better. P. dog Frank, check out Talk of the Town by Fred again. Absolute banger. We'll do, thanks. Hey, G.C., you good? On Monday's show, you seemed a little, let's get this over with and didn't want to be here.

Oh, wow. It's tough. Fucking hell. Jesus Christ. Usually, I'm just kind of in like a trolling mood, if that's what it is. Near Creek, blind rank these. Oh, is near Creek there, by the way? I'm here.

Yeah, yeah, never live. In an hour, revolving door. Just spoke five seconds. Blind rank these five horror movies One to five with one being the best Okay, this is gonna be bad You ready? Finally, I'm off the hot seat, let's go There's actually like ten before this that I skipped

With the blind ranking The Shining Five Hereditary Fuck, two The Witch Four, but it could have been three Sinners

Is that a horror movie? I can't go three so I get, I'll go one. I feel like that's a suspense. Thriller. The wailing. The fuck? The fuck is that?

It's higher than I guess, but I don't know, man. I don't even know what the wailing is. But yes, I feel good about sinners one. Oh, this is a, is this J-Harr, Korean horror? I feel really good about hereditary number two but yeah or was it the witch

no the witch was four I don't know what the whaling is though unfortunately there's a lot of I'm just looking at the super chats there's a lot of activity going on Shaheen has alerted me to this tell us more

I'm looking at sucker free where exactly does the super chat money goes or go to I know Never Sick Rick gets to sort it out Yep. Yep. I assume he secretly buys MTG singles with the money. Anyway, can I allocate this money to buy everyone coffee? You guys are the best. Okay, so here's the thing. When you do a deal, and I'll take you like really inside here, when you do a deal like the deal that we have with Yahoo, it's a licensing deal, right? So, so in short, they pay me and I pay the vast majority of the team. There are some who don't fall under that umbrella. Who me? Yeah. No, actually, you're a part of it. So if I go down, you're going down with me, Frankie.

And so basically, as a result of that, there's something called a minimum guarantee. And so they pay us this money and then they sell advertising and things like that and other revenue that comes in. And up until they get back to the break-even point, we don't partake in that. Once we go past the break-even point, then the company partakes in that, meaning my company partakes in that. And so it's my YouTube channel, but my YouTube channel is now connected to them. So any revenue that my YouTube channel generates over the course of this deal, the three-year deal, goes to them. I don't see any of it. So, you know, AdSense and all that stuff that people talk about, that all goes to them, including the super chat money.

So it goes into that bucket, but it still helps us because it helps us get to that break-even point and then over the threshold, if you get what I'm saying. hopefully that made sense. Did I explain that correctly? Does that make sense to everyone? Who's the check? Yeah, who is to check, Bob? What a great drop-off. It's an awesome one.

I mean, I'll go to another one here because, by the way, that was from Sucker Free who gave us 50 bucks for that one. Whoa, really? Yeah. Here's Mitchell, 28 bucks Canadian, so it's really like six bucks, but it's still good. Wait, what? Is our exchange rate really that bad? No, it's not. It's not.

random cue, but what are your true feelings on bare knuckle? I tuned in to ask this quickly. I love combat sports, but I even find it very hard to watch, and I promise I'm definitely someone who should love it, but it's even much for me. Look, you could go back to the show. Like, I said it was a bridge too far. I said it was much.

Same, by the way. Yeah, I think we all thought it was a little much. And I think part of the reason why we felt a little bit uncomfortable about it was because it was like a lot of past their prime fighters fighting in this very gruesome form of fighting. And, you know, there was the incident where the fighter died in the aftermath, and it just felt like a lot. And the fact that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't sanctioned in these other states and it was just kind of, you know, off the beaten path. It just felt like a lot.

They've done a great job of getting it sanctioned in a lot of the major states, New Jersey recently, et cetera. It's not in all of them, but it is, you know, now being held in some major States, California as well. I have an appreciation for the fighters, for their toughness, for their heart, their will, their determination. If there's a big BKFC and a big UFC, I'm watching the big UFC. I like MMA more, but I see the appeal, I see the energy, and I see that it can have longevity.

I understand that BKFC does have its own issues, and I can totally understand why someone might think this is a lot. but I think it has come a long way and I think Mike Perry actually is a major, major reason why it's become a lot more interesting to the likes of me they're just going to have to like I said in the

film you know they're going to have to develop some stars it can't just be the place where careers go to die or it can't just be the last resort for a lot of these fighters they have to build their own stars we have time for a couple other ones or no all right all right but yeah i'm ready whenever you guys are um hey ariel do you think wwee has gone a bit cold recently like a lot of people are claiming or is it just their usual offseason

between SummerSlam and Royal Rumble ticket sales seem lower and there hasn't been much intrigue around the weekly shows? I'll be honest, I haven't been locked in. I haven't been locked in. I mean,

even someone told me like Logan Paul's teaming up with the vision and Paul Heyman and it's not been on my radar at the moment. I don't know why that is, but is it because this is kind of that like dead period for WWE?

You know, in between Royal Rumble and then it picks up? Perhaps. There's a very good chance of that. I always like Survivor Series, though. And that's coming up at the end of the month. But I haven't been locked in. Oh. Ned, hey Ariel, Ned from Sydney, Australia here.

If you can have any fighter past or present as an in-studio guest for your show, who would it be and why is it James DeHuna? James Tihuna? I'm trying to get a good one here. You could just go in, Brad. I'm trying to get a go in here for you to, you can put the chair in. It's fine, it's fine.

Don't be so shy. Don't let him do it. I was going to hop in. Someone sent me a clip of me saying MJF in like a questioning way and said that it could compete with James Tihuna and I was like, these two aren't even playing the same sport here. What do you mean?

What do you mean? He made a cut from the show the other week and I was guessing something. You were talking about, I can't remember what, and I said, MJF, and he said, it should rival James Stone, and I was like, Simon Close. Not even the same stratosphere. No, no, no. Patrick McRate says, any chance for a D.C. and Hawaii reunion next week? You know, I didn't even think of that. Should I ask?

Hell yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What you up to, D.C.? It's always important. I saw a video of D.C. yesterday. I don't know if you guys saw us. He's looking jacked. I'm telling you. I think it was when Pereira, or no, when Hamsat picked him up. And? He was like It's time to get back in the gym, bro

Gonna go out the creative thing I can't get Did you see him I saw a video of him Doing his show And he was looking jacked I swear the next day After the Homza thing

He was in the hotel gym Pumping Iron He's a savage I actually sent him the clip And I said You on that stuff And he's like no I'm just pumping iron

I'm like all right Well you can be on this stuff now bro Yeah hell yeah Unless he's still in the pool Could be still in the pool Anyway We will get to More of these questions

on the back end. Still to come, we're going to have Gable Steveson on Michael Chandler, and then we'll get to more on the back end. So have no fear for now, though. I do want to say hello to our first guest of the day. Always love having this gentleman on because he shoots from the hip, as they say in the business. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020, inducted to the Women's Boxing Hall of Fame in 2024, former head of HBO programming, HBO Boxing, creator of Boxing After Dark, which was obviously an incredible, incredible show.

Fight series, you want to call it that? He's also the president of DeBella Entertainment. In addition to that, very involved in the world of minor league baseball, he's your friend in mind. He's New York's own, Lou DeBella. There he is. Yes, our old friend.

Wow, I can hardly recognize you, Lou. You look fantastic. Good to see you, man. Great to see you. Thank you so much for coming in. Good to be here. You look much different. Yeah, I mean, I weighed a lot when I was on the last time,

and I was about six months ago, and I got all these, like, bombardment of trolls, like, you fat slob, you know, so I took it seriously. Three days later, I wanted to diet. I'm down 60 pounds. Wow. Look at you. I feel a lot better.

Let me fix this for you. Thank you. Thank you. I want you to look good. All right. Thanks, bro. Thank you. Thank you.

And to all those people, those trolls, I just want to say one thing. You're still mean and a shitty person. And I lost all the weight. Well, there's a lot to talk to you about. I always love having you on. You shoot from the head. Well, the last time I came on, I was like sort of prepared. It was a bunch of stuff I wanted to talk about.

You don't want to be here. Hey, no, no. Here, like, I'm just like, go for it. Like, what I want to talk about? Like, let's spit it out. Let's go. Let's talk about Jake Paul and Tank Davis. Because I think we disagree on this one.

In fact. No, no, I don't think we disagree as much as you think. Okay. Well, yesterday via text, it's... No, yeah, because I... Like, dude, like, they're not Mother Teresa, and it had nothing... It's easy to cancel something if you're 30% sold as opposed to 70% sold as principal involved. But they did the right thing, which in combat sports often doesn't happen.

So if that was your point to, like, slap him in the back for that, yeah, the right thing happened. But I... But you know what, man, I watched the press conference, and they were making fun of him, and they were teasing and taking jabs about... like his mistreatment of women. You know, it's funny because I said something about Tank, the last show I did with you, and I got a lot of flack for it because I said that I didn't enjoy particularly working with him.

Right? And actually, when before my split with Haman, you know, Tank surrounded himself by a lot of knuckleheads. And there's been a lot of crazy behavior. There's been a lot of incidents. There have been a lot of videos. You know, Jake, I think, alluded to online. Maybe he saw a video.

Well, I could show him another video that's out there on YouTube from a previous public display. of domestic violence. You know, Tank has a lot of shit, but guess what? He always got away with it. He always fought. I just, my disagreement with you was really over the fact

I don't think they deserve to be crowned for it. I don't think I was doing that. And I think that it's easier if you're 80% sold out and there's a gigantic amount to buzz about it. See, I think that sometimes things make economic sense until they no longer make economic sense. and there was no reason to continue with this event. They had an out.

He wasn't being cooperative. Every single thing Jake said in that tweet that I sort of needled him about because, like, let's face reality. Javante hasn't changed who he is. He's been the same person forever. You know? I mean, like I said, back when, there was a particular event that Al wanted me to promote.

It involved Davis. I'll give you one of the other people that were on the card, Adrian Broner, and one more group. All three of them I'd had way big problems with promoting them in Brooklyn, with all sorts of incidents at hotels with a lot of people that you really wouldn't want to around buzzing around

and I basically at that moment of time said that I don't want to do the show like I don't want to promote the show go to somebody else get him to do it I don't want to do it so I see like some of what he's talked about I get completely but the history of Javante's been there forever

so it was there when he picked him sure now that being said you know what but nothing was pending right no look look your points well taken he can't do you think two things pop up in the midst of the promotion But this was also a civil matter. Civil matters pop up all the time.

It wasn't criminally charged. He wasn't. This is new stuff that is popping up. Here's my question to you. Here's my question to you. Because you're focusing on the ticket sales, which is fair. No, I'm not focusing on the only ticket sales. Well, you could go online and see that it wasn't selling.

If it was selling hot, would the same thing have happened? I'm not saying it wouldn't have. I don't know. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. What do you think the gate would have been for this event at Kasea Center? I don't know. I don't know, but it didn't.

I mean, if you went online to buy tickets, it didn't look good. What do you think it would be? I have no idea. A million? Two, three, four. I don't know. Here's another one, by the way. Let's just.

Boy, he wasn't being cooperative. He wasn't helping to promote the event. Maybe Netflix also said, we've had enough. Like this, we bargained for a big event. Jake's pulling his end. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. But here's the thing.

Let's just say it's four million. I don't think it would have been that high, but let's say five, six. Okay. What do you think the fee is that they're getting from Netflix? You think it's more than that? Oh, yeah. So why would you pull an event? Paper the damn crowd.

you're still walking away with 4x, 3x, than the gate. All of you are fixating on the tickets on those when they're getting a massive bag from Netflix. I wasn't criticizing him. But you understand? I wasn't criticizing him the right thing happened, okay? However, however, if you really like, we're a company dominated by women boxers,

we're all about the women, you wouldn't pick Davis in the first place. You know that, and I know that. No, it's a valid point. It's a very, it's really an argument you really can't negate. right if there was a real concern about it and by the way not for nothing i i love mike i love the guy my the person mike tyson is now compared to who he was but if that was your complete focus either you might not have chosen mike either right so uh you know i i it's not about anything else

it's very hard to play like the moral high ground the there is no moral high ground it's fucking boxing exactly so you'll do know you'll be saying mad adam i wasn't really going after i never went after him on this but the point i was more making is like don't like sanctify him for I wasn't sanctifying. I was just saying I think you all are focusing. Let's go into the next week because I don't think we're in a different place on this. But you understand what I'm trying to say? The fee for Netflix is way bigger than if they would have papered that entire crowd.

So they're losing out on that. Whatever I may think of Jake in the case of what they are trying to do for women, no one else is doing right now and I got no problem with them. And honestly, like I actually hope they have, they get a benefactor or a platform, a streaming service. Someone that sees the vision I once saw for women that didn't come to fruition and the vision they apparently see for. I'm actually rooting for them to succeed in that area because right now there's not a whole lot else going on for women in boxing. Correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like you don't love this WBC, you know, three-round stuff, the Chantelle Cameron. But dude, it's empirically crazy. Why, why? Why? I mean, just go research neurology of it. Go research head injury. Yeah,

it's all for women. Stop. If you think there's any, you think there's any civil rights issue, Ariel, because if you are, I think you're showing somebody. What does that mean? What, three, well, women should fight three. No, no, no, but you seem to have a big issue with it. Yeah, because why do you have such an... The Chantel Cameron situation. My brother died related to a head injury. I know more about neurology and head injury probably than you do.

Wait, let me finish. Women can cuss differently than men. Young women get hurt differently than men. Now for the first time, you're seeing that women are beginning to show signs of the same damage men got because they're having long careers in combat sports. Okay. Why do you want to make something inherently more dangerous? You think there's a single fucking platform TV network or streaming

service says, I want longer women fights. They don't want to pay for women fights in the first place. What do you think their reason is? Their motive is. Because it's bullshit. I don't know. It's banging the drum on some civil rights or should it doesn't exist. Is that really what it is in your opinion? You tell me what it is. I don't know. I really don't know. What good do they get about

taking a belt away from Amanda Serrano? Three minutes of women is going to make it more exciting. Don't you get the fact there's way more activity in two minute rounds? Everyone on earth wants more quicker. In MMA, the women fight the same amount of minute rounds as the men. But they all fight less than boxers.

Five minutes. They all fight shorter fight than boxers. What do you mean? What do you mean? How many minutes in a man? A title fight is 25 minutes. Okay. Yeah.

And how many minutes, how many minutes in a men? A title fight for women's boxing is two 10 minute rounds. If you go to three, you're fighting more. Yes. Okay. And by the way, it's apples and oranges and you should do your homework. Okay. What?

What? What do you think there's insurance on head injury demanded by multiple states in boxing and not in MMA. All I'm asking you is... Answer the question. Why are there? Why in the state of New York if you do a boxing match

you have to ensure against head injury there's no such requirement in MMA? Why? You tell me? No, you're asking a question that you know the answer to. So do you. No, I'm not asking you.

I'm literally asking you why do you think that they are banging the drum and why does this bother you so much? Because it's a health and safety issue. No one gives a fuck like they don't give a fuck about anything else. Why make a sport more unsafe the women aren't going to get paid

anymore. You're not making the product better. It's bullshit. It's smoking mirrors. The same way sanctifying them for bringing down a Davis fight is smoking mirrors. So what do you think their actual play is here? I don't give a fuck what their play is. You're commenting on it, so I'm curious to see. Commenting on it because you're taking a sport that's already inherently

unsafe. The women's product's always been two minutes. Do you see anyone, do you ever see fucking any tennis player, female tennis player screaming equal rights? I want to play more sets? Do you say that? Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. No, I saw you say that. No, but there's no health ramification of that, and they're still not complaining. In boxing, there are health and safety reasons.

Not only that, traditionally, women's women's boxing's been two-minute rounds. The product's good. The product's quick. That's what TV and streaming wants. I don't know what they're doing. For it's stupid. Serrano seems to be behind it. Why?

Who gives a show? This is what I'd love to know. Why? When she had three? Why? Who cares? Why? Anyone's screaming for it?

You hear a general public outcry? I'd watch more women on TV if there were three-minute rounds? I think that there are some fans who say the women deserve... The fans that are complaining about it aren't the fans who are watching women. The fans are complaining about it are trying to excuse why they don't watch women. I've been around the women's game a long, long time of boxing, way longer than anyone else. I was doing it before anyone wanted to do it, before anyone saw an economic benefit to it. You know why?

There wasn't an economic benefit to it, right? But that being said, I'm not behind making anything more unsafe than it is. Period. Why? The traditional waste two-minute rounds. It's dumb. It's again. It's bullshit.

It's a bullshit civil rights. No, it's not civil rights. I don't know about civil rights. What is it? You haven't heard them. Go on Jake's thing, equality, equality. You don't see that? Are you not reading that because you work for them?

I don't. You have this conversation before. Yes, you accused me of working for them. You said I work for the networks that do their stuff. Absolutely. Why are you accusing me again? I'm not accusing you. You just said, are you not calling this out because you work for them.

I'm raising the net. Do you want to see my bank account? I believe you, bro. You're surrounded by a lot of conflicted and biased, media guys and I'm not cut from their same cloth talking to the microphone though one of the less conflicted actually and you've certainly been one of the more willing to accept a lot of shit for saying what you say I respect you for that okay but when you work for people and you seem to go outwardly I'm not outwardly I'm talking about the topic de jour but but here we're talking about

if you go on Jake stuff you're going to see that he's made the nexus between equality and three minute rounds explain how that works is anyone paying them more for the three minute rounds it's one I don't think if he does it, but if Serrano says she wants to do it, Chantelle Cameron and Tam Thibbo, if the fighters are saying... And you believe Shantel Cameron gave up that belt because she wants three minute rounds? I mean, she did. No, she gave up the belt, but you believe it was because she wanted three minute rounds or she didn't want to be in a perspid situation with Sandy Ryan? I don't know. This is what I don't know.

You're the expert. I'm asking you the question. But you're commenting on it on social meeting. I'm commenting on inherently, I oppose making anything more unsafe than it is. Okay? I've actually had multiple fighters that I had a fighter that I still to this day feel pain over his demise

A male fighter, we're talking about women now It doesn't make it, yeah, by the way, you don't think you're going to see the same thing You don't think it's going to be safer extending the length of the rounds? For what reason? Listen, boxing is inherently dangerous Like now we're talking about, like now we're splitting hairs here. This is a ridiculous conversation. What do you mean?

I haven't heard one If you're in a, nobody has the first race. in boxing. No one. Here are the people that advocated for it. No one that has the purse strings in boxing has ever said we would embrace that programming to a greater extent if it was longer. And guess what?

No one in general is trying to make sporting events longer. I don't do baseball teams. The success of baseball, what we've shortened the games is way better. I agree. And inherently, inherently, it's just neurological medical fact. And I'm not a doctor, so I don't love making medical. Anything longer is going to be more dangerous. anything.

Period. Yes. But I'm saying, you're saying who are the people asking for this? There are Amanda Serrano fans who say if there was a minute

more in the... Amanda Serrano fans? Okay, whatever. What do you mean? Are you saying she doesn't have fans? I don't think there's screaming, we want three minutes. If she had a minute longer

in that first running against kid she wins the fight. I believe you all you have is more boring fights. No, she wins that fight. They have a greater tolerance for pain. They give birth to things the size of a bowling ball.

Yes. Okay, they have a greater tolerance for pain. They have bigger balls than most of the fucking men in the ring. And they can't go a minute longer? And because they can't be braver and they put themselves at more risk

and inherently because of physiological differences they get affected by concussion differently than men particularly younger women and now women are starting to spar and fight at 12 and 13 don't make anything more dangerous for no fucking reason no good reason. That's it. Okay, fair enough. Let's move on.

Let's move on. No, it's personal to me. It is personal to me. I understand that it's personal to you. My brother committed suicide after a serious head injury. It caused me to go into a, a wormhole of trying to understand neurological damage in the brain. It's a very different thing.

And by the way, it's an inherently dangerous sport way different than MMA. MMA injuries to the extent they're going to happen don't tend to the same extent to be traumatic brain injury. That is a fact. You can call any neurologist you want. You can go online and ask AI and you'll get your answer. The ultimate question I was asking,

then we'll move on, was what do you think their motive is? I don't know a lot of their motivations. I mean, you have two fighters that you work with that work for them as well, right? Cherneica Johnson. I don't think Shereyka Johnson wants three-minute rounds. And Shareda McHaf, right? I used to do Shreda.

I worked with Shreda. I worked with Cheneke. And if they were put in a three-minute-round fight, what would you do? I'm not working with them. I mean, basically. Sugar Nix? Nix is in his control to promotional rights, even though I participate, are controlled by Jake. So it's up to her and Jake what she wants to do.

You wouldn't stand. I mean, she knows how I feel about it. I've told every manager of female fighter I've ever, I will never promote it too many. Never in my career did I promote a three-minute-round for a woman. Never would I ask for it, nor do I think it's noble, nor do I think there's any civil rights aspect to win. I don't think it's anything. The civil rights part is crazy. How is it crazy if you go on?

Look at what Jake said about it. I don't care what he's saying. Cantal Gamerger said standing on principle or giving up my belt. Why is she giving up her belt? What is she, what is she standing on? I don't know. That's literally why I'm asking you. I think you know.

I think you're a smart guy, like you're a smart guy. You think they're just trying to virtue signal? Yeah. That's what you think. Yeah, and I think it's absurd because I just think it's not very bright virtue signaling. It's stupid virtue signaling. But let's go on. Okay.

By the way, we were just talking right before you came in and talking to the mic, please, right before you came in. By the way, you're fired up today. I don't think anybody's going to like. Are you fired up because of the mayor race that just wrapped up? You know, man, I'm, you know, a repudiation of Trump is a beautiful thing to me, but I'm not a big, my Dami fan. I'm going to lie to you. Okay, we'll leave that. We'll skip out.

Yeah, yeah, we'll skip. We were just talking right before you walked in, BKFC. Have you watched any of this? The bare knuckle shit, do you feel about it? I don't know, man. You know, I've talked to a lot of people. People bleed more. It's not good for your look.

It's not good for you. But they always say it's cosmetic, right. Yeah, because your hands, like, you actually can probably do more. I mean, it's not, they're not lying when they say head injury-wise. Yeah. You're actually probably safer because your hands hurt so badly. Your hands get broken so quickly. Things happen that you're not pounding away with the same impunity that you are with a padded glove,

but you're doing the same braid injury with the padded glove. glove. So it's not a matter of, but I don't like all the blood. I don't like the look of it. I don't like the fact they use washed up people. I don't like watching a poli malinagee gets cut up like a turkey. I don't enjoy that shit. So you don't watch it? I'm not going to say I've never watched it. If I'm sitting there and like I got nothing to do it, I'm like my, you know, my significant others up asleep and like have I watched it? Yeah, I've watched it. I've actually, to be honest, I've seen a couple of good scraps on it too. Look, I mean, dude. Can it go, can it get like, not UFC level, but like, does it have legs? No, because is it really

different. It's just no gloves. Right. And it's the fighters, or the athletes aren't as good. Quick, though. Yeah, I mean. Quick knockouts. You know, weirdly, I'm not going to get into this argument or discussion with you, but if boxing matches were quicker too, they'd be more popular too. What would you do? What would you suggest? On what? On the rounds and the times to make it quicker. I think that where we are and the men, I mean, I guess there's a certain point of time you care. I want my change to be in a different area. Like one of the reasons why, despite my, like a lot of stuff I've said about the TKO efforts

and whatever, I haven't been totally, complimentary, I haven't been totally, you know, I don't think I've been totally critical either. Right. But when I look at all that stuff and I look at what T.K.O. is doing. If the only thing they accomplish is dragging down the old system of taking down the ratings organizations,

taking down the interim belts and the regular belts and the super belts and the sanctioning fees and the judges that are co-opted by who they work for, by the bad judging, all that shit, If that collapses because someone's coming in with a monopoly kind of mindset, then at least some good came out of it. Okay.

Right? So I'm a believer that boxing needs a reset and a tear down. So that's one of the reasons why. And by the way, now that I'm not like, I don't get much of a fuck about making money in this, I'm a baseball guy these days. And frankly, there's a lot of other business stuff I'm working on that I'm excited by. I like having a voice in this. I like, I love boxing.

I wouldn't be in my life where I would be, where I am right now. I wouldn't have had the wild ride I've had and the fun I've had and thank God it's continuing though in different places but I have a lot to boxing and I love boxing so I like having the opportunity to come on here

and chat with you and talk through some stuff because I want to see the sports succeed but it blows now it sucks okay so let's talk about that I watched the fight Saturday did you watch the fucking fight

with Boatsi and Parker oh yeah yeah you saw it I watched the highlights because it was a U.S. I only watched the fight because so many people call me about it and I watched the fight

And I'm like, okay, it's a shit fight. Like start with that, it was a shit. If I never see Boatsi again, I wouldn't give a fuck. A terrible fight. However, the other guy won. If he didn't win eight rounds, he didn't win one round. Like, I know how to score a fight. There was no way in the world that guy didn't win eight out of ten rounds.

And they just took it from them. And that's the old system that we've been propping up. And a matter of like 48 hours later, they announced they're having a fight card at the WBA convention. And a guy named Cleetus Selden, the Hebrew Hammer from New York City, nice kid, tough kid, like, but pedestrian as they come. Just a guy, just a guy that's got some popularity, Jewish kid with a following in the neighborhood, you know, it's got a little bit of popularity, but just a guy. And then he's fighting some eight-no guy that fought eight hobos. I mean, hobos never fought a real fighter. And they're fighting for like World Belt, like some

version of it. I didn't even know which fucking one I don't pay attention. Sure, sure, sure. Right? Like the preposterousness, the unadulterated gall, right? And then just two days earlier, I watched the guy win eight rounds to two on the zone and loose. And

like, it's just something's never changed. And I don't think they will change until they're... Well, they might be changing now. So let's talk about that. I want to ask you about this. Not by their own volition. He spoke about TKO, Zouf, all this stuff in March when you last came in. A lot has happened Since, number one, California State Athletic Commission has this hearing in September, and they start talking about the Revival Act, the Ali Revival Act.

But then they say December, and then they do the- Why would the State Commission be banging the drum of any promotion? Why do you think? I don't know. I don't know. I got to be honest with you. I think if shit quacks and it's got fucking feathers and it walks like a duck, it's a fucking duck. and I'm not going to be the

I already get accused I said something I thought it was incredibly complimentary about Jake and last night on Twitter and I got a bunch of people telling me oh you're a hater I said how was this hateful

I said that this is exactly what he does great he builds his brand he develops the following I mean every fucking combat sports star boxing MMA celebrity influencer is the second

he needs an opponent they're all banging their fucking drum right begging that's not begging like fucking no like they got begging on their knees like like like weak like begging yeah

okay well he's doing something right Jake and the keys are doing something right right they built something by the way they built it the same way the ease of which Turkey came in to be a gigantic force backed by Saudi fund but turkey came

immediately TKO decides finally they make that flip in the switch Harry and the people way above said like, where to do this, and they got the sortie money backing them, right? Everything is laid out right now in a perfect way for them. Okay, so how do you feel about the fact that they were supposed to have this vote in December? They move it to October. The vote has no real relevant boxing people on it. Everyone was tied. The commission vote didn't matter of shit anyway. If they want to support it, who cares? Talk into the mic. It has enough,

it has enough votes in Congress. It's going to pass. When it gets eventually, before Congress. It's it's a fait accompli, right? It's a fair accompli, right? It's a fair What I've been told by a lot of people who know a lot more about what's going on in Congress than I do, members of Congress, both sides of the aisle have told me it's pretty much a Fayette. How do you feel about the fact that they're saying, oh, you can either pick to go this way and use the old ali-act? Oh, that's horseshit, man. What are they talking about and choose to you the old Ali Act? I mean, no, the Ali Act is still sitting there, but what does it mean if you're a UBO?

Yeah. You see, there's another thing. People don't tell you, like, part of the reason I'm not that exercised about the Ali Act is because it wasn't. enforced. We discussed that in the last time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big one. It wasn't enforced. Here's the other. Sometimes it was, though. Very rarely. Yes. I mean, look, it was a great course of contracts. I support the Ali Act without the amendment. Okay. Yeah. And without the second Ali Act. I'm clear on that. I've been clear on that forever. Okay. Put that aside. But I'm not exercised about it. Right. Okay. But here's the other part of the problem. When promoters started

getting these fucking exclusive deals that basically destroyed boxing because they all started trying to behave like the UFC, without any of the business rationality and frankly, any of the talent of the people running the UFC. And when you say exclusive deals, you mean exclusive TV deals, right? Like, Eddie has Sky, and then Eddie had whatever here. And this one's exclusive there.

And this one, okay. So they were trying to be UBOs without being a UBO. Okay. Like that's, okay, but here's what happens. The ESPN gives a sum of money. Here's your whole pot for the year, right? they're not doing quality control, they're not buying an individual fighter services, they're engaging a promotion for a lump sum of money. Then the promotion can play with that money any way they want

with respect to what they're reporting to the fighter on the Ali Act. So the exclusive deals and the lack of real reporting, the lack of real transparency, the lack of real negotiating leverage rendered it somewhat meaningless. It was simply a deterrent. I support deterrents, particularly in a shitty fucking unholy business, okay? So that deterrent will be largely gone because the promotion, the person giving the belt will be the person setting the purse, will be the person signing the young fighter,

like it's all one bubble. Sure. One entity. That removes the leverage, as it has removed the leverage in UFC from the biggest stars, it removes that leverage from the... Do you think we would be better off? Hold on.

I'm not so sure. said this the first time we spoke about this. Don't lose sight of the fact that the average Joe, the guy, the lunch pail guy that's not like just has dreams and is in a gym and an opponent, he's a professional opponent, those guys get treated fairly in UFC than they do in boxing. So I'm not saying necessarily that the UFC model, and that's what the TKO thing is going to be sort of, it's going to be the UFC model, that's not necessarily going to hurt the majority of fighters.

It's going to hurt the earning potential of the biggest guys because simply put, TKO, the way UFC doesn't put up with bullshit or over negotiation or being held over a barrel, they constantly remind the athlete, we are bigger than you. That's going to happen in boxing too. Can that succeed, though? It's succeeded in TKO. But they established that. No, because we've always been done.

We have 100 years of a different system. You're right. And it can't be done as simply. And by the way, I'm not even so sure But also, I don't think that they're necessarily immediately worried about worldwide domination. They have an easy road in the United States. Boxing doesn't exist here right now.

I think anyone fucking gives a fuck about the zone? I think anyone has the zone? How many your neighbors have the zone? You live in a building in the city? Errol, you're in suburbia. Okay. No, no, no. Trust me. I know that I get the point. I know. Anyone even know what it is? No. You think you build a star that way?

No, no. I think you build a sport that way? No. They're on Paramount Plus. And the door is wide open. Netflix? The door is wide open. Right. Door's wide open.

But Netflix doesn't... I don't think Netflix necessarily is ever going to give much of a shit. They did Canello against Crawford. But my understanding is that I don't have the numbers and I haven't seen anything. No one's given a press conference. I have no insider knowledge.

But clearly, Canello and Crawford didn't get the buzz that Tyson and Jake Paul got. Oh, no. They already put out the numbers. I mean, I don't believe any number that comes up out from anybody. Oh, really?

There's no, I, I, and it didn't, by the way, it didn't. I ascribe no, no truth to anything that they released. You don't believe anyone? I don't believe anyone. Okay. Well, I was a television executive, too. I had no reason to believe anyone. Right, right.

You know, unless you were facing Nielsen numbers on the- Would you guys put out fake numbers too in the HBO days? Yeah, but not, no, no, but differently. We had a general policy, right, which was, you round up a little bit, 10-15%, we never really put up, because also, we were really negotiating without exclusive deals when I was there. So we wore the marketplace. So you didn't really also want to lie

and negotiate against yourself. Like, oh yeah, we did 2 million buys. I want to double my purse the next fight. Right? So you wanted people to understand what they were really generating. The problem now in Turkey world, right, and it's not TKO world

because that's going to be the other interesting thing. What's the rub going to be with Turkey and TK? TKO is trying to establish a ground game, to re-establish the norms, right? While Turkey is paying people astronomical numbers based upon no economic analysis, simply what he wants to see, and what he decides he's prepared to pay. And that doesn't work in a real business. So are they going to be able to jive all that? If they can, do you think they will? Maybe. I don't know. I think from what I can see already, body language-wise and just looking,

It's not going to be an easy road with Turkey. What do you think of Dana's demeanor that fight week? Remember the press conference? He's asked some tough questions. I think that Dana's probably wondering to himself a little bit. I don't speak for him. He's not, you know. No, I just, you've been there.

I think he might be sitting myself going, what do we get into here? You know what I mean? Because he also understands something that overpaying the big name because you just, like, the guy's demanding more and you give him that money, how does that jive with trying to knock down the base? Right. Right. And it's going to be a balancing act.

And, you know, right now my sense is that, you know, if you look at, I respect the fact Turkey is a fan, and he seems to love boxing. He seems to at least want to make some big fights he wants to see. But he also seems to wake up like some days and just like he's on one thing, that he's on another thing. And it's the flavor of the day, the flavor of the month. You know, I don't fully understand where he's getting all his advice from and the people around him and whatever. There are some people around him that I think know some things. There are some other people around them. I shrug my shoulders.

and there are some things I see being done that I can't understand. Like what? A lot of things. You don't want to elaborate? Not all of them. But look, there's another aspect to it also. You're seeing some of the natural sortie bias toward,

like if you're an Anglo guy, if you're English, like the whole play of the Riyadh season thing is way more aimed at you too. Like these sorties are way more culturally tied to Great Britain where most of them go to college, where most of them go on vacations. It's where a lot of them get educated, go for the medical care, whatever. They have a lot of, you know, contacts.

I think that it's no, you look at the zone. You can see right now the zone is Anglo-emphasis, you know, emphasis, right? It's British, it's UK emphasis. I think a lot of that is also true with the stuff the Saudis are doing. I also think there are times where the Saudis should be holding the line and actually not doing business with certain people. If a fighter's negotiating against fantasy, stop the negotiation. You remember in July they announced that they were going to get rid of pay-per-view on the zone and still- Yeah, but that's another thing, bro, like, I don't, like, what is the zone doing?

Like, how many announcements you're going to make that aren't true? How many times are you're, you're going to, like, subscribers are fleeing, it appears to me, you know, I'm not an active subscriber anymore. You're not. When did you stop? A while ago. Really? Is it because you felt like you weren't getting? People in my office have it.

I could go in my, like, if, like, Sean would never, Sean has every stream, who works for me, every streaming, so. service knows demand that any combat sport. Right. Okay, but like, for me, like, it just sort of my own little personal statement. Like, I don't think it's value. Going back to the Aliyah thing, would you prefer, like, in MMA, there's no version of the Ali Act. It just doesn't exist.

It should apply to M.A, too. Okay, well, I was going to ask, would you prefer if just boxing got rid of everything? Let it be the Wild West like M.A? I mean, it's the Wild West now. I mean, when this thing passes, it's already the Wild West. It doesn't matter much. No, I mean. Should the Mauricio Solimans of the world?

Should they be nervous? They weren't nervous when the fucking Ali Act was in there. They should be nervous for a whole different reason. They should be nervous for a whole different reason. They don't have a sustainable business anymore. Because these guys are coming in? Yeah, partially. Because they failed.

Because we failed. I'm going to say we. I was part of this too. I made a lot of money in this business like a lot of other people. And I had success in this business like a lot of other people. And while it was all happening, I may have been more vocal than other people. I may have said we're heading toward a bad place quicker than a whole lot of people and more publicly, but I continued to play in the sandbox with everybody else.

You know, I tried to create meetings at one point. There was a promoter summit, went nowhere. But you know what? We deserve what we're getting right now. We open the door for Jake. We opened the door for MVP. We opened the door for Turkey. We opened the door for TKO by being an irrational business with an irrational business model.

If you think that the WBO, the WBC, the IBF and the WBA could continue to thrive and make money the way they have, historically, in this new environment that's coming, you have another thing coming to you. What about California? You were talking about that and then we got off it. I mean, I just, I mean, it's cut, dude. I spoke to Oscar De La Jolla and he said Andy Foster, he was disappointed. Yeah, he should be disappointed. But look, dude, the John McCain figured out decades ago that there needed to be a National Commissioner of boxing was going to be basically without oversight. The state athletic commission system is broken. It doesn't work. You got political hacks running it. They come in and out. Nobody's got a really stake in anything.

Everybody's a starfucker. The perception of a lot of state regulators is my job is to help the biggest events come into my state and the state make the most tax revenue and athletic revenue. That's my job. Not protecting the athlete, not standing for any integrity. A lot of people just have a misguided view created by our political system as to what their job is. I don't understand why the guy who runs the California commission who would want to appoint saying, I don't know this guy, but I think they're great. Or I support, you know, changing an act that could hurt some number of the fighters that fight in my state. I don't think, like I said already, I'm not one as accepting blanket that this new act is going to be bad for every fighter.

I think a fighter previously whose manager was paying him $1,000 out of his pocket to fight on a card, that now may sign with TKO and get 10,000, and have some guaranteed number of fights in a year, clearly that fighter is economically benefited. Clearly, that guy's in a better place than he was before TKO and before the UBO system got approved, right? So it's not necessarily going to harm everybody. See, part of the reason I'm so-spoken right now and why, you asked me earlier, why you keep going on Twitter, why you're saying this shit, why? Because, one, I'm smart, right?

Two, I know a lot of the players. I can connect the dots. It wasn't a surprise to me that they went to Paramount. I knew they were going to go to Paramount. Well, that was an obvious one after the UFC deal, right? No, it was an obvious one. No, we're not after the UFC. It was obvious that the UFC was going to Parame.

Oh, you're talking, okay, with the Ellison and Sky Dance. Who the fuck owns them? Who just follow the money. Right. And by the way, it's good, smart business. One connected company serving the interests of another. One that wants needs to buy programming and needs popular worldwide programming, being fed programming by another entity

in which there is an economic investment. It's just smart business. It was inevitable that Paramount was going to do a UFC deal. Most people, like in the TV sports world that were talking about shit, were prognosticating that. And once that happened, Fayette can plea,

either exclusive or non-exclusive, there was going to be a boxing deal at Paramount too. I think it's weird that the amount of years and money for the UFC deal was revealed, like literally within minutes of the announcement, seven years, 7.7 billion, or 7.8. Nothing weird about it, because no one knows what the fucking boxing thing's going to be. But why don't we know? Why don't we know?

Because you don't know. What is it going to be? It's going to work. Because of the Ali Act, you don't want to tell the world. You don't want to tell your fighters how much you're making. Yeah, but it's not just the Ali Act. And by the way, it doesn't really matter anyway. Because they can have a piece of that pie. It doesn't make a difference. Everyone knew that Eddie Hearn had gazillions of dollars funded by Dizone. Right now, by the way, the Ali Act only applies in the United States anyway. So do all the events in Riyadh. They're not going to do that.

All the events in the U.K. Aliyah doesn't apply. Only applies in the United States. Yeah. Okay. And then in the United States, once you're the beneficiary of a pool of money as a license pool for your various fights,

you're the one allotting the money. So you can, you sort of have the ability to report, to some extent, what you want to report to the fighter, which diminishes the true transparency. if there's any transparency left at all, right? Is that a championship ring you're wearing? It's, yeah, it's here. What is that?

What is that? Oh, the Giants. Oh, because your team is in affiliate. Dude, I'm the only person in combat sports history that has three World Series rights. Which one is that? This is 2014. With the Giants, I have a 2000.

Well, you show it to the camera. Can you show it to our, no, this one, this one, to Brad. Look at that, look at that. Wait, wait, wait, look at that. Wow. How many diamonds? Oh, I know, it's a lot. They got progressively more outrageous.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 2010 wasn't 2012 was bigger than 2010 this I wear I rarely wear now I can I could wear it again because I lost 60 pounds that's amazing it fits again what do you keep them by the way I'm locked in a little safe at home what about that world series huh man it was great it was great I saw you reading for the jays yeah I was heartbreaking dodgers so like the dodgers broke my my dad's hearts so like I hated the dodgers my whole life so I still hate the dodgers and by the way I love the Toronto Blue Jays like I think that team was a cool team. They were really like a ball, yeah.

And by the way, they had every chance 14 different ways to win that game. It was a heartbreaker, man. It was. I mean, I was rooting for the game, right? It was good for the game. Oh, it was a sensational baseball game. And the whole series was really one of the best.

Like, I'll never forget that World Series. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I appreciate that. Okay, so going back, Eddie versus Dana. Yeah. What do you think of this little feud that's brewing? I mean, you know.

And who's winning at the moment? Nope, I mean, who's winning at the moment? Eddie ain't winning. Why not? What he went? He's getting some... He's getting some cards, though. He's getting some ziggers in there.

He's getting sick, look, dude, Eddie is... Do you think it's a calculator? Eddie is wonderful in front of a camera. Eddie is... The best, I would say. I think he's the best promoter in combat sports. No, but it depends how you're... It's not a very bright guy.

What are you talking about? Come on. He's not. I mean, he's self-admittedly... Standing at the dais... No, he is as facile with a microphone as anyone I've ever seen. Right. In the P.T. Barnum, as sense,

of promoting? That's what I mean. He's brilliant. If that's what you mean, 100%. I'm not talking about, we agree. But here's why I'm saying that. But by the way, Eddie loves to say that himself. He loves to say I'm not a, there's nothing like, I'm not a really smart guy. I'm just, I love this shit and this is what I do. He's not really lying about that part of it either. Because if he was a really smart guy, he would understand that doubling down on the WBA and the WBC and the WBO and the WBO and the IBF, doubling down on interim belts and regular belts and super belts, doubling down on corrupt judging doubling down on the existing system ain't going to make him competitive with

Dana and more importantly ain't going to make him competitive with the people that Dana works for because now you're into some very sophisticated high-end business and you know you got Nick Kahn there and then you have Shapiro there you got fucking you got a whole giant group of like very smart people that have decided that they're allowing a play to see can we do in this area with the help of Turkey's money can we do what we did in UFC? Can we do what Vince did in WWE? Can we become the dominant promotion worldwide organically by making this investment end? And the Ali Act change, wonderfully smart, needed to do it. They did it. They got it done. Perfect political climate for it. It's going to be done. Perfect political climate

for it. Sure, sure. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, the whole fucking thing. It's just a perfect climate for everything. What does Kushner have to do with this? I don't know. He was in the table at a lot of meetings in Saudi Arabia and a lot of the meetings with the Middle East. Sure, sure, sure. how he has anything to do. I know, but what does that have to do with the L.A? Maybe it has nothing to do with it. Maybe he does. I certainly think the fact that this administration is so close to,

I mean, it's a gigantic advantage. What about this gambling scandal? There's going to be. Wait, what does he have to do? The gambling scandal right now, and the FBI is investigating, but they're good friends with Cash Patel. All right, I'm sure. So they're fine.

Have you heard about this story? Of course I have. What do you think? I think that I've no doubt it's true. Is this a bigger problem? Because I'm starting to hear from people in M.A. What about in boxing? You don't think people are,

throwing fights and boxing? Oh yeah, but there's different ways of throwing fights. I think people have been legally throwing fights and boxing on a weekly basis. What do you mean by legally?

I mean, the whole system's corrupt. No, I know, but you think someone's going on? No, it's not. No, it's not. You don't understand. Okay, so tell me. No, I've told you already. I went through this with you for an hour

the last time I was on the show. With legally throwing fights? No, not with a bag, a bag. You don't, and first of all, you're not getting enough of a drop on the average boxing fight that someone's going to go through the risk of bribing one of the fucking fighters.

This is what we're seeing right now in MMA. Now, you might have situations where particular fighters in their own head are saying to six of their friends or themselves, I'm going to not knock this fucking guy out until late in the fight. I can knock him out in the second round. Maybe I'm not doing that. Do I think that goes on in boxing? That's going on in basketball, football. What about guys taking dives? Look at the baseball situation with the crazy wild pitch that had all the action.

Dude, this is going on in every sport. As soon as you invite gambling in as your major sponsor, as soon as you invite gambling in as your major partner, the fuck do you. expect okay now in boxing I actually mean this the drop is less now and on a can I don't believe it would happen on a level of a Canello Crawford fight in boxing I just don't not worth it no and and and there are other ways and by the way even if you got to the fighter if the fight goes the distance you better get to the judges right because I saw a fight the other night that a guy wanted to grab some loss have you ever promoted a fight where you thought something nefarious was going on only at the

term, yeah, I mean, a gazillion times where the decisions were fucked up. No, no, no, but you were watching the activity, you're like, this guy's not going 100%. Not in the sense of thinking a fighter took a dive. Okay. Now, I've seen other people's fights where I did, but I wouldn't comment in it because I don't, that's a very ridiculous allegation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have I seen shit that I questioned?

Yes. Okay. I'll say this, though. There are situations I absolutely know that were unholy involving judges and referees. That's, those are the easiest ones. But you know what? In MMA, it's actually, I think, easier to fix a fight? Yes, I agree with the fighter.

You go for a bad take down. submitted. That's one of the reasons why I don't think it's a pervasive problem in boxing. Okay. I don't. The UFC, though, has a big problem on their hands. Would you not agree? Because this causes the question of the integrity.

I think every sport has a big problem on their hands. And I think Dana has handled it appropriately. I think his response has been exactly what it should have been. I think, excuse me, I think calling Cash Patel immediately and getting the phone with the FBI. They clearly are close to this administration. They're going to be treated with kid gloves. They're basically are part of this administration. They're about to do a fight card on the White House lawn, right?

But I think that Dana handled it appropriately, right? Anybody that gets implicated in this shoe, we're going to run them out of the fucking business. And any assistance we need to give to the FBI, we're going to give. And any deep dive we need to do, we're going to do. He said those things. That's what he needed to say.

That's what he needed to say. Are you bothered by the fact that there's a fight that's going to happen on the White House line? Do you think that that's inappropriate? Yeah, a little bit. Why? You know, look, man, you know, I'm bothered by a lot of shit, but I'm also philosophical about a lot of shit.

And what I mean by that is the following. I don't begrudge, like Dana and the UFC guys have been friends of Trump forever. In a weird way, I respect loyalty and friendship. I respect consistency of view. Like I expect, Dana and I agree on very little in many ways. Have you ever met him? Yeah, many, many times. And we've talked a number of times.

He's always been respectful to me. We've always had a decent relationship. But not a close one, but, you know, mutually respectful. But I'll say this. in his own fucking code, in his own weird world that I don't agree with a lot of the shit on. His friends are his friends. The people he supports are the people he supports. The things he believes in and what he believes in.

His hatred of the press. He's his hatred of the press. He's fucking consistent. And he's not a punk. So, like, based upon that, I have a modicum of respect for that. Because to me, the people that you can't say those things about have no loyalty, don't know who their friends are, aren't consistent. Right? And you disagree with them.

that those have no use for those people, right? At least this guy, like, I made disagreement with a lot of shit, but you can sit here and have a conversation and leave respectfully, even though you agree on nothing. So. I wanted to get your take on top rank. Their last event was in July. Yeah.

It's November. Yeah. Four months. If they had a deal, they'd be an event. Well, no. So now they just announced they have a fight card coming up on their fast channel. They're doing what I, look, and I just, and I have a dozen fighters left that I haven't divested of myself of, and I'm going to my pocket to get them fights,

and top ranks going into their pockets to make sure they meet their obligations. They're investing in their stable of fighters when they don't yet have a home for them. They're doing the responsible things the promoters should be doing when they're in this situation. But they are under tremendous pressure

and they don't have a deal. If they had something big to announce, it would be announced. Of course. Is this troubling? Like, could this signal the end? We're heading toward the whole place that the sport has in some ways is troubling.

In other ways, it's interesting, right? It's, I just did a podcast with some, just some dude, and we were chatting. And he said something about these are huge times for boxing. And I took issue with it because I don't think it's huge times for boxing. It's the most hugely transitional moment for boxing in my adult life, right? And in my career. My career is no longer a boxing. But if it was, it would be.

And as a fan, as someone watching, as an observer, as a voice, this is the most transitional time where who knows what's going to break and happen. Who knows how it's all going to break? We don't know. You know? I mean, apparently money that's already been invested in matchroom is Qatari money from Qatar. The Qatar fund, the Qatari government, has deep, deep pockets similar to Saudi. If Eddie wanted to create a UBO, if Qatar wanted to go on and take on Turkey, would there be a possible challenge that could come from that area? Maybe. It might be the reason why Eddie just announced so much business with Turkey. It might be reason why Turkey's keeping Eddie's so close to him, right?

That being said, Eddie's doubling down now, taking on Dana, saying, I'm doubling down on the O belts. I'm doubling down on the BO, the BC, the BF, and the BA. I'm doubling down. That doubling down is not going to work. It already failed. Like that system has failed. He's hinted at going into MMA.

Do you think he could be successful in MMA? No? Why not? Because he's not in it. because there's a completely dominant promotion worldwide. Worry about boxing, which is his bread and butter, and where he is an expert, where he is, I think you and I agree for as much as I may not think,

you may think he's a lot smarter than I think he is. He's certainly a great promoter in a bang-the-drum, P.T. Barnum, Don King Sense. He's one of the best. He's a future Hall of Famer for that reason. I mean, I take nothing away from it. I know since he's a kid. He infuriates me in many ways.

Why? Because he thinks he knows everything, he's, because he doesn't, you know what, I wish, I hope Eddie can find happiness in life. You don't think he's happy? No. Really? Yeah, I see a guy that's completely, like, I've known Eddie for decades. I don't know any of us, I know nothing about him, his family, I know nothing about his

friends, I know nothing about his interests outside of boxing. I've been around him, spent countless hours with him for decades. I know virtually nothing about him. There are a lot of people in the industry and the business that I can tell you their family members' names. I can tell you what they, what kind of music they like, what kind of concerts they go to. Maybe you're just not close. What?

Maybe you're just not close. I don't know anybody. Like, I've talked to people that, like, have worked for him for decades that don't feel like they know him particularly well. I think Eddie's all about the biz. By the way, I think that's his, like, I think he's a very, he's very centered on the body. It's what he grew up in. But that's part of his success, right?

To some extent. Yeah. Yeah, probably. But, you know, I, I wouldn't want to be that way. By the way, for the record, I don't work for Eddie. But here I am saying nice things about him. No, no. You're going to accuse me of working for him.

No, I never, I never. And I'd accuse you of working for them, too. Yes, you did. No, you've done a tremendous number of their events. Here's the other thing. And you, I think we could agree on this. If you were thought on their side, if you felt the need to needle them on the air of the platforms that are paying you,

you wouldn't still be announcing for them. Okay. It's not on, you, let me finish my plan. I had a public dispute with Jake. No, with Jake, publicly on Twitter. Okay, yeah. I said his belt that he walked around when it was fake. Dude, you already have proven on multiple occasions you're willing to take people on.

That differentiates you from a lot of people. But almost the entire combat sports world, the entire journalistic coverage of combat sports is co-opted. Almost the entirety of it. Nothing to do with me. The fucking entirety of it. Not entirety. Almost.

Because that includes me. Very close. And by the way, there are others. I can name another half dozen people in the combat sports realm that I respect. We just lost one of them at Tommy Grebezi, which broke my heart. But there are other people too, right? And it's one of the reasons, I'm probably more out there with my big mouth now, even than when I was more actively.

You feel the need? I just feel like that because no one's telling the truth. No one like, or given their version of the truth. There are a lot of people I've heard say incredibly intelligent things critiquing stuff, but they don't want to be out there because they're still in the biz. They're major sources of income aren't in baseball. They're still thinking about a future in boxing, and they don't want to alienate the powers to be.

And right now, the powers that be that they have to worry about, they're in Saudi Arabia. To some extent, if anybody is involved in the women's realm, they're Jake and Nikisa. If anybody has a fighter

or an intention of personally as a fighter wanting to fight Jake, you want to have a good relationship there. If anybody... I mean, that's just kind of life, right? You want to have good relationships with people. Right?

You don't want to torpedo every bridge. On-air talent, journalists, writers, they need to earn a living. Sure. They have kids and wives, too. And they have families and they have the needs to survive.

So everybody's, I'm not begrudging anyone for taking aback But let's look at the whole thing And see what it is You know, that was my Going back to top rank though What happens to them? Like, do you think that there's a chance They don't get any type of deal?

I mean, look, Bob's 94 man He's like Yoda. Like I love the fucking guy I could sit there and have left With him three hours He's unbelievable. Dude, he's a force of nature And he still has his his acting

But Todd's been there for, it's all been set up for Todd to take over Yeah, but yes and no I mean Todd's in Aspen I don't know how much Todd really loves boxing Todd never became a boxing guy. There are other people at the company. They have an entire organization, but an organization is very expensive to run.

There's a big infrastructure. There's a lot of overhead. I said this on this little podcast that was at the other day, and they put the snippet up. I'm going to say the same thing to you. Part of it's how much Todd wants it. How much does Brad Jacobs, Carl Moretti, the matchmakers, the matchmakers said, the matchmakers said to run their department are senior citizens. Like one of them is the other one's approaching.

Like when Bob ultimately either says enough Or, you know, and I hope he lives 100 years But he's not there anymore A lot of that company is going to disappear organically You think there might be a chance they don't exist in 10 years or so? Oh yeah, 100%. Really? Okay. Five years and three years. But I was also a chance they might be thriving. I don't I'm not underestimating it. But if you don't have a TV deal, you have nothing. Well, I don't know. I didn't have a TV deal

I didn't you could only be a certain After I left HBO when my initial output deal, which was not any exclusivity, it was a way they could pay me out of my contract when I left HBO and I started my promotional company. I never had an exclusive deal with anybody after that, and I survived pretty damn well. Now, that being said, because I had been a buyer, I'd been a television executive at a pretty high level at a network, I had all these relationships. So my relationships with everybody probably allowed me to navigate the last decade better than any other promoter in America could have. And not beating my drum on that. I'm making a point like I was

advantage. I had been a buyer. I had all these relationships. Even the people that don't like me, don't think I'm a dummy. And I haven't really screwed a lot of people. I don't have a track record of making deals with people and reneging on them. And I was able to survive, but dude, it was painful. It was horrible. And right now, I don't think someone really right now without some kind of TV deal could compete. Does American boxing need them? Top rank? Yeah. No, but they need competition. I don't know that it has to be top. Because like right now it's Golden Boy? Yeah, I mean, as far as the...

The absence of competition in any industry, particularly in the entertainment industry, any form of programming, the absence of competition is a bad thing. So I want competition. Like, you know, people say like you and Eddie, you're fucking this and Eddie, you're always, no, I have a lot of respect for Eddie.

I mean, and by the way, I'm rooting for Eddie. Like, I actually really am. I want Eddie's too good at this to go away. I don't want to see Eddie go away. It's too good at it, right? I also want, I want Dana and those guys to have to think. I want them have to think that there's all. some other things out there and everything I don't know where they're going to go if I'm turning

around four years five years from now and they shot the bed and and I think boxing's more of a shit show than it is now I'm going to be as critical as them as I was about the whole industry now right I just think I'm not going to sit there and and rip them when they haven't even gotten started and myself and all the other people that were in control of this industry for many decades we didn't leave it in a very good shape we allowed all these people to come in our and take over our room, right? So, like, how much bitching could we really do when someone else comes in and says,

I see an opportunity? Because you fucked it up. Because they're not lying. If we were thriving, Turkey wouldn't be able to run in and be the omnipotent, you know, Middle Eastern ruler of boxing. If we were doing our jobs,

Dana and Nick and all them say, hey, maybe we should take the Saudis money. We can fucking own this the way we own, you know, and we own MMA. If we had done our jobs the right way, they wouldn't be able to do that. And I was saying some of the shit

when I was still completely entrenched in it, but it's even clearer to me now that I'm not so entrenched. That I'm giving it a little bit. Your survivor. Yeah, well, I mean, look, if I wanted to keep working at boxing and make a living, no one could get me out of this.

I'm too good at it, and I know too much, and I have too many relationships. If I wanted, if my concentration was going to still be on boxing, I would have a place but I don't really want it and I do feel that the system of promotion that pre-existed no longer exists

and all of the state of the state of athletic commissions before almost every state athletic commission set of rules is designed around a promotional system where the promoter was the money the promoter hasn't been the money in decades the television entity is the money the pay-per-view customer is the money

the streaming service is the money right Right now, the gates have become almost irrelevant to most of these promoters because they're getting such... Which goes back to my point about Tank Davis and Jake Paul and why it is ludicrous. Thank you very much for setting me up for this to suggest that they canceled the fight due to some measly tickets. No, I never said that. I think they... By the way, I don't think...

You just said the... No, it's not irrelevant to that decision at all, bro. You just said it. No, if you know, I didn't say that. It says to most promoters, the gate is irrelevant. No, most shows. It's not irrelevant when you can make a $20 million gate and you're only making four. They're not making $20 million.

What did they make? What was the Tyson Gate? You want to tell what Tyson Gate was? In 78,000 people are at the Hedgastien. Okay, but that's not the point. The point I'm making to is there is an economic analysis made, right? Here's the other thing. They're not stupid.

They're building a motherfucking brand, Ariel. Who, MVP? Yes, they're trying to build a brand. I mean, there's a certain point in time where even like where you sit there and you go, tickets haven't sold. He is a fucking degenerate. He's not fucking helping the promotion. The event's not doing what it should have done.

it's not going to resonate with the audience for Netflix like it should have because Davis hasn't done anything to help it, right? So you have an out, it's an intelligent decision. If you don't think that all the shit factored in it, you're not thinking. It went into, but everyone online was saying this is not, this is just ticket sales. No, I didn't say that. You retweeted Kim and all those guys.

No, if you think it was, I agree with him. If you think it was solely a moral decision, you're a fucking idiot. But if you think it's solely a ticket sale. If you think that, you're a fucking idiot. No, no, listen, it was a bag of, of things. It was a bag of things. But if you think that the lack of ticket sales was bigger than the gate,

the money that they're getting from Netflix, is crazy. They could do it at Universal Studios and Netflix wouldn't care. They would make fun about the shit at the press conference, right? Like, like, it wasn't so concerning that Javante had a history of being a fucking domestic violator. I hated the fight. Hated the fact from the beginning.

History of being a degenerate for how long? Did it matter at the press conference? No, I mean, they made the fight. I don't like it. I don't believe it came down for that reason alone. I believe it was a bag of things. If we agree on that, we agree. We agree. And I'll let you go in a moment. This is always so great.

Victor Conte, did you ever have any interactions with him? Like fucking screaming matches, argument. Really? I insulted him on occasion. I called him a dirt bag. Oh, God. But I want to tell you something. I grew to have a measure of respect for him.

Talk to him. I grew to have a measure of respect for Victor. Because I found him willing to engage in the most difficult conversation. And willing to understand why I thought. he was a dirtbag. Which story are we talking about here? Just in general. You asked me a...

No, I know, but was there a specific time? It was a lot of times. It's a whole fucking curve. Look at him. What the fuck? I know. So, you know, but we had conversations that made me realize a couple of things.

One, his highly intelligent man. Like a very, very brilliant guy. Like, very quick, very smart guy. I actually think... I don't buy until he became Mr. Perfect. I don't buy it that. I think he was a complicated man. Yeah.

I do buy into the fact that there was a degree in which he regret. regretted his road and was trying to correct it. I will never like be totally critical of a man that regretted his road and tried to correct it. So I hope Victor rest in peace. There was a period of time where I was completely negative on him. But after conversations and under, we didn't become close friends, but there was a degree of respect in a conversation where I think that he was capable of understanding why,

A lot of the negativity toward him existed. He didn't, to some extent, care about how people viewed his redemption or not. He didn't give a fuck. He believed personally he had become a more noble person, a more ethical person. And I think that's what he cared about. So on that level, respect. It says a lot about Tank Davis, by the way, that he was celebrating his death on social media. Of all the many things that you could say about Tank Davis.

Pretty shitty, pretty shitty. He's a terrific fighter, and I was a big fan of him as a fighter. But even working with him, knowing him, I was never a big fan of him and what he portrays. I'm just not. And, you know, there's, the fact that that event's not going to be a showcase event for Netflix, not going to be a showcase event for Jake Paul, not going to be a showcase event for boxing, is a net positive.

Yeah, I do feel for the undercard fighters, including sugar needs. I feel very, very badly. And by the way, I would have been. Some good paydays on those, right? Here's the little one. It would have been nice to see Netflix make a statement and run the show anyway. Like, and I don't think that was something Jake. Meaning without the main event.

Yeah. I'm sure Jake and Dekeesa sought that because every promoter would. Sure. But it would have been a nice thing to see that because it would have reflected the understanding that a lot of people's lives are affected by this one guy that didn't do his, you know, that. They're saying they're going to try. to rebook it for December. You like Ryan Garcia versus him? You like that?

I don't like any of it versus him. I think it's all stupid. Francis and Don't like any of it? I mean, I don't like any of it. What? So you're going to go from a guy that was a midship to a guy that's a fucking giant. Anthony Joshua? Let me tell you something here. Let me go back to Jake for a second.

Okay. I'm going to go back for Jack for a second. Jake's not bad for boxing. Like these morons online, I've seen a lot of it this week, too, after the thing fell through with. Yeah. really criticizing Jake as if Jake is some great negative for the sport you know Jake is ruining boxing

Jake is a no no it's all that's complete and utter bullshit however if Jake couldn't pull these stunts like a Giovante Davis fighter and a guy who fight and none of this was flying it'd be better for boxing but I'm not going to criticize the guy because he found a niche I'm not going to criticize this guy's guy

because he became a star in the midst of an environment of boxing that fighters barely fight when they do fight they're seen on platforms that nobody's watching when they fight paper views they're seen on paper views

that are viewed by virtually no one live and most people are reacting to clips they're seeing on social media right? I mean I'm not gonna like I'm not criticizing him

for creating a brand and a promotion and making money and being smart at it however if like Jake couldn't do any of this shit, it would all be better for boxing. Thank you, Lou. This is great.

This is great. Let's do it again in like six or so months. Whatever you want. I appreciate it. There he is the great Lou DeBella. Owner, by the way, of the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Shout up to them. Go on, check out the, we're building Carmex Park in Richmond.

There's, Carmex Park has its own. 2026, right? April 7, 26 is the first game. Beautiful. Can I come? You're invited. I appreciate it. Thank you.

You're invited. You're a mensch. Thank you, Lou. We'll take a break. Say goodbye to Luke. be back with Lou, I should say, be back with Michael Chandler right after this. Also still to come, Gable Steveson. All right, back on the program.

That was my conversation with Devin Haney from last Wednesday, Lou DeBella. Magic, as always, we'll move along now and say hello to our next guest. He is the star of the upcoming Roadhouse 2. Who would have thought? When I asked him to come on, I had no idea. I had no idea that this was the thing. He's the one and only Michael Chandler, who's kind enough to join us on this Wednesday afternoon. movie star now what's happening here yeah you never know man it's just uh it all came together

pretty quick i mean obviously i've known about i've known about my involvement possibly for a really long time but uh yeah flew on out to location about 10 days ago uh and now i'm back uh for a couple days and i go back out there but yeah i did know when we when we booked this but i wasn't going to break any kind of no you probably are you probably already knew area i did not i did not you Woodley Woodley told me he was on a movie set and he mentioned you

but I had no idea what this was and so could ask how did you how did you want like you Woodley and also you and Dustin

on the set together yeah what's happening there hey me and me and Porier are mended fences man you know

yeah I mean we no we have a good had a good working relationship on set together you know I mean

it's it's all water under the bridge at this point but yeah I mean you talk about me Riko Verhu

Barry Hoving Yep, yep You know Tyrone Woodley Stephen Wonderboy Thompson MVP Wow Jake Gyllenhall

I mean yeah man it's been I mean the main one of the main characters the guys from the raid man just really really cool cast obviously some notable names

who are fighters who also have some decent acting chops and yeah man it was an absolute blast and we still got a lot more filming to do Is this your first movie Not my first I've done a couple of

couple, but this is my first one. I don't want to give away too much. My first one with a decent amount of involvement. We'll put it that way. And no sign of Connor McGregor on set. I did not see Connor out there. Okay. You're not sure if he's going to be in the movie or not. We'll see. And when does this come out? You know, I actually don't know, man. I just, you know me, man. I'm a nose to the grindstone kind of guy. We're filming. And then I got to go through the editing process and the promoting product. Okay, so it's still a ways away. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're, you know, just in the filming process right now. So, um, toward the end of 26 or maybe early 27, okay. I'm not quite sure. So you got, got to ask Jake, Jillen Hall, or someone else like that.

By the way, shout out to you on the old school Hulk Hogan lunchbox behind you. This is a relic. Yeah, actually, I got to bring this up because you'll actually, you'll actually, I love that. You'll let us. This actually was mine. Wow. From 1980. Betty Chandler, my mom, wrote this in there back to 1988, 88, 89, WWF Thermis. So, you know, it's actually really funny. And I'm sure a lot of the listeners or even yourself will attest to this. Mamas and dads keep all kinds of junk. I'm like, mom, dad, throw all that junk away.

Don't ever bring it to my house. I got too much stuff in my house. And she's like, well, I got a few things, you know. And she brought my All-American plaque and some of my awards. And she's like, and I also have this Hulk Hogan lunchbox. and I was like, thank God you didn't throw that away. Because, yeah, I mean, that ink from that Sharpie has been in there for freaking 30 years.

Oh, my God. So, pretty cool, man. I love that. Were you watching the cartoon back in the day as well? Do you remember that? Or was that before your time? Yeah, I think it was a little before my time. How old were you in 88?

88, I was two years old. Oh, gosh. Okay, all right, all right. Yeah, this says Titan Sports trademark, 1989. So unbelievable. I love that. That's amazing. Put it back up there. I like looking at it behind your show. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And a great segue. A great segue, by the way, because they announced very recently Real American Freestyle Wrestling or going back to your roots, which is the promotion that the late Great Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff and Chad Bronstein set up that you're going to be competing. How did this all come about? There it is. November 29th against Chad Mendez of all people. Yeah, Chad Mendez, man. You know, Chad and I, I believe we're about a year apart. You know, so obviously I watched him wrestle in college.

You know, we became friends and cordial after, years after, obviously, when he was fighting and stuff. Similar guys, similar foundation, similar wrestling, in your face, nonstop action. And yeah, I mean, my managers reached out and they said, hey, what do you think about a wrestling match? I'm like, hey, I know what Real American Freestyle is. I watched it, saw Bow compete. saw a couple matches. And man, I would not be sitting here talking to you had it not been for the sport of wrestling, you know, and then me taking a chance of walking on to the University of Missouri, becoming an All-American there, and then just in that trajectory leading me toward

mixed martial arts and all the success and ups and downs and this beautiful life that I've built. So it'll be, you know, it's somewhat nostalgic. I mean, I think that's part of it too. I mean, I love the sport of wrestling. I owe the sport of wrestling so much. Every single time I tie on my wrestling shoes, I get a different feeling than when I'm tying on my boxing gloves or I'm tying on my, putting on my shin guards, there's just something different about putting on those wrestling shoes. So I'm excited to go out there and compete. Chatman, this is a perfect opponent. We're going to come, obviously, we're the main event, so we're the big wrestling match on the car, but we're going to come to steal the show, and we're going to put on a great show for the fans.

And I'm out, I'm learning, you know, learning through the rules. The rules constantly change year after year. I got Mike Hatcher here in town who's got a young Guns Wrestling Club. So I'm training with those guys, got a bunch of bodies to work out with, and I'm coming for gold, man. And so just curious, last time you competed in a wrestling match, how long ago would that have been? An actual sanctioned wrestling match would have been March of 2009. March of 2009, right here got the fifth place trophy in St. Louis, Missouri, of all places. my senior year, and then graduated in May of 2009. You know, I threw my first punch in March of 2009 after I got done,

started hitting Mitz and training with Tyrant and Ben and those guys. Graduated in May, fought my first fight in August of 2009. Last time I was on your show, I think you brought up, but I just celebrated my 16-year anniversary of August of 2009. But obviously, I've been wrestling ever since. It's part of what we do. but Real American Freestyle has some interesting They don't have their own interesting rules

Obviously there's just a freestyle international rules So it's going to be fun It lends itself to non-stop action We'll put it that way So I'm going to go out there I'm going to score some points Look for some big throws And it's going to be a lot of fun man

Is this all kind of gravy to you Or there's some nerves because it's been 16 years Not since you competed But like in an actual match with points That count where another guy is trying to beat you How do you view this? It's interesting. I mean, yeah, I think it's kind of gravy. I think I love competing. I love mixed martial arts. I love competing in the gym every single day. But wrestling is special. Now, obviously, learning the actual nuances of the rules, nuances of the rules when I'm, you know, when I'm training wrestling down in Florida with my team and whether I'm wrestling with Logan Storley, multiple time All-American or Mitch McKee, multiple time All-American. And these guys, you're not really thinking about the freestyle rules. You're thinking about how to wrestle as it pertains to the sport of mixed martial arts,

whereas now I'm wrestling as it pertains to actual international wrestling and what the scoring system is like, what does the turn look like, what's feet to back look like, what is the push-out rule, the challenge and all these different tactics and things. So it's kind of been cool to kind of show back up as a walk on again. I walked on in the University of Missouri when I was 18 years old

and kind of just had the whole world at my fingertips, but I was also scared to death. and I was trying to learn how to become a college wrestler. And now 16 years later, I guess 20 years later, I get to go into the sport of freestyle wrestling on a big stage, on a big mat, on Fox Nation, with the entire wrestling world looking and watching, to just show up as another walk on again,

trying to learn the rules and learn the tactics. So, yeah, it's exciting, man. It's cool because we need challenges in life. And it does scare me a little bit, but I've been wrestling ever since and wrestling is ingrained in me and I love the sport of wrestling and I love wrestling and I love wrestling

when I'm training and I love putting together a training camp to go beat up Chad Mendez. Is this a one-off with them? You know, I don't know. We'll see. I mean, I think we'll see what we never know what the future holds. The future is up in the air right now

when it comes to, you know, when is the next fight? What's, who is the next, you know, when is the White House card? Who's the next opponent? What's going on? All that stuff. Obviously, it's all under wraps right now.

But I like to stay in shape. I like to keep competing. Obviously, I'm doing a ton of business stuff. Obviously, we alluded to Roadhouse. That's keeping me busy as well. So I got a lot of things going on. And a wrestling match at the end of November right after Thanksgiving sure makes a lot of sense. Go out there and compete.

Yeah, is that annoying that it's two days after Thanksgiving? A little bit. But, you know, I think I gave up the notion of ever having a Christmas dinner or a Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, I've missed more Thanksgivings in my life than I've actually participated in because I have fought every single year, basically, and wrestled every single year since I was 14 years old. I've either wrestled or fought in November since I was 14 years old. So it's one of those things where, man, you know, holidays are great and they're fun and I love to get together with the family. We'll celebrate, and I'll watch my kids and my wife eat a big old turkey feast, and I'll just have to be a little bit more discipline and go run a couple miles. cut the weight. But luckily, the match is at 175, too, so it's not a crazy. Yeah, it's not a

crazy weight cut. And that was kind of part of it, too. You know, it's like, hey, I'd rather compete closer to my natural weight. By the way, with something like this, do you have to get permission from the UFC, or are you allowed to just do anything as long as it's not MMA? I'm the kind of guy where I'm always a, you know, I'm not a, in some places in my life, I'm going to ask, ask for forgiveness, not permission kind of guy. But when it comes to, hey, going to go compete in another type of sport. It's not mixed martial arts. Obviously, I let the UFC know, asked for their blessing, and they had no problem with it. They gave me the thumbs up, and now we get to go compete. Okay. By the way, you had mentioned 175, and that made me

think, oh, 175, getting you ready for a potential 170-pound fight down the line. Is there any connection between the two? No connection between the two. I mean, obviously, I weigh more than 175 right now. I'm up in the 80s, but I'm slowly bringing it down ever since I knew this wrestling match was going to come to fruition, start to get into a training camp, start eating, you know, not as calorie deficit like I am when I'm making 155, but leaning out, getting in shape. And yeah, I mean, 170 at the White House sometime in, I don't know, spring, summer, where the heck it is, you know, that's the goal. That has always been the goal ever since this thing got announced ever since Connor said, you know, Connor got back in the testing pool and

Connor said he's coming back and wants to fight at the White House. So, um, no updates, really. Um, but that's, that's what I got my side set on. Okay, so here's the thing. You're now back into that period where it doesn't make sense to take another fight, right? Like, you're so close to this date, even though we're still, let's say, five, six months away, it doesn't make sense. So are you now back to that like, I'm now waiting to see how this plays out? yeah i am um and you know similar is it feel familiar to you this this feeling a little bit um but the way i see it too is we'll get some answers in pretty short order here and then then we can make a decision like like everybody knows i am notorious for being the guy who's in shape at all

at all times i can jump into a training camp six weeks eight weeks notice so if it doesn't look like it's heading in that direction it's going to be pretty darn easy to jump into a training camp and fight somebody else on the White House card, fight somebody else, somewhere else, who knows. But right now, just like last time when there was a little bit of a weight and a lull, one thing that people often overlook was that I went two years without a UFC paycheck and didn't have a problem with it. And that's just a testament to setting my life up in a way in which I have multiple revenue streams

and I have a solid reputation. and not just in the sport, but just amongst my business partners. And there's a lot of ways to make a living outside of just getting punched in the head in the UFC Octagon, but that is one of my favorite things to do in my entire life. So I'm excited to do it, and I pray to God that it's at the UFC White House lawn. What are you feeling right now? You know, I spoke to Connor in our film. He said it's Chandler.

He also said, I signed, but then he clarified like I haven't really signed. But, you know, he's off social media, and it's been several weeks now. are you feeling confident about this you know i think yeah like you said he he he hadn't signed but he said it was a done deal yeah yeah yeah and done deal done deal reminds you a connor uh circa 2016 you know circa 2017 by your 2014 back in the hey day when it was like hey my life in what i do is a done deal i'm 100% fully focused i don't care who they show who they throw at me whether it's chad mendes on a week's notice after hosea alto pulls out or um or the nate as debacle when that was a one 10-day notice or whatever he was in any any person anytime

anywhere it's a done deal connor mcgregor is he that guy we don't know uh but in his mind it sounds like it's a done deal that that's what he wants i'm the guy he wants to fight at the white house on the lawn fight makes a ton of sense he's a man of his word um and we have a contract that was signed and then ripped up because of his his doing um so i do feel more confident about it and I do, you know, I'm not hanging my hat on it. You know, I hold everything with open arms, man. Pray for wisdom every single day. And I know that it's going to work out the way that it's supposed to work out. And I'm just going to keep myself busy between now and then. Obviously, the wrestling match, Roadhouse, the book. I just signed a contract for documentary today.

So we're going to do this stuff, man. And I was putting this sport for a reason. And it's always been the same goal. Make people feel something when I fight. And also change the view of what people think a mixed martial artist is. And I've tried to make good on that promise. And we're going to keep on doing some really cool things. Okay. So first of all, the book, what is that about? The book is going to be somewhat my story, but diving deep into the principles and lessons that I've learned over the last 25 years, 26 years of hand-to-hand combat from high school wrestler to walk on at the University of Missouri, never a state champion, didn't really deserve to be there or felt like I deserved to be there and then ended up becoming an All-American and then betting on myself to go into the mix martial

arts, winning world titles, losing world titles, and then betting on myself to leave Bellator and then go to the UFC and then how it's all worked out and panned out really, really, really well. I by no means think that I have the perfect blueprint for a young man out there, but I do think there's a lot of lessons and principles that young men especially out there who are looking for a purpose, who are looking for a blueprint and a way to live their life to operate and ultimately win in the end. That's why I wrote the book. We just got done with it.

We're putting the final touches on it. And then we'll also do a documentary coinciding with it. Okay, so the documentary is about the same type of stuff discussed in the book? Similar, you know, similar, but obviously we'll bring a lot of different voices in, interviews of people in the way that they have seen how my career has played out, who I am behind the scenes. the things and the moments of my career and of my life that have impacted them and touched them that are way different and far and away from just the punches, kicks, knees, and elbows and the performances inside of the octagon because ultimately it's so much bigger than just the wins and the losses. It always has been. And, you know, I get, I get, I get, I take flack for

losing some fights or falling short or never win in the, the UFC world title or whatever it is. But ultimately, a man can can rest easy at night and lay his. head on the pillow knowing that he did every single thing possible within his power to become the best version of himself. And I've tried to do that since day one. So we'll bring in a lot of voices. We'll document the next training camp, praying to God that it is heading up to the White House, credendo climaxing at the White House. So we'll see. But I've got some great partners on it, and it's going to be a lot of fun. By the way, you're one of the more perfect people to ask this question. Very recently, Ronda Rousey was on a podcast talking about MMA fans. I don't know if you saw

this. And she basically said like MMA fans treat UFC legends like shit. You lose a fight. You ain't shit. You never were shit. You to me are the perfect example of this. You've had some big wins. You've had some tough losses. But I still feel like the fans love you and respect you. And so when you hear that from her, I don't know if you heard these comments, but do you feel like the fans turn on you when you lose a big fight when you when you when you when you fight jessie at madison square garden have an incredible fight or dust and pourier do you feel like they treat you like shit afterwards you know a little bit you know i mean ultimately i i i've said this a million times man we are just human beings i know we are looked at like gladiators and gods and and and infallible

crazy superhuman superheroes but we are just human beings um so it does you know hurt at times to hear people and hear their, hear their comments and hear the way that they want to throw salt on a wound after a loss. But it's also what we chose. We chose this life. We know what we signed up for. Pressure is a privilege and being on a platform is a privilege. So we know what we signed up for. You know, it also depends on the demeanor of the individual. You know, I think Ronda was self-proclaimed and would say, and I would say this to her. I mean, I think she was kind of the bad guy, right? You know, she kind of was sweet here and there, but ultimately, you know, she kind of had this, you know, F-U type of mentality, and she was, you know, somewhat of a bully,

and that was kind of her brand. And it was cool. Like, I don't give a damn by my reputation. Right, right. That's an awesome song, right, you know. So that was part of, part of who she is. And I think my brand or I hate to say brand, because it sounds like I created something, and that's what I want people to think. I just am who I'm just a guy who, I'm not supposed to be here. I showed up, walked on the University of Missouri, showed up at Lake of the Ozarks in 2009. tried this thing called mixed martial arts and it turned into this beautiful, awesome career that I've enjoyed. And I've always just enjoyed being more positive in trying to create more connections

with fans than I have, you know, throwing up the middle finger and just being like, I don't care what you think about me. Because I ultimately, I kind of do. Ultimately, I kind of do. And that's not a people pleaser mentality. I think that's, I think that's the building of the platform and the building of the testimony that I ultimately want to continue to convey on this masterpiece. I'm painting throughout my career.

So I think there is merit in what she said, because they are some vile, ignorant, mean individuals after a man or a woman just gets knocked out or submitted or loses in their greatest moment of opportunity, which then also sometimes becomes their darkest hour. But I think ultimately it's just the brand that you carry, so to speak. And mine's a little bit different than Ronda's, but I got a ton of respect for her. Love watching her fight. and but there's some merit to it. I just don't know if it's MMA specific.

I think that just might be social media, right? If you falter on an NFL big stage, you're getting that crap too, no? Yeah. I mean, you're more romantic about the sport and I am because we are in it. So, of course, that's our frame of reference. But ultimately, yeah, man,

it's just people are the worst kind of humans. That's what you got, that's what you got. You know, that's what you got. It all boils down to, man. And that's, you know, kind of in real life, but less in real life, on social media, man. People, people got no problem just throwing out some hate or throwing out some venom or throwing out some stuff and not really thinking about that there's a human being

eyeballs on the other side and they're going to, you know, ingest it. But ultimately, man, it's just, it's every sport. And people are invested. And also there's the, you know, the betting culture now where it's like, hey, not only did I want you to win and you lost, so I'm out of you that but also I wanted you to win and I put money on you so therefore now I lost money so now I'm mad at you the amount of times I've had people be like hey man you lost me money I'm like I don't care I didn't lose you money you lost you money yeah so crazy times with this gambling stuff huh yeah I guess I just uh you just opened the door on accidents yeah I really don't know much about it I didn't see those fights I was in um you know shooting yeah uh unexplosed location

I don't know if that's been made public or whatever but shooting the roadhouse movie so it was time change and stuff so I didn't watch the fights did not even hear about that particular fight necessarily but then obviously we're seeing it now so it all comes out in the wash man so we'll see how it all plays out

I understand just a couple more and I'll let you go since it's your weight class at least for now by the way you think the Connor fight if it happens is at 170 that hasn't really been discussed because we're kind of waiting for it's all play out, but the first one was at 170, right? Yeah, it hasn't been, it hasn't been discussed. I would, I would guess it's at 170. Okay.

But, you know, just like last time, and I took Flack for it, because people called me a brown noser and a guy who just rolls over. But I'll fight him in 155, 170, 185, I don't care. It doesn't really matter. The weight class has never mattered. Connor and I are about the same size. So whether we want to cut weight to 155 or we want to stay our natural weight at 185 or we meet somewhere in the middle, it doesn't matter to me.

The reason I bring that up is your weight class, there's a bit of a two-horse race right now. Paddy, Justin, against Ilya. If it was up to you, who deserves it? God, it's a freaking tough question, man. I've already gone on record and said, I'm Gaichi, man. Okay.

But ultimately, there's a lot of different there's a lot of different arguments you can make. You know, Patty has never had a title shot. Patty, you know, Patty is newer. Justin Gaetchi has proven himself against the toughest guys in the world and fight after fight is fight of the night after five of the night, fight of the year after fight of the year.

But he has had a couple title shots, a couple opportunities here and there. So it's a tough one. That's why I am not a promoter. Do not want that job, and it's a tough decision. But they will make the right decision for them and the right decision for the biggest fight possible. With that being said, I'd like to see it go to Gaichi, but then again, I would not be surprised whatsoever if it's Patty versus Ilya, whenever it is. Does either beat Ilya, in your opinion? No.

No. I think Ilya is the most skilled guy in mixed martial arts on the planet. He did steal my line the other day when he said, you know, see me at the top. Oh. But with that being said, you know, he wrote that cryptic message. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. T.M. I'm like, this dog, I'm here stealing my lines.

But, no, but with that being said, I think he's the most skilled guy on the entire planet. You know, him and Alex Maheda, obviously, are just absolute monsters. but I think Ilya's got the edge in that one. How do you think Islam does next weekend? JDM is a tough. He's not much of a puzzle, man. He's pretty basic, but he is brilliant and violent and devastating with the basics, man. A little bit of range, you know, a little bit of reach on Islam.

And I won't even sit there and say, because Islam's a different breed, man. I wouldn't sit there and say, oh, he's a 155 or so he's not used to going with 170-pounders. I would not be surprised if Islam, his and, entire career has been sparring with 5570, 185, and 205ers because the dude's kind of a nut. So I don't think strength or size is going to be the problem. It's really going to be the dichotomy, the dichotomy between JDM's great striking abilities and is his takedown defense enough to stop the onslaught of wrestling that Islam is going to bring because I do think, you know, even the stand-up battle against Porier,

poor a does hit hard because i witnessed that and felt it first hand but he doesn't he's no way he hits as hard as jdm um so i think it'll be interesting man i think islam's going to get tagged up a couple times and and we're going to see if he goes to that wrestling pretty quick but i think jdm's a monster man i think jd i give jdm the slight the slight favor or the slight nod in that one um but i would not be surprised if islam is holding the belt and then you now you got a whole other conundrum where you got ilia m won the super fight and then all that stuff so so we'll see what happens, man. Crazy sport. Crazy sport. We'll end on this, and I'll ask it in a different way because I like you two

very, very much. Is there a moment on set, you and Dustin, shake hands, bygones, be bygones? Was there any of that, break bread, any interactions? There was. There was. Yeah, it was good. Tell us. Tell us. No, it's good interactions. I mean, it's, well, first of all, we have an international peace treaty, too. So, like, once you go, once you go to a foreign land, anything that happened in your homeland goes away. Okay.

But no, I mean, it's one of those deals where, number one, even if he hates my guts and I hate his guts, which is not really true. We've just had some disagreements here and there. The respect that Dustin operates with and the respect that I operate with, we're not there to make it about us. You think I'm going to disrespect Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh and the production and all the stuff by, you know, starting something with Dustin? or him doing the same thing with me it was cordial it was even more than cordial it was uh you know bringing up stuff uh about our fight you know and talking about disagreements because obviously you got buffers there too yeah you got tiring you got wonder boy you got MVP you got all this kind of talking and we're talking as fighters like oh yeah i remember that time you know we did that you know

it's it was cool it was fine and and he's he's a stud and i wish him well in his retirement i was very happy to hear that he was um you know coming on set and and going to be in the movie. So it's, it's going to be good, man. It's going to be a really, really, really good movie with some really awesome people involved and attached. You saw some of the other names, Dave Batista. Wow. Peter Sarsgaard, who's a stud, man. So it's going to be cool. Okay, looking forward to that. For now, looking forward to November 29th, Win Trust Arena in Chicago. Weekend of Thanksgiving. Usually there aren't a lot of big events going on in combat sports. you'll get one November 29th, exclusively on Fox Nation.

Chad Mendez, Money Mendez against Michael Chandler, a dream match of sorts. WEC versus Bellator from back in the day. Love it. Thank you so much, Mike. Good luck in training and good luck in the match. Yes, sir. Thanks, Ariel.

See at the top. All the best. There he is. The great Michael Chandler, who also, by the way, has his own YouTube channel right now, Walk on Wisdom, I do believe it's called, and you can check it out right over there.

Iron Mike. doing his thing. So looking forward to that. Didn't know Batista was in Roadhouse 4. The cast is really fleshing out, man. I love it. The what? The what?

Oh yeah, the cast, yeah, yeah. Did you say Roadhouse 4? Oh, yeah, we talked about this earlier. So basically, it's sort of like Izzy versus Pereira, right? There were two old ones. So we're calling it Roadhouse 4. We don't call them old. We call them classics.

Classics. Last one was Roadhouse 3. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when he says we, he means only. Only him exclusively. Well, it depends on, like, I think Izzy Pereira is, you know, three, four. No, I think we could go back to the tape in 22, and we all referred to it as just Izzy Pereira.

By the way, there was a fight we were just talking about. Why did this come up last week? Where we were like, is this? I think it was Izzy Pereira. We were also talking. It was Izzy Pereira. It sounds like an old man, like off. I know, but off microphone, like, that's in the set with it.

I bet we could get, like, 15 drops. from Lou from earlier. Is that a directive right now? No, but I think he was, at one point, I was wondering if he was going to slap me in the face. I was walking him out, he was just like, do you hear the interview? I was like, yeah, I heard it, Lou.

I heard it. You didn't even need that. Everyone in the office heard it, man. You got to love it. All right, one more guest, and then we'll get to more questions, and then we'll call it a day about what? Six days ago?

Six days ago. Yes, it was, in fact, six days ago. October 30th in Nashville. DBX. Dirty Boxing had its official fourth event, fourth and a half, if you count the first one, which was kind of a pilot. We talked about this with Mike on Monday. But the big story was Gable Steven, obviously national champion, gold medalist, you know the history by now, making his DBX debut. And this was interesting because it's striking only. Can't use your wrestling. Well, it couldn't have gone any better for him in the main event against Billy Swanson. He won via

a first round K.O. in just 15 seconds. Here it is. Here it is. In case you missed it, we could play the whole 15 seconds for you right here and now in a nice bite-sized little clip. Do we have it? Do we have it? There it is. There's Gable. Top left.

Swanson, bottom right. Dan Mirgliata, in the middle. Enjoy. Love the ring. Love the setup. Oh, a couple jabs there. Nice little uppercut. Some ground and pound, and that's all she wrote.

This is my favorite part, by the way. Oh, well, we'll show. Yeah, there it is. We missed it. We missed it. We missed. Oh, and then he's got the guns out, and he hugs the great Johnny Bones-Jones. Let's talk to the man who were just talking about Gable Steven, who's kind enough to

join us here on this Wednesday afternoon. Hello, Gable. How are you? Great. How are you? I'm doing great. Congratulations on the wind. Did you enjoy that?

Of course, yeah, man. A big knock on my first ever. I think that's the hardest I've ever hit anybody. Cool feeling. Is it weird to just compete for 15 seconds when you're used to, you know, longer matches? You hardly, I don't even think you broke a sweat, to be honest. Maybe the jump was the hardest part of the whole thing. Is that weird for you?

Like, did you feel like you had more to let out afterwards? Of course. You know, I trained for the five, three minutes. You know, I wanted to go out there and showcase and kind of take my time. But the way the land worked and I went out there and scored a big knockout and who would have ever thought. Billy tried to make it a little personal in the lead-up. Did that bother you? You know, it's a, I look at it as, you know, it's a guy trying to go out there and showcase who he is. You know, he's going to say a lot of freaky things and crazy things, and he probably did, but who came out on top of myself?

And that's all that matters to me. Okay, so you didn't feel like it got under your skin or, I mean, clearly it all worked out. He was trying to do that. Did it get to the point where you felt like it was personal? No, it's not personal. I think you poke the bear too much and look what happens. You know, I was super motivated. You know, a lot of things that even after the press conference, I went to the gym probably 10 to 10 p.m. to midnight. You know, we're all in there just training and having a good time. So definitely burns the fire me, and I kind of want to go out there and really put it on it even harder after that. So what's interesting is you say that you're motivated. I'm wondering, because there was no wrestling involved, really for the first time in your life, no grappling involved whatsoever in an athletic competition, like a mono-e-mano fight. just striking, this is new for you, were you feeling nervous? Were you feeling at any point like what have I gotten myself into? No, not what I've got myself into. I think a lot of it was I was prepared. You know, I wouldn't put myself in this position if I didn't believe that I was

prepared to do this. And John, Brandon Gibson and a lot of other guys were helping me prepare for this. And so, you know, just go out there and have a good time. You know, if you believe in yourself, why not try things that scare you? And definitely, staying on the feet is going to scare a lot of people, but that day didn't scare me. Last time we spoke to you was back in September after the win in LFA, your pro-MMA debut, which went obviously very well. How did this come about? Like for this to be the next move, how did it come about?

I think the main thing is you've seen a meeting. I didn't throw any strikes my first LFA match. So I wanted to go out there and kind of be like, hey, let's handicap Gable. Let's go out there and kind of show the world that he can be comfortable in the ring, not pull punches, have good head movement. And I think I did a fair enough job to go out there and get a job done. Most definitely got out. There's a lot of things to keep working on and I'll keep progressing. DBX obviously, you know, very new, very young. What did you make of the promotion, the rules, everything that they're trying to do?

It's great. It's new. It's something that a lot of people haven't seen before and still haven't seen. And hopefully after my fight, you know, a lot of people can gravitate to that promotion and kind of go out there and go out there and have a great time themselves. You know, it's ran by John Jones and company and Mike Perry also, you know, the King of Violence. So, man, it's ran by a great group of people. think they're going to keep building it where it can get to to aren't, get to aren't, get to a place where a lot of people can see it in. And it's going to be happy to see. Was this just a one-off for you?

You never know, man. We talked about bringing it to Minneapolis. Minneapolis would be crazy because I'm from Minnesota and hopefully we can kind of bring it there. But if it's a one-off for me, I feel like I did a great job for them and promoted them well. Went out there and held my head high, put my hands up, and got a big knockoff for them. UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard was there in attendance, ringside. Did you have a chance to talk to him afterwards?

I did talk to Mick. You know, it's cool to go out there. I have one fight, you know, to go out there and have a guy so high up in the UFC come and watch me, you know, it's a blessing. But you want to go out there and I'm focused before and I'm focused on the interviews after. I'm focused on meeting people, I'm taking picture with the kids and kind of showing them that, hey, I'm not a bigger-than-life person.

You know, I'm a guy that you can have an interaction with. And so I talk to Mick, great convoy, healthy, and we'll see where it goes from there. Okay. Any fight offers? Any contracts? Not that I know of. You know, there might be one that someone's getting ready to call me about right after this interview. So I'll be waiting to pick up the phone.

Tell us about it. Who's that? Who's that? You know, just some nice people that I talk to. Okay. Well, you see, look, I won't beat around the bush. I had the CEO of the PFL in our studio yesterday and I said to him like, if I'm the PFL,

if I was running the PFL, I would have offered Gable-Stevson a contract last week before this. Like, this is the type of guy that you need in your promotion. And my understanding is that has never happened and that blows my mind. And so if I'm the UFC, I offer you a contract last week. Are we at the point where we're talking to these big dogs? Because when I asked you after the LFA fight,

you said you were taking your time a little bit, maybe another fight for them. Are we at that point now? I feel like I'm still taking my time I feel like there's still a lot of things for me to gain being in a lot of more fights I mean I would love to take my time I would love to see the landscape and really kind of go out there

and fill myself out and see where I can take this fighting game at and you know PFO is a great thing you know UFC is a great thing maybe both contracts will hit the table I'm not sure but I know where I want to go and I know where superstardom comes and I think I can I think I can be something big which is where

oh man you know it could be both it could be pit fell it could be but um like i said a superstar comes wherever gay boy is so that's how i like to treat it um is there a chance you fight again this year there's like two months left in 2025 you've been active two months in the last couple months uh two fights excuse me in the last couple months is there a chance you get one more in this year most definitely i'm looking at uh going in a hopefully in a few weeks again i would love to give i would love to stay active as possible i told you this the first first time. If I can go out there and keep being active and get used to the ring and get used to being in that cage before I go to the big stage, I would love to do that. And, you know,

there's going to be guys that are trying to win matchups. And I feel like I have the better, better foot right now forward. And I want to keep the momentum going. And I think we got really great momentum after that dirty boxing match. Okay. And would that be an MMA? Yes, it would be. Okay. Fair to assume LFA? I would like, yeah, I would love LFA. You know, LFA is great. The best place to go to get to the UFC, to have the most people watch, to have the most people kind of buy into who you are. And I would love to go back to LFA. And if I can get one on their promotion, I'll be great.

By the way, by the time your career is, you know, a consistent thing, and right now, this would be your third fight in about three months. What would be the ideal weight for you as a heavy weight? I'm about 256 right now, 255. I'd love to get to 250 and kind of sit there. And if I can get even lower and kind of clean up my stomach and clean up my top half and making more strong, I would love to. But I feel like this is just the start of me rebuilding who I am and my body and kind of keeping it healthy. But I would love to go out there and be 250, really solid and just have that look that people want to be like, wow, like I can watch this guy. He can

throw hands, he can wrestle, but also he looks good. And I feel like that's a big thing for just marketability and going out there and having people be like, wow, I want to pay for this guy to watch the fight. And so obviously you're training with John and Brandon Gibson and those guys in Albuquerque. You're not living in Albuquerque, though, right? No, I live in Minnesota still, but I spend normally a lot of the time in Albuquerque with them. Those are my guys. I love them. I appreciate them. They show me tremendous amount of love, but home is in Minneapolis, and that's where probably forever will be. Okay, so you would never relocate there to train their full time? I think I probably would. You just, you never know.

Right now, I'm not sure. But I do spend a fair amount of time with those guys, but maybe maybe relocation is if it's needed it's always going to be necessary do you have a team and a gym that you train with in minnesota when you're not over there yes i do i there's a there's a place in prior lake i got a guy named uh billy simon who i've been working with for a couple years now um just just in a nice low-key spot that he has for us there's partners too and it's a it's a great atmosphere too with him do you go to the university of minnesota as well to to you know stay sharp with the wrestling yeah i still go every day tomorrow i'm actually wrestling i'm actually wrestling i Tomorrow, I got matches tomorrow.

What does that mean matches? Matches with a, I got a guy named Trent Hilger. He's going to the Bill Farrell for USA wrestling. He's going to wrestle his weekend, try to win his tournament. He's got to go against a guy named Mason Parris, who's a tough opponent. But I'm here to get him ready tomorrow. He's going to leave tomorrow also, and hopefully he can pull out those wins this weekend. But this isn't official matches, right?

This is you helping him train. This is just me helping him train. Okay, okay, okay, wow. So you're going there on a daily basis, still back with the T. Are you training with the team as well, with the goal of the gophers? I like to train with the team because they're in season now, and it kind of gives me the real feel. It makes me feel like I'm always in camp. So I always, I lift with them every day.

I wrestle with them almost every day. Condition with them every day. And then in the evening, I go and hit pads. I do MMA practice and then go home, sit in the ice tub, sit in the hot tub, and then and repeat normally every single day. Wow, wow, wow. Okay. What is John saying to you as far as like your acceleration? would he like for you to go to the UFC now or does he like this pace?

He likes his pace. John's big on kind of making things bigger than they should be and that's what he's trying to do right now and so he likes this pace, he likes where I'm going, he likes to feel, he likes to look and he likes the traction that we're getting by doing all these events so quick and keeping this momentum going. So it's crazy to see how fast things are going. I feel like we talked about getting to a big place and over a long period of time and maybe it might happen faster than we think, but man, I'm thankful for it and it's a, I'm thankful for it

And it's a blessing to have a guy like that in my corner. Do you have a number of fights in mind where you think, like, I want to get to this amount of fight? Sort of like an amateur career, but it's not amateur, obviously. Before I go to the big league, so to speak, do you have that in mind? I think whatever, man, whenever I feel confident enough to, I feel confident right now. Sorry, I feel very confident right now, I can go on there in battle. But whenever I feel like we are at that time that John looks me in the face and says, hey, now it's the time to take that next step. And when he says it, we'll be ready and we'll take it from there.

But, man, I'm fully confident right now that I can go into a big promotion and kind of make waves. But I'm not at that point. And I don't like to speak too far ahead. But I do see myself being something special. Do you leave it up to him? Ultimately, it's going to be his call? It's his call, but I also think it's my call, too. And that's what he has a good transparency on what he thinks is best.

But he also listens to a lot of things I say. And he's also really big on if you want to go ahead and do it, let's do it. And so I think that's where we're at with our relationship. And he'll make the best call and the best business call for me. But I think competitive-wise, I think he'll know and I'll know when I'm ready. By the way, how did you guys link up? It was just an Instagram DM, maybe 2021. He reached out to you or you to him?

I reached out to him because I was still actively wrestling. And I said, if you were like a wrestling partner, I'm here, I don't mind getting beat up by you. I don't know how to guard or do anything that you may need. Like, I'm a hard worker. and I think he respected that. Wow, and then he invited you out. He invited me out. He got injured first, he came in.

The second one, he invited me out, and that's how we kind of clicked. And from day one, man, it was a good relationship for so. I love that. You know, it's interesting because I don't know how much you pay attention to the heavyweight divisions in the UFC, PFL, etc. But it's probably one of the worst times ever for the heavyweights. And I'm wondering when you watch these guys, you're like,

oh, man, just with your wrestling and limited MMA experience alone, I could steamroll through these guys. Do you think that way? No, I don't think that way. I think there's a lot of great competitors out there. And do I feel that I can compete with them right now? Sure, of course. But I would never go out and say that I can be a negative 1,000 to a champion or something like that.

I'm always a guy that's going to look ahead and say, hey, I'm confident my abilities. I know what I can bring to the table. And when it's time, I will be ready and I will showcase who I am. But for now, I'm just a, I'm a regional fighter that has a platform that's doing well. and somehow making waves in the community. So, man, I'll stay humble. I'll stay grounded. And when my time comes, you will see that new side of me.

Is the dream the White House card, debut on the White House card? Man, that would be lovely. That would be lovely. And I feel like we talked about this last time. But I think the best thing about it is I see John is hungry. And when I'm always around him, I know he has that competitive side in him. Because he brings it when I'm around. but he's hungry now

and I know he wants to fight I know he wants that main event and I know he wants Alex Pereira and Alex Pereira wants him also so I think it's a great thing to have John training myself training with him a big lead up to the White House card

and maybe we're both on it but that's perfect world and you know the world's never perfect but if it can work out that way man we would love it. You think it happens? Do you think him and Alex happens on that card?

Man I would think I think you need an American guy that can that is the best of the best, and that's John Jones. He's American. He's a 17-time title defender. Alex Pereira's a dog also, man. He's going to go out there and battle. But I think John is in a great spot to go out there and put pressure on Alex and beat him and come out with his hand raised in front of the White House, in front of the world watching and retire from there maybe. Yeah, you know, it's crazy. I don't think, I'm pretty sure up the top of my head, there's never been a UFC card that

featured two Olympic gold medalists on it. There's a very good chance. I feel like where we could see you and Kayla Harrison on that card in June, and that would be historic. Man, that would be super historic. Kayla, she's a dog, too. I watched her last fight, man. She's got all of it, and then some. So it's cool to see another Olympic gold medal that's kind of thriving in this sport. So hopefully I can come out there, and we can both be on that card and kind of win for our

country and go out there and beat the guy and gal that they put in front of us. I remember we talked a little bit about Real American Freestyle Wrestling. We just had Chandler on who's going to be competing for them. What have you seen? Have you seen anything? Have you watched? Do you like what they're doing? What are your thoughts?

Now that they've had a couple events. I still think it's a great promotion. And it's crazy that Chandler and Chad Mendez are for wrestling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's great for wrestling. I think it's great for R.F. I think it's great for everybody involved. I would love to see a great matchup with Chandler and Mendez.

but they haven't wrestled in a long, long time and to come out from not wrestling to wrestling, I'm curious to see how they do. But I think I'm going to go with Michael Chandler on this one. I think Chad Mendes is a great opponent, but I think Michael Chandler just still having that uniqueness, that explosiveness, I think he's going to pull it off. Have you talked to them?

Have they reached out to you? Yes, they have. And any interest? I'm really not sure. I'm still committed on fighting. They reached out a fair amount of times. I've told them, hey, sorry, you know, I'm just trying to get better in this sport that I'm new to. I feel like if I go bounce back and forth, I don't want to get in that path again,

of bouncing back and forth between things. If it pops up and it looks nice, man, I would do it. But right now, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I feel like I got a big fire in my stomach to kind of go out there and prove a lot of people wrong, but also prove myself and get to that next stage. And the last time I had this burn was 2021 at the Olympics in 2022 at NCAA season when I I was pushing to kind of finish off in the right way. So I got a big burn to me right now, and I'm confident myself, and I want to keep on this path that I'm going. Ultimately, you reach the mountaintop in the sport of wrestling on two occasions, right?

National Champion. So now you've got this new thing. To go back to the old thing probably doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't want to say that. I think it makes great sense to go out there and keep competing wrestling and keep sharp and keep the lungs open. You know, 2028 is in L.A. You know, we put a good thought to what if Gable came. back and went out there and won a second gold medal while being high up and a fight promotion

and kind of create an international superstar. So I think it's a great idea, but time will tell that story. And like I said, I don't like to look too far and I like to stay grounded to where I am. You're still thinking about that, though, right? I still think about it here and there. It's a how cool moment for me. It would be, hey, no heavyweight is ever won the Olympic twice. You're still young. You can still do it. You've still got that fire, you still got that pep in your step, why not try it? But it's a hypothetical for me. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it's not the other world. All right. Well, you are well on your way. Congrats on the win. Very impressive stuff. By the way, the jump I think might

have been my favorite part. That thing, me too. Yo, the jump is like effort. Look at this thing. Look at this. It reminded me of Brock. That's years of playing basketball. Okay. I didn't know you had some game on the court. I got some game. I'm looking for a 10 day from the Minnesota Timberwell. They need a center to back up Rudy Gaubert. So, wait, hey, look at that shop, by the way. This is a great picture. That's a great.

This is a fantastic picture, man. Shout out to our guy, Romo. He caught this picture, man. This is a fantastic picture. Yo, what is your vertical? Do you know? I actually did it today, and it was like 34. Wow.

Wow, wow, wow. It's crazy. And then the guns. Who are you shooting, by the way? So that's Arthur Jones, John Jones, brother who sadly passed away. Man, man, he rests in very. very good piece, man. He was a great human being. But that was his sax celebration. Wow, I didn't realize that. Wow. And I'm sure that touched John. Did he realize right away what you were doing? He realized right away. We talked about it before. He said, hey, if you do some crazy, there's be the cherry on the top. And I said, man, I got you. I was with Arthur at John's last fight. Many great combos, great human, great person. Man, I sad to see someone like that go so soon. But you just never know. You just never know who you're going to see. And I feel like,

And treat everyone with kindness. You never know when some of the day is going to come. Amen. Well, congratulations. Well done. Looking forward to the next one. Perhaps we see you back in there sooner rather than later, right? Maybe the next month or so.

Maybe the next month. Hopefully. I'm looking for the next month. Just trying to find a place to go, and I will be there. Thank you, Gable. All the best and congrats. No, I appreciate it. There he is.

Gable Steven, victorious now in MMA, victorious in Dirty Boxing. And I didn't know. I didn't know about that that honor that he was paying to the late great Arthur Jones, former Syracuse, Orange, Indianapolis, Colt, Baltimore Raven, brother of one John Jones

who shockingly and suddenly passed away just a few weeks ago. So very nice stuff and that is a really cool. That is a really cool photo. So I'm sure something that John and both Gable will cherish. And I like this. He's getting three fights in,

back end of 2025, one being a non-MMA fight, but get active, get some minutes in, some rounds. I mean, the fights aren't lasting very, very long, and that's fine. This is how you build someone up. So I am curious as to how many of these he is going to take before going to probably the UFC. Let's be 100% honest. I'm going to set the line at five. You guys taking the over, under. So we're now at two. I'm going to include the DBX. We'll say he has a third. fight coming up. That'll be in LFA, I think. I'll set the line at you know what? I'm going to set the line at four. Well, give us a half. Give us a half. Okay, four and a half. Four and a half. So his fifth fight.

We're about to be on third. Fifth fight will be in the UFC, is what you're saying? Yeah. I'm going to say, I'm going to take the over. Yeah, I do not think he does one more and then his next is in UFC. Yeah, I'll take the over as well. Yeah, I guess you're right. The question is, do you put him on contender series? No. I think they would like to do that. They did the same thing with Bo Nicol, but I don't think he's a contender series fighter.

I was going to say, it feels like something that they would like to do, but also not only that I don't think he's a contender series fighter, I don't know if the schedule would match up. That means he's not joining to what August? Well, forget the schedule. Who knows what the Contender Series deal is now with Paramount, right? Forget all that.

I'm forgetting it. Bo Nickel was a middleweight, that there's plenty of talent that you can be in that division. True, true, true, true. Gable Steven is instantaneously a top 10 heavyweight. As soon as he enters the UFC, you can't put him on contender series. Like, Gable's Salsa Boy debut, book it. Yeah, you need him there.

Who wins that fight? Who wins that fight? Stop it. Gable, isn't that crazy? No, I don't know if that's actually true, but I think the last. Wait, you don't know that that's true? Wait, who's the favorite in that fight? Who's the favorite in that fight?

I'll give you plus a thousand on Salsa Boy right now. I would imagine Gable Steeveson would be the favorite in that fight. Right now, right now. Like if his Yes. Okay, you know what's crazy? I mean,

it's like a minus 10,000 in LFET. Here's a fun game. Here's a fun game. Tom Aspinall, Gable Steveson. Tom's favorite. Yeah.

Okay? For sure. I want to know how many guys he's the dog against. Gahn Steven. Favorite Gable. I think, I think he's the underdog

to Cereogon. I don't. I actually feel fairly strongly. The wrestling advantage would make him. Maybe not. Maybe even bigger. I mean, this guy's got zero MMA experience.

Okay. Okay, so we'll keep going. We'll keep going. Two, wait, one's DBX and it's a combined what? Rick gets left behind. 15 seconds? Alexander Volkov. I think Volkov's probably the favorite in that.

Whoa, okay. I thought that, I thought you were off the train at that point. Sergei Pavlovich. I mean, do probably Sergey. We're talking about like the top five here. Yeah, this is what I'm going down. If we're doing like a Marcine-Tybura, then like now I'm thinking Gabe was going to be the favorite. Curtis Blades, that might be a tough one.

Or maybe not. Because what's Curtis going to do? Take him down? I don't know. Well, yeah. How's Gable off his back? Bo Nickel was a minus 300 to RDR. He ain't taking down an Olympic gold medalist, Gable Steve said, as a youngster.

Okay, what about Jelton Almeda? I think Gable's a favorite over everybody about Tom Asper. I think. And then the next one is Waldo, by the way. So does he... I'm biased on the Waldo one. I still think that would be closely lined. Oh, my God.

That's crazy. But then, like, who's after Waldo? Sergei Spivak. He's a favorite over survey to be back in it. Derek Lewis, Antidellia, Racine type of him. You don't think... Derek Lewis was kind of interesting.

That is a fun one, right? By the way, that is a fun freaking fight. Also, I don't know shit about making lines. He's a blue chip prospect. This is not some guy, like, it's like... Okay. He's only got three fights. Yeah, he's only got three fights and an Olympic gold medal.

Like, he's a freak. I understand that, but it's about the experience. It's about the experience. It's not, though. It's not. It's not. I mean, Bo Nicol was a minus a billion in, like, his first few fights against jobbers and he rightfully smoked him and then he was a minus 350 or whatever to RDR and got smoked in that one once he

got into the elevation like he just doesn't have enough experience yet the gap between first of all RDR shocked a lot of people right like I think that might have just been a subject to the matchmaking not really catching up with where RDR is but you're trying to book him against Cyril Ghan and you're telling me he's going to be a favorite yeah yeah I don't think so I don't I'll take I'll take I'll take Gable minus plus money against Cyril gone all day

Hey, I'm riding it right to the... And this is not me doubting Gable's skills. No, no, no, no. It's a fun... By the way, you would never... You would never speak about anyone who's one and oh essentially in MMA like this. The line... That's what makes this so unique.

It's an important reminder. I mean, gambling's obviously like the hot topic of the day. It's also a reminder, though. Shrip de Jor, as they say. Yeah, yeah. Who's to check? I was about to make a serious point in that cracked me. Betting lines are not...

Who does the bookmaker think is going to win a fight, right? betting lines are, what does the betting public think of this matchup and wanting to get most action on both sides of the line? It is not a reflection of that. So if the betting public has doubts about Gable Steven, there is a major chance that he's an underdog to these fighters. And that shadowy aspect of doubt about Gable Steven could definitely result in what Connor is saying. I just, the— Yeah, I know a lot of people that would bet the top five. all this makes me want

is to just see him well this is why he can't be on Contender Series Who was doing in Bellator Pat Downey Yeah yeah yeah He was like a minus 1,400 If you think Gable could even Compete with a guy

Like Gahn or Volkov or what Like it doesn't make sense To put him on Contender Series I also not for nothing Like the difference between Bo Nickel and Gable Steveson is Gable Steven is a 250 plus pound man Who's throwing heavyweight leather

Like Bo Nichol's hands need to be a lot sharper at middleweight. He needs to be a lot faster. He needs to have more technique. Heavyweight MMA is not that type of thing, right? We've seen it what Brock. Brock Lesnar could come in and just steamroll people based on his sheer physicality. Gable Steven is entirely capable of that just based on that Olympic wrestling pedigree and being a heavyweight where technique is not as imperative. It is not as important. You can get by on raw power and you're wrestling. By the way, worth reminding everyone,

Brock Lesnar never an Olympic gold medalist entered the UFC with just one fight under his belt. No amateur. It's a fair point. And I don't know. Times are different. Times are different, no doubt. He also was a gigantic WWE superstar that was coming over. He's a physical freak, and Gable Steveson is also that.

Let's not like get confused about who Gable Steveson is. I need to see more than the 15 seconds of striking against Swanson. I don't. I get it. Shoot that double leg. By the way, Brock never really developed into a striker. Like, the way Brock was striking was very rough, but he was such a freak that... Based on what Jolten Omeda was able to do to Volkov, I'm really not liking his chances of stuffing a double leg against Gable Stevenson.

That's how I'm seeing now. I'm just happy that we're down this path, like, you know, the football thing was fun, the wrestling. It should have always been this, in my opinion. Well, he's about to go on a 10-day with the Timberwolves. That's right. By the way, how tall is Gable Steeveson? He's going to be like, what, like 6'1? 6.1. How is he backing up Rudy Gaubert?

He's backing up freaking... 6.1.35 inch fur? In the Glen Big Baby Davis down there. You put the dumper on them. 6-1. When you break it down like that, like an NBA point card... What is an NBA point card? Yeah, like 6-1. No, I know, but how much do they...

Weight-wise? What is Jalen Brunson weigh? Yeah, 100, 60, 70 pounds? Yeah. He's a little bigger than that. God. Jail? Gail? Steeveson would break me now.

I'm not going to fix Jalen's over 67. He would literally take you and go all of us. What a guy, what a guy. By the way, is Lou still back there? No, no, no. Lou is out. He hit the bricks, man.

He's got to, I always think you guys are bad with the phone like tunnel vision. Oh, yeah, yeah. Lou was gone to the world. Oh, yeah. Like you get coffee? Love it. A couple other items, guys.

Speaking of boxers, turn fighters, turn boxers again. Holly Home has her next assignment. It was announced this morning that she's going to be on the January 3rd MVP card in Puerto Rico. There you have it. Again, Stephanie Hahn, highly ranked undefeated fighter for the WBA World Lightweight Title that's 135 pounds, her second fight back, second fight under the MVP umbrella. This will be the co-main. and, by the way, 10, 3-minute rounds.

No one tell Lou, this will be the co-main to the already announced Amanda Serrano versus Erica Cruz fight. By the way, if you want to see a fun fight just for the hell of seeing a fun fight, watch Amanda Serrano versus Erica Cruz won from a couple of years ago at the theater. You'll recall this fight.

This was the fight that happened. This was her next fight post-Kady, and Katie was in attendance, and they were going to announce the rematch that night but Erica and Amanda went to war to such an extreme

bloodied up bruised cut that they had to postpone it and change those plans it was a crazy fight you guys remember that fight it was a February

I think February 2023 if I actually I'm pretty sure I was in attendance for it was at the Hulu Theater yeah I was there for that shut out you were there

yeah I'm pretty sure there was a Derek Lewis card going on at the same time. Yes, I think you're right. You said February 4th? I think it was like February 3rd, 4th. Yeah, yeah, 2020. Or late January, early February.

Am I right? Sure enough, Derek Lewis was headlining against Sergei Spivak that. Hell yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember having to, the phone was on as was watching the fights inside the theater. Why were you guys there? Did we, I think we just got tickets.

Matchroom or something? Someone, I think someone hooked this up with tickets. It was a fun night, though. It was a fun night. Shout out. I think you bet on the Sky Nicholson fight, right? Wasn't she on that card as well? Yeah, Sky Nicholson by decision minus 1,000 or something.

Didn't they announce Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano? Like she went into the ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was very clear that Serrano wouldn't have been fit to fight. PFL announcing this morning that they have signed a deal with Vice TV. Only for, it appears, the Mena, which is Middle East. and North Africa events, PFL MENA, and PFL Africa. They've got, I think it's two, I have the, we have the press release here, there it is,

two events in December and then eight more throughout 2026. So there you go, two events, Mena Championship, December 5th in Saudi, PFL Africa Championship on December 20th in West Africa, and then additional Mena. So it's just Mena in Africa. So some people were confused thinking this is the big, you know, TV deal. No, this is just for their, you know, regional promotions, if you will. And I think, by the way, they'll also have on-demand access to about 50 hours of PFL library fights. I think, I think those were airing on the app.

So you would hope that they're getting some kind of rights fee for this. Does anyone watch Vice TV? I feel like Frank might be a Vice TV guy. I stopped watching it a few years ago. So you were? Yeah. I watched it when I think fuck that's delicious used to be on it. It did.

It's dark side of the ring, dark side of the cage. Frank, what did you like on there? Frank, you all right, man? Yeah, I'm just thinking, yeah. Oh, okay, wow, a lot of dead air for an audio now. A lot of dead air. Is everything okay? No, everything's great.

What's wrong? Nothing, man. Damn. We're watching Frank unravel in real time. I was just thinking of all the fucked up stuff I used to see off I studio deep diving here I liked it, the Mom Dani story

Oh wow That's what he was watching What you were watching YouTube documentaries In the middle of the show Look man You do your thing I do mine All right

All right How about some super chats guys Frank you want to read them Or you need a break I don't know Do you need a lot or something Hey So no Jake Paul fight

Maybe you guys do on something fan related next week? Truth be told, was bandied about, just feels like there's not enough time. What do you guys think? Who's to check? I knew that would be a winner. Let's do a fight day, 5K,

but not have a place to meet up at. Oh. You just run around the city. And then we all do it on that app? Yeah, shout out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you come across anyone in the on Crown group, should we do like an unofficial one?

Remember we did one with the ringer boys? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a great time. Where was that again? Where was that again? It was at that Irish bar. It was the upper, the upper story. Oh, you mean just gather somewhere?

I turned down announcing James Cook being drafted to the Buffalo Bills for that. And you, what a, what a phenomenal era. You're saying just like, get the spot and just, we're going to be at this spot. Yeah. Let's, let's do, let's ask the chat. Chat, how many of you guys are going to be in town? Oh, no, this is opening. How many of you guys are going to be in town?

You guys got to let me know how this goes. You're not coming? Oh, I can, I can't. You're a man of the people. I'm busy. I'm going to get ready for the fight day five. It's just going to be Ariel. All right, good luck.

All right, well, guys, I tried. I'm sorry, I tried. I thought maybe we'd go, what is that place called? Jack Demsies. Shout out Demsies. That is it. J.Ds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So. Who the fuck is we? Yeah, no, I thought we would want to go, but I guess. I'm down. I'm down. I'm down. I'm down. That one is a timely one, by the way, the drop because it's about Chandler and

oh, yeah. I almost pushed it while Chandler was on. They were talking about him mending fences. I was thinking of that. They're friends now. Top three job all time. Yeah, because Chandler's like, yeah, we're all good. And then it would have been tremendous.

Who the fuck is he? He's like, wait, wait, is Dustin here? What else, Frankie? What else? For the record, DJ poked Benavitas in the eye. Brent Brookhouse wrote about it. Folks tweeted about it or blue skyed about it. U.S.C. 152.

All right. let's see Demetrius Johnson I mean the great I'm gonna assume he's correct here I'm gonna go out of limb

Joseph Benavides I poke I remember that one UFC 152 was in Toronto the T dot hmm referee Eve Levine

told Benavitas to continue and said that he didn't see an eye poke so technically there wasn't an official call but oh

disgustes why he didn't call I poke in UFC 152 bout. Wow, interview with Eve Levine? Crazy. What a time. So it seems like a little comcy com cell. What else, Frank? What else? For everyone, what fighter winning the belt would give a Cinderella story type of vibe? For example, Pantoja, Charles, and Leon. Shout out James Cook and Josh Allen. Well, I mean, I think those are three really good ones, to be honest. By the way, I'm reading the play-by-play for this event. It says Benavita says he got poked the eye, but the referee said he didn't see it.

So I don't think it's fair to DJ, to be honest. Who else? Pantosia Leon. I think those are like two of the more emotional ones. Tommy and his dad, even though it was the interim belt. That was something. I think he's asking for like who's next. Who's the one that's going to really tug at the heartstring?

Oh, I apologize. I apologize. I don't think it quite hits the same, but God, Josh Van winning would be pretty incredible in the time frame that he was able to do it at the age he was able to do it. buying mom the house and everything yeah he's got a great story Josh van would be high up there for me at the moment not bad

all right we'll go with Josh pride of Myanmar what else Frank what else I don't normally single people out for praise but I have to state that mysterious Frank's work ethic and drive and excellence inspires me to be better

wow wow wow I'm glad I'm glad to help somebody Duncan both of you laughing through it is the best part yes no I saw work ethic I just damn Frank's full name name is Franklin Duncan Lennes. What a name, by the way. It's fucking crazy.

I try to be a little bit more mysterious next time. By the way, is your full name Franklin? No. Oh. No, nor is it Frankie. It's just Frank. It's like knowing a Jake that their real name isn't Jacob. Yeah, no, no.

Franklin is a great name, though. I mean, for Franklins, yeah, they can have it, but I'm Frank. Isn't it nice to get that type of recognition? I think it's great. I think it's great that any time someone says something positive about me, you guys just all insinuate that I was just saying it about myself. You know, I could take the high road here, but fuck you. What have been watching on Vice lately, man?

You're killing Andy. What else, Frank? What else? He could have spoken any language, and he decided to speak facts. I think this is in reference to Lou. It was in reference to Lou about the women's... He's talking here. He's talking here.

I'm like, Luke, can he just... Then he backed up. He backed up. And he kicked the cable that I'm like... What do we need another minute for? It's fucking bullshit. I love when you ask him a question. What do you think?

This is... Big Lou looking spelt, too. And also, the funniest thing is he's screaming like a madman in the microphone. And then when you single shot him, he's like, he's like smiling through it. It's fucking bullshit! He's like, oh yeah, I had words with that person. I got loud. I love him. I love it. I can't get it up. I can't get it up. Like, even when he's yelling at me, I'm like, this is so much fun.

Looks good, too, man. Shout out to him. Yo, I was once in my tiny Upper East Side apartment watching the UFC, what was it, 71 weigh-ins. And I'm like, wow, Sports Center is talking about the UFC Wayans. And there's Joe Rogan and Lou DeBelle going toe to toe in one of the all-time classic sports center moments and MMA moments. And now the dude is like yelling at me in my studio. Pinch me. It's amazing. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

What a, what a character. What a, I don't agree with everything he says, obviously, but. Yeah, and then at one point he's like this. He's like talking like this. It's like right there. Just talk here. Why are you talking like this? It's just an animated guy.

Oh, my dear. Wow. Amazing. Anyway, what else? What else? To follow up on that. Need to have Lou and Polly on more often. Love this

You know what I don't mind I like I don't mind contentious interviews As long as they don't get Personal and there's You know like

Well the other thing about them Is those two in particular Is it's a It is a conversation right Even though they're very animated Yes It's not just screaming For the sake of screaming

They are actually listening And volleying And trying to like have a debate Even though it's It's New York amplified To 15 They are having a conversation With you

Which I think is amazing I love it I love it. I get genuinely excited for those types of interviews. What else, Frankie? What else? Watch the Oscar de La Jolla interview again. One of the best. Looking forward to see how you're going to top that. Wow. Wow, Sammy. Thank you so much. What's 50 again in the S.E.K? It's a good amount. Swedish Cron. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sammy always got something good to say, man. Shout out, Sammy. Always positive. Just always positivity out of that guy. I love. Personally, my favorite. Oh, yeah. We love Sammy. We're sending respect to Sammy.

What else, Frankie? What else? What else? You and Bonani. Golly, man. The screen literally switched. Bo Mani. Yes. Jones crossed paths. Believe he's with Yahoo Sports now.

I actually don't think he's with Yahoo Sports. No, no, yes. That would be a great. I'm struggling here. I don't think he's with Yahoo Sports. I looked it up. I don't believe he is. He has a podcast under the Wave Sports Network and has been in the business for a long time.

And truth be told, we did cross pass twice. before, we were actually both at SB Nation at the same time. Before they even started the parent company Vox, right when they bought MMA fighting and we came over from AOL, they started to really get into the video business. And yeah, we were in some brainstorming meetings together. I was sitting right next to him. We kind of just did our own thing. We weren't friends really at all, like just talked a little bit. And then, interestingly enough, in the buildup to Maymac, there was a period of time where people were saying that Connor was being racist with some of the things that he said. And I remember after one of the media tours, you know, there was that four-stop tour

after one of them. I asked Connor about this. And I remember Beaumani quote tweeting my interview saying that like the questions were stupid or something like that. And I was like, oh, okay. interesting. And then I was at ESPN at the same time as him and I would see him at the South Street Seaport. But, you know, it was just like, hello, how are you? And that's it. No real interactions. So that's it. It doesn't mean that we can't do an interview or something like that now. I don't really know what we would do an interview about, but I appreciate it. And I don't think he's at Yahoo. So there's no real synergy there. What else, Frankie? What else? How possible do you see a top fighter that is not popular throw a fight, given high-ranked doesn't equal rich?

Gons showing V. John is being questioned. No. I mean, it's not every one side. It's going to be nearly impossible to do because the focus is, like, the point of this and the reason why it's, it makes sense that the speculation would be around Isaac Delgarion and fights like that is because it's easier to get to those guys. There's less money that they're being paid. I would be shocked if there was a main event that it happened to. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it just seems so, so unlikely. It seems so unlikely.

I agree. I agree. It's really about the guys who are making, you know, the entry-level type of money, and those guys aren't. What else, Ricky? What else? Can someone get a count on how many ultimately is Mark Montoya used yesterday? All right, so if you go back to the video on the transcript, it says 13, but... Seriously, there's a transcript. Yeah, there's a transcript on every year. Oh, wow.

Ultimately, it was a valiant effort, but I will not be dethroned, and ultimately I remain the king of ultimately's. I'm going to actually guess that the transcript is off, and there's far more ultimatelys. Well, I think it broke the counting system. I still reign supreme. It feels like it's like word of the week here at Uncrown. It feels like everyone's using it. Chandler was using it, you've been using it, Rick, now I'm using it.

I don't want to say I'm... The ultimately fighting championship. I don't want to say I'm a trendsetter. But though you are. The proof is in the pudding. Speaking of... Rick being the king. At the end of the day.

This last chat says, Most delusional take of the year award goes to Rick saying Gable would be a favorite against gone. Wow. Yeah. I think that fight would be pretty damn easy. I can understand why you'd say no to that, but pretty much everyone else. After that, I would classify him as the favorite, to be honest. I mean, just for reference, like, let's look at Bo Nicol.

Bo Nicol against Paul Craig, many, many fight UFC veteran. What number five, I forget what fight that was, like four or five for Bo Nicol. It's actually pronounced Craig. Oh, sorry, I don't have that pronunciation. Minus 910, Rainier de Ritter, minus 205. Like, we have to stop pretending that the lines are set based on like, well, he's just, like, making his debut. They factor in the fact that he is a blue chip prospect and Cyril Gun's deficiency is in stopping takedowns. It'd be stupid for them to give away money by being like, well, he's only fought four times and it just doesn't work that way.

They have to anticipate the skill set. They have to anticipate that his best quality is Cyril Gun's worst. And that's just how that goes. But if he's a dog, it will be pretty slight, I would imagine, in a matchup like that. I do see two other ones here, Frank, reserved for hell, writes, has everyone completely written off Brandon Moreno, he gave Pantosia his hardest fight, two of three losses weren't in the UFC, no, but he had a lot of opportunities for the belt, so I think there's a desire to see some new blood, but no, he's still very much in the mix. And moving through the dark, writes, this is truly the moment I have been waiting for. I think you just wanted to get that one in there. truly the moment I have been waiting for. Two of the three losses

Tabantosia were in UFC and then one was on the ultimate fighter. Right. Let me get to a few other questions real quick just so I don't piss off everyone because there were a lot on the substack. This is from Clay for New York, Rick,

mostly listening to A.H. show during the week, but empty of podcasts on the weekend. Can you update us on what you're currently listening to and a few favorites from the last few years. I sure can. From the podcast King himself. So, in my rotation, the big picture, very high. Movie podcast from the ringer.

Fantastic listen. Also, the watch. Oh, man, there's a lot of ringer on here. Zach Lowe Show, The Watch. Ringerverse. Shout out to the Midnight Boys. Simmons. Happy, sad, confused. A great movie podcast by an interviewer named Josh Harrowitz. rewatchable is also with the ringer comedy bang bang always a staple mind the game mine the game is back

with LeBron and Steve Nash they had Steph Curry on yesterday's episode or maybe even today's episode really really good stuff Is it good? Yeah I didn't like I did not like JJ and LeBron I really like the Steve Nash and LeBron version

JJ and LeBron felt like two guys just being like basketball is so cool man and it was just like that Steve actually knows how to like kind of guide the conversation better. Pablo Tori fans out, obviously, that came up earlier today. Some great investigative journalism on that one. Smart list is a great one.

Lots of good interviews there. Yeah. Check out those. All right. That's a good list. G.C., what about your list? No, I'm kidding. What the fuck?

Jordan. Jordan says, hey, Ariel and the boys, what is your go-to cheat meal? it almost suggests that we're like crazy workout guys but like what you know like Sundays I like to go crazy I guess like it's like the thing that you know

isn't really good for you but you just love to fuck it for you yeah to me it's probably pizza like I could eat a full like large pizza and just be a picking shit now you know in my later years

it doesn't quite sit the same way you know it's a matter of time I'll tell you, man. The tummy rumbles a little bit, you know? I'll feel you. I'll never forget this scene. No, no, no, I'll never forget this scene.

If you want to know, if you want to know. So I've told you about dominoes back in the day, Sunday night at my house, the olives and the pineapple and all that. That was it. That was the order. Like, I think about it, and I feel it. I feel it right here. I had fast food pizza with olives and pineapples on it. You know, I've heard you say that I feel it right here thing a billion times.

I don't actually understand what that is. I don't know what that's Harper. What do you feel? What is here? I feel's full. I can literally taste it. When you eat food, it's here? That's literally indigestion.

I taste it. I can hear the NFL countdown music where I could see us eating. It's like it's right there. Yes. Take me back. It was the perfect antidote. It was the perfect antidote to the Sunday blues. It was like, oh, Sunday night countdown or NBA on NBC.

have a relationship with the domino's got like was it the same like legendary every sunday it was the and also my mom was a big believer in never ordering food like we it was the only time we ever ordered food she's always cooking and this was your one this is the one treat and it was sunday dominoes for me was green olives and pineapple and so here's how it like how it affected me my first job out of college 2004 to 2005 i'm working as a production assistant at hbo sports i have have a visa, because when you go to school in the United States, you get, and you're a non-American, you're a foreigner, you get a one-year visa. It's either called an O-P-T or a C-P-T. I forget which one's which. One is for an internship while you're in school, and then one's for the year after

you graduate, to work in the industry that you studied in. And so I think it was an O-P-T, and so I get this one-year visa. I think it's actually C-P-T. Damn it. Okay, so it's C-P-T. And so you're doing this for a year, and then you hope that someone's going to sponsor you and get you to H-H-1B, visa and you're well in your way. And so my year is coming to an end and I go to a meeting with my boss, Brian Hyland, love the guy. And he's like, we love you kid. He's like one of those like old school New Yorkers. You're going to stick around. You're going to work on the Costa show. You're going to work on real sports, documentaries, like you're in. And I'm thinking, all right, this is my career. This is my life. I'm going to be working in production at HBO. And I was so happy because I was nervous that,

you know, if they said, we're not going to offer you something, I had to go back to Montreal. It's very, very nervous. So that was such a relief. It was such a great feeling. And so what did I do? I went to my apartment, 61st in York in Manhattan, sat down my tiny studio, ordered a domino's pizza, olives and pineapple, a large for myself. And I remember sitting there thinking like, I made it. This is it. This is the dream. I'm living in New York. I just got a full-time job from HBO Sports. I'm having Domino's pizza by myself. The whole large. I don't have to share this with anyone. Olives and pineapple. Now the olives were like not

quite the green that I liked, a little more Kalamata than fully green, but it was the closest that I could get to that Sunday night eating dominoes and watching NFL countdown or the NBA and NBC, depending on the time of year. It was great vibes. Two days later, by the way, I was called back into his office

and he said that HR wasn't going to sponsor my visa and that I had to leave by the end of the month. So it didn't quite work out the way. Yeah, it didn't work out. But you know what? Look how it all turned out. Do you think the pineapple being eaten after dinner technically is what did it? No, no, no, no.

But it was a nice, it was a nice memory. Anyway, Gavriel, Shalom Ariel, new gout, Rick, Connor. What? Berksaki and the whole crew, I don't know what that is. I think the Berksaki is maybe like a reference to like Guram, like trying to make it rush. Got it. Okay, fair enough. Been a long time listener.

I still don't know some of the Halwani lingo. Why is giving yourself? a pat on the back called the old Barry H. Barry Horowitz was a WWF jobber. And his thing was like when they would say, and his opponent weighing 265 pounds, Barry Horowitz, and he would turn around and give himself a pat on the back.

And his tights also had like a finger print on him. And so to me it's like you're giving yourself a pat on the back. It's the old Barry H. In honor of the great Barry Horowitz. Did want to clarify. It is in reference to the referee that I look like. Lucas Bosaki. Ah, there is.

Burke Sacky. My struggle to remember that guy's name is next level. Sorry, I got it. Lucas Bosaki. I did get a lot of messages regarding my revelation that I felt like I got sick after getting the flu shot. A lot of messages about this. All to just say, like, I believe in this stuff.

I just felt really crappy afterwards. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm self-diagnosing myself. I'm not out here trying to deter you or not deter you to get a flu shot It's just Yeah, Frank's been on fire today I gotta say

This is a better day for Frank Other than that moment Where he froze randomly And everybody was like I mean Frank Do you want me to read one? Would you like me to read one? Please.

Is it oh, it's about the flu shot? No, no, I don't want you to read them. Please do not. Okay, I just want to tell you It's from G. No, no, no. It's from G. You don't want it?

No. Okay. No, I like this. AVA is here, baby. I don't think we need vaccine. We got his voting for Sliwa last night and now we're talking Jabs, baby. Let's know. Shout out to...

A little Ivermectum? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. I don't want to go to this. By the way, I even posted something in support of Joe Rogan last night on my social media. It's all coming together. It's all coming together, baby, A-V-A.

All right, all right, fine, I'll skip it. I'll skip it. I think you made a great statement there. You support everybody's decisions to make their own choices. Peace and love. Peace and love. Come on, Frankie. That was a good excuse.

to, no? Come on, man. I'm in control of the button. G.C., blind rank these five performances. Oh, yeah. Vogue versus Holloway three. That was fucking,

that was an ass beating two. I'll put that in number two. Garbrand Cruz. Wow, this was like, I've only watched it on a replay. But man, the way that people talk about Garbrand that night. McGregor Alvarez. I'll do three for that. McGregor Alvarez.

Double champ. one. Holloway Cater. This was like right on the cusp when he landed like 400 significant strikes, four. Humza, DDP. Yeah, five.

That's a good rank. I don't mind that list. No, you did good, G.C. Hamzaa came out with a picture of his back today that If you're a fan... It's frightening. Oh, yeah.

If you're a fan from the era, though, I feel like there are a lot that would rank Garbrandt Cruz 1. I think there are a lot that would put that one. Oh, it was amazing. I mean, once he broke out like the freaking robot on them? Yeah. Jesus.

It was a ride. That's when like a dude's in a flow state. MBE 28. Hello, Ireland, gang. This is a fun one. Quick question for you. Which one's worse? A fair weather fan or a bandwagon fan?

It's a really good question. Interesting, yeah. I feel like bandwagons are not as bad. Oh, I was going to say I think bandwagons are worse. Really? Okay. Because you're just jumping on whoever's good, whereas like... But fair weather, like, you're on and off.

I'm a fair weather hawks fan. Come with me on this. How many eight-seed playing tournament seasons where they just end up doing nothing can you watch? But if they were like the one seed, I would be watching. But bandwagon fans are almost like wallpaper, like to me. Like I don't even consider them real fans. We don't really acknowledge them. They're kind of just there.

Whereas a fair weather fan, it's like you're faking the investment and then you switch it. I feel like there's more, it's more annoying to me because I notice it as opposed to like somebody who's just like jumping on the bandwagon. just like, yeah, they weren't here. We don't, we don't count them. We don't count them over there. I think fair, look, I hate, here's, I'll tell you the fan that I hate the most. It's not the fair weather. Yeah, it's not the bandwagon. It's, by the way, there's a, do you guys know that there's a Dodgers, there's a Dodgers account that's going after me? Yeah, no, it should be. Hell yeah. You know about this? No, I don't know anything about this. Yo, this, I don't think I've seen a single Dodgers thing since they won the World Series.

This dude, this dude clipped off me saying that they look like jackasses. And it has 200K views right now and someone just sent it to me like. Is the Dodgers play-by-play guy coming after your neck yet? Listen. What's his name? Joe Pesci? No. I don't know what his name is.

Joe Jibroni. Listen, listen, listen. I actually like this comment. These, these dudes, it's fine. It's fine. Listen, I'm telling you that I'm bitter. I'm telling you that I'm bitter, but I'm also 100% accurate with everything I'm saying. I don't even know how this came up

I'm unbiased I'm just bitter They acted like jackasses You shouldn't have Hosted the parade Shall I go into all this all over again You said these are the fans I hate And then I joke

That it was Dodger fans The gatekeeping fans Where were you Where were you when we were You know 2 and 14 Where were you when we were 17 Now fuck that man

Okay so then you support the bandwagoners You're okay with them jumping on What you want to be? My favorite it is when they talk about the Lakers, and it's just like, I had to watch this Lakers lineup. It's like the 2012 Lakers or whatever it was when they were just terrible, when they were just got awful. The Nicks. Everyone's like, well, my thing with the Lakers is that it's like, oh, okay, you had to suffer through that after winning five titles in the 2000s. It's like, you'll be okay. Oh, that one, too. Oh, yes, there's that one too when they said, yes, yes, yes. There's also like, if you weren't watching.

I had to watch the 2014 Lakers. It's like, yeah, you also got to see five chips and Kobe and Shaq. Relax. And then it's like, if you weren't at home on a Sunday watching this. you don't deserve to be... Nah, get out of you. I have so many friends like that, like when the Eagles were bad, back when we worked at ESPN, I had a dude who threw like a temper tantrum in the office.

I was like, hey, man, just calm down. The team's just not that good. You got to accept that he's like, nah, real fans get mad at every game. I was like, okay. No, they don't. You just let it ride, man. No, they really don't.

And, like, there's no honor. The bills were horrible when my kids were super young, right? Like when my son was one, two. You think I was going to spend a Sunday watching a shitty team led by Nathan Peter men like you know I was aware of what was going on I ain't watching that they didn't care like me with the Hawks you support from afar I support I support yeah when the team is shit they're shit you don't waste your time on yeah what is that what am I going to do sit here and watch all 82 games

when I know it's going to be a playing game loss I went to bills jets in September and I'm like I'm sorry but I'm like these people are losers what are they doing wow wow what are they doing I'm sorry you're the guy that drives by the Halloween party it's like a grown man dressing up in a costume, I got to go invest in real estate. You're about to get walloped. Why are you here? Okay, I will. I'll make the argument. Going to the game is different. Like, going to the game is fun. You do it with your friends. No, I don't think it's worse. I think it's worse. I think it's worse, too. A pain in the ass to sit on your ass for four hours and watch your team lose 31 to 10. That's pretty bad, too. Going to the game is fun, though. It's an event. It's an activity. Such a pain in the ass with the parking and the

driving. Sometimes New Yorkers just don't seem to mind pains in the ass. I do stuff around city. I'm like, God, it was a pain in the ass. They're like, New York, baby. Greatest city on earth. I'm like, it's true. It's true. Mikey Z says, what is the origin of Frank's drops? Was it his idea or was it a collective thing? Do you want to tell the truth, Frank, or do you want to? Yeah, I'll tell the truth. I'll see if you remember, you were struggling to say Jasmine. Was that the first one? So one time I took it upon myself to just make it into a drop. I remember this. That is so not true. I think Frank, I literally. Ariel holding Frank at gunpoint and being like,

have you ever seen the Howard Stern show? No, then after I did that, you asked if we could do more. Fred Norris. He would take the tapes. And he would do it. The crazy thing is that he would do it faster than Frank presses the button. And he had 887 drops available to him at any moment. Like, peace in love, peace and love is straight from Howard Stern.

He would have dropped it when I just said it. He would have dropped it. That's fucking bullshit. Was Jasmine the first one, though? That was the first one. Seriously? Then you started to ask if we could do more. Yes, yes, yes.

And then we just grew up for there. I personally like it. Jasmine's had a large impact on this show. A meat asks, what's our favorite type of... Me? Just meat. No, a meat. He asks... Oh, Amit.

A meat. What's our favorite kind of curry? Ooh, like a yellow curry. I don't know the difference. Penangue, the brownish-yellowest one. I just kind of hope for the best. best. Like, I don't know the differences. I like a I like a sweet, sweet and spicy, but

I like spice so much that like a really hot green is where I'm at. Like, give me the hot. I like the, there's like a yellowy orange one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever that is, the yellow that's the nice. I had a butter chicken recently with the sauce butter chicken. You ever have butter chicken? Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same with some Nanbrown. Now we're just going to, hey man, you've got a sauce meat. We're not You ever had a cheeseburger before? Oh, oh. Well, actually, perfect segue.

G.C. Blind rank these six condiments. Six is, we're getting ingredients here. Also, the funniest part is, I've eaten butter chicken with you before at the Schum in Manchester. Oh, that's a great meal without a. That was a great meal without a. Oh, my God. That was a great meal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that.

All right, here we go. Condiments. Honey mustard. Ooh, three. BBQ sauce. Four. Ranch. Hmm. Five. Hot sauce

1 ketchup 6 mayo 2 I'm okay with that Okay I'm alright with that The fact that you remember the number

Is that Without writing it down I'm pretty happy with that one All right well there you go I'd probably go honey mustard 2 instead of mayo But I'm happy with that Ranch so low though

Ranch is a 6 I'm okay Uh ketchup to me is just plain Jan Allie Frazier asks Frank did you watch Tuesday's final of GG No GBBO no i didn't i didn't watch it at all what is gbbo great british bakel really i had been watching it

where do you watch this netflix what are you shaming him for watching the great british radio heard of netflix i just thought it was like some sort of sci-fi i don't know what is it on the old big net i put it this way i got i get tired of of watching it so i stopped watching it told my wife i was like you can go ahead and watch it on your own a gasp from andy for that one uh she a fan huge oh wow I didn't realize this was the thing I didn't realize this was the thing I didn't realize it helps if you push the button Andy yeah that was that was hefty from you

that's a great British breakoff really yeah I thought it was I thought it was gonna be something more like big off it's a whole movement dude I got it I didn't know it's a challenge it's over done shout to the challenge is that still going on Barry asks right just watch Kingdom after the great Paul Howser interview have you's all watched it and What did you think of a 10 out of 10 for me? I reckon the MMA reporter Mario is based on Ariel.

I've been told this. I've never actually seen it. Anyone see it? I saw an episode, but I did not watch the series. I've only seen his Atlanta Olympics movie. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, people love that.

Okay, a couple more. Mikey T. What was worse than the World Series for a Blue Jays fan? The Ball getting stuck under the wall, or Bichette getting replaced for ICF? Both could be argued as the turning point of the series, or are the Dodgers that good? Well, they took Bichette out,

which I didn't agree with. You can't take him out because you're going to need him later on, but they took him out in that particular moment because he can hardly run. He had a bum knee. Obviously, I would have loved to have him later on, but we didn't think that it was going to go, you know, 10, 11. I was, when they took him out, I did tell my friends,

I don't like this because we made this mistake on Monday with the 18-in-a-game when they took Bichette out, they took Alejandro Kirk out, et cetera, et cetera. The ball getting lodged is shitty, but they were not tied and they weren't up, at that time. So IKF getting out by a spike will be something that would be very hard to swallow for a very long time. One more, one more. Senor Begotes. Does Mark Montoya give Josh Fabia vibes to anyone but me, the whole life coach and nebulously talking about God, maybe not exactly,

but much like Moneyberg, he sure had a lot of automatic responses to some possible criticisms. Am I the only one who noticed that? To be honest, no. I mean, Mark Montoya is a very respected and well-accomplished. He's a very well-accomplished coach and respected. Has never been tied to anything like this in the past? Those other guys are not Montoya. They're more grifters than anything.

And his resume speaks for itself. He's had some of the best fighters in the world training out of his gym, and he helped make them into some of the best fighters in the world. I don't think that's fair to him. If anything, you know, we're talking about these, you know, words being repeated and whatnot. That's, to me, I chalk that up more to just being maybe nervous, um, doesn't do a lot of interviews, anxious, stuff like that.

So I do not think that's fair. And that did not come to mind as I was talking to him or in the aftermath. All right. Tomorrow, BITB. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. Uh, areahuany.substack.com is the place. 415 SUP BITB

Place to leave voicemails for tomorrow's Yeah, leave us some good ones Yeah, we need a little bit of an uptick in the quality Maybe we only choose like 10 or 15 Yeah Make them good though

Yeah, it's a lot to ask It's a lot to ask Great show plan What do we got? What do we got? In terms of the show Nothing? That's a great question

You can have to watch it All right, I like it Old school T's for you That's a tease boy Breakdown of Brown Bonfem yes that will happen both Bonfem brothers

action on the card we've lost a couple people we'll get into that okay um yeah breakdown of the card maybe talk a little bit more about this gambling story

and maybe a little chatter on Sean Strickland's return he did post on his story that his suspension is almost up thank baby Jesus and I do want to give a special shout out to

MMA media member spinning back dick who asked him or more like just said it appears MVP next replied to Sean Strickland on threads, but no Strickland was on threads like that looks like the engagement's a little bit lower than

over on his Twitter but yeah shout out to SBD man exclusively on threads yep it would be for all your we actually scoured the internet for like 30 minutes trying to find this and then shout out to Dano over here he was like it's on threads hell yeah I was like hell yeah

you always got to check threads and he says it's going to be Fluffy Hernandez which by the way I think I said that I like that idea, post-RDR, the RDR loss when we were breaking it down. I believe he said in an interview a few weeks ago that he wanted to fight Fluffy and then Hamzat and then beat DDP again. All right. Come back season upon us for Mr. Sean Strickland.

Okay, time to go. Thank you very much to everyone. I'm actually off to Toronto myself, guys. The T-DOT. What's the occasion? I'm going to meet with my friends over at the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as we gear up for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. It's actually called Milano Cortina, 2026. And I'll be in neither of those places.

But I'm excited to go back to Toronto. I'm going to go to Danny's Pizza Tavern. You guys familiar with Danny Pizza? The one with the whale. The dolphin. It's a whale. I think it's a dolphin. I think it's a whale.

Anyway, my friend owns it, and it's phenomenal. pizza and they do have, I made a special request for green olives and pineapple. So I will be there and I'm looking forward to it and always good to go back home, not the 514, the 416, but you know, true north strong and free. The Great White North. And then we'll be back on Monday. Monday's going to be fun. Chale Pian studio on Monday. So that's always fun. You think he'll be as animated as Lou DeBella? Yeah. I think it's going to be good stuff. Yeah, for sure.

And perhaps we'll have an answer to the Jake Paul opponent mystery, but most importantly, we'll be well on our way to UFC 322, which on paper is one of the best cards of the year. Can't wait to get into all of that. And more, Malcolm Wellmaker will also be in studio on Tuesday, which is own. So looking forward to that very much. Thank you, Luda Bella.

Thank you, Michael Chandler. Thank you, Gable Steveson. thanks to all of you thanks to all of them back tomorrow's time and this is a peace I'm out here Peace and love Peace and love