The Ariel Helwani Show - Darren Till and Luke Rockhold heated faceoff, Tony Ferguson, Dakota Ditcheva, Marcos 'Parrumpa' DaMatta, On The Nose

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Darren Till and Luke Rockhold are first up and join Ariel from Manchester in an exclusive faceoff to preview their upcoming Misfits Boxing 22 fight. After Darren leaves, Luke talks about his transition into boxing (03:01).Tony Ferguson is the next fighter from the Misfits card to call in before his fight against Salt Papi. He discusses his mindset at age 41, leaving the UFC, his continued interest in Khabib, Conor McGregor’s issues, Dustin Poirier’s sendoff, and more (30:45).Ariel and the crew provide a powerful update on Ben Askren’s health via his Instagram, react to the news of the TKO-backed bill in Congress, and get to your burning On the Nose questions (56:50).ATT coach Marcos "Parrumpa" DaMatta is next up, and he breaks down Alexandre Pantoja’s run to the title and fight against Joshua Van, Renato Moicano’s loss and recent controversial decision, Arman Tsarukyan’s claim for the next title shot, and more (2:08:12).Dakota Ditcheva is the last guest after her latest win at PFL Africa, and she talks about signing a new contract, being frustrated due to inactivity, looking up to Kayla Harrison, her next fight, and more (2:39:15).Ariel and the Boys in the Back end the day with your Super Chats and some breaking news (3:09:52).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Err-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r- And 25, hello again everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. And if you are watching us live right now, you may be asking yourself, why are they going early by six minutes? It's 12 54 PM Eastern time. And oh, by the way, why did they do three shows yesterday? We had the regular show, then the Dzone show, then a breaking news edition of the show, 320, 321 main events, co-main events announced. We had a very packed day and now we're going early. Why are we going early? Because today's

a very exciting day. Moments ago in Manchester there was a press conference for Misfits 22. Now Misfits of course is the upstart boxing promotion that kind of marches to the beat of their own drum. They are the number one influencer boxing promotion. But as far as their next event is concerned, Misfits 22, August 30th, Manchester, England, very much an MMA event. There it is, AO Arena, Live on Dazon. Very, very, very familiar names to all of us. Darren Till, the former UFC title contender,

who has now found a new home under the Misfits umbrella, has looked very good in his first two fights for them. Going on to the next event, Darren Till, the former UFC title contender, who has now found a new home under the Misfits umbrella, has looked very good in his first two fights for them. Going up against the former UFC middleweight champion, the former strike force middleweight champion, the one and only Luke Rockhold, who saw that coming? A Misfits, bridgerweight title fight. And then what about the co-main for the Misfits interim middleweight title the one and only El Cucuy the former UFC interim lightweight champion returning

to action for the first time in about a year going up against the the sweetheart of the Misfits brand the one and only the pride of the Philippines Salt Poppy and so they just had a press conference in Manchester to kick this all off Dan Hardy did a phenomenal job of hosting it, at least attempting to hosting it. There was a face-off literally minutes ago, seconds ago in Manchester between all the particulars. This is what happened when Darren Till and Luke Rockhold squared off at the presser. Minutes ago, Till on the left, Rockhold on the right. It gets a little physical as you can see. A little collar tie there. minutes ago, tail on the left, rock hold on the right. It gets a little physical as you can see.

A little collar tie there, underhooks. Look at this. No love lost between these two, they went back and forth, they stole the show at the press conference. They did a phenomenal job of selling this. And so without further ado, let's not waste any time. Later in the program, we'll have to go to Deceva, we'll have Pahumpa, we'll have Tony Ferguson join us, but let's not waste any time.

Let's go to Manchester right now. It's shades of DC and Jones way back when, when they did the face off following their press conference. There they are, the guys who were just on the stage. Luke Rockhold to your right, Darren Till to your left. Gentlemen, thank you for doing this. Appreciate both of you very much. Luke, I'll start with you

because this is your first foray into this world. What did you make of the scene that you just took part in seconds ago on that stage? You know, Darren's been, apparently he's been riding my nuts for a while now. He's trying to make himself feel confident. He thinks he's faster. He thinks he hits harder.

He thinks a lot of things, but I promise you, I hit harder than you, I'm faster than you, I move better than you. Most importantly, I got a big set of balls that you don't got. Darren, your impressions of what you saw from Luke? Luke's doubting himself way too much. It's actually getting a bit sly on him. I feel sorry at this point. I'm going to stop making him walk off stages and that because he's

not feeling this one, Ariel. What makes you say that? Well, just being in the fight game, you're just learning about guys who self-doubt themselves and stuff and say a lot of things. Being in the fight game, you've run from the fight game your whole life, dog. You fought the I've taken prologue shots. I take Mike Perry's best shots. You're doubting yourself against everybody. You are doubting me. You are doubting me. You're doubting yourself. You're putting every avenue in your head to make yourself feel good.

I'm not going nowhere. I'm not going down. Hang on. Hang on. Okay. If you want me to get full psychological with you. Obviously I'm doubting myself all of us fighters have these little glitters in our heads when we go to sleep at night can we lose can we do this obviously let's be realist but you're not real and this is where your pride ego and how vain you are as a person has got you in trouble and I know why you walk off the stage there with me you're you just can't handle it no more but as I can handle everything you take give me more come on say more

let's go carry it down i've got it all to you hey i'm on the track by myself working i got a message saying luke's been missing saturdays and when he comes he does three laps only you guys are getting a lot of insider intel on each other, it seems like. I don't need to. I watch his fights. I watch his last couple of fights. There you go. There you go. He doesn't need to. Again, with the pride and the ego. I promise you. I promise you. Luke, you're the type of guy to like, don't be respectful of the ring.

But I'm going to pin him. You're the type of guy to like- You'll be respected in the ring, but I'm gonna pin you around, connect. You're not so maniac, egotistical, you're the type of guy who's just- You walk around thinking you're above everyone and that's not the case with me. I teach everyone, recording me. You're the one to talk. You're the one to talk about this, right? You don't need to study me.

I promise you Luke, right? I've studied you. I don't need to watch you move and make I was studying fights This right you need to come with everything because I promise you lose and I swear I want you to listen this If you don't you might have said I am going to prop and knock you flat out Promise you I'll be there for every fucking thing. You got I know you'll be here. I know you're not a shit bag I know you can fight, but I'm gonna knock you flat out I know you'll be here. I know you're not a shit bag. I know you can fight but I'm gonna knock you flat out

You know Can you keep up for six rounds You need this that I give up as a card you do You know do you said I'm not on nothing dog. You can fucking bring the testing. You told me before. You're gonna lie. You didn't say to me before. That is nothing. That is not a fucking steroid dog.

It's an anti-inflammatory. It's like glutathione. What the fuck are you talking about? BBC 157. Hey, no. You little juicehead. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump.

I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicehead clump. I'm gonna beat you up just for being a little juicer clump. I'm not a fucking juicer. You're not Tilly, you're titties now. You're fucking titties.

I know, I can fight like fuck, just like DC. DC was a big fat jack of potato, but he could still fight like fuck As DC our boxing matches as DC our boxing matches, what do you mean? I said I'll make I make titties fly titties fly Stop it cuz we're trying to sell a fight here. I know you're Better get in shape You better fucking shut up I'm not I haven't I'm missing five miles this morning at fucking 4 a.m. You know my You mission. I promise you stop missing the top then hey try to build yourself up, but your balls are still we've got the truck on friday

Come the truck then on friday come the truck friday. Hey, I want you to try to do this. You little juicer cunt. You little juicer cunt. Luke, can I ask you, he's accusing you and he accused you on the stage of taking steroids. And I think he even asked the promoters get VATA involved. What is your response to this? This is a big accusation. You can get the VATA involved.

I am fucking healthy. Talk to him right now. What is your response to this? This is a big accusation. You can get the, you can get the, the Vata involved. Anytime you want, Derek. Hey, I had, I had local guys telling me everybody from your camp, everybody from your keepers pop. And it's always the person who accuses the people the most of being on the shit. Who are you training with right now? Connor Ben's coach. Connor Ben got popped. Don't start that with me, mate.

Is that true? Is that true, Luke? Are you training with Connor Ben's coach? I love Connor. I don't want to... I'm training with... He's got an English coach. And Connor's going to see this and think I'm chatting shit, but at the end of the day, it's gonna go pot, like Connor popped. Do you know what I'm saying? I didn't know that I just come with the facts of life and I'm a realist and if you lay

it's a little bit more about being realist. I promise you, I promise you this is a clean fight. You're gonna get a clean fight and you're gonna get you're gonna get more than you fucking offered more than you think. I'm gonna put you down. What do you're gonna get you're gonna get more than you fucking offered more than you think I'm gonna put you down what you mean more than you often you're not gonna put me down you got no you've got no chin I've got a chin there's the fuck to the matter how do you fuck it how do you think that you have a chin more than me you got put down my miles with all I took Paul Acosta's best shot who the fuck has harder let's write like put it on one

and who's our night right me fight at. I'm bigger than you. You can't be 170 Masvidal Yeah, got me. I can take every shot look at the shots. I took from all the guys after a middleweight. No one I've taken nobody knocked me out at middleweight Nobody and I fought all the best guys with the Kedrikis all them guys gaslum. I laughed at every one of them I've got a fucking chin you You got battered by Mike Perry. And let me just tell you, I'm not even looking for the Mike Perry fight now. He's that much of a bum.

He's the biggest bum out there. He's a bum. I might offer him a boxing match after I put you down. Just to feel it. You fucking need to, because you made a holy show here. Can I ask you Darren, he did take a bare knuckle fight,

and you have said that you're not interested in taking a bare knuckle fight and you have said that you're not interested in taking a bare knuckle fight so you do have to give him credit for that right? No why? He's first hand, taking his kill and his legs over the wall. Ariel, do I have to come at you with some realness? I'm 32, I'm not down enough, why would I take a bare knuckle like a fucking dummy? Mike Perry had no other option because he's shit. Are we all agreeing?

He's shit. Luke's old in the game Luke had his time by being a goat in strike for us in UFC, but Luke's old now So we have to do the same thing. I'm still just laughing cuz I'm dead young beautiful I'm not a bum like Mike Michael Michael Ben and Paige took a bare knuckle fight. Would you say he was shit when he took it? Well, obviously if he's taking better fights at that look what happens at my grand page. I'm not gonna look at it He's winning fights in the UFC. He's he's doing well in the UFC. He's doing well in the UFC.

He just beat Sharer Bullitt. Come on. Don't come at me with the facts there. Let me ask you, what do you want to go Ariel? No I don't want to go. I want nothing to do with you. I don't want anything to do with this heat. I love everything about this and I hardly want to even talk because you guys are doing

a phenomenal job. What about his demeanor made you feel like he didn't want it that he was doubting himself the things that you're insinuating are big you know big insults to a fighter oh you don't question you question yourself you don't want this what about what you saw from him up there made you feel that way and as you pick like I feel like psychologically I feel like if Luke and that is he going to pride a little bit more I think Luke could have been one of the greatest going but that's that's just that type of shit gets people in trouble It really does like that type of shit and Luke's just full of it

And since I've met Luke today Luke's just like gone down and down and down and not to know the stage He just didn't want to be on the stage with me where I could have stayed there all day spouting facts and everything You know when he's even come at me like how's the girl in Brazil? I'm like say hello say hello to my friend motherfuckers. I'm not arsed I can go all day Baron man the woman of my soul mates back at home in Liverpool like that was that's my daughter my ex in Brazil But he come at me and I could still take it so I'm ready. Luke's a very doubtful guy He has to convince himself as I don't I know exactly what I am I wear it on my chest

You don't wear nothing on your chest that you know all great story Would you not say okay Luke every spoke with all great storytellers tell lies and you're fucking good at it I'm not telling us. I'm not telling us. Well, I'm actually you call me a fuck. Yeah, but I can't say not to you You're you're very thoughtful. I I but I can't say no to you. You're very doubtful. You've said a lot. I'll say what I want. You say what you want. There's one thing that... When you say what you want, sometimes I'll back it up. I'll say, yeah, you're telling the truth, but you're not saying...

I can promise you I'm not overlooking you. I'm not looking past you. I feel like you are. I'm not pressured, not myself. And there's things that I'm not happy with of how I fought and the pressures that I took on when I fought And guess what? There's still more to write and you're the person I i'm okay But I feel like you're even the type of guy who wouldn't take the proper advice and avenues off your culture You feel like you're too good. That's how I I see you as a person. I'm sorry

You're too ego your ego your ego I put everything in a way and i'm doing everything. Hey, I walk in and I put the like dude you were you were 32 going on fucking you okay yeah by a lot you gotta be in your 50s by now look look they're the types of guys I'm sparring like look at that guy like the war chief John Coffin of the Green Mile He pushed me around a bit. 6'6 professional boxer. Very good one on that. I've been in big big big. Not one guy has wobbled. Not one guy gave me a little wobble because he caught me. Not one guy has even gave me a bit of bother.

And they're all top rows coming in. I swear Luke, honestly mate, go back home and have a think. I promise you mate, as respectful, I'm going to knock you clean out. You're not. How are you going to do this? I know how confident I am. You're putting down professional boxers but you can't even put down Darren Stewart. You're tripping yourself up a little high. You've seen the bowl of the head on him. Like come on. But since I've met you today you've gone from saying I'm nothing, I'm this, I'm that, I shouldn't even be in the ring with ring with you to half come around saying no I know the test I've got so this is where I'm saying about psychological things and you know I'm about that life and I swear

now that I've seen you I am so confident I'm gonna fucking knock you clean out and you don't have a chin you're not not. Luke, can I ask you? I don't know where he went there. How many rounds is this? Six rounds. What weight? 193. This kid's been bitching about everything. I mean, he wanted 185. His last fight was 198, I believe.

And then he wanted it. And then he said he wouldn't go above one eighty eight. Which is just fucking weird and dumb. It just shows weakness. And then somehow we bitch about that for a couple of weeks and we settle on one ninety three. I don't know what these fucking weights are. He keeps coming up with. But like, let's pick a real weight, have a fucking pair of balls. And let's just do this right.

I mean, what are we bitching about? You're we're all we're all in the same thing. I mean, his last fights were much above weight and he's just obviously scared and he's trying to take weight away, trying to make things harder, trying to make himself up, trying to say I'm slower, trying to say I'm chinny,

trying to say all these things, but I guarantee you, I'm faster than you, I hit harder than you, I move better than you, and I got a bigger set of balls. So it appears as though he's gone, he left. What do you make of that? No, it's Darren. Darren's gonna try to hype himself up, but I'm gonna put this kid down.

I really see myself putting him down. I think he'll get up once, maybe twice, but he's gonna find his way out. Do you think you're in his head? Do you think he's trying up once, maybe twice, but he's gonna find his way out. Do you think you're in his head? Do you think he's trying to psych himself up that, okay, you're the guy who's doubting himself all this, but in reality he is? I'm gonna put this kid down.

Trust me, I'm not, there's nothing about him that, I mean, like I said, I do respect, I have to respect the man in boxing. We're not kicking, we're not doing everything else. And there's a different dance to boxing. And I'm excited to dance, walk that walk. It's gonna be different. And no one's ever seen me box.

And I do wanna clean the holes. I think there's been holes in my game in boxing. And I'm fucking in a boxing ring, in a boxing gym. I'm putting these boxing gloves on. I'm just drilling everything. I'm not doing anything else and I'm focused on on fixing those those mechanical mistakes and fucking this kid up what do you think of his first two fights under the misfits umbrella there Anthony Taylor

and I mean I really don't think he's changed that much it's hard to tell because Anthony Taylor I mean let's get it right Anthony Taylor's a dwarf influencer that's fucking sucking on on hogs I mean what I mean, let's get it right. Anthony Taylor's a dwarf influencer that's fucking sucking on hogs. I mean, who is this guy? What has he done? He's tiny. And then Darren Stewart, who's Darren Stewart? The guy's a grappler, he hasn't shown anything,

hasn't done anything. I mean, and he gave Darren all he could handle. I mean, Darren, if you give him space, he's all right. But if you put the pressure on him, like Stuart did, you can see him get to him and he can see him crack. And Stuart didn't really have, you know, clear vision and how he was going to approach it. And so didn't find a way to put Darren out, but Darren's got a breaking point.

I'm going to find it. By the way, how did this all come about for you? This is your first foray with these guys, as I said at the top. How did this opportunity happen? I've been wanting to box. I've been wanting to box in the moment. I left the UFC so I Mean, I think I said it just as well. I mean Darren's Darren's a he's a lively opponent people like to pay attention I think it's a it's a good build-up and it's a good challenge. I Believe I'm a better fighter in all realms.

Me boxing. I'm ready. I'm excited to box, man. I'm going to put them fucking put some leather on that fucking scouser's face. Is the one fight deal. Every fight's a one fight deal. So you're just here. You'll see how it goes.

So far, you happy with them? I honestly want to box. I want to box. I'm enjoying the boxing and it's obviously it's not kicking. My legs are healthy. It's great. I'm getting better and better and this is a second. It's a new challenge and I'm here to box for I'm not going anywhere. It's not one fight deal. I'm not going in and out. This is what I want to do. And so, you know, I got to go perform. Got to go do my thing. By the way, what's up with the hair?

Hey. Slim Shady? Slim, I'm not, hey, like I said, I'm not, gotta get, it's training camp. I've done this thing a lot. You gotta keep yourself excited and change it up a little bit. Never been blonde. Fuck it. Yeah, why not? Have you missed all of this? It's been a minute.

You know, press conference, media camp, fight week, blah, blah, blah. You missed that whole game. It's nice to take a break, you know, but but I've been in the game. I've been working, you know, I think there was a point in time where I fucked off for a few years after I broke my jaw and I took that time away and then I came back to fighting and I fought Paulo Acosta of course and I wasn't exactly training for all those years. But since then I've been working. I've been working, I've been training and I knew that more opportunities would come. It aligns with my businesses and what I'm doing, and it's fun, it adds to it.

And so I like fighting, man. I think people, and I give up too early. I mean, I still compete with the best guys in the world. We have everybody coming through Jackson, so I can get in there with the best light heavyweights, best middleweights, best anybody, and I still do my thing. I'm in a box. Does this mean you're officially done with MMA?

You had that GFL thing which seems to have fallen through, but is this it? Man, I was there for the GFL to get paid. Everybody else thought it was gonna happen. I was getting paychecks. I made money. Oh, you were on that deal where you were getting the monthly stipend like some of the guys? I was getting paychecks. I made, I made money. Oh, you were on that deal where you were getting like the monthly stipend, like some of the guys.

I was getting paid. Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. People, I mean, like people, there was, I mean, they're dishing out seven figure paychecks on, on, on the, uh, on the schedule that were made for non UFC champions. You gotta think like, that's not going to be feasible. How are you going to keep that, that business up and running when, when those guys are getting paid that much.

There's not, there's not enough. There's not enough revenue to counteract that. So I was just, I was taking the, taking the paychecks and moving on. But boxing is what I want to do. And, uh, I never closed the door on MMA, but it's nice to take break. And I want to box for, for a little bit. Okay. So what do you think? How's this going down? What do you, what do you feel? What round? I think, I think, I think I put, I think I pimped this kid around. I think, I think.

I like how you keep calling him a kid by the way. Yeah, man. He's, he's obviously looked up to me and I'm fucking, and he's in his own head about this whole thing and he is, he's young, he's arrogant. He's a, it's funny to see he's, he's studied every fucking thing I do on it. And he's, he's looking into everything. I mean, I watch his fights and I understand, but like he's going above and beyond to what, how he's approaching this fight and, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's interesting to see his, his, uh, his angle. But, um, I really think that I really think that I'm like all those things. I can move better than people haven't seen me move in a boxing ring and I can

move and I can flow and I'll wait for my opportunity. Then I'll assert myself. And I think, I think he doesn't like to be crowded. He doesn't like to be bullied. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna, I gotta pick the right times. Uh like to be bullied. I'm just gonna pick the right times. Like I said, I'm not gonna overstep my boundaries, I'm gonna wait for the right time. When I do that, I don't think there's not many people

that can stop me. Are you seeing him again while you're in the UK or is that it for you guys? Is there any other things planned, photoshoot, like will you run into him again? Yeah, we got a double date tonight. We're gonna get up on the bridge. Okay, all right.

Just be safe, I don't want any more fighting. It got a little testy there for a second. It'll be good, I'll see him in Manchester. And then I'm sure it'll get more real. Hopefully he's a little, he's shaking off those titties by then. I love it, I'm excited for this. I'm super hyped for this. Congrats on the opportunity then. I love it. I'm excited for this.

I'm super hyped for this. Congrats on the opportunity. Looking forward to it. And thank you for doing this. This was great. Thank you. All right. There he is.

The great Luke Rockhold joining us. Darren Till joined us as well. And then he bounced. There it is. August 30th, AO Arena, Manchester. Look if there was ever a time that these two worlds collided the the boxing influencer MMA world This is the car Darren till Luke Rockhold Tony Ferguson It doesn't get more recognizable than those names and till has looked good as of late obviously the competition

Not on the level of a Luke Rockhold the resume I'm trying to say something did I get did I get Darren with the MVP line? I think I might have gotten him there. Do you think that's why he left? Absolutely. You think he got mad? He was pissed. Should I not have done that?

Yeah, you cost it for sure. Can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. He was so mad he hung around for another like seven minutes and then left. Yeah, that's right, that's right. I'm hyped, man. I'm hyped for this. I think that press conference was great.

August 30th is gonna be a fun day. Yeah. August 30th is going to be a fun day. Yeah. August 30th. There's something else going on. Oh, CJ. Hey, Pizzi, what's happening? What's up P? That was very good, wasn't it? I know. I needed like three, four more minutes. No, it was perfect. I was pissing myself laughing.

That was crazy. Tilt was on one there, man. That was fantastic. Come was on one there, man. That was fantastic. Go on. They're great. They're a great, you know, match because till is so high energy and we'll talk. And Luke has that sort of slower, you know what I mean? Someone text me.

I said, I put up with like, I hate myself for how much I'm enjoying this. And someone said, it's like Darren Till is a, is a striker and he's volleying the ball at Luke Rockhold who's the goalkeeper just catching insults. That was a very good comparison. That was electrifying. Fantastic. As is your t-shirt, by the way. Oh, did you see? Yeah. Yeah. Look at this t-shirt right here. You're wearing a t-shirt of your dog. That's right. This one's my favorite. He's kind of like looking off into the distance

all noble and shit. Where'd you get that? Hot Topic? I think Elaine made it on one of those Instagram things. Fantastic. Incredible. I was texting you earlier and I was like, yeah, it's great, but like I'm walking the dog

with the t-shirt on and I look like a fucking weirdo. So, you know. You're that guy. You're that guy. I am, unfortunately'm unfortunately that guy yeah you're that guy um we're gonna check back in with you after we have this next chat and then we'll do otn and and the regular stuff but uh do appreciate you stopping by pizzi and do appreciate you wearing that shirt in a matter of seconds we're going to be joined by el kukui uh the great el Cucuy, Tony Ferguson, who was also in attendance. Do we have his face off with Sal Papi? I'm not sure if we have it. Do we have that one?

Let's see it. Here it is. Who would have thought? Shout out to Charlie Parsons, hosting. Shout out to Dan Hardy, holding the mic. Shout out to KSI, JJ in the middle. And there's in the middle and there's Saul Poppy and there's Tony Ferguson what's he doing oh he's throwing the salt in his face this is kind of crazy Rick this has to be crazy for you you're like poppies number one stand and he's facing off with Tony Ferguson this is like a face off at a UFC X convention. I'm ready for the Salt Poppy era, you know? Yo, look at Ferguson, he's hyped. Look how focused he is.

Did Tony go to Turkey? Nah. The hair looks good, man. Nah, you want to ask him? Ask him before he jumps on. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Hey, Tony, quick question from our producer in the back. The hair looks good.

Who's your guy? Who's your guy? I need to swing by. Take it away. It does look like, like Sal Papi won a contest. Yes. And now he's getting to box Tony Ferguson. Who do you think is the favorite in that fight?

Fuck, I don't know. I don't know when we'll get the Misfits lines. Oh my gosh. Do they usually have Misfits lines? Usually like at the very end, right? Yeah, you'll be able to bet on that for sure. At some point the the big dogs

Yeah, I don't know if it's gonna get on the mainstream books right right maybe I can't remember what was the last like misfits Fight worth betting on KSI Logan Paul, I mean a kiss I the prime card that we went to yeah had a ton of hype You could definitely get lines on DraftKings for that one I mean, KSI. The prime card that we went to. Yeah. Had a ton of hype. You could definitely get lines on DraftKings for that one. I bet you'll be able to for this one as well. Who do you think won the exchange between Rockhold and Till? I don't know, man.

Till puts up the volume. He does. There's a point there where they're talking over each other where you can't even hear either of them. Yeah, that usually happens with these face-offs. They're also probably like eight feet apart. That's my favorite thing. The greatest one of all time is obviously the MGM Grand one, DC Jones, back in the day. I'll never forget that one. I'm interviewing Paul Heyman in studio,

and we say goodbye to Paul, and I'm interviewing him as this thing is popping off. This is the one where they got into the brawl in the middle of the casino. Like if you ever check in to the MGM Grand and they'll sometimes have the ring with the lion in and all that stuff, that's where they had the presser. Thinking like it would be a cool show for the people who are checking in, the event, I think the presser, gosh,

was it a, man, it might've been like a June or July presser gosh was it us was it man it might have been like a a june or july presser for a september card i think it was if my memory serves me correct and then i think the fight got postponed it was for ufc 178 and that got postponed to the january 1st card and that was the one that had dj versus karyoso and porier connor etc anyway they get into the fight and then seconds later they have to do the face-to-face. And some way, somehow, this thing got leaked. There was a rumor that it was someone at ESPN in the transmission department who had them live. Like they were just getting ready to do a bunch of

face-to-face interviews and DC says to Jones, Hey P word, are you still there? Um, no, it was actually Jones that said that to DC, right? Yes. It was Jones that said that to DC. Yeah. Um, Jones says that to DC and he's like, yeah, I'm still here. I'm still here. The best was like, DC was looking down and, and, well, I still have to say it. I would love to watch it.

I have to say it. Jones just says, hey, pussy, are you still there? And then DC's like, yeah, I'm still here. Yeah, I'm still here. I mean, for me, that is the line, obviously, of the thing. But the thing that makes it is when they're like talking about killing each other. And I'm just like, holy shit.

This is at a level that is like way beyond anything we've seen well the best part was it was the first time that we got to see the real John Jones at that point you know there were a couple of infractions here and there but you know he was still playing the choir boy role so to speak that was the first time that we heard him swear that was the first time that we heard him say things like, you know DC says like I'm gonna spit in your face. I wish I could come over there and yeah. Yeah Yeah, you know if you did that I would kill you right kill you right? Oh, yeah, it's amazing. It was so good

That was the best one ever. That was the more of it need more of it bad. Yeah, we need more of that stuff Yes, you see should do more of that stuff. They did it with them. They did with Kayla and Juliana, which was fun Did they do it? I think they did it with Patty and Michael Chandler too recently Yeah, but they got to do more of that stuff in my opinion. That was a lot of fun till and rock-hold were fantastic It's always a great pleasure and honor when we get a chance to speak to the legend El Cucuy and so without further ado Let us go back to Manchester and speak to the man who was just a part of that press conference making his misfits

and boxing debut on the 30th of August, the one and only El Kukui, Tony Ferguson. Tony, my man, how are you? Good, my guy. What's going on over there? You got the one glove. You're like Art Jimerson. You remember him?

UFC one. No, I don't remember that one. Oh shit, yeah, I do, right? Remember this guy right here? Art Jimerson showed up to UFC one with one glove on. Here, let me ask you a question. Do you think that this is going to be a decent card or not? Because I saw your Instagram thing or whatever and it was a fucking highlight.

You saying like, what the hell? Like, what the fuck is this going on? And it kind of had to edge me a little bit, man. Oh shit. No, because I didn't see it coming. That was my vibe. Oh, okay. No, because I didn't see it coming. That was my that was my vibe. Oh, OK, OK, OK. I thought it was different. Excuse me. No, no, no. I didn't see it coming.

Look, in a million years, they even talked about it in the press conference. Who would have ever thought I would want a box? I've always wanted a box as I put this 10 ounce glove on Ariel. It feels like a four ounce glove. It feels like it's got less padding right here, which is crazy. Wow. This is different, dude. this is a whole new sport. I'm excited. I just got out of the press conference. I saw this guy face to face. He did not talk about knocking me out face to face. He didn't say the same thing you know when I was in

front of him. I made sure I sized my hand up with his and I made sure that he understood where I was coming from that I'm not fucking joking around. And he has eight fights underneath his belt. I have zero but I'm going to take that one and it's going to be mine. And I'm not fucking joking around. And he has eight fights underneath his belt. I have zero, but I'm gonna take that one and it's gonna be mine. And I'm excited because my weight has been low. I've been keeping instead of like 200, 205, where I usually am comfortable. And Pops gave me the best recommendation

when GFL was on the way, keep your weight low. That way you don't have to keep making weight all the time and fluctuating your weight. So I've been at 175 steady, fucking hungry. I'm ready to go do like everybody. I don't know how to talk about like influencers and all that other shit, but you know me already. I'm ready to go, dude. Like everybody, I don't know how to talk about like influencers and all that other shit, but you know me already, I don't fuck around, Ariel. Yes, no, 100%.

And so could I ask from the beginning, how did this come about? How did this opportunity come about with Misfits? Well, with the GFL and everything else that was going on, it was like hit and miss. It was like we would get a date or we would get a location, then nothing. Something would fall through, get another date,

location would fall through, whatever. So I've been in network with Darren trying to help build some things and just, give him some advice and some direction on where something should go, because if it does go well, whatever. But I was like, you know what, I gotta stay busy. I told Lloyd and I was like, hey, my agent,

I was like, yo, we gotta stay busy. We reached out, we did some networking, and then we made this happen. Talked to Mams, he gave me this opportunity. I was like, fuck it, dude, I wanna box. I've been wanting to box since I was little. And I was never allowed. My dad said, you're gonna have to play a sport

where you can get a scholarship and you can go do that because I'm not gonna pay for that shit. Now MMA, which is cool, I wasn't able to box with UFC, nothing against that. The focus was all on that. Now I get to put shoes on. I get to put on boxing gloves and I get to not worry about other things which I never worried about. But this is fun because it's a whole new sport. I got the butterflies earlier this morning

coming here and doing this in like you know doing all these things because it was a new factor and I haven't had that in a long time. I'm really fucking excited about camp. It's been really good so far and I just I cannot fucking wait to put on some gloves and show you guys how much this means to me. So it's exciting. I love how motivated you are. Was it always Saul Papi as far as the opponent that was being discussed

or were other names being discussed as well? So at the beginning of the year, before when GFL was taken off, I was offered KSI. I was offered a box KSI and I was about to, but then I wanted to do the GFL thing and commit to it. I was like, when I'm done with MMA, I was like, I'll go into boxing.

So we went the other way. And then when everything fell through and fell off and all the other bullshit, it was like, well, okay, well, I have to stay busy. I'm an athlete. You know me, football, baseball, and wrestling. Always got to stay busy. If I'm preaching it, I got to fucking do it.

So I wanted this boxing match and they offered it and I said, fuck yeah, let's go. And I didn't know it was for a title until like maybe a week ago. And I was like, this is cool as shit. So this is new hardware, a new beginning, a new life to be able to do whatever the fuck, man. I'm 41, I'm still fast in a lot of these 20 year olds

and I'm hitting drills I've been hitting for a long time. And I'm really excited and I'm passionate about this new've been hitting for a long time and I'm really excited and I'm passionate about this new adventure, not just for myself, but for my family as well. Were you familiar with Sal Papi? Did you know who this guy was? No, I know that he's got eight pro fights. Everybody wants to disregard and say that, you know,

social media, you got the balls to be able to want to get in here, you're fighting, you're putting yourself on the line, you're signing on a contract, you're making money, you're a fighter. This guy's got eight fights. Not scared of him. I saw this dude, you know what I mean? I made him a little trouble I'm not trying to talk shit But I'm not one to fuck around with and say you're gonna knock me out and then just think that's gonna be funny and then

Leave no not the way that I play when you do that I got to go and I got to see you got the square you want to throw some sand in my face and act like It which is pretty cool I know you got that shot, but you got be faster than me and I'm quick to the draw homie and I don't just I don't see you beating me I'm gonna go out there I'm gonna work my ass off how I've been smart I'm getting more flexible I've been doing a lot of things that I haven't been doing the last couple of years has just been fucking blah like why am I doing this oh my god I'm just I feel like I'm doing people too many favors no this

is my shit I'm excited and when I first started with MMA, it was because somebody gave me a pair of boxing gloves and they said, take care of your hands kid. Now's the time to use them. I love it. So here's the thing, like a few years back, you're interim champion of the UFC, you're on this incredible winning streak,

12 in a row, all this stuff. This young man is doing TikTok videos. He probably wasn't even at the point of doing TikTok videos. So that's why it's a little surreal to see you standing in front of him because it feels like he got- Well, I don't pay attention. I don't pay attention to any person outside,

even in the UFC. I don't want to watch what you're doing. I don't give a fuck what you're doing because my creativity, it wants to stay here. It doesn't want to be tainted by watching other people's shit. I like my stuff. People jack my style and they swag and they love it. I love it too.

But I'm just too busy to fucking just pay attention. So no disrespect. I don't even watch MMA I couldn't watch the fights this weekend. I was busy training and doing my other shit So no disrespect out of it, but I've always been that way since I was little I'm always playing the sports rather than watching this shit. I'm not a fan. I'm fucking the one playing This is the opportunity now for boxing. He might be on TikTok and he might be doing this shit but how much weight did he lose over how many times? How many times he stepped in the ring to be able to go taking shots? You've seen how he's going. Everybody, 90% of the fucking comments out there are saying that I'm washed up, I'm old and I shouldn't fucking retire and all this other

bullshit and they're saying that because they can't fucking do this shit that I'm doing. Fucking, that's crazy and the other 20% is saying that salt poppy is going to knock me out. So a hundred percent of you bitches are out there hating on me. So you know what? That's more fuel for my fire. Does it piss you off when you read that stuff? You feel disrespected? I would say completely disrespected because like you said, you said this age

group is completely different, right? Yeah. I'm talking to dudes that are interviewing me that started watching when they were five and now they're 23. I'm old. I'm 20, I'm 40 fucking one years old. I'm halfway to dudes that are interviewing me that started watching me when they were five and now they're 23 I'm old. I'm 20. I'm 40 fucking one years old. I'm halfway to 82 when it comes down to it I'm still moving like i'm fucking young and i'm not gonna quit moving dude Because i've been doing this since I was like fucking four three years old Do you feel so when people are bringing up the the fight they're talking about you know, the recent stretch in the ufc But you're saying this is a whole new game so that doesn't apply. Ariel, Ariel look it when the interest is there I was fighting for the interim

belt twice. I wasn't fighting Khabib, I wasn't fighting legit fucking people like I was giving people chances and doing this shit and not fighting the way I probably should have because it was very dangerous you could get very fucked up and hurt and all this other shit but the passion wasn't there like the will and the spirit was there and it's kind of like in as far as even training it wasn't the same like in order to come to terms and be able to say that kind of shit and know where you're at it's not about telling people and explaining to them because it's not for them I'm not trying to do this shit so that way you fucking believe in me differently because

you're gonna believe me differently the next day either way so what the fuck doesn't matter I'm doing this for myself and for a long fucking time I haven't been this passion about wanting to do something because this is a fire that got lit on anything I was just in Thailand a couple weeks ago doing for these for the fights for High fights and a lot of these rust a lot of these fucking fighters. I was called fighters wanted to test me out in wrestling I don't know if you've seen the clips right?? People kind of taking it. Well, there was another couple of there was some that didn't make it on the on the on the camera. I ended up hitting this dude because he had an underhook. I hit him with the fucking Uchi Mata and I really fucked

him up and I landed on him. And the whole night, I guess I went to hosting. I was going to go get a soda and I came back and he did it real quick. Asked for a picture and I fucking threw his ass for five. Boom landed on it and went and hosted the fucking fights. And anytime I would take a pic, I was not on edge, but always on point. And it was the same thing when I was growing up, I was always ready for fights. If I needed to fucking scrap, I was there.

I was ready. This is how I feel and there's been a fire lit underneath me that needed to fucking get re-lit with fuel. There's plenty of fuel out there. So if you guys wanna watch me fucking fight, and I know you do, Miss Fitz Boxing, Manchester at the AO Arena. You guys can go, make sure you don't stream that shit,

you bunch of bitches. Make sure you pay for it, and that way we get our cut too, because we're trying to make this shit happen. Yes, sir. And can I ask you, the last time we spoke, I felt excitement, I felt passion from you regarding GFL. How disappointed are you in the way that turned out?

Well, I'm still not disappointed. I'm helping out, making it work. So, I mean, when it goes into it, I'm still in networks with the commissioner, Darren. You're still holding out hope. You still believe it will happen? Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm talking.

When it goes into it, I don't wanna talk too much about it, but with introduction, instead of just helping myself, you know me already, Ariel, how many people have I helped out in my lifetime? Right? Can I keep doing that? I would much rather see a whole bunch of fighters fight, not just matter myself. So taking these steps in these leaps in these bounds are obviously not just for marketing promotional reasons, but to be able to help another one is about helping out like a bunch

of people. So if somebody has a vision and somebody doesn't know how to do it, then somebody knows how to do it because they believe in somebody's vision. Then you start introducing from there and you start building. So you got Dylan fighting the same car that I'm fighting on. I just met ma'am's through phone. I have yet to meet him yet. I met KSI.

You guys are cool people, man. That's super chill. I'm very glad I've taken this opportunity to yet to meet him yet. I met KSI. You guys are cool people man. That's super chill here I'm very glad I've taken this opportunity to come to a new country. I Mean, it's crazy. It's it's awesome. So I'm excited to get back get back to training and then uh, Fuck I can't wait. This is fighting for a belt to more hardware. There's more hardware my fucking that's what I'd want That's what I've always been I've always been about rings. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want.

I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want.

I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want.

I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. Was there any talk of you fighting Dylan because you're still you're on the same card and people seem to hype to for that matchup In in the GFL. So was there any I thought the deal too I talked to Dylan to an Instagram, you know, like cuz we're trying to do some we're trying to make some shit happen

We don't like to sit around when you have fighters and stuff We try to figure shit out because sometimes that's what promoters and whatever they just fucking need. I'm glad he's staying busy I'm glad he's got a fight, you know after this maybe we'll fucking talk money talks bullshit walks So at the end of the day, we got a fight. You know, after this, maybe we'll all fucking talk. Money talks, bullshit walks. So at the end of the day, we got this fight to worry about on the 30th. Okay. What did you make of Sal Papi's energy up there in the face-off?

Like he was doing something, and I don't know if he was throwing salt on you. That's his gimmick. Did you- Oh, he was trying to throw sand, in my opinion. Oh. Just kidding. Look, that's his body shot.

And that's his go-to. Yeah, I've got a full dossier. Remember how like when I started studying Khabib and I started studying McNuggets? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Remember how in-depth a lot of it was? Yes. This is about how that's gonna be.

I've seen you post a lot of pictures of you in Khabib lately. Oh, my best friend? Yeah, yeah. It is Tuesday somewhere over there. I think it's Wednesday over there. I just saw a place that has Tiramisu sort of right and ready for like $5. At some point you got like,

whether it's a reality show, you guys are coaching against each other or grappling. At some point there has to be some sort of finality to this, no? Ah man, I'll beat him in anything, but you know, that kid's, he's my biggest fan. The one on the right, by the way, looks when I when they show me that I was like holy shit where were they like that looks legit man well that's fucking awesome I

haven't that picture is great it's incredible if you saw him right now what do you think would happen oh man it was look when it goes down to it we hated each other for a long time and his dad did him a favor by keeping them away from me as any smart parent would do they would fucking keep him away from danger they felt the danger when it came into fucking these bloody fights and could be that day he ducked out that night before he knew what he was getting his hands into they tried to surround me and my family with some stupid shit try to like make us put down play on how we're supposed to go Into this fight like it was a lot of shit and he knew I wasn't backing down

And so did his team and when I called him out at the press or at the at the face off and I told him You know have fun cutting weight, you know I've always been one to like kind of tell exactly what's gonna happen before it happened so I saw it coming that dude will never fight me and hit neither him or Connor would ever step in the ring with me or in the fucking cage fight me and hit neither him or Connor would ever step in the ring with me or in the fucking cage with me and That is the fear that I instilled on both of those gentlemen that night that I fought Pettis I was about to take all three of them that night. I fucking would have just wore all their blood that night

What a time I'll just ask you a couple more to let you go What do you make of what's become of Connor as of late? He hasn't fought in four years I don't know. I hear he's lifting weights kind of of crazy. You know, I just stay busy, fucker. My biggest thing is for him is to, like I said, when he first won this shit, it was like he used the game Genie. And when you do that, you collect all the coins right away, you fucking go back and play the game. That's not the same.

So I mean, like I said to him, you know, best of luck and whatever the fuck you're doing, you know, but not my cup of tea. I saw you out there in Thailand with Armin Tsirukyan. What did you make of him? He's chill. I think at the end of the day, like, look, man, I even talk with him and I gave him some advice, but like, you know, what do you see and stuff like that? You know, he's fighting for the belt. I forgot what ranking was. He wanted to grapple against me. And this is what I told him.

I was like, you want to grapple against me? He's like, well, why? And I was like, I'll take your ranking. That's different. Well, I'm not saying I'm looking after somebody's career and this shit like that, but a lot of people, they don't think smart and they don't think right away. So I gave them some pointers and some things,

but that goes with a lot of people that I come into contact with and just be able to point them in the right direction because I've been lucky enough that people could do that for me. By the way, there's this new promotion out there called the Real American Freestyle Wrestling. I know you have a background in wrestling.

That's the kind of like your foundation, right? Would you want to compete for them? That's Hulk Hogan's new promotion. Bo Nichols competing for them. Ben Askren, of course, was signed up, but you know, right now he's battling. He's got some health issues. Would you be interested in that?

Some old school El Kukui wrestling? You guys don't want to see me wrestle. Why not? I want to see you in the singlet again. Oh, you guys couldn't fucking handle it. I moved it and I'm fucking completely different person. You thought I was confident when I fucking fought in the cage.

Now wait, you put some shoes on me and you put me in my fucking, my gear, how I'm supposed to be. I'm gonna snap some heads in the fucking mat. That's completely different. I'll point you fast. I'll give you a TF finish. That's a Tony Ferguson fucking finish.

You remember that. I know you said you didn't watch the fights this weekend, but you know, Dustin Poirier had this incredible sendoff in his home state. I'm sure you may have seen a clip or two. Any part- I saw something like that. Yeah, congratulations, Dustin, on your shit.

I don't know if you're watching or whatever, but that's cool, man. I know you didn't get the victory in this shit, but that's cool that you go out on your fucking shield. Did you wish you got a sendoff like that from the UFC for all the time you put in? Look at, man. I know you didn't get the victory in the ship, but that's cool that you go out on your fucking shield. Did you wish you got a send off like that from the UFC for all the time you put in? I don't want to look at, man. Look at nobody's saying that I'm not coming back.

Nobody's saying anything. What it ends up happening is, you know me. I don't need a big old fucking show, Ariel. My face is on a bunch of fucking places over there, which is dope as shit. When it goes into it, you know, the hall of fame, it's collecting points, man. That's collecting coins and shit.

And as long as I keep doing that, I'm going to keep setting these goals. I'm going to keep crushing them. And that's what I hope that not only Dustin does or, you know, these young dudes that are retiring at like fucking 25. What the fuck are you doing? Yeah, you took a couple of bumps and losses. Now you're fucking get your ass back in the fucking game. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and fucking do something.

Boxing's a way for us MMA fighters to be able to go in there. A lot of us don't wanna be fucking taken down. I mean me, my wrestling's on point, I'm a national champ and state champ, but I allowed myself to fucking wanna be taken down. I don't know, I fucking didn't want to. I wanted to square up. Different sport, different times, different everything.

So, yeah, whatever. How's the fish and chips out there? I saw on your IG, you were enjoying some fish and chips. It's amazing. It's pretty cool. This spot, they had some like, I don't know, call like this, like old school, like things like Charlie Chaplin and a bunch of like these, like old tunes and things.

This is a cool spot, man. And my boy, Tommy, I was like, hey, I said, we got to go find a barber shop. And the servers were really, really cool. They're really attentive and just on point. And what was it called? The Jack the Chipper Fish Place. Awesome spot. Awesome spot.

It was either that or Burger King. I'm so glad I didn't go to Burger King. Yeah, no, you can't do that. I was just like, I'm hungry. And so Tommy's like, he's like, he asked the guy, he's like, Hey, you know, what can we find a barber shop? Well, the owner fucking he was like, Hey, you guys looking, we took a couple pictures and he fucking walked us.

Wow. All we have like a couple blocks over to this other spot, Four Seasons barber shop here in London. And the guys were just awful. I've never had this haircut before. It was like the craziest. It was it was dope. It was the best haircut I've ever had.

It was one of a kind. The vibe here is just awesome. I'm glad we came here to be able to do this and I can't wait to come here, August 30th and be in Manchester. You look fantastic. I saw you with the mask. Was that at the place? Yeah, I don't really do that many masks

while I try not to face plantain on the mud. But yeah, man, it was cool. I got the full nine yards. I never take care of myself. So it was a. I got the full nine yards. I never take care of myself. So it was a real eye-opener that of the things a little small details because I always put the small details like in all my fight stuff in there They probably don't take care of myself too much and I do when I'm injured But like otherwise, I really don't take care of myself. Just kind of let it flow

Now it's different. I've got I got a good vibe from here I'm gonna bring it with me and I'm very excited to get back into my academy and before I can work this shit out, dude, this is awesome. Big opportunity. I'm not gonna let it waste. Okay. Well, round third here, as they say, we'll end on this. You know, we've seen Darren Box, we've seen Luke do the bare knuckle thing, we've seen

Sal Papi. You're the great unknown here and I think you're gonna sell a ton of pay-per-views. Seeing you in a ring for the first time is the attraction, my opinion. People's main event if you will. What can we expect on the 30th? Who is Tony Ferguson the boxer and what's the prediction here? How does this play out with Saul Poppy? And by the way, how many rounds? How many rounds? We're going five rounds. Okay. So okay. Then the other two questions. I'm gonna be throwing a lot of leg kicks and knees. I'm gonna be throwing elbows. I'm going to be throwing elbows. I'm going to take them down. I'm going to hit a lot of ground and pound. Perfect. It could happen before anything.

So hopefully the ref can stop it before he gets to that point. But what is the prediction really? I'm going to hit him. He ain't going to hit me. I'm going to really do work. Yeah. Always wanted to put on shoes and fight. You have to, I was jealous of like the back in the day when they

used to have wrestling shoes on. It was, who was that? It was not, it was not a wrestling shoe. It was a wrestling shoe. It was a wrestling shoe. It was a wrestling shoe. It was a wrestling shoe. It was a wrestling shoe. girl always wanted to put on shoes and fight you have to I was jealous of like the back in the day when they used to have wrestling shoes on it was who was that it was not seven seven was one of them I think and then you had Don Fry Don Fry was the man fucking going we're going and watch your back yes always rear it back in the day of pride like wrestling shoes just gives you a different grip.

And I've wrestled my whole entire life. I moved completely different with wrestling shoes. And I'm telling you, the padding on these gloves, they ain't shit. There's nothing there. Look at that fucking knuckle, dude. Look at that knuckle. You see that knuckle?

It's gonna hit him in the face and it's gonna break his nose. Can't wait. Thanks for doing this, Tony. Are we good, Tony? Are we good? I don't want smoke with you. No, no smoke, man. We got you, Tony? Are we good? I don't want smoke with you. No, no smoke, man.

We got you, man. Lots of love. I was like, man, why is this guy doing? I was like, don't blame me. I was like, oh my God. No, no, no, no, no. We've been through that. All the comments.

I saw all the comments. Everybody's like, saw Papi's gonna win. Tony's washed up. He needs to retire. And I got one person, yay, Tony. I'm cool with that. I'm riding with you. That's good, man. Thank you. That's all you need. That's all you need, man. You just need one.. Yay, Tony. I'm cool with that. I'm riding with you. That's yes. Thank you

That's all you need. That's all you need man. You just need one Lick handle there's one fucking lick handle and I can see it and I'll get that I don't care how far it is Good luck Tony. Thank you for doing this really appreciate it Much love you're the man the great El Cucuy What a guy can't wait for that and what a show and what a lineup they have put together and thank you to the good people at Misfits Thank you to Mams and and Phil for putting that all together, the whole team over there, Victoria,

we appreciate you guys very much. That was a lot of fun coming off that very entertaining press conference earlier today in Manchester. We've been to Manchester a couple of times. GC and I were there in, what was that, 23. We loved it. We absolutely loved it. Everyone was so nice, right?

Everyone was so friendly. Like that story where he was talking about the guy walking him over reminded me of, remember that cab driver, how nice he was? Oh, the best. The one who took us to the airport. The best. He still messaged me every once in a while.

Still? Yeah, still to this day. Manchester. Legend. One of my favorite towns ever. My favorite memory of Manchester is you setting up the show from the hotel room and blowing out the fuse.

But keeping it cool. Learning afterwards that you were crapping your jocks. Oh, stressful times. Yeah, I mean, I had to carry all the equipment. There was like 18 bags of equipment. And then, yeah, I got over there. It was just me. Set everything up and then powered her on.

I didn't help with the equipment? I didn't help with the carrying? No. Nothing? No, no, no. I was packing on it and you were just like, you got this? You want a water. Nothing? No, no, no, I was packing on it and you were just like, you want a water or anything?

No, that's crazy. Like I got to head up to first class. Oh, that's crazy. You were like, how was everything in the back? Remember how sick I got? You got sick? You don't remember? Lost my voice completely?

Oh yes, yes, yes, like you couldn't talk at all. Couldn't talk, they thought of taking me off the show. Oh yeah, wow. Presser, I did the presser like, hello everyone. It was awful. We traveled all the way over there. Yeah, it was a good time. Had the English breakfast.

English breakfast, the Rolls Royce on the jet engines on the way over there flying Virgin. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Indian food with Adé. I was gonna say we met up with Adé out there. Yeah, a couple times. Shout out to Manchester, man, take me back. Great place. So that's the AO Arena which is the other arena over there. The new one is the Co-op Live but it's a great lineup and it's going down

August 30th in Manchester on Dazon. So there you have it. Now later in the program we're going to be joined by Dakota Ditcheva who had the massive win this past weekend. She continues to win and also revealed that she has signed a new long-term deal with PFL. We're also going to be joined by one of the best coaches in the sport. They call him Pahumpa. He is the head coach of one, Alexandre Pantoja, Armen Tsarukyan. One of his coaches, Henato Moikano, Armin Tsurukian, one of his coaches, Henato Moicano,

was nominated coach of the year 2024, probably will be once again 2025, and is doing big things over at American Top Team. So two parts of the American Top Team stable gonna join us. You may have seen yesterday some fantastic news regarding Ben Askren over here. We're trying to do our small part to help out

in any which way we can. You know about the poker felt table that we're auctioning off. We're over the 3000 mark. I'm not sure when, I don't know how update to date this is, but I think it's in that ballpark. Tom Aspinall, Demetrius Johnson, Dan Hooker, Israel Desanya, Marabdawali Shvili, Alex Volkonovsky.

Who am I missing? I'm missing some other people. Tracy Cortez, I said Izzy, I think, Raul Rosas. Ian Machado-Garry. Ian Machado-Garry, Rico Verhoeven, Ariel Hawani. I don't know if we can zoom in. Can we zoom in on the pic? If you squint your eyes.

There's one person on the sub stack who gave me shit for my signature. Well, we also gave you shit. Yeah, I know, but I didn't think anyone would have noticed it from the picture. And they're like, is your signature just like you writing your name? It's very Marab-esque.

Marab just writes his name. So does Montel Jackson. He just writes Montel. My thing is, I want people, there's so many autographs there. There's so many signatures. I wanted people to know whose it was. And also the thing is, in the moment, we had just wrapped

all the shows, I was coming down and I was just like, I'll write your name and like, yeah, I just... Who's laughing like that? Was that really... Who do you think's laughing like that? Holy shit. I thought that was a drop. Thanks a lot. Jesus. Also, the best part is we forced you to write in cursive above it. Yeah, I did a double.

I just, just in case, is that no good? Let's see that again. I was like, who is that? I just wanted to write my name. Yeah, is that no good? Tom Aspino signs, big Tom. Ariel Hawani signs, Ariel Hawani. No good?

Someone was giving me shit on the sub stack. Look at you with the, what's the ball called? The slicker? Yeah, yeah. That's my new thing. Slitter. It's like you're Okokui up there with the baseball, man. I thought he was going to mention it. Oh, fucking hell. If someone told me a child, you got a child to write your name on that thing, I would have 100% believed you.

Look at the fucking side of that. Fucking hell. I had to specify on the auction that it is in fact your signature and not someone's child who wrote your name. Hey Ariel, this is from Jimmy G. I'll just skip to this one. Looking at the awesome autos on the table top felt in eBay, I see your name in handwriting. Is that your autograph? Yes, I just go and I write Ariel Helwani. Anyway, I actually didn't want to sign it for the record. I thought that I was rude.

No, you had to sign it. But I was told that I had to sign it. It looks exactly like a Marab signed card. All to say, all to say, it's all going to going to Ben every single penny going to Ben his family Amy his wife She posted this on her IG story yesterday Ben leaving the hospital How incredible is this Unbelievable there was a time where we thought he was gone.

Now he's leaving. It's a new life for Ben and his family. He posted this from the Car Ride home. What's up guys? Day 59. I'm out. With my beautiful wife supportive Man that was that was a long journey and it's not over because I still can't really walk

Teach me teach myself to do that Among many other things I Guess I can make light of it because it was me and I don't really remember it but Amy how close was it was I to die? Too close a few times. Man I remember I don't remember 35 days of this journey but the last I think I think surgery was 24, 25 days ago. It was hard. It was hard. And I said this already in one of the videos, but the support you guys gave me, whether it was sending a GoFundMe,

whether it was helping my kids and wife get through it, I had friends come from all over the country just like hang out for a couple days. Oh it meant so much. It was so great to just have all the support and all the love and hopefully I'm not in this situation again for a really really really long time. I plan on living a while. So thank you guys again. All the positives for all the comments online. So thank you guys again, all the positives for it, all the comments online. Everything means so much.

Love you guys. God bless Ben Askren and his family and we're obviously pulling for them and wishing them the best. Obviously this is a new chapter in his life and hopefully we can get that number up. Maybe we can put it back, is it in the chat? We can pin that in the chat. The eBay auction will be up for, put it back, is it in the chat? We can pin that in the chat.

The eBay auction will be up for, there it is. I see it right there, thank you very much. Even if it's five bucks or something like that, let's try to get that number up. We're over 3,000 now and again, every single penny gonna go to his family. What's so funny over there? That's just not how auctions work.

Well, no, I understand. I know it's not a telethon here but it's not. You can't do the five bucks. No no no meaning like okay it's at three thousand fifty get it get it three thousand five. You tell someone even if it's three thousand fifty five just please. Yeah just every little bit helps Just five bucks meaning you have to pay three thousand five hundred and fifty five bucks The chat was like we I don't think Ariel knows how options work for the price of a cup of coffee plus three thousand five hundred dollars For the price of a cup of coffee you can raise the auction up and someone's gonna For the price of a cup of coffee you can raise the auction up and you owe $3,500. Later on someone's then going to say like for a price of a Starbucks, for a McDonald's, no?

No man, that's not how auctions work. I just want to say though thank you to everybody who's bid so far. Trying to have a moment here. Almost a hundred bids, almost a hundred bids. Thank you, every little bit counts. You're having a moment, we found some comparisons for your signature. There's yours.

Okay, yeah. I think that's not bad. Andy from Toy Story. Oh, Jesus. Not bad. Backwards N. And the Bantamoy Chan. Wow!

Is that real? That's uncanny, that's uncanny. By the way, if I was a fan and got that, I would be way happier with that than like little scribble. As my daughter says. Yes? So you know it's his? Is that why you would feel? Oh no, because it's different. It sticks out. I could say, look at this. No confusion who it's by anyway.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm not sure what I was thinking. My signature is very quick and small, so I felt like it wouldn't mean anything and it would just look like a little smudge. Who knows? Who knows? Anyway, so happy for Ben, so happy for his family and wishing them well. I did want to bring up one interesting piece of news that has emerged as of this morning. This is from Sportico, the business of sports. TKO backed Muhammad Ali bill aims to shake up the boxing world. Did you guys see this? US reps, Brian Jack, Republican from Georgia and Sharice David's Democrat from Kansas on Wednesday introduced the Muhammad Ali American boxing revival act.

So they're keeping Ali's name in there. A bill that would create alternative systems for boxers to seek guaranteed pay and obtain enhanced safety protections. The bill would establish what are described as quote alternative professional systems end quote for boxers. Central to this arrangement are quote unified boxing organizations, UBOs, a name for organizations intended to offer boxers new Central to this arrangement are, quote, unified boxing organizations, UBOs, a name for organizations intended to offer boxers new ways to pursue their profession.

The bill follows advocacy efforts by TKO, the parent company of UFC and WWE, to stimulate interest in Congress for creating more and better professional opportunities for boxers in the U.S. As Sportico reported in March, TKO's joined hands with Sella and Entertainment's subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Turkey Al-Sheikh, the chair of the Kingdom's entertainment authority to

launch the new boxing promotion. The bill would add to the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996, a federal statute that was amended in 2000 through the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. this law set minimum nationwide safety standards and offered other benefits to pro-boxers such as requirements for medical personnel attending events, however inconsistent enforcement mechanisms and ambiguities in the statutory language and other limitations have attracted the interest of reformers. One more, one more quote here. Quote, when you look at the boxing world as a whole, Jack said in an interview, the sport in America is dying. He referenced HBO and

Showtime dropping their boxing coverage in recent years. Declines in pay-per-view buys the boxing events and other developments that suggest boxing is struggling to maintain a footing with the fan. Jack, who served as White House political director during President Donald Trump's first term and is one of five freshman members of the House to chair a subcommittee said professional boxing is the only sport that is regulated by Congress as a result he said Congress has a particularly important role in shaping the sport and reviving it and so this is a really I could go on and on here it's a pretty

long article check it out on Sportico but what's interesting about it is they're not going the route of we're just abolishing the Muhammad Ali Act. They're going the route of we're reviving the Ali Act. But obviously they have their motives. They've talked about in very short, the model that you see in the world of MMA and in particular in the world of UFC can't exist in boxing. There is no promotional belt.

There's things like purse bids, there's rankings, there's sanctioning bodies who will say, oh, Joseph Parker is the number one contender, is the mandatory in the WBO. He has to fight Oleksandr Usyk who holds our belt. And if Oleksandr Usyk doesn't want to fight this guy, he will be stripped of our belt. That's why when Usyk beat Fury, theF said you have to fight Daniel Dubois. He didn't want to

fight Daniel Dubois at the time. It didn't make sense and so they took that belt away and they made Dubois versus AJ for the vacant IBF title. There's a million examples of this. We had Shushu Carrington in yesterday. He's fighting for the interim WBC because the guy who's holding the title right now is going to move up away class and so they have to, but then there's a champion in recess and there's all this meshugas. And so they're saying we just want to have a TKO belt or excuse me a Zufa boxing belt. That's the name, right? And we want to have our own rankings and we don't want anyone to tell us who our champions are going to fight and when, which is essentially the UFC. Now there are some who love that model and there's some who don't love that model and

there's some in the boxing business that say this isn't good. Another thing by the way in the world of boxing, you can't be a manager and be a promoter. It's illegal. In MMA you see this all the time. Ed Soros is a manager and promoter of LFA. Graham Boylan is a manager and promoter of Cage Warriors. Ali Abdelaziz was a manager and a promoter at the same time World Series of Fighting. There's a ton of examples of this. Congress doesn't regulate MMA. Everything goes unchecked. Boxing, as this politician said, is regulated by MMA.

So it's going to be very interesting to see. One would suspect with the big dog in in the White House right now, 45 and 47, one would suspect they'll have a relatively good shot of passing this and being in the clear. But let's see, also it was reported today, I saw this on MMA junkie, Nolan King reported it, that Zufa, and everyone expected this, Zufa has received its boxing license so they're good to go for September 13th at the Legion Stadium, Terrence Crawford versus Kanell Alvarez. All right, let's get to more news. Just one more thing. In the time since that article came out, which I saw this morning, I've

gotten an email from Congressman Jack's office as well. Like they have been, I imagine because I'm on a UFC mailing list of some sort, I have gotten an email like outlining this and asking for support for the bill and things like that. So. Here it is, yes, you sent it to me. Congressman Brian Jack and Congresswoman Charisse Davids introduced bipartisan bill to provide professional boxers

more opportunities, better pay and greater safety protections This is the way to do it right? this is the you you tell the world that you're going to make it better as opposed to just getting rid of the The old guard it does say here this bipartisan legislation endorsed by the Association of boxing commissions and Lonnie Ali wife of the late boxing legend and co-founder of the Muhammad Ali Center, provides professional boxers with more career opportunities,

better pay and greater safety protections. So there you have it. All right, time now for everyone's favorite segment of the week, it is time. It's time for On The Nose. I'm just gonna say this. I'm just gonna say this regarding On The Nose. There was once a time where I applauded the audience and said, you guys are bringing it. I think you need to bring it again.

Well, I took a quick gander. It's a, the standard is in there. The standard is in there. A lot of comments. One 14. There's, there's, there's, there's diamonds in the rough, but it's, it's not quite 2022, 2023 standard. If you get what I'm saying.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Uh, let's go to miss Lippy. Thank you very much. Miss Lippy. Uh, Marvin Vittori versus Brandon Allen was

a hundred percent fight of the night. I think it's a little bit disrespectful to just discredit those guys and their war just because they didn't have the stakes attached to their fight. Max and Dustin was fun, but wasn't fight of the night. And D Rod Holland was a sloppy fight with a fun, sloppy surge in the end of the two rounds. You guys are so clicky and always just agree with one another instead of having an original opinion apart from each other.

What's with the bias against those guys respect to those guys, deserving of fight of the night. Can I tell you one thing that I could not give two shits about it's any sort of bias against the guys respect to those guys deserving a fight of the night? Can I tell you one thing that I could not give two shits about it's any sort of argument about who deserves what kind of bonus? That's just my opinion but like yeah, great. I'm happy they got the money and and more often than not I like the fact that Guys were on the prelims get the bonus as opposed to made Avengers because they're the ones making the most amount of money But I think objectively we could all say

D-Rod versus Holland was a way more entertaining fight than that one. I don't think that's being clicky. Does anyone disagree with that? No, we all agree. We love it. Yeah, we're so quick. We disagree.

No, we all agree. Okay. We all agree. What's with the bias? I enjoyed the Kevin Holland, Daniel Rodriguez fight more. That's the bias. Did you only say that because Ariel also said that.

Disagree with everyone. By the way, I don't know if you guys know this, but I disagree with your disagreement. So we agree. Number one, the number one unbiased combat sports outlet in the world right here. So there is no bias. There never will be a bias.

It doesn't happen. It can't happen. It doesn't exist. Uh, this is from Steve Buscemi. DC always exaggerates, but you know what Brock did. I don't know what that's referring to. Is that referring to an interview he did with Demetrius where he said like Brock was banned or something?

Did you, I think I saw a clip about that, but I didn't. Brock was banned? I think he said Brock was banned from TKO. I don't know. Okay. No, I'm not aware of whatever this is. You have to, see what I'm saying? I have to dig.

Like in the old, no, no, no, not you. Like in the old days, Steve Buscemi would have provided some sort of context. Some context for what this is? Triple double. Is it me or did Holland look off this fight? He is usually talking from the opening bell to the end of the fight,

but he didn't say all of two words in there. He looked sloppy and as if he didn't want to be there. Thought it was a bad look for him. Really? The commentators also noted on that, thought that was interesting. Yeah. It's a Kevin Holland fight.

It's a Kevin Holland fight. You just don't know what you're gonna get. He's like a freaking Kinder Surprise. That's it. Yeah, like he wins some, he loses some, he hangs around being close to being in the rankings or the back end of the rankings And he fights a million times a year Yeah

Kevin Holland is unpredictable that is that is his gift The only reliable the only thing that you can set your watch to when it comes to Kevin Holland is that he has already asked For his next fight and he'll be fighting in a month. That is that is the Kevin Holland story He will be back and he will be making that paper This is an interesting one That is the Kevin Hollan story. He will be back and he will be making that paper. This is an interesting one. Makum Otaku, Salute Ariel and the crew. Now that Dana White has announced UFC 320 and 321

main cards, when do you see Islam versus JDM title fight happening? As I said, the plan is New York City. Will that happen? Is it a done deal? Not quite just yet But that was the one they earmarked I said Pereira versus on Koli of October 4th, October 25th Aspin all wanted the surreal gunfight and then that would leave

This particular fight for the welterweight title New York City. The question is what headlines the last pay-per-view of the year that's the December when I was thinking of this last night as I was driving home because so heavyweight probably out of the question unless Aspinol finishes him in a minute and wants to return that quickly, but feels like a bit of a long shot. Light heavyweight will have been defended October 4.

So again, too quick of a turnaround. 185 could be it if Drikus or Hamza want to turn around and fight four 4th. So again, too quick of a turnaround. 185 could be it. If Drikus or Khamza want to turn around and fight four months later, okay, that could be it. 170 would be this fight, so can't be it. Toporia, probably the best chance, maybe. He last fought in June, so that's a little less than a six month turnaround.

So maybe, who's Vogue fighting? Are they just gonna have Mobsar fight him? Maybe, that could be one. Murab, I doubt he fights again. Incredible that he's fighting already in October. And Pantoja could be on there, but I would think as a co-main. I don't know if they'd make it as a main.

And then there's the two women fights, which I think are blockbuster fights. Kayla Amanda, I don't know if they'd make it as a main. And then there's the two women fights, which I think are blockbuster fights. Kayla Amanda, I don't know what they're doing about this six month, like who's making this up, I don't know. And then Zhang Valentina. So I don't know what's gonna, we still have some time obviously. But P.T., we did an emergency show last night.

You have yet to weigh in on all these fights. Anything jump out of you. Look, let's be honest. Like we expected uncle I have and prayer to fight despite what uncle I was tweeting. I think we all sort of expected Aspen, all gone, despite some people saying gun doesn't deserve a third title fight. We expected Corey versus Merab, but maybe not this quickly. And then there was Yuri versus Khalil, which I think we all wanted, but didn't

know if it was going to happen. What jumped out at you last night? I just think like, you know, these are all fights we expected. I think Murab the turn around again, like this guy is exceptional, right? Like I think GC said yesterday, he's a fast track himself, the fighter of the year, um, obviously JDM and Islam still has to happen. If JDM does that. That's it.

That's a big one too. But just like, I'm happy that Tom has a date. I'm happy they're getting that on their way. I know. Look, I think we all, when we were thinking about the John Jones situation with Aspinal, we're all like, Oh, we'll probably end up with Cyril Gan and Aspinal. And people are kind of like tongue in cheek about that. But as you said yesterday, this is fight has been a long time in the making.

There's a lot of history there. You mentioned Tom going to France and trying to pursue Cyril Gann. He stayed out all night with Cyril Gann that night. Like he was trying to make this thing happen and he felt really snubbed when Gann wouldn't fight him. So there's a lot of history there. And, and I always used to look at that, like before, obviously Tom, um, elevated himself to the situation that he's in now. I always liked the idea of the guy that's headlining the UK card against the guy that's

headlining all the Paris cards. Like if you look at them, if you look at, uh, 2022 when, when Aspinal fought Volkov and just see what he means to the people, people, when he did the rematch with Blaze that time to see what the the Ukraine crowd feel for this guy. And then you look at Cyril Gagne being serenaded to the French national anthem, you know, when he's in the cage and people were just striking it up while he was, I think it was Tito Ivase he was fighting. They were just singing it in the crowd. Like these, these people have their nations behind them.

And I think anyone that thinks it's a terrible fight just isn't thinking about it enough. Like Gan, aside from the John Jones fight, has looked pretty exceptional in the UFC. He was shot out of a cannon, came in there 2-0, is a very, very good striker. I think he's obviously been training a lot with wrestlers since the John Jones situation, which is great to see. I think Tom has a huge advantage over him on the ground, honestly, but I do feel like it's going to be a really, really good fight and it means a lot to many, many people.

Yeah. I saw Tom, uh, he posted a video where he commented on this. He posted this on his Instagram and, uh, he basically said, and I quote, finally we're back after over a year hiatus. Me and Cyril Gagne finally signed on the dotted line. This is the fourth time we've been matched up together. He turned me down for a fight early on before we were in the rankings. After that he fought Sergey Spivak.

I said in a post fight interview after I beat Marcin Tabora that I was gonna fight the winner of that fight at UFC Paris. I went to Paris. Cyril unfortunately turned down that fight on a second occasion. And so here we go.

Then he talked about originally wanting to fight Gan instead of Curtis Blades for his first interim title defense. That was last July. The original opponent was Surreal Gan. Unfortunately, Surreal was busy that date and was filming his Netflix series. And now we are matched up for the 25th of October. Dhabi me and surreal the fourth attempt is here and this is surreal's third title shot and here's the parting shot from Tom we are going to try and get rid of surreal gone from the title picture for good I'm I'm I'm

I'm hype I'm hype there's gonna be a lot of stuff man I feel like listen for all the people by the way who are upset about surreal, who else, who else, honestly, who else? Like you could say, but like he, he lost to him. He's already beaten. Not only that surreal beat him and I know it was close controversial, but on the record and Tom has a win over him. Like really decisive, really decisive win.

And it's kind of like that fight against Volkoff is the one that kind of woke everybody up to him. I knew he was a great prospect before that, but being in that spot, headline the first London card after the pandemic when people were allowed back in there. I've said it before, I've been to these London events for decades and the feeling in that place that night and consider all the great UK fighters they've had throughout the years. That was the most magical that night and you have the audio bed with the people singing outside like it was a, it was pure celebration. To the idea that he would go back and fight Volkov who's been looking great.

And I thought he beat Gan personally, I thought he beat Gan in that fight, but he didn't. Officially he did not beat him. But to go back to that for your first defense as undisputed champion, I think that would be, that would be, I just don't think it would make sense. No, this is the move. And the other move, by the way, is Volkov versus Jolted Almeida on the same card. Great. That's what I've been talking about.

You need, you need to show everyone as many heavyweights as you can that night. Yeah. about, you need, you need to show everyone as many heavyweights as you can that night. Because the division is on life support up until they, uh, they, they made Tom undisputed. And now look, you might not like the fact that it's gone, but we're talking about the heavyweights again, and this just didn't happen. We're talking about two guys who didn't fight each other in the end for well over a year. This, this is how you rebuild the division and fair play to the UFC. I think this is exactly what they need to do. Yeah. And round tree versus Yuri is a tremendous fight

on the same card as the light heavyweight title fight, Murad making the quick turnaround against Corey is tremendous. Anyway, this guy asked who our pick was for Islam versus JDM. Anyone want to make a pick? Islam. JDM.

I disagree with both of them. Draw. Draw. No contest. DQ. I don't know, man. I can't wait for that fight by the way. What a great fight. Yeah, it's great. And I love this Craig Jones angle. Like this guy has, has discovered how to beat Dagestani wrestling and look, Craig Jones

is fucking good enough that you can, it's fathomable that he has created some kind of system that can deflect these guys. I love what Whittaker said to you yesterday, like JDM is similar style, but a lot bigger dude than Volkanovsky. Although I feel like, you know, he didn't quite want to push it over the line and say JDM is going to win. I don't know. It's going to be a great fight. JDM is a completely different stratosphere than we've seen him in before.

Look what he, I know it's not like for like, but look what he did against Gilbert Burns. Um, he was tremendous against him and Gilbert Burns, a different kind of grappler, but an absolutely world-class grappler, no doubt about it, a world champion. Um, really, really interesting. Can't wait to see Islam go up as well. Selfishly, I want to see Islam Vigilia, so kind of rooting for JDM in the hopes that it will send Islam back down. But really, really great for you. I think I'm with Rick. I think it's Islam, but would not be shocked at all with JDM winning this one. Level Up One says, although Costa, his fight wasn't a

barn burner, I thought he was a huge star of the night. He looked back to prime, if not better. He may have lost his scary unknown aura since losing, but he looked phenomenal and intelligent. And there, huge shout out to Paolo. He needs to make a run. I couldn't agree more. And also, he's positioning himself

for a huge fight against Hamza. If Hamza loses, it's a no-brainer. But I could see a world where if Hamza wins, they say, all right, you asked for it, let's go. Like he has put himself in that conversation. He better get himself to Chicago, have him sit there in the front row, do the back and forth thing that he was doing at the press conference throughout the entire fight and just like let him cook. Paolo is an incredible personality.

He's very funny. He's very entertaining. He's come such a long way. I remember the first time I had him in studio with captain Eric, it was on the same show that GSP was in studio with Captain Eric It was on the same show that GSP was in studio days after he beat Michael Bisping in New York City Palo really had no business being on it was a special edition. It was a Thursday show did not speak a lick of English and Looked the part. I mean, he's a very good-looking guy who's gigantic and he's really come into his own. Shout out to his partner, hopefully soon to be fiance, soon to be wife, Tamara, who does

a great job guiding him. And yeah, he hit it out of the park. He came across as a star. He fought a smart fight over a guy who had won, I believe, up top my head, six of his last seven. That was a big time win for him, an important win for him. You can't be in the hums out conversation if you lose to copy love. And he did what he had to do.

And I hope he's sitting there in the front row come the 16th of October, excuse me, August. Well done. Well done is his name. Dustin finally lost two in a row for the first time in his career. Holy smokes, incredible he could go out that long. Yeah, I noticed that.

Someone brought that up. Incredible. 10 losses, which just add him to the list of legends who have double digit losses in the UFC that no one cares about. No one thinks less of him because of it. And that was the first time he's lost two in a row. Pretty incredible. This is from Left Lake Cemetery, Goat Connor. He's talking about you, GC. In light of DP's retirement fight, what are your favorite last dance sports moments?

One that comes to mind for me is Ray Lewis announcing his retirement in 2012 in the Baltimore Ravens, proceeding to win the championship. Most careers end in heartbreak, but Ray went out on top. It's tough. Yeah, the Ray one's good.

Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl in his last game. Kobe Bryant, 60 points. Oh my God, what a game. That was like, that might be my favorite one, just because I was with all my boys, I was in college. We were tuned in and the fact that he got the 60 was incredible. Man, it wasn't the last dance,

but Tiger winning the 2019 Masters after everything he went to was incredible. The greatest of all time would have been Jordan's shot over the chest. If that's how he ended it. Yes, yes. That would have been the greatest final moment ever. Yeah, that would have been up there.

I'm trying to think. I don't know why he specifically has made it. Messi at the World Cup, it was his last World Cup? Yeah, but now I feel like he's coming back. Yeah, I think so too. But why wouldn't he? I don't think he's gonna last. I don't think he's gonna last. You don't think he's gonna last?

What do you mean that long? It's one more year. By the way, he's also smashing it right now. Like he had a stretch there where he scored like eight goals in four games. Piddy, what do you know, man? Yeah, what do you know? Diagnosis?

Yeah, what are you saying? He's gonna sign for Barcelona. You think he's leaving? You think he's leaving Inter Miami? Yeah, they're saying he's rejoining Barcelona this year. He's going to do the people of Miami like that. He's going to, they're building a stadium in his honor. I think in Miami, a statue. Listen, I'm sad too much.

I'm sad too much. Wow. What else? Fabrizio Romano here. That's send off Robbie Lawler up there. Yeah. I can't believe people were comparing the Lawler send off to DP. Like I was like, this has never happened before. They're like, oh, Lawler did it like a year ago.

You're comparing Lawler in Las Vegas on the prelims against Nico Price to what we saw this past weekend. Excuse you. Excuse you. Excuse you, man. Um, what else? What else? Uh, Derek Jeter hit a, hit a walk off.

Oh, that was an incredible one. Yeah. You just looked it up. I'm just looking up like, give us some more. Yeah. Give you just looked it up. I'm just looking up like best moments. Yeah, give us some more. I feel like we're missing a ton. John Elway also won the Superbowl in his final game. Went back to back.

Games MVP. Ted Williams in his last at bat hit a home run. Who could forget? Capping off his legendary career. Ray Allen, a corner three pointer in the Heat Spurs NBA final. That was his last game. That was his last.

I think that was his last season. Wow. You were there for Maradona's last goal scored in the World Cup before, NBA final. That was his last game. That was his last. I think that was his last season. Wow. You were there for Maradona's last goal scored in the world cup before he got tested. He tested positive for cocaine that time. Right. So did he score in that game? I was there. Yes.

1994. He scored a penalty. Did he score a penalty against Nigeria? He went psych. That's what he, he went psycho into the camera and they tested them afterwards and like, no, he's out of his face. Wow. I remember him leaving the game.

I don't remember him scoring to be honest Well, maybe didn't maybe a different game. There's been some good ones in pro wrestling Bill Goldberg retirement much talked about Pete Sampras won the won the US Open and then retired. That's that's not bad. That's legendary Rocky Marciano. Oh, yeah They haven't David Robinson. John Elroy wins the Act of Act Super Bowl? Yeah, I mean, I already said that. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening. You're right. I was thinking about how you guys hadn't mentioned Derek Jeter until you had a look at him. No, no, you're right. The Admiral, yeah, 1999, he won the NBA Finals against the Knicks and then, no, no, I was adding. Did you know Derek Jeter walk off last game?

That was a good one. That's good. I can't believe I forgot that. What about Dustin Corrier? He got a final fight in New Orleans. That was, yeah, if you're going to mention great retirements, that's gotta be up to Bobby Lawler. If Jordan had walked and just retired

after the jazz game. I watched the Kobe Bryant game in Tampa. I was there for UFC on Fox, something or other. Uh, Habib fought the dude who replaced Tony. Darrell Horcher. Yes. He fought him on that card. Rashad was on there.

I think against Glover to sheriff memory serves me. Craig Rose was on there. I think he is Tisha Torres. Anyway, I watched it in a crappy hotel room in Tampa. Good memories. White Whale, Holy Grail. Hello Ariel. Uncrowned is smashing it. Thanks for all the hard work. It's so fun to have all this content. Man, Uncrowned team. We had Ben Foulkes in today PT. What? Yeah. He made it. D-Ben Foulkes. D-Ben Foulkes. Jacked as ever. You know this guy's jacked. He's on steroids.

You know this guy's jacked. He looked good. He looked good. You touch his back and it's like. Also, can we talk about the grip strength? Grip strength is phenomenal. Rec League hockey, man. That's all duty.

You had to really go in there and it felt like you were getting outmanned there whenever you time I shook his hand. Yeah, no. He's a mountain man. He's a specimen. I went in for a seat. He's a mountain man.

He lives in the mountains. Anyway, he said, this individual, really loved the Eric Bischoff sit down as well as Costello van Stenis. Nothing better than when meritocracy makes a start. Could you please give us some behind the scenes on what it's like to make Ariel and Adé? What's it like having a co-host on Zoom?

Is a more difficult booking guest from the world of boxing? Oh, these are good questions. I like these inside baseball questions. I really like Ade. When this idea came about of doing a boxing show with Dazon produced here by Uncrowned, part of the reason why I think they wanted to work with us was because as acknowledged by the industry,

we are the number one unbiased outlet in all of combat sports, so it's a good look. I said I wanted to do with Ade because I enjoy working with him. I think he's very talented and obviously incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to the sweet science. Originally, I'll be a hundred percent honest,

I wanted the show to just be like him and I talking, dissecting, debating, because I was worried about doing interviews via Zoom or we're not in the same room. And just being 100% honest, I'm not used to sharing interviews, right? There's a flow to an interview. There's this sort of like mythology that I like to use where it's like it starts here, and then it goes there, and then it ends here, and there's a bit of an arc,

and you follow a path, and only you need to follow the path. When you're sharing it with someone, there's a bit of an arc and you follow a path and only you need to follow the path. When you're sharing it with someone, it's a little more difficult. And so I was really worried about that. I was talking to him, funny enough, I didn't see this one beforehand, but I was talking to him this morning. I feel like we have found our groove to where,

for example, we're talking to Ellie Scotney yesterday and in my mind I'm thinking, oh, at this point, we should ask her about Nikisa and Skye Nicholson last week, and he asked it, and we didn't even talk about that. And so I feel like we have found a groove to where I don't have a problem at all with the interviews. In fact, I enjoy them immensely. We had a wonderful chat with Andy Lee yesterday,

who was just absolutely brilliant. That interview is up on our page right now, talking about Usyk and Parker and the Dubois situation and whatnot. But I really enjoyed the interviews, and I really enjoyed the banter as well. And I enjoyed the friendship and camaraderie, and I think it's incredible that we're able to do this

on the heels of a show earlier in the day. As far as booking the guests, it's not as difficult as I thought. Luckily, you know, there's, okay, there's, I don't know, six or seven major boxing promotions out there. There's Top Rank, there's Queensberry, there's Matchroom, there's Golden Boy, there's boxer. Obviously there's the misfits and MVPs of the world and I wouldn't put them in the same bucket but I'm just kind of counting off the top of my head. I'm probably forgetting one or two. Anyway, luckily we have great relationships with all of them

and they're all very ready and willing to help us out and get us guests when possible. And I have relationships now with trainers, managers, promoters on my own, and fighters too. Like Joseph Parker, for example, I have a relationship with him. And so I'm developing that. I would never dare to say that I have the connections, Rolodex, and even by the way, the knowledge, I would never dare to say that I'm an expert. Like I consider myself an expert in the world of MMA because I've just lived and breathed it for so long. But again, this notion, this idea that's trying to be perpetuated as of late that

I'm like some Johnny come lately to the world of boxing that I only started following and liking boxing in 2023 is patently absurd. I was a fan of boxing and watch boxing and ordered pay-per-views and followed the sport long before I even knew what the UFC was. The UFC was born in 1993. I was 11 years old. I would watch fights at my grandparents' house. I've talked about all of this before.

And I would go to fights as well. The Montreal boxing scene, very, very good one. The Grant brothers, Howard Grant, Otis Grant, Davey Hilton, Arturo G Grant, Otis Grant, Davey Hilton, Arturo Gatti, like these guys, I would go to these fights, Casino de Montreal, Bell Center, Molson Center, et cetera, Montreal Forum. So anyway, then went to HBO and blah, blah, blah,

I've told the story a million times. So I'm enjoying it. Again, it's not the main thing here. The main thing is all of this, but it's a great thing that we do, and I think we're all very proud of it, and enjoy it, and really enjoy covering boxing. Love the interviews with the fighters,

especially the ones in studio. I think as of late, we've really, I would like to think, raise some eyebrows and let people know that ultimately it doesn't matter if it's an MMA fighter, if it's a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, a kickboxer, a bare-knuckle fighter, a boxer, a pro wrestler. I want to be known as the best place for combat sports, whether it's writing, whether it's opinion, whether it's interviewing, whether it's dissecting, news, recaps, all that stuff, coverage.

We're the best place. And I think we're positioning ourselves as such. And we're not even a year old. And so there's plenty more to come. And yeah, so very, very proud of it and love the fact that we're able to partner with other networks. It is a one year deal.

That one year will be up in October, November, who knows? And if they don't wanna keep it going, maybe we'll just do it on our own. It doesn't really matter. We could just do it here. It's from the same freaking place. In fact, our numbers are way better here than they are there.

There's no denying that. So maybe we want a bigger audience and we'll just keep it here. Who knows? World is our oyster, let's see. But I'm enjoying it. I don't know how they feel. We haven't talked about it. But yeah, right but I'm enjoying it. I don't know how they feel. We haven't talked about it, but yeah,

right now I'm enjoying it and really enjoy being a co-pilot with Adé. He's great, he's supremely talented, and I really, really have a lot of fun doing that show once a week. Okay. So do we. Yeah, thanks.

It's a lot of fun, man. Appreciate it. Iron Turtle, hi Ariel. We can make history. Ancolay versus Poetan Rematch needs to be booked ASAP. Okay, so I guess he posted this or asked this before. Do you realize that if Pereira wins, Ariel will have good working relationship

with every current UFC champion? Matter woman! Yes, I count Jerkis' phone call appearance on the show's working relationship. Yeah, we're good, we're good. DDP and I are good. When do you think the last time this happened was? At least Islam has been chained for three years.

You know, I didn't even think of this. I didn't think of this. There have been some dark days. The dark days really started in 2019 when Ali did the ceasefire against us. No, but like it's been a while because it, Drikus, Lugas of Hamsa, JDM, Toporia, Vogue, Marab, Pantoja, Josh Vann, Kayla, Valentina, is a nice stretch it's a nice stretch but see a lot needs to happen there um big money hello Ariel and gang regarding the party before big fight situation for Dubois it looks bad for Toporya it was epic hmm how about that guys? Didn't think of that kind of seems like it works out either way though

If you win your legend if you lose the built-in excuse might as well party and enjoy the moment, right? Also, what did we think of Dana the UFC did to make it right with Volkov? Thanks for the great content as always. How about them throwback red helmets by the way, go Bills Yeah, Bills announced yesterday. I thought they were bringing them back full-time, but they announced yesterday that they're going back to the red helmets for week 18 only last game at Highmark the red helmets synonymous with the 90s bills for straight Super Bowls bills I thought they were going back full-time, which I was very excited about it's only one week, but still Exciting, but that's a great call into Poria. We all love the fact and celebrated the fact that he celebrated the quote unquote

win at a restaurant with his whole crew there, maybe not 70 people, but he was dancing this and that night before. He had dinner and it was the night before. Okay. Throwing a party the day of is not the same as having dinner in the night before. And apparently, um, according to reports, Dubois didn't throw this party, you know, like he's waking up in his house where he lives with his family. You think he had no idea?

According to the reports, he left the house, he went for a drive to get away from everyone. And then the reports are also just suggesting I know, I brought this up yesterday on the show. He gets to the venue and he gets turned around and he has to go and park a car wherever the punters are parking their cars and walk to the arena then. I get that this worked for the Joshua fight and I know, fair play to everyone bringing that up because it is a valid point, but every fighter, and I've talked to so many fighters about this just so I don't, you know, so I'm not like what the fuck is going on here. Like every fighter wants them days to be as tranquil as

possible. And I'm talking about the most amped up fighter in the world. The likes of McGregor, who was around a lot early on, he's a wild man. But on the day of a fight, he wants nothing, tranquility. And then obviously start working up to it as you get to the arena and then let's turn on the music, let's get moving, all this kind of stuff. I think it's, I even, I even looked at the video, the alleged video of him at that party and I felt so sorry for him, you know, I just think he looked completely lost and the biggest day of your life and maybe everybody around them did it with the best intentions, but I don't know. And I saw Don speaking about it on Talksport

as coach and he's kind of reiterating all this fact but I don't know it just doesn't feel right it doesn't feel right and the feeling I have is that I just feel really sorry for Daniel Dubois and that's the feeling I have. Me too because there is a simplicity to Daniel Dubois and he's still he's still very young in the game. Yeah, doesn't talk smack, doesn't wanna talk about anything really before the fights and so you kind of feel like he was thrust into this and other people deal with it in different ways

like Ilya is that guy, but ultimately you are right, it was the night before. But let's not make any mistake here. If Ilya would have gone starch, people would have pointed to that, right? Sure, 100%. He would have laughed at his face, people would have pointed to that. Right? Sure. 100%. It would have laughed at his face. It would have pointed to a lot of things.

Yeah. That would have been more. They're waiting to do that. It will happen, by the way. If he doesn't retire undefeated, they will talk about the records. It will be like. The roses. Yes. Everything will get thrown in his face. But that's part of his appeal.

But I think there's a clear distinction here, which is like one represents like a lack of focus on fight day, and one represents just being cocky, right? Daniel Dubois isn't going out there and being like, I'm gonna knock out Aleksandar Usyk, and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that, and everybody's going like, aha, he knocked you out instead. He threw a party, or somebody on his team,

somebody on his behalf threw a party that he attended. It's not the same as just like trying to rub somebody's face in, in them being cocky. He woke up in the house where the party is happening. It's the, and if you look at it, right, just take the two examples of the video, the foot, the video that allegedly this is the Ilya Tupori the night before and allegedly this is Daniel Dubois on the morning of his fight, wearing the same t-shirt he wore to the arena. That is two very different images. One of them, Ilya Tupuri is standing on a table singing a song, G and everybody up like

he's the master of ceremonies. The other ones people are grabbing this dude trying to get selfies with him and stuff like that. Well, he's just kind of smiling. It feels like a very different situation. Both of them, you know, to me anyway. Let us go to Alec. Ariel, I know you wouldn't know who,

but is there any updates on the rights deal? Feel like the topic is flying under the radar? Definitely not. I mean, it's been on our, I said it was the story to watch this year. And here we are in July. I mean, technically it doesn't have to be announced until December, but I suspect it will be beforehand

I think I am most curious at this point if you had any idea of when we would have an update Or the answer itself. I'm not a hundred percent sure how all that stuff works But I would think they would have to make some sort of decision soonish Yes, I mean like look WWE announced their move to Netflix like a year in advance. There's no You know, there's no sort of blueprint for any of this. I remember UFC announcing their deal with ESPN in May of 2018 and then it kicked in in January of 2019. The more and more I hear, it will be split up

and the more I hear, I mean, we know ESPN's in play, we know they wanna be in business with Netflix. We know they have the relationship with Netflix because of WWE and also this boxing match. WBD is out there, and in case you don't know what that is, WBD is TNT, Turner, TBS, HBO Max now, True TV, all of those guys, they have a lot of money that they've now freed up

with the NBA deal going to Amazon and NBC. And so I could see a world where it's Netflix, WBD, Netflix, ESPN. I see a world where it's ESPN and WBD, maybe there's Amazon out there as well. One didn't work out great for Amazon. PBC, I don't think, has been stellar as well. So obviously, you have seen on a different stratosphere

than those two entities. But as of right now, you know, I'm not hearing that something's coming tomorrow, but it could be any day. It really could. And I don't think it's gonna go all the way till December. And they're gonna make a lot of money. And this is what I could tell you unequivocally.

And with a hundred percent certainty, they will make a lot of money. It will be the highest and biggest deal in the history of mixed martial arts and the history of the UFC. And the fighters will get 0% of it. Unlike any other team sport league that they wanna compare them to,

the fighters will get 0%, 0% of it. Dana seemed to tip his hand a little bit. In that interview with the Full Send guys, he said something about it being a more global platform, which I don't, you know, that leads the mind to wonder about like tech companies and things like that, as opposed to a domestic broadcaster. So who knows?

But I mean, I imagine the situation's fluid and they're negotiating with a lot of different people, but I thought that was interesting because usually he's not really like revealing stuff like that. Jesse Orozco, in your opinion, how does the UFC look post Dana White assuming Hunter takes over most of the operations? I mean, here's the thing, Hunter is doing the vast majority of the behind the scenes stuff when it comes to like fighter negotiations

and all that. They have departments for everything, right? So they have a legal department, they have a marketing department, they have a PR department, they all kind of do their thing. But Hunter is the guy like you notice more and more people mentioning him, bigging him up talking about him. Dana is El Jefe, he is the head honcho, notice more and more people mentioning him, bigging him up, talking about him. Dana is el jefe, he is the head honcho, he's the figurehead, but Hunter is the one that kind of, you know, stirs the entire drink. And so, as we've said, if Dana White started to step down tomorrow, right, there could be a world where, you know, they just have John Anik hosting these press conferences,

and Hunter's behind the scenes and that's that. Right? I mean, he does the post-pressers. They don't have to do those. And they'll trot out a guy here or there. They'll put Dave Shaw on the spot. The thing has become so big to where they don't necessarily have to do the old things that they used to do or that other promotions have to do. But yes, it wouldn't be the void that some of you may think it is and I don't think you would notice. I don't think you

would notice much. Granhill drinks Sprite. Good morning Ariel and many blessings to you and the crew. When will we receive the full lore drop of Chael Sonnen's 5 vs 1 face-off? Is there a gag order on the full story? I imagine the statute of limitations is long over. He's been flirting with the story on Good Guy, Bad Guy, aka Ariel Sloppy Seconds. Full story. Deserves to not be interrupted on the A8 show. Sorry TST. What does TST have to do with this? Does this guy think that TST works on the show?

We love TST, but he hasn't been here for a while. And what Fiverr says won, what is he talking about? Is he talking about the hotel thing? I think he's talking about the hotel thing, yeah. I don't fucking know, I wasn't there. I've never even asked Joe about it in private. It's his story to tell. Samuel, I really respected the way you advocated for Leon getting a title shot and getting and called for others to get it when they were most deserving as well. Oh yeah, you mean like when I advocated for Bala Muhammad who hates my guts to get a

title shot as well? You know who would do that? The leader of the number one unbiased outlet in all of combat sports. Oh, what's this? I'm at a complete loss as to what change and how you could say that Patty Pimlet has to be next for a title shot. Oh yeah, Patty Pimlet who calls me a sausage and all this stuff.

You know who would do that? Say it with me. Tell us. The leader of the most, the number one. All together now. Can we trademark this? You say it's the biggest fight to make, so what? No chance he's the most deserving. Sure he looked good again as a guy who was one of four in his last four fights. My question is, who do you think should be next to fight for the lightweight belt?

Well, you just accused me of saying Pat. Listen, I'm saying it's the biggest fight. I'm saying I wouldn't be surprised. But if we're keeping it a buck'm saying it's the biggest fight. I'm saying I wouldn't be surprised, but if we're keeping it a buck, Armand, Armand should be next. I thought Armand should have been next last fight. I thought it should have been Armand versus Ilya,

not Armand versus Charles. He beat Charles. I just don't know if they're gonna do it. I think they're still working towards like making amends with Armin. So yes, Armin should be next. I'm just saying who I think they'll go towards and there's no denying Patty's a gigantic star.

By the way, Armin's a pretty big damn star in his own right. Let's keep it real there. He's got a huge following, but I wouldn't be surprised. I saw Justin Gaethje talking to ESPN MMA. I think it's interesting, it's like all the Dominance guys just go over there. And he was talking about how if they try to book him versus Patty, he feels like there's no use for him anymore in the UFC. Really? Has he not been paying attention to who Patty Pimletlet is? Like, Paddy Pimlet is a pretty big deal right now in the UFC, and he's on quite a roll. No?

I don't get it. It's not like they're asking him to fight BSD ranked 14th. Paddy Pimlet is currently ranked... 9th. Gagee's 5th. Crazier things have happened. Who would he rather fight? Mateus Gamrot? Hooker? Gachis again? I mean Holloway again? Like who does he want to fight? I don't know, that's weird to me. By the way, I was on YouTube. My kids like to watch YouTube. Have you guys seen the, uh, the Logan Paul video

blog? Have you seen this PT? I did. I saw a minute 12 anyway, very interesting things. You saw that? I did. I stumbled upon this.

He's up on the top. Oh yeah, no, yeah, no, yeah. Let me set it up. Let me set it up. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I stumbled upon this and, uh, I'm upon this and I'm hosting the show. Well, I'm co-hosting with Kate Scott, The Zone, Jake Paul versus Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. And they say, okay, Logan Paul's going to come up. And so I put on my Paul Heyman, my wise man hat.

I put on my advocate hat. I put on my like, let me get this guy over. Let's have some fun here. We have to kill time. It's like 15 to 20 minutes. It's like, I got to kill time here. So let's have a little fun They were just in Riyadh. He wasn't on the card. He should have been on the card. They're going to Summer Slam East Rutherford two nights. Let's pick him up. By the way, he's doing a great job And so I'm really like, you know, I'm really bigging him up

I'm I'm acting as his advocate and at at one point he turns to his camera guy following him. At one point he turns and I don't really hear what he's saying because he's talking, it's a loud arena, there's a ton of kids waiting to get a selfie with him, an autograph, et cetera. And I'm like, oh yeah, cool, he's saying like, yo, this guy's the man. And I'm thinking actually like,

I'm thinking like, wow, like wow,, we're really cooking here, you know, like we're cooking with Chrisco here, you know what I mean? And I'm thinking like, maybe he's going to call up Tripp's, he's going to call up Paul Levesque and be like, yo, maybe Ariel should be my wise man, he should be my advocate. Then all of a sudden I'm sent this clip. And the exact opposite happened. Not only was he not bigging me up, he was insulting me. He was making fun of me. This dude was making fun of me. Everything they said about this dude, I mean, correct.

It's correct. Unbelievably. Here I am advocating for him, showing him love, giving him the rub Giving him the street cred in the fighting community and This is what he does to me unbelievable. I felt like I felt like someone spit in my face I felt like someone stabbed me in the back. I felt betrayed. Here's what he did

Up on the top rope and he takes the drone and then he flies with the drone We've never seen anything like this before it's a insane. John Cena and CM Punk were headlining today. He should have been headlining. What are we doing here, Triple H? Yeah, dude, you're a great hype man. This guy's a D1 glazer, bro. What? Summer's lap, MetLife, none of this Night 1 PS.

This is the face. Get him in there, headlining for the title. Let's go, you heard it here. This guy's a D1 glazer? First of all, I mean, it's truly fucked up. While you go to continue to hype him up. COVID is mouth. COVID is mouth. Yeah. See that?

COVID is mouth. Coward shit. Called you first team all glazed. Coward shit. I showed that to my kids yesterday. They were so offended on my behalf. They were like, what? I feel like that's why you're extra offended

because you showed your kids and you're like instead of like chuckling your kids are like nah that's fucked up man I can't believe it's totally fucked up you know what they did they went to the room they have all the primes they poured them all out into the toilet you're I know you're bullshit not for real belong you're serious they felt they felt disrespected by the by the man himself this guy's a d1 glazer for everything I've done for him backing him everything I've done He turns around and does this to me now. Is there any chance? This is a compliment Is there any chance that he won glazer? It's like worst respectful. What was wrong with you Rick? There's no way that's

Glaze I Mean is he wrong all glazed team right Wow Frank jeez what Logan Paul? That's what I gotta say fuck Logan and you're coming you're coming from a real glazer over there I was you know about the glazing. I know the glaze. Yeah, I thought I thought legit I thought we were gonna I thought we were gonna go in business together in the end He went in business for himself in the end. He stabbed me in the back. I should have known better I mean, that's what everyone says I should have no sl known better. Here's the knife. Here's the freaking knife. Can we hear that one more time? What did he say? What did he say again?

Straight up, this guy's a D1. That's what he said? Yeah, run it back. I gotta hear it one more time. Cover his mouth. Here I am. Look at me explaining to Kate. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah, dude, you're a great hype man. seen at CM Punk for headlining today he should have been headlining yeah dude you're a great hype man you continue to glaze yeah you know embarrassing this guy's a d1 glazer bro like he just met me like he just met me like I'm off the street. You know, what's crazy about that as I'm rewatching it, like the way, the energy that I was putting

into explaining to Kate who knows nothing about WWE and probably thinks it's all wackadoodle stuff. It's like that meme of the guy being like, yo, you see this guy, he's this dude's explaining guy. Yes, yes. Yes. That's you. You know, this guy right here, he's, see this guy? This dude's exposed. Yeah, the explaining guy took him to the woman.

Yes, yes. You know this guy right here? He's flipping with drones in his hand. And then that guy who you're explaining about calls you a D1 glazer. Have you spoken to Kate since the incident? Have we clarified with her whether she thought that you were being a D1 glazer?

The glaze was real? Yeah, was she thinking in the back of her head, she was like, this motherfucker is glazing. I need to ask her, she probably was thinking, if I'm being honest. Yeah, it's messed up. I'm not gonna forget this. I'll see him again.

I'll see him again at some point and I'll have a word. First team. Maybe less glazing next time, right? All glazed. First team all glazed, could you imagine? The dismal sexiest guys. Look at where Celsius goes. Look at where Celsius goes. I just love that you were probably like, ah, damn, that's kind of messed up.

And then you showed your kids and they were like. Yo. You got done, Daryl. Go get the, get the props! Yeah, yeah. Pour that shit out! Yeah. No one calls my dad a D1 glazed.

That's right, they had my back. Fair play to the lads, fair play to the lads. The look on their face. Fair play to them. The look of disappointment and disgust. I'm proud of the lads. Was there like a brief moment of silence as they like processed? No, they were like, honestly they asked me to watch it like to re-rack it a couple times because they're like, what, what, what? They made you watch that over and over? Yeah, they're like, isn't he your friend? Even though it had the closed captioning on it,

it had the captions. They were still like, they were like, was that AI? You don't call your boy a D-1s glazer. They thought he said, cause I was like, not glazing. I was just telling the truth. Oh man. Then they started calling me Glaze-wanny. Ah, fucking hell. Your kids started calling you Glaze-wanny?

It's crazy. Print the Glaze-wanny merch. I need a shirt. We can get some crazy artwork done for that. Anyways. And then on top of that, where'd you go to lunch today? Oh yeah, I went to a restaurant called Glaze. Did you order the team one off?

I saw this clip July 4th weekend and I saw this place, Glaze, it had nice little sanitary ackee and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot to address this thing. You walk in with a bag and in massive letters It just says glaze across it Maybe we I swear to God maybe we can get a sponsorship deal with them And then we get a special meal called the glaze wani and it's like you're your special order now You're cooking what would you have done if you ran into Logan Paul on the way here? It comes with the glazed wani.

You would have squared up. A salmon teriyaki and a bottle of brine. I would have been like fucking Paulo Costa up in that bitch. I would have been like. Ffff. Ffff. Hey.

Can't go out the top rope in the streets, Logan. Speaking of food, Persian apothecary. Is it apothecary? Apothecary, you nailed it. Yeah. Dustin Poirier was cooking Cajun food with Sean Evans on a YouTube clip and stated he wanted to do a show

where he traveled and visited different gyms and then cooked a meal. He wanted to call it Food Fight. Has there been any word on this? I feel like with his personality, the show would be a really entertaining hit. I have not heard this, but I know Rick is a big Sean Evans guy.

Do you know about this? I don't. I'm specifically a hot one. Sean Evans is great in that role, but hot ones is my like core thing. It's not necessarily all food related content because I like that spice. I like those spicy sauces. In fact, we had the bomb on the set,

but we never actually ate some. By the way, I feel like Dustin would be great in that role. Oh yeah. Going to different gyms and stuff. Imagine Dustin going to Montreal and then having a hot one. but we never actually ate some. By the way, I feel like Dustin would be great in that role. Oh, yeah. Going to different gyms and stuff. Imagine Dustin going to Montreal and then having the spaghetti and meatballs

with GSP at the Orange Julep. I think he said he wants to cook, no? Oh, or he can make him his own. By the way, you know who would actually be the best at this, the number one. Number one, number one. Volkanovski. I was gonna say Volkanovski.

Oh, yeah. Volkanovski. Doesn't he already have a show, though? Yeah, he pretty much does.ovsky. I was gonna say, I mean. Volkonovsky. Volk already does it though. Yeah, he pretty much does. No, but like going around to like do it. There's something wholesome about Volk with the cooking, huh? He's so perfect with it. Yeah. And he's so open to like trying the different things

and just going for like. Yeah, Volk. This shit looks amazing though. Yeah, I mean, he just got, I think, a million subs I saw on Instagram. Wow. On the Cooking with Volk channel? Yeah, yeah, on the IG. Just like the with Volk channel? Yeah, on the IG.

Just like the Alexander Volkonovski. Oh, the IG. The Cooking with Volk IG has a million. Okay. Cooking with Volk IG, wow. But no, I mean Dustin would also be great, no doubt. No doubt. Yeah, I feel like there's people now who,

sort of like Action Bronson, who just know Volk as the cooking guy. Yeah. Oh wait, this guy fights too? Who the fuck is we, guy. Yeah. Oh, wait, this guy fights too? Um, who the fuck is we shallow Maryland crew on a previous show, the MFM mysterious Frank Monacal let it slip that he bought GC glabrous Connor and ATLA video game. Wow. I have four true passions.

MMA, the Lord of the Rings, listening to every moment of y'all's content since roughly 2018 and Avatar the last airbender that said I need to know from GC and Frank what ATL a Nation are each of the crew from and why? Air team Wow This dude is so excited to ask you guys this question, and you come back with that energy. I don't even know what that means.

I don't even know what it means. I literally haven't watched an episode. That is Frank to a T. You can have energy at 110%, and then you're like, Frank, how you doing? And he's just like, good. I'm doing good. Okay, thanks, Frank.

Appreciate that, man. Oh, up the glaze next time. Frank actually got me a role playing game that came in like a book that was like a thousand pages long. And he was like, it's super simple. Like you can just pick it up whenever. Like, we'll have to play it some time. And then he made a date for it

and then he bailed on said date. So he made a second date and then he also bailed on that one. So the game has never been played before. Oh you can eat shrimp and red lobsters, what do you want from red lobsters? But I have flipped through the game a couple times. So he's referring to Avatar the Last Airbender,

one of the greatest animated shows of all time. And he's asking like, are we airbenders, water, fire, earth? That's a tough question. Team water. I thought you just said air? Didn't you say air? I thought you just said you team water. I think you say air Oh, I thought you just said you were I changed it now that you did actually just I'm from an island I mean, well, it's very rare which which you aren't that rare fight air Yeah, double news. The Rick is no question

Fire Nation no question aren't they like the oppressors? Yeah To weigh in on all this. Did you see see that I was hanging with him with the anime talk This is more of just like an animated series wow yeah, he was really into it. I feel like yeah, I feel like pizza's earth Thank you, it's he but a Tiba knew you knew ball. Oh yeah. Of anime. Loved Atiba. Sure. What about Atiba always talking about loving his opponents and stuff?

Scary shit. No, no. His opponents hitting him is them showing love to him. Yeah. It's not just that he loves his opponents. That is how they express their love. Scary thought. Is by biting him.

Here, let me kiss you real quick. Head flies off into the third row. Kyle Grant, fellas, let's hear gambling stories from the Vegas trip. Anyone win any money, any late night partying? None. Nothing. I don't think any of us even gambled once. I don't think so.

One spin of the roulette and it was a loser and that was all I did. And it was Jordan. That was it. It was just Jordan. Wow, Jordan, the only one who took one seat. JC didn't gamble at all. I didn't know, I didn't even sit.

Okay, so like. I just was walking by. Everyone loves calling me a degenerate. I really't know, I didn't even sit. Okay, so like. I just was walking by. Everyone loves calling me a degenerate. I really just like sports betting. That's it. Yeah, I do too. We actually had a game, we haven't told Rick about this yet. We had a game where he had to drink every time Rick was like,

I haven't played any poker yet, I can't believe it. How many did we do? Five, six. Andy doesn't even remember the last day. Andy blacked out? The last day, cause she blacked out. No, it was kind of crazy seeing. No, isn't that Frank? It was kind of crazy. No, it was kind of crazy seeing Rick in a poker room as often as he was and he didn't play.

Every time I've been to a casino with him, he has played poker. And by the way, what about all the behind the scenes content? We had that incredible 30 minute clip, you guys doing the Guinness tour, the fight feast, I mean, cooking right now. We've been putting it out.

The Guinness Tour was class. It was an absolute blast. Yeah, Jod did a great job, camera going neck, come on. Amazing. I've yet to watch it, but we don't need to. I appreciate it, man. We don't need to re-litigate all of that. It only worked like 70 hours last week

to get that thing out. PT knows why. PT knows why. Oh, did something happen? But if Logan Paul put a video out. Are you boycotting? He just loves Guinness that much, he's not gonna get jealous. No, I'm more of an Irish Forged Stout kind of guy. Killian? I was going to say Killian. Forged Stout. By the way, how about this? The next question, Gekko Da. Ariel, what's your

problem with anime and why do you hate it? I don't have a problem. Can we just call it anime? I remember someone wrote in and they gave you like a breakdown of different animes to watch and as you were reading that I was like oh yeah that sounds alright never checked out I ain't him though but fair play yeah Jose Ariel please enlighten us you've constantly told us that you would tell the full story about you and the UFC's relationship when can we expect the full story what full story how many how many time like you guys know everything about me what more do you want also with the press conferences and media scrum severely

lacking in genuine hard hitting questions, my question to you would be why not get media credentials again? If not you then someone from Uncrowned, the UFC needs genuine conversations with genuine hard hitting questions. By the way, we have been credentialed. Drake was at the last UFC event. Drake Rigs, who does a phenomenal job for us. We've had Chuck head events. We've had, I don't know if Ben's been to an event, a UFC event. But it's not a journalistic environment anymore.

Like it's not the same place. There are no scrums. What scrums? There are no Dana scrums. Like what is he talking about? Where am I going to ask these questions? And the one-on-ones like, remember back in the day, you'd go to the media days and you would have like five,

six minutes with each guy and you could create your own dynamic and rapport and content with them. Now it's all very sterile. Now, nothing's stopping, nothing's stopping someone, and I would say this to any young journalists out there, and there are a few who do this. I think the Full Send guy does it, Canadian brother, Oscar does it as well from the Mac Life.

Mike Bond does it sometimes, Jose Youngs does it sometimes. Like you need to go to these guys' rooms. You need to do sit downs with them. You need to try to do stuff off the beaten path. You have to, you can't just rely on that content. There's no value in that. I do want to give a shout out to Drake because he has an interview up right now over on, um, uncrowned.com. I don't know if you guys heard, but it's the number one

unbiased combat sports site on the planet. I didn't hear that you guys heard, but it's the number one unbiased combat sports site. I didn't hear that. Yes. Uh, RDR is, uh, his interview subject, Renee Derrida, who's going up against the one and only Robert Whitaker this, uh, this weekend. And they were talking about one championship. This is great stuff and interesting stuff.

Obviously this is the quote, they're not doing well, obviously money's running out and whatever, but they're not doing well. Obviously, money's running out and whatever, but they're just making the wrong decisions. Why would you want to F up somebody's career? I just don't understand. Our time is so short.

We have only a couple years in our prime and they're just trying to ruin people's careers. It's just that plain and simple. It's coming out more and more. Everyone sees what's going on. It's just like why, I don't know, dot, dot, dot. It was at a point where I knew I was not going to get a fight anymore and I knew they were going to park me again for an extended period of time and I just said, F it. If this is going to cost me everything that I own, then at

least it's not worse than costing me the rest of my career. Anyway, he kind of just goes off on one and it's one of the many great articles up on the site right now. And so I feel all to say that with this show, with the writers that we have over there, with the content that we have over there, we don't need to be a part of that. Now, if you're asking about me specifically, because like I said, we do have people who go, and there's no problems whatsoever. Yeah, I did sort of make a quiet promise to myself about my presence at these. And I'm not saying it's for infinity.

I'm not saying that I will never change my mind. It's just how I felt on that day and how I sort of continued to feel some four years later. But yo, I know people like last week, we were like, where are the 318 guests? Well, we had everyone that we wanted to have beforehand and we have everyone that we want to have after. Even though we do three shows, eight shows, but then plus like BITB and The Crack,

I would say is what, 95% MMA? And I would say our interviews here are what, 80% MMA, but when you actually consider the amount of hours that we're putting in as opposed to the past, it's still more than ever. It's still more MMA content than ever. So that's why it's laughable and people are like, oh, the boxing and the MMA or the wrestling is ruining the show.

Like it's still more than ever. It's just different. And by the way, part of the plan was always to do it from here as opposed to being a part of the traveling circus because my life changed and my priorities changed and I didn't want to miss things at home. Curtis says, shout out to Frank, I'll be seeing Primus play tonight in rally

Oh hell yeah I just saw them on Monday Good stuff In for a treat New drummer kicks ass Jacob says has GC already purchased a Salsa Boy shirt No that's not happening Number D1 Glazer for Salsa boy over here number one fan I actually public enemy number one

Why? We got history man salsa boy we go way back Christian says Interesting question today regarding what DC said about Brock Leser being banned in TKO This was said during an interview Demetrius do you by any chance know anything about this? I think what he's referring to is the fact that he's involved in that Vince McMahon lawsuit. And so they want nothing to do with him

until that's all settled one way or the other, until that has reached a conclusion. I believe that's what he said. I don't think he has any intimate detailed behind the scenes knowledge of his relationship with TKO. And I think when he's talking about TKO, he's primarily talking about WWE, but WWE and UFC are under the same umbrella. behind the scenes knowledge of his relationship with TKO. And I think when he's talking about TKO, he's primarily talking about WWE,

but WWE and UFC are under the same umbrella. And so they will sort of respect each other's stances on things. That's also not like a ban per se, right? Like if they're not in business with him, it's not a ban. It's just like, we're not in business. Yes, yes. Oh, Sammy says, hello Ariel and crew.

Great to see a while ago, the Vegas show behind the scenes when guests were arriving to the studios. Anymore behind the scenes, it was short clips, but great to see. I mean, it was a 30 minute video, but yes, I understand. We want to do more of that and we will do more of that. 100%. Sean Plan, Ariel, do you watch Love Island?

I will be 100% honest. I do not watch Love Island, but I see everyone talking about it. Is that American Love Island now? Like is that a new thing over there? Well right now I think there's an American one that is taking everyone by storm. I don't even know where it airs.

Where does Love Island air? Peacock. Peacock, it's a Peacock exclusive? I believe so, yes. It's not on NBC. I don't believe so. The only way that Mrs. On Air watches it is through Peacock, which now I have also watched.

You enjoy it? Enjoy it is a stretch of a word. Okay. I just wanna say I wanna, I appreciate you being 100% honest about whether or not you watch a little bit. Yeah. Who, me?

Yeah. Oh, wow. I just did it. There it is. There it is. That's how you started it out. I'm gonna be 100% honest. Yeah. I don't watch it. I've never seen an episode. I don't know anything there it is. You gotta say you started out. I'm gonna be 100% honest. Yeah. I don't want to.

I've never seen an episode. I don't know anything about it either. I bet you if there's one member of the team who I would nominate to be a Love Island watcher it would be camera guy Nick. I've met some. I have a story about an episode I watched once and I don't wanna get into it.

Oh, okay. Is it too, what is it? Is it too sensitive? It's not too sensitive. It's just a very awkward moment that happened while I was forced to watch it. Okay. Do you want me to go with it? Music is playing now. Right? So we're babysitting Elaine's nieces once and Elaine's like,

Oh, they're allowed to watch Love Island. I was like, what? Like, you know, they're like 13 and 15 or whatever. And she's like, yeah, they're allowed to watch Love Island. I was like, that's fucked up. Fine. Stick it on. Whatever. Right. So Elaine's like, oh, we're going to get food in, blah, blah, blah. We'll do all this stuff. Doorbell rings. It's the guy with the Chinese. Elaine's got like, she's big John in this situation. She's going to get the Chinese leaves me in the room with these two girls, the two teenage girls, Elaine's nieces, and

immediately as soon as she walks out, they're talking about the wildest, like the people on the TV, the people on Love Island, are talking about the craziest sexual things I've ever heard in my life. And I'm there, grown man, just sitting there going, oh my fucking God, what's going on here? I'm panicking, I can't look, I'm just looking dead at the screen trying not to react in any way Meanwhile Elaine's taking like fucking half an hour to put some you know chicken balls on a plate or whatever the fuck it is I was pissing sweat completely traumatized the only time I watched the violent and the last time I watched the violent Incredible that's incredible stuff. Thank you for that. I'm happy that you divulged Glad I shared

Appreciate it as always, Pizzi. We'll get to more questions on the back end of our next two interviews, but let us go to our next guest who was standing by while listening to all of that. He has turned into one of the very best coaches in MMA, had a great run as a pro 12-3 last fought in 2018. Now one of the pillars of American top team by the side of the likes of Hinata Moikano, Alexandre Pantoja, Armand Tsiroukian and many others. It's a long overdue that we have Marcus Damada aka Pahumpa on the show. He's kind enough to join us from

Florida right here. Now, hello my friend, how are you? How are you doing? Thanks for having me. A pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure myself. It's a pleasure for you to be here. It's a pleasure to have you here. It's a pleasure to see all the great success that you are having with the team and with all the great fighters by your side. Was this always the dream for you by the way? Because like I said, you had a great career in MMA. You were a grappler, BJJ, all that stuff and more. But now turning into the head coach that you have turned into, was this always part of the dream for you? Yes, actually I started fighting MMA to get better as a coach. You know, I needs to have a better, a better understanding what MMA really was

inside the cage, you know, and the, the, the cutting weight process, the whole adrenaline fear as a grappler to, you know, to be, to get punched in the face and get knocked out. I need to, to experience that, to see if the techniques the techniques that I was about to show these guys, you know, will actually work. So that was the whole point was to get better as a coach at American Top Team. You know, my goal was initially just to five fights, you know, but it's kind of like a, you know, addicting sport. And then I do ended up doing 15 fights

way past my prime, I had to say. But it was always with just trying to be a better coach in the back of your mind, like you didn't really care about trying to be champion or anything like that. It was always with that goal, which you don't really hear other fighters turn coaches say. You always knew what the end goal was gonna be.

Yes, I mean, I started at 33 years old, so pretty old to become the number one in the world. I always wanted, I had a dream to compete in UFC, obviously, but that didn't happen, and I knew that I was never gonna be the number one in the world for any weight division. I tried my best to be the best that I was never gonna be the number one in the world for any weight division. You know, I tried my best to be the best that I could, you know, still coaching at the same time.

I never had the opportunity to be just a fighter, you know, and Dan Lambert was kind enough to let me do both, you know, while coaching American Top Team Fighters. I was, you know, getting camps together and in the middle of the trips, I was fighting. But the ultimate goal was to be a better coach, of course. Your last fight, I think you were around like 46 in your last fight, right?

Which is incredible, much respect to you. What was that like to prepare for a fight and fight at that age? Oh man, it was hard because I was weight cutting and I kind of like dozed out a little bit. I knew that it has to be that last camp. I didn't have another camp on me. It was getting pretty bad, not to fight,

but like to train, to dedicate myself, to be dedicating myself every day at the gym and dieting, that was really hard. Alongside with all the commitment that I had as a coach, I knew that was like, man, this is it. It's pretty overdue that I have to just settle down and focus on the most important thing in my life, which is coaching guys, you know.

We just showed those pictures from, I believe your last fight, Amanda Nunes on the right, giving you a kiss. On the left, you're with the little boys. Is that your son? Yeah, Pedro is my oldest son. So now he's obviously a lot older. Is he into martial arts?

Does he want to be a fighter? I mean, he wants, I don't want him to be a fighter? He he wants I don't want him to be a fighter but he wants he trains a little bit of striking and Jiu-Jitsu with me, you know, he was he's now 15 years old back then. I think he was eight or something so 15 not quite at the at the at the point at the age where you have to decide but is he trying to push you to To be okay with him pursuing this dream? Yeah, he's trying. Okay, okay. He's at the gym, he's at American Top Team.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, so he's surrounded by all these legends. It's hard not to rub off on him, right? Yes, yes. He loves Pantoja, obviously. He gets really nervous in all Pantoja's fights, especially the last one, he was really nervous because he saw all the embedded and all the highlights on Kaikara France, knocking people out.

And then he was extremely nervous for that. And when Pantoja finally won, he was, he called me and I was still at the T-Mobile arena, you know, really, really happy. And there you guys are after that last victory. Can I ask, when did you and Alex first meet? Well, it was kind of like a coincidence because I was in USC Boston with T-Bow and he was fighting Dustin Ortiz. They both lost on that card.

And then he ended up contacting one of my good friends and saying that he wanted to train with me and try to get my phone number, you know, and obviously I said, well, there's only one way that we're going to be training together. If you have to come to American Top Team, you know, and he's like, man, it's a dream come true. Please take me in. So obviously I immediately contact Dan Lambert and I said, listen, this guy, you know, I think he can, we can make him, you know, turn around.

He just lost, but he's a warrior. He has full potential. And Dan was all over. I said, yeah, bring him in. And, and I think I believe like two and a half months later, or three months later, he took a short notice fight against Brenda Moreno in Chile, you know, and it was a 30, 30, 26 fight and then it's all history. Yeah.

And what a run since then. But, but honestly, did you expect this, this type of dominance as champion? Did you see this in him from the start? Um, he has the potential, you know, I, I type of dominance as champion, did you see this in him from the start? He has the potential. I did expect a few bumps on the road. I did expect him losing to Askarov, but it was such a shitty situation in Abu Dhabi. He fought at two in the morning.

We had to wake up so early. He didn't wake. I mean, there's a bunch of things that we can say about that card, that it didn't sit well You know, but once he he got to be one of the contenders I knew that he was better than all these guys, you know, I knew he was better than Moreno I knew he was he he's better than Ray Vaughn, you know

Obviously we have always tried to get better and make him The best that we can because every single time he steps on the cage he's fighting against someone who's willing to die, he's in the best shape of his life, has nothing to lose like Kaikara, like Ersak, number 10 in the rankings, like Moreno for the third time. I mean actually Moreno he had a lot to lose because he was the champ back then, but Roy Vow, you know, um, but I saw the potential in him. I saw that he had some things that made him unique. The, the, the train regimen, the way he approaches, um, he's, his mind is such a, a champion's mind, you know?

So I didn't expect to be this good but expect to be good You mentioned your son was nervous going into the kai kai France fight and and Kai had been looking good But man, what a performance Holy smokes just so dominant never gave him a chance to even believe for a second that he had a chance that Kai had a Chance in the fight. Were you nervous as well going into that one? Can you tell us in the aftermath? Were you worried about it? Oh, yeah, let me tell you something. I'm always nervous Kai had a chance in the fight. Were you nervous as well going into that one? Can you tell us in the aftermath? Were you worried about it? Oh yeah, let me tell you something. I'm always nervous.

Yeah. It could be an easy match. I'm always nervous. I'm always, you know, very, very apprehensive, you know? I'm like, I'm trying to cover all the angles, but we never, we can never cover everything. But I try to be as much as I can to make sure that he's prepared.

But to be honest with you, I didn't think it was going to be that easy. I expect a better Kai. And when we had like, I think, 20, 25 seconds into the fight, he was already on the back with the body triangle locked in. I said, man, this is going good. We didn't expect that much, you know? And he beat Kai not only on the grappling scene, which was expected, you know, even though he could say,

oh, I have the best takedown defense of the division, I'm stronger, he's gonna make a mistake, you know? This is all promotion because, you know, I knew, you know, Pantosha will be able to take him down and hold him down because the first fight was such a close fight because Pantoja had like, I believe, eight or nine days to prepare after fight Moreno and Kai had an easy fight in the Ultimate Fighter Show. But not only that, on the striking portion of the fight, he was way better than Kai in all aspects.

He didn't get punched once in the face, I don't think. You know, so it was a great performance. It was a great... A great stamp on who he is and how underappreciated as a champion he was. And I think people start now realizing that there's only maybe three guys better than him as a champion.

It's Ilha, it's Islam, and Marab. And we don't even know if those guys have the same accomplishment than the Pantoja. But they're 125 pound division, so underappreciated. It's getting better now, but you know. And he is getting more respect. I feel like people really started to pay attention to him in 2021 when he had that win over Brandon Royville.

He posted a video very recently about how sort of nerve wracking that time was for him. And I'd love to ask you about it. He mentioned that he tore his ACL before the fight. He was, I think, working as an Uber driver. He didn't have any money. He said he walked away with 100,000. He just wanted to make it to the scale

to get the show money and then he gets the performance bonus as well, but he had $100 to his name and then he walked away with 100,000. Were you aware with the stuff that he was dealing with and how kind of, I would say maybe tense that he was dealing with and how kind of, you know, I would say maybe like tense that time was for him and his family. I was not aware about the money situation.

I was aware, obviously five week he was sick, very sick, you know, and it was a very hard way cut because those last two pounds was kind of like, you know, very hard to take off because of his sickness, you know? And we were, we were kind of like worried because what if it's COVID? What if we test positive and he cannot make to the cage? You know, he, you know, he was more worried than us, you know?

But he was worried because he didn't have any money. I was worried because I knew that he can beat Roy Valle and beat the number one contender, you know. So when he finally said, man, he told me the whole story about Uber because had he told me before, I was going to say, I was going to try to help him out, give him some money. Man, listen, here's like, I don't know as much as I could. I would even ask Dan, hey Dan, this guy, you know, it's going to be our new champion, as much as I could, I would even ask Dan, hey Dan, this guy, it's gonna be our new champion, you know? I mean, can we help him out?

I'll make sure that he pays you back after the fights and everything, and Dan would have no problem doing that. But he didn't tell anyone. He said, Dan, I am a father, you know, I am a husband, I need to take care of my family the way I can. I'm not gonna ask for anybody for money.

I knew if I told you, you would try to help me out, but I had to do something as a man. So I did Uber, you know, and it was very rainy that week. So we had to go in and out of the car, AC, whatever, he got sick, you know. Then comes fight week already with the knee problem, which was happening. He was training at the gym sparring and then his knee will fall out of place. He had to maybe pull guard, put his knee back in place, then come back up, you know, and

he didn't tell me anything because I said, well, why pull guard? No, I thought I could sweep him. You know? Yeah. I thought I could sweep him. Wow. You know, yeah. And finally, after the fight, he finished. You know, Reval was a great performance. We got the bonus. He was so relieved, you know, and then we had to do surgery, you know, and then the Taro Shot came.

We had to say no. They gave to Figueiredo, and then he had to come back one year later, but that was the best thing that could ever happen to Pantoja at that time. We lost a year, but we didn't actually lose a year because he came back so strong, he came back, his body changed on that year

because of that surgery. He had to lift a lot of weights, he had to put a lot of muscle on it. And when he came back and fought Alex Perez, it was so obvious that he would be the next champion because he was so healthy, no problems at all. So it was a blessing. Unbelievable.

What a story. Thank you for sharing that and gives us even greater appreciation for the kind of person that he is. And so next up is Joshua Vann very clearly. How do you feel about this matchup? Josh saying he's never fought someone like me. He gets in the cage afterwards.

He had a great win as well. From a coach perspective, how do you feel about this? I think Joshua Vann is a full package. I think he's good everywhere. He's not great at anything, but he's good everywhere. He's young, 23 years old, you know, has a good body as he can recover very well. He was very heavy.

On the day off, we were actually together and we overheard his coaches saying that he was like at 147, 148, something like that. So he recovers very well. Obviously, he's young. I think he's going to be the best Joshua Vann. But if you analyze the Royval fight, he won the first round, Royval won the second, he

was winning until the knockdown at the end of the third. So we see a few things that we can work on, obviously, and he seems going to do the same thing to study Pantogia, you know, and I think it's going to be a great fight. I think Joshua seized the opportunity. I think he made great. You know, he had fought, I two and a half three weeks before that You know and he came she showed up made weight and had a great fight against Roy Vau which was clearly the number one contender

You know and I think it's gonna be great Do you agree with the the the statement that Pantoja has never fought anyone like him before. He's fought a who's who at 125 now. It seemed like he was having to fight people again, just to stay active. Do you agree with that? I mean, I'm not sure he meant by that. I mean, yeah, we never fought Joshua Vann. Sure.

We fought Kai twice, we fought Moreno three times, we fought Kape, whatever, but in what sense? Young age? Yeah, he's right. I think Pantosha never fought somebody with that gap of a difference from him. And he fought young guys when he was young. I'm not sure what he had to say, what he meant by that. And I agree, I mean, everybody's different. Everybody has different challenges. The fight before was the power of Kaikara. Before that was the dangers of Asakura.

You know, the guy has flying knees, all types of knockout coming from rising, weight division above Pantoja, really hyped up. You know, Saka Kibara was first row with Dana, whatever. You know, before that was Ersak, who had come from a great knockout, a number 10 in the world. Nobody knew how good he was. He could be great, but he could like fade.

Where's Ersak now after Pantoja? You know, so people have to understand that Pantoja fought everybody you know so in what sense Joshua Vance said that everybody said had to say something you know we've seen Pantoja likes to fight in the summer and then maybe that December card can we expect them back before the end of the year is that the hope yeah for sure for sure, for sure. That's what we want.

That's what we want. That December pay-per-view. Correct. Yeah. I mean, we had another idea, but I guess UFC had other plans, but December should be fine. What was the other idea? October 4th. Okay.

Yeah. And they just announced the... So he wanted to come back that quickly. Yeah. He didn't get punched. He was in shape. He was motivated. I think I haven't seen Pantoja getting back to the gym as quick as he did right now. You know, I guess, I think that challenge of fighting a new guy, a young guy, you know,

really motivates him. You know, when he fought Asakura, he was extremely motivated because it was a new name. Yeah. You know, it's hard to fight. He keeps fighting people that he already fought. So it's kind of hard to bring, you know, motivation and challenges, you know? So when he fought Asakura, he was

Extremely motivated this and I see the same thing right now with Joshua Van. How do you think he wins? I Hate to say I hate to give predictions are you okay? No, if he's gonna be with his hands raised, that's fair. Yes, Joshua I would love to ask you about another one of your of your great fighters, Henato Moicano. And so last year he had an unbelievable year. And this year, you know, this is the game right up and down. Of course, what happened in January, you know, 24 hours notice against the champion is tough. But then the recent fight against Benil Dariush, what was your take on how that fight played out and why it didn't go his way? Look, maybe very early that it was going to go his way.

Benil is a veteran of the game. What was your assessment of that fight? Well, I didn't expect that Moikun was going to get that tire. His body shut down. We did a good camp. I believe that he did a better camp for June than he did for January for Dariush. Obviously in January everything changed. You know, oh it's kind of the same, it's a South Pole. Yeah, but Islam brings a whole different level of problems that Dariush doesn't. You know, so it was hard to adjust everything

in 24 hours. You know. We did what we could. He knew and he knows that he made a mistake too early. Champ is a champ for a reason and he got punished for it. On the Darius fight, like you said, everything was going great. He made a mistake on the first round in my opinion instead of going to the back. Should have kept punching and almost maybe got a stoppage or maybe get a 10-8 round, you know, make sure you cut him very well like he did against BSD. Didn't have to try to go to the back, ended up, you know, finishing the round like that.

Second round, Dariush came extremely, you know, heavy grappling strategy, you know, got him really tired. And the third round, it was a coin toss, you know, it was whoever did more, Darius did more, we're gonna shut down his body. And he knows that we need to work on, you know, for the next fight, you know, I didn't like it, he didn't like it either, you know, obviously,

and I'm gonna push even harder this time. I know this is sort of out of the gym stuff, but he's in the news this week when talking about this settlement money. I don't know if you've seen this, and you were once a fighter, you know about the fight game. You know how these fighters scratch and claw, and I could say it, I know you may not wanna say it,

I don't think they get paid enough. And so for Money Moicano to say, I didn't take the money is a little surprising. What did you make of this? I understand his point of view, you know, he said, uh, first thing he asked me, uh, coach, what is a contract? A contract is a word. It's your word in, in writing. So I gave my word that I was going to fight, I'm going to compete for X amount of fights, receiving X amount of money. You know, now years later, I'm going to fight, I'm going to compete for X amount of fights, receiving X amount of money. Now, years later, I'm going to say, oh, that was not fair. At the time, it was fair.

At the time, I was happy. At the time, I was really excited to do it. So why now take the money? Oh, but the money's not going back to the UFC. UFC is going to pay that amount anyways. It doesn't matter. It's about me. It's about my principle. You know, maybe right now that I'm talking to you,

maybe I should have done something for charity. You know, take the money, but do some kind of charity or divide among people that he thinks that deserves and whatever, you know? So it's his point of view. I mean, it doesn't matter if I agree or not. It's the way that he is.

And we'll see if the new loss is gonna do something different because he thinks that another one coming in. Yes, yes, yes. And what about in January where you had Henats Moekano replacing another fighter that you trained, Armand Tsurukyan, what was that like for you? Because I guess you would have had to know that something was up, right? Because you're with Armand as well.

Was that very difficult for you? Was that awkward? Very awkward because I couldn't say anything to Moekano. I knew Armand was not very well, you know, the day before, you know, we're trying to push, but he couldn't get off bad to cut weight, you know, and you know, when Dana says something, you know, people don't even try to find out if it's true or not, they just repeat, there's nothing,

absolutely nothing related to weight cut. You know, as a matter of fact, Armand was a little lighter than I wanted. And he was ready to make weight easily. It was way harder this time as a replacement because he was competing in Russia a week before. He had to fly back to the States, you know, meet me, uh, meet us in Vegas and then wake up. So this time was really hard, but back then he was fine. He was on weight, you know, he just, he, his back spasm, spasm. Yeah. And he couldn't leave back to wake up.

So there's nothing, absolutely nothing related to not making weight, you know. And it was a strange that your guy replaced him. Yeah. So I knew late that Arma most likely was not going to make, you know, and, but I couldn't say anything to, to Moekano yet. And I was like, listen, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll, we'll have to be on point. It just something happens, you know? And I was like, listen, we'll have to be on point. Just something happens.

And then Hunter called me kind of late, and he asked me, hey, can we gonna make 55? I said, absolutely, he's gonna make 50 if you want him to. I said, yeah, he's my guy, he's my replacement. I don't think your other boy is gonna make it. And then I said, okay, so here's the thing. I'm gonna wait until the morning because if I tell this news right now to Moekano,

I think it was like one in the morning, he's not gonna sleep. He's gonna be so excited, he's not gonna sleep. So I'm not gonna tell anything, but I promise you Moekano's gonna make 55 he said do whatever you want make sure he makes 55 and be ready tomorrow if it done you know so at I think we woke up at 530 at 6 o'clock I got into his room I said listen you're gonna make 55 and he's like why don't tell me say me. I said, yeah, Armand is out.

What? He was screaming. He was so happy, made 55 so easy. Said, man, I'm gonna be a world champ. He was so excited. That's the fight game, you know? He made a mistake, he got punished. Life goes on.

It seemed for a minute that Armand was almost being punished in a way for what happened. He does get the backup fighter spot for this last fight, but now it's unclear if he is going to be next. If we're going by meritocracy standpoint, he should be next. We were talking about this earlier. Do you think he will fight for the belt next? What are you feeling right now? It's kind of hard to say, you know, Ariel, because even though he's the number one contender, you know, he beat everybody, you know, who are you he's the number one contender you know he beat

everybody you know who are you gonna put to fight for the title? uh Patty Pimlet that's a money fight okay respect that but then Gagey over Armand you know I'm not sure you know and I don't think uh when it was Islam you know he might say oh fought Armand, let me fight Gage. He kind of like said that, Ali kind of said that, you know, but now there's not even that that angle anymore. You know, listen, Ilya never fought Armand, you know, and I think I'm not sure if that's the UFC wants before Ilya fights Islam. Because in my opinion, in my heart, I think Armand can make it very hard for Ilja.

I think he can beat Ilja. I think he will beat Ilja. Oh, you train Armand, of course, yeah. But I believe in Armand. I think he has the ability, the tools to beat a guy like Ilja. Oh, he's a very heavy-handed guy Unbelievable guy. He is a great champion All the abilities that he has is amazing. He was hired by the UFC

Because of his grappling and then all of a sudden he started knocking people out, you know, so no We respect Elias grappling, but I think Armand is a different level. I think Armand has the ability, he's better than Charles, he's better than all these guys that Elias fought. Let's say they put Armand now with Elias, then the big super fight, Elias is off and he beats Elias and that's what they fought. So I'm not sure, you know, maybe they're gonna put Pimlet to fight Ilya

or somebody else to fight Ilya to get a good win. Wait until Islam fights Jack, see what happens. Hopefully they both win. There's your big super fight of the year next year, you know? And in the meantime, Arma needs to fight little, maybe one more time, you know, to cement himself as the number one contender. That's what we gotta do, whatever, you know, we'll do.

Clearly you have a relationship with Amanda Nunes. What is it gonna be like when an ATT fighter, I think the captain of ATT, Kayla Harrison, fights former ATT fighter Amanda Nunes. What is that gonna feel like for you? Man, I don't have any relationship with Amanda anymore. I mean, she left ATT, she didn't leave ATT saying good things about us.

Whatever, Kayla is an amazing person, is amazing team member. She defends American Top Team to the core. It's all about Kayla. Fair enough, and I respect that. Can I ask you one more about Dustin Poirier? I know he's not one of your guys per se, but another guy who defends ATT and is so proud to be a part of the team,

he just had this incredible moment. Who is Dustin Poirier in the gym? I was talking to him on Monday about, he said, of course I'm gonna go back and help guys like Johnny Yeblin and others. I will always be there for anyone who needs my help or advice even though I don't live in Florida. As far as what you see in terms of his interactions with the fighters, the younger fighters,

the guys trying to come up, the guys who are trying to realize their dreams like he did, what is your impression of Dustin Poirier as far as a teammate in the gym? Man, this is an amazing guy, you know, forget about Johnny Abley. Have you heard about Sabah Omasi? Yes, sir. Yeah, he used to fight a Bellator. He's a great guy, you know, Dustin flies out, pay his whole thing, flies out to

just help Sabah and corner him. You know, it's not even about like helping a champion. He helps his teammates. Whoever helps him, he helps. He's an amazing guy. You know, I think he had a brilliant career. You know, I think he represented an American top team the best possible way. You know, a great guy, great fighter, always brought wars and amazing

Fights, you know that we will always remember I will never forget the BSD fight when a few people including you know, a lot of people in the gym didn't Believe that he was gonna make it because BSD was that you know that hyped and he you know knocked him out so that's one of the uh the the fights that i will remember obviously the connor fights that always um amazing to to remember the ones that he won in abu dhabi and the other one i believe was in vegas if i'm not mistaken or new york you know uh all good things only good things about uh dustin po. He's amazing. I hope he has a better retirement. The best things for him and his family. You're amazing.

And I'm sorry that it took me so long to have you on the program. Phenomenal stuff, Pahumpa. By the way, you went from Pahumpina to Pahumpa. When did you graduate? Because Pahumpina is like smaller, right? Now you're just Pahumpa. When did you have that graduation?

Well, American people doesn't like, doesn't know how to say Pahumpinha the way you do. Okay. You know, that's the right way to say it. But people were like getting too confused. And then I guess like Dan started calling me Pahumpa, Pahumpa, and then everybody started calling me Pahumpa. So that's what it was.

Well, you're doing great things. Congratulations to you and the whole team and all the success. It's amazing to watch. Tremendous stuff on the show today. Thank you so much, Marcos. Really appreciate it and we'll have you on again soon. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. Yes, my pleasure. Obrigado. There he is, Pahumpa, formerly known as Pahupina, back in his competition days doing amazing stuff with the likes of Henato Moicano,

Alex Pantoja, Armin Tsurukyan, and many others as well. Great to get his insight. Love the conversations with the coaches. Now, we'll keep the ATT theme rolling along here because one of their best young fighters was in action once again this past weekend, the PFL card in Cape Town, South Africa. It was PFL Africa, their debut in South Africa. And wouldn't you know it, the face of the PFL. In a lot of people's eyes, including my own, as far as active fighters are concerned, there's really no denying it.

The one that everyone talks about the most, it is the undefeated Dakota Ditcheva. She is now 15 and 0, had another dominant win, may have injured her hand in the fight, I'm not sure. And you know, yesterday on the program, I did notice a couple people, because we had AJ McKee on, we had Costello-Venstinas on. There was one guy on YouTube saying,

are you beefing with Dakota Deceva? Why hasn't she been on the show for so long? And so they're telling me she's here. They're telling me she's here, but I'm not sure if I actually believe it. Is she actually there? She's actually there! Oh my god, I don't believe my eyes. Because yes, there was some talk that there was beef. Is she actually there? I can't tell. Is that her? Is that AI? Is that real? Is that really you?

She's still here. I'm still there. What did I do? Did I offend you? Was it one too many Man City jokes? I think it was one too many, right? You know, I think it was, you know. I've been pulled out by the Blue Boys for sure. Oh my dear. I mean, there I see a whole media tour with every outlet under the sun and little old us.

We can't get anything. Not even a single like five minute chat, nothing. You're the one that gets me in trouble. I'm the one. How do I, I didn't even get a chance to talk to you. I couldn't even get the one that gets me in trouble. I'm the one, how do I? I didn't even get a chance to talk to you. I couldn't even get an attempt to get you in trouble. You think I'm trying to get you in trouble?

I can't even try, I can't even get that shot. I mean, you don't need a shot, you just seem to be able to do it anyway. Wow, how did I get you in trouble? What did I do? How can I make this right? I mean, we all know you, Ariel, don't we? We know what Ariel don't we? Who are you talking to? Who's talking to? Who's planting the seed in your head? Is it Kayla? Who's the one? Probably a few. Oh my dear. Well I guess you're here under duress

perhaps. I annoyed your manager John enough to where he said can you just please let this guy have an interview so that he can stop texting me? That's what happened, right? Well, he did actually say that he was like, Ariel is like of me all the time. Wow. Geez, Louise. Now I'm a stalker. It feels great. I feel great about myself. Well, it's great to have you. Thank you for coming back. Thank you for gracing us with your presence. It's wonderful. Congratulations on the win. I would be remiss if I don't bring up the hand because that was sort of the last thing

that you talked about in the cage. How is it feeling? Not good. It needs fixing. It needs fixing. So I'm getting that fixed this week, but it is what it is. She was a tough girl.

I broke it on the top of her head, literally. I felt it with one punch, straight on her head, in the very start of the third round. So, and so is this the first time you've broken it? The first time I've broken this bone. Yeah. I have actually injured my thumb before when I was doing Thai boxing, but it's the first like bone I've fully like broken. Will this be your first surgery? Fully like broken. It's broken. Will this be your first surgery? Yeah.

Okay. Fix it like that, yeah. And like right now, are you in pain? Yeah. Oh wow. What does it feel like, throbbing? Yeah, it's painful, it's very small. It's in a cast at the moment.

Oh dear. Like cast before. Sorry to see, sorry to hear that. Yeah, but I'm good. It'll be fixed in no time. I'll be back out by the end of the year for sure. Okay. And first time going under the knife,

like is that giving you anxiety? How are you feeling about this? Yeah, no, I'm fine. I'm not really thinking about it too much. It needs fixing and I want to fight again. I feel like I've been out so long and then this has happened and I was so gutted. That's why I was like crying at the end.

I was just so gutted to be out again for a few months, but it'll be fine. I'll be back in no time. And so you said this happened in the beginning of the third round. So you had like, you know, four plus minutes to go. What did that experience feel like? Pain, like even though I had adrenaline,

like the pain that I was feeling, like when I was clenching out, like I was like screaming inside, like I was literally, it was horrible. But it was actually my better round out of all three. The first two rounds were not like good performances for me at all, but the last round, I seem to like use my legs more

because obviously my hand was hurting. I ended up throwing like a spinning back kick, which I never normally do. You have to pull things out of the arsenal, out of the toolbox. I know, exactly, yeah. It made me work over things and go back to the original game plan.

So I was happy to get a good round out of it anyway. Do you think you'd stop her if you have use of your left hand full use? I don't know, I'll give her credit. Like she probably would have gone to the end, but I felt like, to be fair, I should have knocked her out. This is not an excuse we'll probably say but I felt like the canvas was a little bit slippy so I was like not committing to half of my shots because it didn't feel like planted on the floor enough. So I don't know whether that was the

difference in a lot of things but I mean I'm gonna give it to her, she's a tough girl, so I'm gonna say that she was just tough. I was sort of lamenting the fact that this wasn't a title fight. I'm still unclear as to why you're not the PFL Women's Flyway Champion, but I guess it was in this regard a bit of a blessing that you didn't have to go 25 minutes Yeah, yeah, definitely a blessing after what happened in the third round But I'm I don't know either like I don't quite understand it like I'm not champ I don't know whether anyone's champ this year until the girls win the final and

So yeah, it didn't make sense for me to fight for a belt because I'm not champion by the way. They changed a lot of things How are you not the champion? And again, I'm not trying to stir the pot here But I was told we went through all this and then I got a text saying Costello is the only PFL champion right now and like Usman isn't even a PFL champion believe it or not because and I thought he was the PFL lightweight champion until the next time he fights and Because they've gotten rid of the Bellator title, then he will, if he wins, become PFL champion. But how is, and I don't just say,

because you're sitting here, how is the face of the company who just won the tournament, who did everything that he needed to do, not like, it to me would be a benefit to put that belt on you. Like they should, most promoters would try to do everything in their power to like concoct a plan to get the belt on you.

You have actually earned the right to get the belt on you. You have actually earned the right to be the champion and yet you're not fighting in championship fights or defending the title. It doesn't make sense. Do you have any idea why this is? Yeah, no, honestly, I don't know. I don't know. The only thing I can say, I don't know whether anyone else can answer the question, but I can just say that I was champion of the season last year. And that's that. They're not, I don't know. Like else can answer the question, but I can just say that I was champion of the season last year And that's that they're not I don't know. But like you said about usman. He's got a Bellator belt

I have a PFL belt, but mine's not a Bellator belt. Yes. Yes. It doesn't make sense to me I think that if you graduate to like the champion series, you should be fighting for a belt You should be defending a belt if you've won that other belt Well, yeah, cuz I'm to be challenging whoever wins this year. How does that make sense? Oh, geez. That is a little weird. And so could I ask you, because you did break some news also in the post-fight

interview, you announced that you had resigned with the PFL. Congratulations. Are you happy with how everything turned out? Yeah, I'm happy. I am happy now in the end. It took a while. It took a while. I mean, I fought last November. So it took a while for us to come to something

that was right for the both of us. But I'm happy now. I just secured my future for me and my family. Over the next few years, I'll be there till 2027. So I mean, how can I not be happy with that? You know, I'm looking forward to hopefully building the division now. And like I said, challenging someone else.

Like if I'm not champion for me, I don't really care about that. I care about winning, you know, I don't really care about the belt. So for me, like, I get to challenge other girls now and I'm happy to carry on doing that, but getting what I deserve out of it at the same time. Yes, and congratulations on that as well.

Can I ask from your perspective, why did it take so long? Because like you just said, you know, I know what I've brought to the table for the last two years. I stood to everything that I said I was gonna do. I won everything. I represent, I feel like I represent PFL very well you know media wise. I'm constantly you know doing my job and yeah I just know what I deserve now and I feel like it just took a little bit of time for them to understand how

serious I was about you know getting what I deserve and obviously I wasn't really going to settle as well and I think it's difficult like they haven't really seen where the divisions go and you know I want to be somewhere that's active and when you keep me out for eight months you're not giving me any confidence for me to be active you know I'm not okay with sitting out for eight months and I'm not okay for sitting out for longer so I had to kind of sit down and get a plan with them and know that I'm not okay with sitting out for eight months and I'm not okay for sitting out for longer. So I had to kind of sit down and get a plan with them and know that I'm going to be fighting and I'm not going to be out for another eight months, which is now part of my contract. You know, I have dates in there now.

I've got time limits where they need to keep me active and I feel like we ended up coming to the right. They understood how serious I was about good opponents and making sure I'm fighting. So once we'd come to that agreement, I felt like we got a good deal in place. After your win in November, there was a real push like, hey, this is a top half a pound fighter. She could be fighting the UFC's best.

Like, you know it, you saw it, everyone talked about it. It was a real thing that was being discussed. Was that even an option? Could you have explored that if you didn't come to terms with them or not yet? I mean, over the next few years, I don't know. Legally, like, there was positions where I could have possibly, yeah, made the move.

But I don't feel like my time's done with PFL yet. You know, I really enjoyed the last two years and I was happy to be able to come to a good agreement with them. And I feel like they bring a lot of different opportunities, you know, there's different avenues that I could go down still with them. You know, I mean, I'm not going to say too much, but you know, they're not super, super strict on where I fight and what I do type thing. So I feel like there's a lot of different opportunities that could come together with them. And I feel like I'm in the right place for sure for me, you know, I'm still, I'm 27 on Friday.

So I've got so many years left, like, and you are right, everyone does comment on all my stuff now. Like I saw a few things on the internet after I announced it after the fight. They were like, you just broke everybody's hearts. And I was like, guys, as long as I'm fighting, like, don't worry about it. Yeah. Well, happy early birthday as well. I think it's just because the fans want to see you fight those best and fight actively. And they were getting maybe a little bit frustrated

that you weren't fighting actively or weren't getting those, you know, know big name opponents other fighters have expressed that in the midst of this past year There was like this real push where a lot of these guys, especially the belt tour guys were voicing their displeasure and leaving You I know you did a couple that you mentioned it to a couple people certainly not on this show or to me because We were persona non grata, but I did see some stuff Did did you feel did you feel the same way? Were you feeling that sort of frustration? That was a joke just a second ago when I said the persona non grata, by the way,

you know so that, but did you feel that sort of frustration as well? Yeah, for sure. I felt the frustration, but I feel like I wanted to stay professional. You know, obviously a lot of people went online and stuff and everyone's in different, obviously people are set out a lot longer than I have and so I kind of just wanted

to make sure I had kind of a direction first before I started moaning publicly you know I felt like it was something me and PFL could have solved online behind closed doors and we have in the end but I did do that one interview that was telling everyone like, I don't know what's going on. And then literally like the next weekend, I had a fight announced. So it kind of helped at the same time. But it works. It works. I prefer to keep everything like, private, you know, and work through it that way. And so it's necessary. I'll only ask one more on this contract stuff. You did mention 27. So is it like, is it like a sports contract once 27 hits,

then you can explore free agency or is it X amount of fights before 27? A bit of both, a bit of both. I have an agreement in there where they have to give me a certain amount of fights in a certain amount of time, but I am contracted till 2027, yeah. And is that January 1st, 27 or December 31st, 27? Depends like when I have my fights, but probably end of, end of 2027.

I just need to know when we need to rev up the, where is she going to sign talk? Like we can probably table it now for a couple of years, right? Ariel does behave yourself. No, no, this is all coming from a very positive place. You know this, right? Like this is all coming from a place of wanting to see you fight the best. Yeah, no, I get it. I get it.

You never know what happens in the next like two years. You could see some kind of, I don't know, people might lose their mind at the top of these promotions and make us do a crossover or like. Would you like that? No. Okay, now you're opening up a whole other avenue that I wasn't really exploring. Is this what you're campaigning for? You guys have got to be patient. Anything can happen in two years. Like, don't write me off. I don't think we're writing you off. I think we just have been watching MMA for a long time and

know that some promotions don't like to co-promote with others. Yeah, but I mean, who would have ever thought that it'd be the UFC at the White House? Sure. And the better response is, who would have ever thought that it'd be the UFC at the White House Sure, and that was the better response is who'd have ever thought the UFC would do a trade with another promotion when they traded Ben Askren for Demetrius Johnson. Do you remember that? Yeah, you were just a neophyte when that happened. I mean Anything's possible. Yes. Yes. And so it was getting crazy and crazy Are you saying right here now you want to fight the winner of Valentina Shevchenko Zhang Weili? Is that what you're saying?

I mean, if you want to do PFL, well, I'm not really PFL champion. They want to do PFL champion, UFC champion. I'm happy to do it. OK, this is what you that would be the biggest fight, right? That would be the one. I mean, that would be like serious history making, right? Yes. Who wins that fight, by the way? Not you versus them.

Valentina versus Zhang. Valentina versus Zhang. Oh, oh God. I mean, what a fight that'll be. Wow. I just, I don't know whether really maybe a little bit too, too small. I'm not sure.

I don't know. Okay, so maybe leaning. I'd go Valentina, I think. And then who wins? Dakota versus Valentina. You really make me say that. She's my favorite fighter, but come on. Favorite fighter, number one.

Yeah, she is. She's always been my favorite fighter, Valentina. All time. Yeah, all time. Have you ever told her this? I just think like she is just like an MMA athlete. Yeah. Like what can she not do?

Like she can grapple. If she needs to win by grappling, she can do it. Yeah. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a great fighter. I think she's a that? I just think like she's just like an MMA athlete.

Like what can she not do? Like she can grapple. If she needs to win by grappling, she can do it. She needs to strike, she can do it. Like, I mean, so many people thought she was going to get a belt taken off her by the French girl, Marion. Manon Fureau. Oh, you said it quite well.

Yeah. People wrote her off with that and look what she did. She always finds a way to win. I think she's very, very clever fighter. Her IQ is like top level for sure. Have you ever told her this? No, I've never met her, you know. Oh wow, wow. People keep doing like photos of me and her against each other and like captioning it,

Dakota wants Valentina. And I'm like, guys, like I'm a number one Valentina. Yeah, yeah, you don't want that, I get it. But sometimes you have to, you know. But you know me, if you put me in a cage, I forget about all that kind of stuff. By the way, I don't know how close you are, but your situation's somewhat similar to Kayla's. Back in the day, did you talk to her

while all this was going on, to ask her for advice? I did. Yeah. And Kayla has like kind of helped me through my PFL journey. Yeah. Especially when I had all that time out, obviously she was out a lot longer than me. So she understood kind of what was going on. And it's funny cause she actually prepared me before, like straight after my fight, she was like, just prepare yourself for the worst,

which helped a lot because that's what I ended up having to do, mentally deal with all the time off. Oh, man. So she's definitely helped me a lot for sure. I look up to her career as well. She's done similar route. That's why I said, look at Kayla. She went over to UFC so late.

That might not even be something that I want to do in the future. So right now I have to go off what I'm, what this moment is telling me. And right now I'm, I'm happy with BFL. So you're a long ways away from, uh, you know, shopping for different car insurances, I know you can now buy all of them. I know. I mean, my little cousin, I paid for him to do a fast course and he just passed his driving test today. Wow. Congratulations back in Manchester. Yeah. Incredible. You're helping. I'm sure I'll be complaining about his insurance one day. Can I ask what was the experience like in South Africa?

I mean the crowd, wow, amazing, really amazing. I didn't expect to turn out like that or such exciting fans, but yeah, amazing show. South Africa is a little bit crazy. It was not what I expected at all, but what a beautiful country as well. My mom and my two brothers are still there. They're doing a safari at the moment. So yeah, how lucky am I that I got to go over there?

Cause that's probably a place that I wouldn't have wouldn't have ever gone before unless I was fighting. Would you have stayed for the safari had you not hurt your hand? Yeah, do you know what, Ariel? Well, no, I wouldn't because I was coming back. I had to, I had to fly back. Me and my dad had to fly back because I was actually, I had't because I was coming back. I had to fly back, me and my dad had to fly back

because I was actually, I had commitments in Bulgaria. I had rehearsals for a movie that I'm gonna be in. Oh yes, yes, yes. And I had to cancel that because I've got to have surgery on my hand now, so. Oh dear, so you're not in the movie anymore? Maybe, we're gonna try and work it out because it was only rehearsals

and not filming it just yet. So I'm gonna try and kind of make it work, but we'll see. What's, what's the movie? Can I ask her? Are you not allowed to talk about that? Yeah, I don't know if I'm allowed to say it. But especially if I might not be in it now. Sure.

But is it, you'll find out soon. Is it a Bulgarian movie? It is. It's going to be speaking in Bulgarian. Yeah. But it's going to be broadcasted like in lots of different countries. You can speak Bulgarian, yeah, but it's going to be broadcasted like in lots of different countries. So you can speak Bulgarian fluently. I wouldn't say fluently, but I can speak Bulgarian. Yeah.

Okay. Wow. How did this come about? I mean, they contacted my dad. Um, cause it's funny Bulgarians get behind the fans a lot more than English get behind the athletes a lot more than English do. So like the support I have in Bulgaria is probably bigger than the support I have in England. I would probably say. Wow, really? You feel that from social media? Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. Like I can go on like TikTok, I can do like a live and it's just all Bulgarians watching, like they're just like right behind you, cause obviously they don't get as many like high, high end kind of athletes, you know, so they really get behind you. And they're very like, dedicated to supporting their country. Like me walking out with a flag is like, so big for them. For me to be holding a Bulgarian flag is like massive. So I'm like all over the news over there and stuff. So they must have seen me through that that and then they contacted my dad, so yeah.

And would you be playing like a non-martial artist person or is it like a fighting movie? No, it's non-martial artist person. Wow, that's big. Oh, they gotta figure this out. They gotta figure this out. Well, I'm a fighter first, so my hands gotta get fixed and then I'll pull that.

All that stuff is ancillary stuff. Yeah. The competitor that you are, are you annoyed that your finishing streak has been snapped? Does this bother you? Do you think of these things? Oh, Jesus. I'm silently screaming, yeah. I'm sorry.

So annoyed. But at the same time, I needed three rounds. I need those, you know, longer fights for sure. And it just, it just proves to me, I mean, I was fighting a lot on the back four, I can fight for three rounds, you can pressure me, you can not pressure me. I can deal with different situations.

So it's really important, obviously, that I get them rounds, and it's just obviously not what I ever go for. When you talked about potential other opportunities, does that include maybe doing boxing or kickboxing or things like that? Oh wow, wow, wow, okay, okay. Interesting.

I don't know. This is good stuff, this is good stuff. The finals of the 125 tournament is Jenna Bishop against Liz Carmouche. Who do you like in that? You know Jenna, Liz obviously a legend. Who do you like in that? I think Liz will probably take it,

but I'm not writing Jenna off off, you know, she, she seems to get the wins against these girls. So I think it'll be a boring fight, but wow. What a company gal you are way to sell it. Love it. You keep it real. Yes. No respect.

I think yeah. It's a good finals. The good final. Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah. Great final sure. Yeah, yeah, great final. Are you excited to watch? I can't wait. I mean, Liz is a legend. I would like to, if I'm being 100% honest, I would like to see, I think Liz versus you would be a fun matchup. Yeah, for sure. That'd be a good fight for me, yeah.

But please, for the love of God, like that would have to be for a belt, right? I mean, she's a former belt belt tour champion I think she was the last belt tour champion. Yeah, she defended it a lot as well. Yes Yeah, that would have to be for a title now. I Mean I would probably be challenging her. So yeah, oh god, that would be weird Do you have any sort of clarity as to if your next fight will be for a physical belt? No, don't. Honestly, Ariel, I don't really mind, even if it's not. I don't even want the belt. It's really funny, walking out for this fight,

I felt less nervous than I've ever felt before, and I was trying to explain it to my mom. I don't know whether it's because I've done it all now. I fought for the belt, the world title, fought for the million dollars, which is a lot of money. I fought for a tournament where I need to keep winning every round. Like I felt like I've been through like the worst emotions now. Feel like I'm just excited to fight.

Like who, since when did I ever throw spinning back kicks in fight? Yeah. Like I must have been like comfortable, you know? So, um, if I don't have to fight for the belt again, like I'm, I'm not bothered. I'm just going for the wins. I want an unbeaten that's that's it. What's the business standpoint there are perks that come with being champion that's all. I get perks anyway yeah i'm a piece of pfl okay yes all right is that official are they are they branding you with with that title.

title? Well the girl did like Samiko she said like, oh Dakota's the face of PFL so if I beat her does that mean I'm the face of PFL? Well no because I still am so I'm rolling with it now. It doesn't quite work that way there are other people that get bumped up if that happens. Costello Van Stenis for example right? What a performance. Yeah. But I know that's a teammate of yours. Yeah I mean performance. But I know that's a teammate of yours. Yeah, I mean, good fight. But I mean, he was losing until the last 10 seconds. I'd like to see them win it back. It's a really good fight. Yeah, I don't know whether they will like the way some of the people that worked at PFL was celebrating after that win was

what do you say? What happened? Who's celebrating? I just saw some of like the the main people in PFL celebrate. I mean, I probably shouldn't say this, but I just didn't think it was... I don't know whether they're going to give him the rematch. They seem to really, really be happy that Costello had won, so... Actually, when he was on the show on Monday, he insinuated that he wouldn't be fighting him again, which I think is crazy. Yeah, so do I. Why? Monday he insinuated that he wouldn't be fighting him again, which I think is crazy. Yeah, so do I. Why? What champion for I think three years or something. Yeah.

And he was winning on the scorecards until the last 10 seconds. And no, they have to run it back, but this is when you get bogged down in this tournament, then this guy, like I personally think, and they get mad at me when I say this, make the biggest fights, the way for PFL to be truly successful is just make the biggest fights possible to hell with all this other tournament stuff What's the biggest fight at 155 Paul Hughes versus usman to make that fight? Don't wait. Don't say the win What's the biggest fight at 125 you versus Liz make that fight? What's the biggest fight at 185 now? Now it's almost a blessing. Okay, they've got a new guy, a new face at 85. Make that fight. Once you get bogged down in these, like, semantics with the tournament

and this guy moves on to that and he becomes the champion of this, it gets too confusing for the fans. They know big fights. That's all. That's the fight game. Yeah. No, I get that. But then PFL also knows the, like, tournament system now. Nah, you got to evolve. You have to evolve. You could be right, Ariel. You could be right. I think I am right. They've got a new CEO though, right? Yes.

So you never know what's going to happen. That's why I said things change so quickly. I think there's quite a lot of people excited behind the PFL team that are excited about him coming in and he seems like he really Knows the sport really well and yeah, it could be exciting times for them You never know what changes he's gonna make as the face of the company. Have you met the CEO? I Haven't yet. Wow, I think he's I don't know whether he's actually fully started just yet, right? But I've been told a little bit about him and what to expect from him and stuff So I'm excited to finally meet him soon anyway. Yeah, I think he starts in September,

but if I were him, I would make a call. Yeah. To the face of my company. Okay, can I sneak in one? Can I sneak in one football question? How do we feel about KDB leaving? That one's tough, right? God damn it, yeah.

But we do need some new players. We do, we need a refresh. So this could be a good thing. Okay, and losing to Al Hilal in the Club World Cup, did you watch any of that? Do you care for that? Right, have we timed out yet? Okay, I thought I snuck one in.

I did say one, I'm sorry. That was weird, that was weird. I was shocked by that one. Yeah, I mean, they always chuck us with like the most daftest matches, like of all matches you think we could possibly lose, they always lose to the other ones. Oh yeah, Crystal Palace, FA Cup final, I mean, who could forget? We needed that one, by the way. I was rooting for Man City because if you guys would have won that meant Forest gets Europa League and now Crystal Palace wins somehow. I have no idea shockingly.

So then Palace got Europa League and then we get Conference League, which is the shite one. But now something happened with some emails with Crystal Palace and now they got dropped down and we got bumped up. Have you seen all this craziness? No, why would I be looking at Crystal Palace? Yeah, you can't be bothered. You know a player you have just lost though?

Morgan Gibbs-White, my guy. And who else have you lost? Anthony Alanga, my other guy. I mean, what's going to happen now for you guys? Yeah, okay, that's fine. That's fine. We'll see you soon. No, it has been a tough summer for us.

Although Morgan now they're trying to keep him. It's a weird one because there was like a transfer trigger clause thing and Spurs tried to take him. The business of football over there in the UK is very weird. It's unlike here in the United States. True, true. Well, I have to say, I like this new contract signing, no F's given Dakota

DiCciva. I think this is a new you. I feel a different, like you're just saying it like it is. I like this. You're not kind of, you know, muting yourself or sugarcoating things, filtering yourself. This is a good version. I like this. And maybe you have been this way for a while. We just didn't have the opportunity to speak to you. That's been the problem. Yeah, I've just been studying your interviews, you know, just getting some tips now I'm like no fucks given type thing. Ariel Hawani. Love it.

2.0. Love it. Love it. Uh, well thank you for coming on. It was, it was great. Um, hopefully all is forgiven and we're back to being in each other's good graces and, and the, the fight is over. Most importantly, good luck tomorrow.

It's tomorrow, right? It's Friday, my surgery. Friday. On your birthday? Yeah. Oh my dear. I'm sorry. That's a tough one.

Oh well. By the way, what are they saying as far as the recovery? Come back this year? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, 100%. By the end of the year, November, December, I am back out. 100%. Amazing. All right. Well, good luck with the surgery. Happy early birthday. Congratulations on the big win. Congratulations on the big contract. Congrats on all the success. And

most importantly, thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you as well. There she is, the one and only Dakota Ditcheva, the face of the PFL doing big things and winning once again, improving her undefeated record. She is now 15-0. Yes, her stoppage streak has come to an end. What a streak it was. She had a 100% finish ratio in the PFL, 10-0 in the PFL.

So she had nine wins via stoppage. But what does it matter? 15 and 0, 10 and 0 in the PFL. What a run she's been on. And I did sense, by the way, she's not thinking as far as the answers are concerned. She's letting it fly, which I think is good. I think people like that.

I think people appreciate that. And they should do everything in their power to keep her. She is someone that I think all the MMA fans want to see fight the best. And there was that big movement after she won in November. She won the tournament. Okay, let's see her fight the best. PFL needs to keep fighters like that in their stable if they want to grow. They can't be the place where... they can't be the pit stop place. They can't be the the Montreal Expo circa 1994. We build the talent, you take the talent. No, they have to build especially homegrown talent. Paul Hughes, I know technically not homegrown,

but fighters who are not former UFC fighters are worth 10 times more in my opinion. So Usman, you gotta try to keep him. Paul Hughes, gotta try to keep him. Dakota, you gotta try to keep her. Costello, you gotta try to keep him. Paul Hughes, got to try to keep him. Dakota, you got to try to keep her. Costello, keep him. Eblen, keep him. Those are the fighters that you you really really need

to take care of in my opinion. The other ones are great too. You can have those guys, the Francis's, you can act like you need to sprinkle them throughout but very important to have those, for lack of a better word, homegrown, non-UFC cast-off fighters to the eyes of the fans. All right, time for Super Chats, Frank. What do we got, what do we got?

Super Chats. Well, we got some Super Chats. Okay. That's for sure. Personal Stash sent in $5 to let us know they do in fact have five dollars Oh, thanks was in reference to if you just want to put five dollars down on the eBay oh Yeah, well listen every little bit counts you know does and and and that's the thing. What are we at now? Let me see here ebay.com, da, da, da. 2,565 viewed in the last 25 or 24 hours.

Let's get those numbers up, guys. If you wanna contribute a dollar, contribute a dollar. You know what's funny is that I keep looking at this, so now eBay is sending me suggestions for other like tops for my poker table. Deluxe 48 inch by 96 inch. The algorithm's gotten confused. I'm like, Frank, do you want this thing or not? What do you want? What do you want? I see this my poker table deluxe 48 inch by 96 Few right do you want this thing or not? What do you want? What do you want? Look at a look at all these poker felt Okay, no, we'll only focus on one. It's a good cause

Please put your five dollars in an envelope with three thousand. Yes, fifty other dollars Is he Aspen I'll vote DJ Marab hooker Ros, Rosas, Cortez, Gary, Rico, Joe Anwood, John Wood, conspicuous by his absence on this list, Helwani? I mean, anyway, all proceeds. I think if you read at the top, it says, signed by Ariel. I actually got first billing? Top billing. Including.

What about Andy Aspinall? Did he not sign it? No, did he sign it? I honestly can't remember. I think he did. I think I told him. First billing? Top billing. Including. What about Andy Aspinall? Did he not sign it? No, did he sign it? I honestly can't remember. I think he did. I think I told him. That might be the one that puts us over the edge.

All persons. Is that it, Andy? Just got another bid. From this auction, we'll go directly to the Aspen family as Ben Aspen continues on his road to recovery after a double lung transplant. We wish him the best. What else, Frank? What else?

Nunu59, with Dustin retiring, is this the perfect time for him and Nate to box? This is a very, very, very selfish thing for me to say, but that was such a great retirement. Like I almost... So I say, oh, it would be nice for him to end it there, but of course he would get paid millions of dollars if he boxed Nate, right? Like one of these promotions would pay him a lot of money. And so yeah, I guess, but can I also say like, I would want to see Nate fight Dustin in MMA, even at this point, right?

Yes. Yeah, so. I would rather see them fight MMA, which by the way is kind of the same for every single UFC turned boxing right thing. I do wonder who Nate is going to fight like when are we gonna see Nate back and who's out there for him to fight there was there was some talk of him versus KSI I don't know if I wanted to see that really no. Now that Tony's in misfits. I don't really want to see that really. No? Now that Tony's in misfits. Mm.

I don't really want to see that. We saw Nate Jake. I don't know about that. Mike Perry? Shit. I'm down for that. The promos for that would be sick. In boxing.

I think there was some talk about that. Nah, do MMA. Oh, in MMA. Or BKFC. Ooh, Nate and BKFC. Nate and BKFC. Insanity. That'd be nuts.

That would be nuts. The scar tissue could open quick on that. Knuckle Mania 5? Oh yeah. Or is it Knuckle Mania 6? Just make it a standalone event. What else Frank? Sammy writes in,

Aurel should be leading promoter if Shakur vs Connor happens or host of the press conference. Who is this Aurel should be leading promoter if Shakur versus Connor happens, or host of the press conference. Who is this Aurel that you speak of? I believe it's Ariel. That would be incredible, I would love that. Now, am I getting chosen to do that? Probably not these days, but you never know.

One can dream, one can dream, but yes, that would be great. And wouldn't it be crazy if it actually, if the cookie crumbles in that direction? Like who would have thought? At least give us credit at the very least. Let's see. I'm still thinking that they're gonna do Ben Ubank too. Or is it Ubank Ben too because he won?

Nevertheless, I still feel like that's what they're gonna do. They alluded to the fact that they wanna do it in November now. But if they're gonna do that in Riyadh, that has to be in the UK, right? It has to be in the UK. What else, Frank? What else? First time I've heard this question. Jake from Wendy City says, planning a trip for New York City for the first time for the holidays, what are your favorite places in NYC? Restaurants, museums, etc. Excited for the Met. Yes. Well, there's a million things that you can do.

You have to go to Sasebuna, you have to get the omakase. Go to the USS Intrepid. Yes, go to Magnolia, get the banana pudding, get a slice. Where are we getting a slice? What's the number one slice? John's? I believe it's Boots. Two Boots? Two Boots, two Boots. Yeah, no, no, the Faro. Where's Pap Yeah. But it doesn't really matter. Just get a slice.

Just get a damn slice. In particular, one of those like, you know, not 99 cents anymore, but definitely not the dollar slice place. My favorite, if you notice the 99 cent pizza places that had 99 cent in the name, have taken the scent down and now it's just 99 pizza. If you look, it's $1.50 for some. Of course, times have changed. There's a place called Champion Pizza around here which is pretty good, have you guys had that? I have not.

Check out our good friends at Glaze. Oh, there's a new. Wegmans is great too. Wegmans is solid. Yeah, we went to Wegmans Next Door last week to celebrate our birthdays. Conspicuous by his absence on that day was On Air Jordan. Why didn't you show up On Air Jordan?

I double booked myself. I had made plans with some friends a few weeks earlier. You realized this was, like, you were part of the celebration. Yeah. Yeah, well they wanted to celebrate me too, so it's, you know, how to choose. What's funny is-

You guys were the B squad Wow area was like where is Jordan yeah someone said he's working and then he was like oh man what is he working on like he was really concerned and no one wanted to tell you no he just double booked yeah they told me you were working upstairs and I was well when you guys went to dinner I was working I continue to work on the pizza in his tour which by the way if you want to check it out You should check. Yeah Let's just say PT and I had a thing last week, but we've since we since worked it

I was boxing I was in the market You know glad that you guys made up it made me uncomfortable having to talk to trust me This all stems from the box. It made me very uncomfortable. You're a boxing listen I'm not gonna talk about this with him not here because I'm not I'm not trying to go biased about it so let's just you know everyone is said their piece and we're good everyone's happy as Aubrey once said it went from 0 to 100 real quick did you drop your microphone Frank I hit it really hard Rick was in the middle of all of it Rick why don't you tell everyone what happened? You were there for it?

You were there for it? I have no comment. I'm glad both sides came together. Sometimes when you love each other, you fight each other. It's like brothers, you know? I'm just glad at the number one unbiased news source in the world that we are together and harmonious as a team. Amen.

That's all that matters. Why are you trying to drive a wedge between us? We know what you're trying to do, GC. Why are you trying to do this? Why are you giving shit to Jordan? I just want the basket one half of it. We're not trying to air a dirty laundry out here. I didn't even know there was dirty laundry.

Look, let's just take the box and throw it away. I exist in my own little orb. There is dirty laundry because we put it in the washing machine, cleaned it, and everyone feels good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's well said. What else, Frank? What else? Lamantia, MMA. I disagree with take that MMA media is worse today at press conferences. Aside from Ariel's cues, the cues are about the same.

Just go back and look. Be real. Yeah, I mean, La Mancha was in his father's nutsack when we were doing it, so no. How many times does father's nutsacks get brought up on this show? It's the best way to say that someone was, you know, yay high when we were out there pounding the pavement. When we were out there trying to convince, you know, fair play, Blonde Brendan said it best. Fair play. When we were out there, we were out there trying to convince you know fair play blonde Brendan said it best

when we were out there we were out there talking to editors saying you need to cover this sport who the fuck is legit I was I know Brendan saying that I mean who the fuck is we listen real recognizes but he is spitting he is but we were out there on the front lines telling people you need to recognize this sport, you need to cover this sport. ESPN, AOL, Yahoo, he's right about all these things like the big dogs. So like yeah, we do have some equity in all this and we do have a say and we do know and by the way I wasn't even in the first wave. The first wave was the likes of Josh Gross and Loretta Hunt and Greg Savage and Jeff Sherwood and guys like that,

like the Sherdogs and the MMA Weeklys and the UGs and the full contact fighters of the world. Those were the real deal pioneers of MMA media. Not even I. I was reading those guys. I was watching those guys. and the full contact fighters of the world. Like those were the real deal pioneers of MMA media. Not even, not even I, I was reading those guys. I was watching those guys. And I will admit, I watched and read those guys and said, I think I can add to this.

I think I could do things a little bit differently. I could do this that they're not doing. That's what everyone should be doing. That's what someone should be doing right now, watching us. Oh, I can do things differently or I can add. I could be an asset here or there. So I'm very, listen, I'm proud to be an MMA media member and that's why I wanted to, you know, that's why I wanted to start something like the MMAJA. Unfortunately, the reason why the MMAJA never really got off the ground is because we had too many people in there who weren't doing this full time.

So to them, this was like a fun thing to be a part of. There were a lot of jealous mofos in there and there were a lot of other people who just wanted to start shit. And there were only just like a select few of us who actually like our livelihoods were attached to this. A lot of these other guys had other jobs. And so whether this failed or not, whether this progressed or not was really no skin off their back. But for us, it is skin off their back. So when people bring up like the crying and stuff like that, it's because my life, because I gave everything to this. I bet everything on this career. I care deeply about this. And so because of that, I care deeply about the state of MMA media.

Don't get it twisted. Just because I'm not there doesn't mean that I don't care about it. Doesn't mean that I don't say like, and doesn't mean that I don't applaud when they Have a good moment like I still consider myself a part of it just because I'm not sitting there at the press conference We're still a part of MMA media. We just also happen to be a part of the number one unbiased combat sports site Reserved TM. Yes. What else Frank? What else lastly firefly funhouse? Tech team match Logan Paul and John Cena versus the Hellwani boys.

Ooh. Could you imagine? That would be something. I'm taking Walter. Big business, big, oh yeah. Oh, like, I was thinking of you guys. Oh, where the Hellwani, no, we're the boys in the back.

Oh, wow, wow, wow. Don't get the branding fucked up. Definitely your sons who took great offense to D1 going back. Yeah, it's the boys in the back. Oh, wow, wow, wow. Don't get the branding fucked up. Definitely your sons who took great offense to D1. Yeah, it's the prime disrespect and they're gonna represent. No one calls my dad a D1 loser and gets away with it. Oh my God, I woke up today

and they were downing Celsiuses. Celcii. Gatorade. And we appreciate them for it. Oh, all because it was like, take Fuck Prime. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Wow. Well, I love the commitment. I'm trying to see, did I miss anything?

You said that was the last one, right? Well, there is one that's a bit of news, right? Yeah, we do have some breaking news. Our good friend. Now, that's the thing. I was wondering, which one were you gonna hit first? I don't even know. There were two. There were two. Which are the, oh, we're doing it at the same time. That's the thing what I was wondering which I was wondering which one were you gonna hit? I don't even know

There were two which any oh, we're doing it at the same time there. We go. I love it. Let's hear it again Yeah, well she gets her own drop Yes, it has been reported. I think first reported by Nolan King MMA junkie am I right about that That's where I saw it first. So by the way, a tremendous young MMA journalist. Is he young anymore? I don't even know if that's fair to say, but you know, someone who is doing amazing work. You could have just left it. You didn't have to clarify the, is he old now?

Like, he could have just been young and let that shit ride. The number one unbiased. Jazz the Vizious. Going up against Manon Fureau. This is October 18th in van city, main event. I don't know that it's a big time fight for JJ climbing up the ranks.

Yeah, I know. But I mean, Mano just fought for the belt. So it's a comeback fight for her, for JJ. Like if you lose this one, sure. JJ wins this fight. Man, she can get a title shot now. There's the Talia Silva. Nah.

So availability went over. Man, she could get a title shot now. But there's the tie is Silva. Nah. So? Availability. Went over. Yeah, you're right. You're right. She'll be right there if she can win this one. She's there. 100%. This is the last stop. And at worse, one more after this if you win. At worse. I also love this like... There's been a progressive climb for her.

Almost exclusively fights in Canada. Hell yeah. I love it. It's smart. Rarely goes below the border. That's the way it should be. Also some breaking news regarding BKFC. Oh shit.

["The Garden State Theme"] It appears as though BKFC is headed to the Garden State. They're doing a show October 4th at the Prudential Center. At the night of 320? I know, I'm bummed. Yeah. I actually thought for a second, maybe this will be my BKFC debut.

I actually, this news just got broken to me right here on the air. I would have gone 1,000%. I would have loved to go, and I think that they're trying to do a big show. I think that might be the Perry fight. But you're shitting me. Move it to the 11th.

Let's call up Feldman. Yo, Feldman. Listen, I know you already got the venue booked, can you just move it one week? Would you, if they gave you like cage side seats, VIP, all access, would you ditch UFC, what is that, 320 for this? Fuck, I don't know, man. I would actually probably rather prefer a suite

that has a TV playing. Could we do, I see all these guys, I see the Nelk boys riding around with Ilya, I see everyone just riding around continuously streaming. Could we just go and just stream from there? How do they do this? Oh, like Twitch guys? How do they just go continuously,

no matter where they are in the world, they're just crystal clear streaming. How does this happen? How do the kids go continuously, like no matter where they are in the world, they're just like crystal clear streaming. How does this happen? How do the kids do it? It can be achieved. Can we just ride around? Like I see Rampage just like in the club 24 hours, like he's just like streaming.

How does this happen? Is that what you want to do? Do we actually want this though is the question. Are you on the club? I don't know. Could be fun. I mean that's what the kids are doing. 24 hour stream, let's go.

Rampage as a kid? No, I mean that's what the kids are doing 24-hour stream. Let's go rampage as a kid No, I mean that's what kids are watching. Okay, and rampage is having success. I see Cody Brundage's laws to Mansour Abdul Malik this according to the aforementioned Nolan King has been overturned to a majority draw according to the Georgia Commission The bout was initially a technical decision for Abdul Malik. Did you see that one, GC, or was that before you guys showed up for the main card? No, I was there. Oh, you were there for that one? Yeah.

I thought you came late. I can't tell, like, the digs here, I take no offense to this. There's no dig. If I could, I'd show up for the co-main in the main, honestly. Actually, here's how much of a casual I am. I don't think I'm ever gonna go to another fight night

again, period. Wow, wow. Paperview's only for me. Wow, Paperview Berks. But in FB Berks, the problem is you do watch parties. Exactly, I'll never get to go to one. If that BKFC was on another day, we'd be there. I'll tell you that. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, I'd go to that BKFC.

I would go to that BKFC, I would go to that BKFC over any normal fight night. Yeah, same. No doubt about it. They know how to do it. Damn. Just can't wait for another fight night, some random place like Des Moines,

and then Connor gets all hyped up like, ah, I gotta go. No, no, we got shamed into that one. Jordan brought up Des Moines to me yesterday, and it actually gave me a little bit of flashbacks. I actually think we should do a bit, where if's a bit nauseous promotion goes to Des Moines Connor has to go now. No, no, you couldn't drag me back there. Really was that bad? Texas or Canada wasn't it was just that uneventful. It was kind of just it was just so man

Okay, what if the boom boom hook jam back into my head? Now this is an entirely different story. You said a combat sports event. You didn't mention the greatest spectacle on the entire planet coming back. Tony Hawk at 51 running it back. I'm seeing a lot of people in the chat, thumbs up to the chat, W's in the chat saying, "'Gee see, stay away from the cards.

"'Every time you show up, they end up being shit.'" Yeah, that's true, that's true. Maybe that's why I hate fight nights so much, is because every time I go, they're just dog shit. Between you and TST, just stay away. And then me and TST have gone to cards together. Oh yeah. And they're always terrible.

Oh, and then it's like double the negativity. It's nightmare- Double the shite. Last thing, I see a ton of promotion for my good friend Adam Sandler's new film, Happy Gilmore 2. We watching it? Yeahmore to we watching it Did you watch the stand-up special forget about the stand-up July 27th right on my platform?

Netflix it's it's uh it's free so yeah, I'll be watching I'm looking forward to it MJF's in it I mean we did a whole night of promos I hear he makes a lot of references to the stand-up that you might not pick up on wait a second What promos did we do for it? Me and GC oh number one Netflix promo guys. They were going from it cut them a Gavin straight to us No, I mean I see MJF doing a bunch of interviews. I see Becky like we're I mean we're the bridge now Feels like it would have been who's booking our show who's making these requests. I don't know call the blusher You're gonna have to get all the James to know what the fuck was that cut to me. What was that? Don't think I don't know, call the bus, you're gonna have to get all of them. James Tahuna? What the fuck was that cut to me?

What was that? Don't think I didn't pick up on that. I like that, wow, some shade from Andy, I like this. I think James Tahuna and Who the Fuck is We are my top two drops. They're great, but- You know how you know they're great? You can hear them 10 million times and never be like,

ah, you know, you don't get tired of it. They are great, but I will say there is a bank now of like 30 others that have been completely forgotten about Yeah like like Can I can I hear from Cheeto from time to time having her from Cheeto forever? Let's see if he even still has that one Like that's only have so many on his screen though, that's the problem

It's like the game Fred Norris used to the game. Fred Norris used to have infinite, Fred Norris used to use like cartons. Like he was like. This is nostalgia. This is nostalgia here. You used to have to put physical carts into a machine. So that means they weren't quick, huh? That means that they weren't on demand.

And you were like, this is so great. This is so great. This is truly the moment I have been waiting for. It's so good. I fear for Abbie Gilmore too. Oh, you don't think it's gonna be good? No, I don't think it's gonna be good. I think you feel that way.

I think if it was a theatrical release, you would feel otherwise. No, Sandler. You think he's fallen off? Fallen off. Wow. No, don't say that. What do you mean? Fallen off? He hasn't fallen off.

He's a big check getter though now. And he owns up to it. He's won like a million Razzies and he knows that. And when he gives the speech, he's just like, well, fuck it, my bank account's huge. Yo, yo, the one, Hustle, Hustle was great. Hustle was pretty good. Hustle was pretty good and uncut gems were both pretty good.

But then there's like Haunted Mansion with Jennifer Aniston and shit. Hubie Halloween? Is that what it's called? No, no, no, there was Hubie Halloween But then there's like Haunted Mansion with Jennifer Aniston. Right, you know. Hube Halloween? You know Haunted Mansion's name. Is that what it's called? No, no, no, then there was Hube Halloween and then there was, what was it, Jack and Jill? No, that's from back.

Those are pre-uncut gems, pre-uncut gems. All time, all time. But there's enough bangers in there to suggest that he's still got something. Don't get it twisted, Sandler's got bangers. But oh, he's standing. He's also collecting checks right now. He has got a catalog of bangers.

Love Adam Sandler. I am not partaking in any sort of Sandler. What'd you think of Space Man? Listen, I haven't watched a lot of them, but he's still- What'd you think of Murder Mystery 2? Still go to it. What was your reaction to Murder Mystery 2? A lot better than Murder Mystery 1.

There's a reason you have not watched them. He did say when he was like, if I don't win an award for Uncut Gems, I'm just gonna make the worst movie of all time. And you know, we're going to Connor, he did it. You know, I actually, I did love him as a voice actor in Hotel Transylvania, I'm not kidding. It's a great movie.

I'm actually being serious. Hubie Halloween was actually after Uncut Gems. Hubie Halloween was like shock out of a bad. Hustle, actually I watched it last summer, it was incredible. I loved stand by. QB Halloween was like shockingly bad. Hustle, actually I watched it last summer, it was incredible. Hustle was great. I thought it was surprisingly incredible. Grown-up Sue, Banger.

There's been a ton of bangers. I'm looking forward to it. Jack and Phil. That's not gonna go back that far. What I'm worried about is do I need to show my kids Gilmore 1 before showing them Gilmore 2? Yes, of course. You only have a week left.

It's only a week left on Netflix. Oh, geez. All right, we got to go. Gilmore is legendary from opening credits all the way to the end. They have a bias towards like 90s movies. Like, this looks too old. Shut up.

That sounds familiar. That's this guy right over here. Yeah. It's crazy. It pisses me off. Guys, let's end on this note, shall we? Let's end on this note. The theme of last week and this week

has been the great career of one Dustin Poirier. Well, yesterday he posted on his social media, it might have actually been this morning, he posted. As always, he is so great with his words. He posted this on social media, letter to the game, thank you for allowing a kid to chase a dream, thank you for the lessons, thank you for the heartbreak, thank you for a kid to chase a dream. Thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the heartbreak.

Thank you for a platform to raise others up. When I started, I wanted to find out how good of a fighter I can be, and I found out. Fighting is life, fighting is the truth. I'm forever grateful to have walked this path, and the lessons I've learned will be with me until my heart stops. I'm not sure what's next, but I'll do what you taught me. Continue

to walk confidently into the unknown. Sincerely, El Diamante." Lovely, lovely stuff. Let me read that last line again because I botched it. I'm not sure what's next, but I'll do what you taught me. Continue to walk confidently into the unknown. It's incredible. How could you not love this guy? There you go, Oban. There you go, Oban! There you go, Oban! Much love, Dustin Poirier. Much love to all our great guests this week. What a tremendous week it has been for my particular show, but now I pass the baton over to the boys in the back for their program tomorrow. What's the pound for pound tomorrow? What

is it? What is it? Oh, this one's going to be fun. Best MMA nicknames. Best MMA nicknames. Best MMA nicknames. And that's playing off of Bobby Knuckles? There's always like- Bobby Knuckles, No Mercy, Nasty. There's some good ones on this card. Bobby Knuckles and the Reaper.

He's a double nickname. He's a double nickname. Yeah, that's kind of an evergreen one that we've been sitting on, but- Axe Murderer or something like that. Yeah, yo, there's- I wanna know- To narrow it to five is damn near impossible.

There's one that I think is supremely underrated that no one ever brings up Do I bring it up now or do I bring it up in the aftermath? Bring it up in the aftermath. Okay, let's see if one of us does Let me tell you though Frank already sent me his list and this might be his best work yet Yeah, because I like he really thought about this. Did you Google it Frank? What's Google? Yeah Did you ask Claude? Huh? Well, you can't just make a random. no, that's that's Google's AI is named Claude. Thanks Claude. Yeah my dad

That's Claude. Ariel loves AI Claude Claude. We're gonna start showing a capital A or capital I chat cheap Petario some of the tario money to get you penmanship classes? No, no, no, I'm good. Thank you for asking. Not sure, how do we get on that path? Oh, you guys are doing the nicknames.

And the number is 415- 415-Sup-B-I-T-B, voicemails. Leave us a ring. Leave us a ring on Friday. It's the return of the crack. And then we're back on Monday. Doing the same old thing. Uh, enjoy the fights this weekend.

Enjoy the show tomorrow and Friday, but it's time for me to go. Look at all the new additions, by the way, to the set. Have you guys noticed all the new additions? Yeah, what's that one in front of the Wheaties box? Yeah, no, look at this guy. True to his word, Butterbean, sending me the bobblehead sign. Look at this one. I mean, I don't think people realize the stuff we have in here. People just come in and out of the studio thinking it's just like, oh, you got toys. No, no, no, no,

we've got like top notch stuff. Oh, next to the Wheaties box you asked, which by the way, I think we found that I was kind of like workshopping what should be in that spot for the first few months of this program. Like we found it. It should always have been that. The classic original Anthony Pettis Wheaties box from UFC 181 Fight Week that they handed out. It was incredible. This is something else. This is a Diamond Dows page.

One of, I think think a thousand or five thousand, I mean look at this. Bang! Down down down down down down down on the Nitro set signed by the master of the diamond cutter himself, GDP. I mean look at this. Cowboy boots and all, jeans, belt buckle. This is one of my favorites and it's so big. It fits perfectly right over here, Frank. Ah, you know yourself. This is a new one too, the Izzy, which I'm debating about whether I should take it out, but it's such a cool little box. Thank you to McFarland Toys for this one.

I mean, we just have so much. And there's so much that you haven't seen as well, but we'll have to save that for another day. It has been a great show. What about Darren Till and Luke Rockhold? were phenomenal thank you very much to them thank you to the great Tony Ferguson appreciate his time very much Pahumpa was phenomenal as well Dakota the champion was great what a day it has been thanks to you thanks to them back off there's still some peace I'm out here