The Ariel Helwani Show - Demetrious Johnson in studio, Michael 'Venom' Page, Andre Fili, Sean Strickland contract drama, weekend recap, news & notes

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with legend Demetrious Johnson, who joins Ariel in-studio to talk about his new manga Flow Mushin, Sean Strickland’s friction with UFC over his contract, his feelings about UFC flyweight champ Joshua Van, his new podcast with Israel Adesanya, Jon Jones’ mentorship of Gable Steveson, the GOAT conversation, and more (04:48).Ariel dives into Sean Strickland’s contract drama, from Nassourdine Imavov showing up in Las Vegas, to Strickland’s string of social media posts, to Strickland’s contract status, Dana White’s reaction to Strickland calling out Zuffa Boxing champion Jai Opetaia, and more (1:01:59).The Boys join Ariel to cover other news and notes, including Jake Paul’s hit list, KSI’s retirement, Michael “Venom” Page signing with Misfist Boxing, and more (1:43:41).Michael “Venom” Page is back to talk about his new Misfits Boxing deal, revealing details about the number of fights and timeframe, teasing a potential bout against Darren Till, expressing his desire to fight Sean Strickland while in the UFC, giving his assessment of UFC prioritizing excitement over winning, and more (2:02:39).Andre Fili returns to the show to break down his massive knockout against Kai Kamaka III at UFC Vegas 122 (2:29:40).While waiting for Fili to reconnect, Ariel recaps the rest of UFC Vegas 122, starting with Brendan Allen’s big win (2:43:40).Andre Fili re-joins and the conversation turns to fatherhood, having new perspective on his life and career, his love of wrestling, wanting all his fights to be at UFC’s Apex, and more (3:02:10).Ariel and crew cover more news and notes (3:45:57), before wrapping up with your Super Chats (4:10:03).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Earth. Monday, October 12, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to see the sun outside here in New York City. Yesterday was a miserable, rainy day. We survived. Had a lot of soccer.

I had to wake up so very early two days in a row. 7 a.m. 45 minutes away. But all is good. Blessed, happy to be here. was a little bit under the weather. Thanks for asking, but we're all feeling better. Myself, Frank.

Everyone's feeling better back there, right? Everyone's feeling better. Who the fuck is we? Happy Indigenous People's Day. Happy, most importantly, woke police can't get us over, you know, up there, the Great White North. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends out there. Yes, today's Thanksgiving, the second Monday in October.

It's a great day. If I'm being honest, I never had a day off for Thanksgiving while I was a student in Canada growing up in Canada. But it is a big deal in most provinces not named Quebec. But now I think everyone gets off. And so if you're a little confused as to what to call today in the United States, most people have off today. I will tell you, just say happy Thanksgiving. And then there'll be more confusion because they won't understand that today is actually Thanksgiving in Canada. It's in late November in the United States.

Nevertheless, I'm thankful for all of you. I'm thankful for all of them. I'm thankful for this job. I'm thankful for this life. And I'm thankful for today's lineup. We have a lot to talk about after an interesting weekend in combat sports. No major, major stuff. But there was a UFC event.

There was a misfits event that had some news attached to it, of course. There was a pro wrestling event, a WWE Money in the Bank event. There was a pretty good boxing event over in Chicago. So there's definitely a lot to talk about, but there's a lot of news. Sean Strickland and Colby Covington and John Jones and all that stuff, middleweight division, Nasurdenia Evov. We're going to get into all of that and more throughout today's program, so have no fear. Back end of the show, Andre Touchy-Feeley, what a win for him over Kai Kamaka on Saturday

at the apex. Stop short after that incredible head kick knockout was going to hit him again, stopped short. One of the more thoughtful, cerebral introspective, fighters. I've always enjoyed my chats with Andre Feeley. I'm looking forward to this one. He'll join us at 3.30. The newest member of the Misfits family, Michael Vanne Page, he doesn't go to MVP. He goes to Misfits instead. It was announced during the broadcast on Saturday, the show in which Plinyo Cruz won, shout out to him, MVP joining us at 3 o'clock to talk about signing with misfits, not MVP slash PFL or key MMA or Risen, it's an interesting deal.

And I don't think it's one that a lot of us saw coming. And if I'm being 100% honest, I didn't see it coming as well. Demetrius Johnson going to join us in a couple of seconds here in studio. He's in New York because he was at the New York Comic-Con. I can't wait for that. I do want to remind you that today's program, as always, is brought you by our good friends over at Kalshi. We, of course, love Kalshi around these parts. It's an exchange where you can trade on what you actually think is going to happen.

politics, culture, whatever's on your mind. You're going up against other traders directly. There's no house setting the odds. It's just people putting their own opinions on the line. Trade $25 with the code Helwani right now, and they'll throw in another 25 instantly. Please trade responsibly. Shout out to the good people over at Kalshi.

They put on a great event last weekend in New York for UFC 332. A lot of you love that. We shall do more of it. Shout out to our good friend, Dutie, who's doing an amazing job with the uncrowned newsletter. Newest one is out this morning, recapping the entire weekend in combat sports. Another fast and furious UFC event.

So we'll talk more about all that and then some. But what a great honor to be joined as always. This time rare, rare, rare chance to speak to him in person. In fact, the last time I did speak to him, it was in person. That was at our live show in Las Vegas. But I think this might be the first time in studios. No, he's been in studio before,

but definitely not in this studio. Anyway, without further ado, he is the greatest flyway champion of all time. He is one of the greatest of all time, yes. Mr. Demetrius Johnson, and his wife is here too, Destiny, the real MVP. How are you? Do you want to say I first? Me or her. How are you?

How are you? We're coming for a hug. Oh, it's so nice. You know what I love about? Oh, my gosh. Thank you. Thank you. Please have a seat.

Thank you. Thank you. You know what I love so much about you today? What's that? You've got like the airport fit on. Yes, sir. Because you're about to fly home. Yes, sir.

This is like the cozy, cross-country. hoodie, sweatpants, right? Yep, this is what I like to wear when I'm traveling. Want to be nice and relaxed when I'm on a plane. Six an hour flight, to Washington State. It's important to note that because you're squeezing us in right before you guys go to the airport.

Yes, sir. At first you were like, this is stressful. We could be in New York. I'm sure Destiny isn't not too happy about this. Maybe get a little more shopping in. No, no, she loves to see you. She's so good at encouraging me of doing things that, you know, fill our cup and your cup as well, right?

And, you know, we do good work together, right? We do. good business together. We do, we do. You're doing amazing business. I want to get into this. This is it. Start where you want to start. No, no, no. This is why you're here. Yeah. New York Comic-Con. Yep. Flow motion.

Yep. I saw you. So you're you were inspired by Dana White's son who's getting God fucking no. I wish we had it on camera right there. Because I saw that. So there it is. There it is. Okay, look at me. Look at me. How do I look? You look fresh. Yo, you got merch already? Not, that's like, it's not really merch to sell, but we had

some people do some stuff to see what it'll look like because this is a journey that I'm going on and it's been fun and that's the symbol of the Leo agency. And so I was like, you don't want to get some hats made for myself and my wife and I want to give one to you. I appreciate that. Rick is coming in here to Barnstorm. What's up? What's going on? This is my Michael Wantsover right here. It's your New York, Ray. Oh, you don't want it. Usually you want it directed towards me. Okay. Okay, he's very particular about his microphone. That's okay. Okay, so I will admit you know this. Yep. I'm not a big anime guy. Yep.

In fact, I have a guy back there named Mysterious Frank, who's like an aficionado. He was telling me, ask DJ this, ask DJ that. If I'm being honest, I wasn't listening to most of the things that he was saying. 50% I don't listen to. You're representing here, by the way. No, no, I was looking at this.

It's much of a Kaijuie number eight. I don't know what that is. This is Alex the Terrible. You know, Alex DeRour. He goes like, I don't know where that is. A lot of fighters love him. That's how he sings.

It's just like dark, heavy metal stuff. Anyway, what is the difference It's manga? Manga. Manga. Manga. No, N. No, there is N.

Manga. Manga. It's a Japanese word of it's a mangaka. That's where a Japanese, it's a Japanese artist and writer does all of it. What's the difference in that in anime? So, animation is basically the scripture, so the manga being animated into a show. So when you look at, let's take something that you know,

Dragon Malsy, you know, Dragon Marzzi right? The very first iteration of Dragon Mal Z comes from a manga, which is like scripture. And then eventually if it's worn, if it's very popular, it will get made into an animation. So they call it anime just for short. Oh, so

like chicken and the egg, this came first. Why do I feel like I've never heard of this term before you? I guess I'm outspoken about it, I guess, but typically in America, it's based on comic books, right? So the difference between a manga and a comic, and I could, you know, be

wrong, but from my understanding, a common book, you have what's Batman, right? Absolute Batman is probably the hottest thing right now in the common book world. And so there's so many different stories, storylines of Batman, right? Like you have the Michael Keaton version of Batman, that you have the Robert Patterson, that you have the Ben Affleck, and then you have, who else has been Batman, Dal Kilmer. It's all different Batman's. So in, let's take Batman Forever. It was Robin, Batman, and then who was a bad guy?

two fans and Jim Carrey he played the Riddler Tommy Lee Jones Tom Lee Jones yeah shout out so the newest Batman where Robert Patterson which is Batman year one it's also the Riddler so it's two different storylines of the same character the Riddler and Batman itself so in a comic world you have you know X-Men right

Wolverine you have Wolverine versus Hulk even though they're not in the same universe but not the same storyline you can merge the storylines where in manga it's where it's one storyline until the end. So Goku, Vegeta, they will always be in the main canon storyline until the very end

and the story does not deviate. There is no you know, Goku going against L from Death Note. It's that continuous story of Dragon Mal Z till the day, you know, the book is done. Okay, so Muschen is the name or is it

Mooshin? Yeah, FloMachine. Okay, and you came up with this, you're writing at all? So I wrote it all. I sent you it. Remember I saying to you like, was that almost a year ago, I felt like? Probably. Yeah. It was like 80-something chapters. Well, it wasn't 80, it was a lot of words, but not 80 chapters.

I'm like chapter 64 right now. It's a lot of freaking chapters. It is a lot of chapters. So the emphasis of it was I have a buddy who's my agent, Luke. And he was like, man, you need your own IP. You're like, you need an IP. So he talked to another gentleman, Connor. And he went there, he goes, man, DJ needs his own IP to tell his story through something.

And he drew up a concept art of a guy with a mask on, and it was a mouse mask. And he was like, I think, you know, I think we should tell your story on this. And I was like, I wasn't inspired. Okay. Because the story they wanted me to tell was through my story through mixed martial arts. And I was like, well, I've already won the belt. It's going to end. So I just don't feel inspired to tell that story.

And how long is this? This was like the very beginning. This is probably like a year and a half, maybe year and a half, maybe two years. So when you say very beginning, you're already right. retired, though. I'm retired. Okay, okay. I'm retired. I'm, you know, I've done, I did some acting classes. I'm just doing my thing, join the world, traveling and stuff. And then next to you know, we're always in Japan and I'm always been inspired by animation, you know, manga's anime itself. And I was like, man, how cool to be one day just to write, you know, not right, but create my own anime.

And then, you know, my wife's always like, why not? Like, why not? And so, you know, I went to go see the Smasters Machine, A-24, the opening night. And then the owners or the brothers, I think it's two brothers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Safety? Yeah, they came up and they talked about their story. It was like, we're in just a college. We're like, man, we should do this?

And right there, that was kind of like the first initial spark to start writing. And then some stuff happened. And I was like, I'm going to fucking write it. This pissed me off. And I just started writing. And the next thing, chapter one became, you know, chapter five. And I was like, well, this is kind of cool. And I sent it to my brother.

And then my brother was like, oh, this is pretty dope. And I was okay. And then chapter 5 came to 10 and then went to 15. And then I went back to the team. And I said, man, like, look at the story. And Luke was like, okay, yeah, it looks great. And I was like, I could take that character that you guys did of me and put it in the story. And I was like, I don't want that to be me because he hides his face.

And when I think about, you know, Batman and Spider-Man and all the superheroes who hide their face, it's like they're hiding their face because they're trying to protect the identity from somebody who can harm their message. right and so for me i was like i'm not hiding my face from anybody so it didn't really that character didn't really resonate with me and then finally i found um the resonation to use that character for the height of space and then next you know like we're off to the races and then the one thing that luke told me he was like people need able to read it and enjoy it right so i pitch it to i give it you i said hey man what do you think about this and you're ready you're like you know i'm not really into anime or manga, but I really enjoyed the storytelling.

I appreciate the writing. The writing. And you're like, yeah, I like it, but I'm not going to sit down and watch it. So then I was, okay, you liked it. And then I went to Japan. I met Mario Long. He has his own studio in Japan, the first own black studio, American studio in Japan. So he didn't know I was making a manga.

And next year you know, he was like, yeah, I create manga. I've done God's 3, Volume 1, Volume 1, Volume 2. and yeah, and I told him, I was like, yeah, I'm making a manga, but I'm not going to share you what it is. And then eventually we started working together, and he's been absolutely amazing helping me, you know, getting even more the right spices to make it better. He's helping me, you know, because I'll write and my writing style is based like Stephen King, where Stephen King would be like, how cool would it be if a vampire lived in the suburbs? Then that's how the same lot got created, right?

He'll write 2,000 words a day. Then after those 2,000 words, he'll do it the same time every day, same music, same thing. and it almost came like for me, religious. I would write 2,000 words a day, every single day, before I go to bed or when I'm at the gym. How are you writing at the gym? Oh, when I'm in my sets. What?

In between? Yeah, in between my sets. On your phone? Yeah, I write on my phone. Yeah, I write on my iPad. Okay, on your iPad, not a laptop. Not a laptop. Really?

Interesting. I think, you know, you spend two grand on a fucking iPad. It's way, I mean, it's more advanced. I'm on the iPads laptops you get at Best Buy. So right now, do you have a publisher? I do not have a publisher. So the New York Comic-Con this weekend, was that your unveiling of it? No, no, no.

So right now, what I'm trying to do is push the IP out. Okay. Because, you know, I have a great platform, amazing fans who follow me since the beginning. And that's Commerce Sketch Art at New York City Comic Con. And right now I'm just giving away postcards to help people sign up for their newsletter, which is at the website. And then that way, when the book is ready, I can let them know how you can pick up volume And is the hope that a publisher will buy it?

You know, the hardest thing is that like, you know, once again, I'm a nub in this space. And so the goal is you can go with the publisher, but a publisher is going to take 50%, right? And they're going to help distribute it. But, you know, I've seen some other gentlemen in this space of YouTube who've self-published their own work because they have their own platform. They have their own channel to their fan base. Now, I haven't talked to a publisher in America. I've talked to publishers in Japan, also in the Middle East, and they're interested.

You know, the biggest thing in Japan is, you know, manga is made for Japanese people, right, by Japanese people. I am an American, black American, making manga for everybody, right? And it's a different type of storytelling that I'm doing compared to a Japanese magaka. When do you hope? What is the most realistic timeline when this could be available for people to actually purchase? February 2027, yeah. Oh, that's all too far away.

Yeah, no, no, no, no. So we're at the finish time. We've got three artists working on the book itself. Why three? So the traditional way for how manga is made is an artist will do a one shot. A one shot is basically 60 pages to tell the story to see if it's even worthy enough to be made into a full volume or a publisher. to come in and take it, right? So if you succeed in that one shot,

the publisher would take you and your idea and says, okay, you got to do a chapter every single week to make the Shonen jump. If you're getting a Shonen jump, I'm being, this is like, oh my God, I fucking made it. Every week, it has to be 25 pages for one chapter. And then every week, you're on a hamster wheel. Every week you've got to produce it.

So that means that person is storyboarding, that person is doing layouts, He's doing sketches. And then in that 25 weeks, I'm excuse me, in that 25 pages, he produces it to the publisher. The publisher takes it, puts it in a Shonen Jump, which is the weekly magazine. And then if you do not bring the views in for that one shot manga that you put all your life and soul into, you get acts. You get cut. Wow.

And then there was one I was reading. It was called Alien Headbut. And it had some good artwork. It had a good storyline. And I think it got to like chapter 34. They cut it. They just cut it. Wow.

Yeah, and I'm like, why would I put myself and why would I put my artist on that, that hamster wheel, right? Don't get them wrong, you got to get the book out. You got to get it done because you're investing a lot of money into it. But for me, I want to make sure I'm having a good time. I want to make sure the artists are having a great time. I want to make sure the artists are in love with the writing and the story itself and just enjoy this process and this new journey that I'm on. Is the ultimate goal it to be turned into an animation? 1,000%.

Okay. The ultimate goal is to get to an end. anime to be able to, when people are walking around, like, man, you read that new flow. Like, flow volume two was fire. I mean, that fight scene, because all the writing, all the choreograph of the fight scenes, all the characters from Ira to Kane to Canel to Sacral to Yulow,

all those characters, I made them up, their backstories and all that stuff, and I love every bit of it. Is this taking up the majority of your time these days? I would say yes and no. You know, I have a great balance. to do all the things I want to do. But this is like feeding my creativity outlet that makes it so I don't want to do anything else.

Because there's nothing like writing something then sending it to somebody and then they're like, wow, this is great. And then they make a character off the concept art that I give them the vision of and you come back. And then you get a panel and it's like, this is fucking fire. Like this is amazing. Like it just, there's no better feeling. Like, you know, it's amazing.

I love it. Did you see Dana? I did not. I did not. He was there. His son, Aidan White, is releasing his own manga through Dark Horse manga. And I think it's called something about fighting, essentially. Marshall War.

Yeah. And so did you see it? I did not. Okay, you didn't see even his stuff? No, no, no. I saw everything on Instagram and that they're posting. And I think his is coming out in April or may I believe? I'm not sure.

Okay. So his route is a little bit different than mine. because he's already teamed up with someone? No, I don't know what his process was like, right? Like I sent you some of this stuff that you got and you got some of like the emphasis stage of like, okay, this is the layout, okay, this is the Rune system. This is a concept art.

This is Chris, he's a flow user. This is his weapon. It has Rune etching on it. And then this is the front, this is the side, this is the back. I don't know how involved he is in his process. But like for me, when I'm getting questioned by the editor, the editor goes, okay, so why does this happen? I was like, well, this is why this is.

And then I have to explain the concept, like what makes a strong flow user compared to a weak flow user. And then I try to use realism and concepts that I've gone through in my life where when we were training, you know, we would test each other's heart rate. So if I have a wrestling heart rate

at 45 beats per a minute, when I'm wrestling, that means I'm a highly trained athlete, right? Or if my wrestling heart rate is about, you know, 95 to 110, that means I'm out of shape. I'm not a high physical athlete. So I took that same concept inside a flow machine where flow users have a connection through flow energy. And I can see his flow energy.

That's how I can tell. And that came from me and my wife were travel. And we were in San Francisco last year at a bagel shop. And one of the football players who played for the New York, not New York Giants, New England Patriots, he was right next to Destiny and I. And I can feel his presence. I can feel his aura.

Right. And I'm sure nobody else around us. could feel it. And then he knew who I was, and he can kind of see my ears. You can feel an aura when you get around somebody. So I took that same concept

and threw it into flow machine where it's like, flow users can see flow users. Like, if I can, if I know and I can see, I can see the flow energy irradiate from his heartbeat. And so a 45,

uh, 45 heart rate is going to be boom, boom. So the energy is being released very slow. Somebody who is out of shape, their heart rate is going to be boom, boom, boom. They're working a lot. harder so his flow energy or he might even be a flow user so going through all that spending all

night working on and and telling the story and the fight scenes it's like that's how balls deep i'm into this i love it and uh you always have great analogies when it comes uh flow dash machine m u yeah yesh i n dot com is where people can sign up yep yep learn more all that and more and that's just the newsletter right there just to give you a there if they want to uh get into it get into the system of the flow, we'll be updating people with updates of the project, and it's an ongoing thing, like 64 chapters. I'm still writing. I'm at a part in a story where I'm trying to tell the right backstory.

I want to make sure, because I can just write, right? But I like to have, you know, when I'm working with my co-writer and I'm writing and then he'll use words, I'm like, I didn't like that word. And our language is entangled together. And it's something I have to get used to that language because he thinks, in Star Wars, four, five, and six is better than one, two, three. I think episode one, two, three is by far the best iteration of Star Wars. Like, when I watch one, two, three, I'm like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I'm thinking about the artwork of the lightsaber and how they move and how they use the force and the energy and how mad Anakin went down this path. And from that, he's just, just beautiful, you know, expression through his lightsaber. where he thinks four, five, and six are the best, where I'm like, I watch four, five, and six, and I don't even get a fucking chub. I'm just in here like, yeah, cool, yeah, that's your father. Yeah, okay, let's go on line.

So when you have both of those, you know, those energies going together, it can make for some good stuff and add more spice to the book. But at the same time, it's not my own language. So I'm still learning as a writer and a producer, I guess you can say, of how to navigate this journey. Your passion is very infectious when talking about that Even though it's not maybe my thing I love peppering you with questions about it

You do have to make a flight So I need to pepper you about other questions Go to fucking mixed martial arts One of the things I didn't want to ask you I'm sorry It's okay, it's okay But I'm trying to feed both beasts here Yeah yeah

Sean Strickland I know you've been like Balls Deep in the New York Comic Con I love your thoughts This is my thought okay And people guys I want to be on a record on Frank Guys, I fought for the USC for what? From 2011 to 2018.

Yep. Okay. 11 second title offenses. Yes, sir. I fought through a contract where I, when I beat Joseph Medvede's at USC 152, I think my pay went to $120. No, it wasn't, I don't know if it went to $125,000 and $50,000. It was at, I think it was like $25,000 in the show, 25. I'm not sure.

I didn't get my brand new contract. So I fought through all my fights when I was a champion. No paper view points. I want to go out of the story. We've gone to this fucking story. Over and over and over. From when I became a champion, to I fought Joseph Menevitas in Sacramento,

I think that was 2012, right? 2012, 2012, December. I knocked them out. That's when I got my brand new deal. 125 the show. Remember, this 2012, 2012 age young, you got, you know, still get fucking money back in. In my eyes, right?

Compared to what the UFC makes, no, it's not. Yeah. okay 125 and 50,000 win i i went through that whole motherfucking contract whole contract i got a new contract when i knocked out here was 350 the show 10 000 escalator as i won and then eventually i you know moan and gripe blah blah blah then i got in paper view points when i fought him here's se hoodo in 2018 and that was it right so i don't know what contract structure what what sean sugar's contract is right i don't know how much money he makes and i i don't know how much money he makes and I don't know.

Is it pennies? You know, when I talk to Max, when I talk to Alex Fokinowski, they seem happy with their contracts. But for some reason, Sean Sugar isn't happy with his contract. Yes, he can go off in the box, but he's locked in his contract. So he can go up there and ask you to see, hey, Dana, can I get on my contract? Dana White has an option. He could say yes or no.

Very simple. Now, Sean Sugar doesn't have to fight. They could put him on ice. He doesn't have to fight. He goes, guys, I don't want to fight anymore. The money shit. I want to make more money. and boxing. You know, you see where France is done. He's made a shit ton of money. I won't do the same

thing. So you know what UFC? I'm going to relinquish my belt right now. I do not want to do martial arts. I don't want to fight anymore. Take the belt. Somebody else can fight for this shitty ass money. You let me know when I can go boxing makes him real money. Why can't their conversation be like that publicly? Why does it have to be, oh man, I don't make good. Just like, dude, the money is shit. I just want to be able to go off and make more money and boxing. And the UFC will let me go. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys. I appreciate all the fans. I love everything you guys have done for me,

but I want to go box and make some more money. That's how simple the conversation has to be. It doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out thing. It just can be, this is what I want to do. This is why here's my numbers. Here's my numbers, guys. This is what I'm making right now. Do you guys think it's worth this much?

Dan, wait told me straight up. I said, I want a million dollars to fight to you do, and he goes, I can't bring it what you don't bring in. Perfect, done, wash, move on. Simple. That's my viewpoint of things. A lot of people don't like that. A lot of people don't think I'm siding with the UFC, but that's just, I'm not going to go there.

I was going to go sexual. But there we go. That's my thought. Okay. So I tend to agree with you. And that may surprise some people because they think I'm always anti-UFC. But my stance on it is, and I agree with very much the vast majority of what you're saying. So Sean comes out and complains about it, right?

And then Mike Bond of M.M.A. junkie comes out. And I haven't asked Mike this. And I'm not trying to, like, you know, poke holes in his reporting. but it seemed to me like it was coming from the UFC, his intel, which was that Sean just signed a new six-fight deal before the Chamsat fight. Perfect. You're gambling. Okay, but here. And so to me, that was actually a brilliant move on the UFC's part if they did plant that

because I think it turned everyone on Sean. Chal Sondon always likes to say, I don't like when fighters get an opportunity from the UFC and then the fighter turns the gun on the UFC. And in my opinion, you can make a strong case, DJ, that Sean didn't deserve the title shot against Hamzad. There was a guy named Nasredine Imov who also did. deserved it. It was debatable. I thought they made the right call for multiple reasons. Back of the day,

he beat him. He's coming off the big win over Fluffy. And let's be honest, he's way more popular than Hamza and he sold the shit out of the fight, even though I thought they took that fight into the gutter as far as promotion is concerned, he sold it and people were into it. You sign a new six-fight deal by getting that fight. And then, like literally a couple months later, you complain that you want out, I don't do that. I don't feel bad. I don't feel bad. And then this whole thing about going on and on and on. Like, you're supposed to be the guy who tells it like it is. You're supposed to be the guy who's like, you know, you just sign.

No one put a gun at your head. Now you've got buyers remorse. The UFC, like literally, it doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. Historically, what does the UFC do? Let's look at Randy Couture. Let's look at me, for example. Okay. When I beat Himmercy Hudo, right? I was getting a brand new deal.

And I could have said, which time? Oh, the first time. The first time. Yeah, yeah. I was getting a brand new deal. They could, I could have said, you know what? Like I said, I remember Matt was like, hey, we want $350,000, what pay for you points and all that stuff. Even back in the day, I said I want paper view points. But they said, no, we do not give payper view points to fly weights. We do not do it, right?

And so we went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And Matt was like, man, like, you're not going to budge or once you're at $350. I could have said, you know what, you guys keep the money. I'm going to, I'm going to keep, I believe in myself. At the time I didn't. I believe in myself. I'm not going to take this deal. I'm going to keep on fighting.

I'm going to fight out the rest of my contract. And then when it comes, when I'm a free agent, I get to pick and choose. I can lead the company. And it's the thing people I understand. You can lead the company in UFC and the machine's going to keep on going. They can't show them. They can let Sean Shruggan go.

They'll find somebody else and they'll keep on going and going and going, right? So that's a prime example. The UFC always wants to sign an athlete before. Let's take Bilal Hassan. My man right now. Yeah, yeah. He's amazing. Doing his thing, right?

He's, we and him have talked about this already. Of course. And there's an option where he, He could have gone to fight for a different organization. And I said, you need to decide what you want to do. And he was like, I want to fight for the U.S. So, okay, perfect. Now, you have, I don't know if he's on a 10-fight deal or 15-fight deal.

But if you believe in yourself, when you get to the title, and I believe he will get to the title, he could be on his last fight, fighting for the title, or, because the U.C. 's got to position him correctly. They want to position themselves in the best position. They're not going to let an athlete have the leverage. Why would you do that? No. Especially after Francis.

Yeah, that'll be the stupidest fucking thing they can do as a business. At the end of the day, the UFC is a business. They are all pawns fitting their scheme to build their corporation. And the athletes have to look at the same thing is that the UFC is just a pawn for me

to build my brand and use their platform to build whatever my goal is to build. So when Bala, if he gets to the title shot, he needs to be like, okay, I'm out to fight for the belt in two fights. You know what? He beats, he knocks out homeboy.

They're like, hey, you're going to fight for the title. They're like, hey, we can do a brand new deal, Bala. What do you think? It's your last deal. It's like you're having a conversation with the devil, essentially. And then the devil would like, well, you know, if you lose this fight, then you're kind of out of the UFC and you're at, you know, 30 and 30. But if you sign now, I can guarantee, you know, maybe 250,000, 100,000. I don't know.

What do you think? And blah, blah, like, give me that $25,000, 100,000. Or blah goes, you know what, devil? I don't need that shit. I believe in myself. I'm a knock out your motherfucking boy. And then I'll come to you and let you know what. what I want. Then now we have a huge, you know, the fighter has all the leverage.

Sure. Then blog are like, hey, I want two million dollars. You want me to stay fighting in the UFC. They're like, no, not happening. They're like, then I don't need to fight. Okay, then go. We'll find something. I mean, that's how business works. They have all the power. They have all the power. And the truth is, they probably sign him before the Hamzad fight and said, look, you have to extend if you want this title shot. And he took it. And so now we're supposed to feel some sort of way about it. Look, I 100% think he doesn't get paid as much as he's owed and he deserves more and all that stuff and more.

But you just signed the deal. You just signed it. It's not like there's one fight left in your deal and you're like, yo, I'm getting screwed. Or there's two fights left. You just signed this deal and you got a title shot based on. So your leverage is so high because you signed a deal to get a title shot and you won that fight fair and square.

But now by making it public, what are you doing? All you're doing is backing the UFC into a corner to the point where there'll be like, okay, now if we give you what you want, which is either more money or release you, well, what's going to happen? Everyone's going to start complaining because then they're going to be like, well, if it worked for him, then why shouldn't it work for me? So they can't do anything. They have to stand on business and tell him, go sit there. We're going to take that title away from you. And then we'll call you when we need you because you still have five fights left on your deal.

Especially when they've got this war with Eddie Hearn, who predicted all of this, by the way. Eddie did predict this because what does Sean keep referencing? He keeps referencing Connor Bend 15 million. And Eddie said, once you start giving those other guys 50 million, they're going to start to realize, hey, we're underpaid here. He predicted it's a slow drip. It's taking the UFC fighters a little longer to understand what's going on. But there's more of this to come, in my opinion.

I think so, and I think it's just the nature of the beast, right? Especially since Zufa is getting into Zufa boxing, right? I just had Charlo on the Mighty Cast. And he talked about it, he goes, I love Zuba boxing. I love what they're doing. And for me, you have Oscar Delohoia and you have Eddie Hearn who are opposite of Zufa boxing,

from what I hear from them. But at the same time, I was like, if you have people who are in boxing, if boxing's all fucking fine a deal, Danny, there's everything's sexy, then why is everybody leaving boxing and going to Zufa boxing, right? If they're- Well, not everyone. Well, I mean, you got your curse divison. Yeah, you know why?

Because they're paying those guys like three times what you guys were making. Exactly. But if it's- They have to overpay because Dana White is on the front foot when it comes to Zufa boxing. Yep. He's on the back foot when it comes to-M-A. I got you guys all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't worry about it. Seven billion-dollar deal. Don't worry, I'll take care of you. 100K bonus. And here's a thing. You know, you bought up somebody just signed in a contract. Alex Beheda just signed that contract. 10-fight deal.

And I remember Michael goes, why do he sign a 10-fight deal? And I was like, at the day, we cannot, like, when I made my money, I was happy with it, right? It's just like what Money Moikano said. He goes, you can't,

it's like a stripper, you can't fucking be happy now that you made money. And for me, I was very happy when I made. The 350, 3, 60, 3, 60, all that stuff. And then when I went to one,

made great money. When is enough enough? Right? Like, they're asking a point in time, like, when is enough enough? do I wish I made more money? 1,000 percent, but I'm not going to sit here and griper moan about it, right?

It's what's done is done. Now I'm moving forward. And I think, you know, when you see an athlete signed for a knife fight deal, if he's happy with it, I have nothing. I have to be happy with his decision. Because at the day, it's Sean Strickland's journey.

It's his career. If he's not happy with it, then I have to respect that he's not happy with it. It doesn't mean I have to agree with him. Do you think there's a chance that this is all part of a gimmick? It could be. Even he was Suhudo.

Hey, Hirasuto says, man, I'll try to make more money. That's why I retired. But then he fucking came back. And it didn't work. But for Sean, Sean's the guy who's like anti-establishment that is just better for his image to be anti-UFC. Maybe. I don't know.

I don't know. For me, I would just like him to do it however he wants to do it. Yeah. But I think if he just comes down and says, like, hey, this is what I want. The UFC's not going to give it to me. So, guys, I will fight out the rest of my contract. And then I'm going to move to boxing. Or I don't want to do mixed martial anymore.

I don't want to do mixed martial anymore. I don't want to do. do it because the money's not good. Then he just walks away. I mean, but he has to retire. They're not going to let him box. Well, then he has, you are given options. Yeah. And this is why you can ask my wife. I'm a black and white type of person, right? So he signed a contract, as you said. He's got five fights left on this contract. Maybe he didn't think he was going to win. Maybe he didn't think he was going to win. And now he's stuck in his position where he's not going to make that type of money that he thought

he was going to make. I have no idea. I need to see the, I just don't know. The contracts are very one-sided. Do you see you can cut you after a loss. You can't cut them after a win. Of course. But this is not news. And so he knew all of this. And he signed the contract to get the title shot. I did a three-year deal with Yahoo, right?

A year in, I'd be like, this wasn't the case, but like, man, this sucks. I hate this place. I can't leave. That's just the way contracts work. And so I'm not pretending like he isn't undervalued, underpaid, all that stuff and more. But he's trying to garner all this sympathy for him. It's like, dude, you just sign this deal. You literally just signed.

I've been in his position before. And in a day, I fought through my contract. as a champion because I wanted more money and they weren't to give you more money so I fought through all my and you know when I'm fighting I'm fucking finished people I'm creating moves in there

I'm fucking exciting whether people don't believe it or not but it's like I was and I fought through our contract so I've been there before so you got to decide does you want to fight or does you not it's a very simple question

do you want to fight yes or no and then that's just how I do business I'll talk to an artist hey this is what I want do you want to do it yes or no they're like I'm like you don't have to you can say no

like I can find somebody else who is in love with the project and the passion, just like, you know, filming. I'm going to ask Michael, Michael, you want to come to New York City and film New York City Comicon? You already said no. I'll hire a guy out here who wants to. He's going to be here. He's in love with this. It's very simple.

Yes or no? Michael, like, hey, man, what do you think? You want to do a mighty journey with this person? Right now, I'm focused on my kids football. That takes president. I don't care. They're like, hey, we'll pay you $100,000 to do this mighty journey during your kids' football season. I'll say no.

because what's important in me is my kids football. So that's why I expect it's yes or no. So for me, Dana White, you get on a fucking YouTube live or whatever. Come to the show. You have Dana right there, Sean Shantra right there, and just hash it out like, man, like, Dana look, and hey, I just, I see this fucking money boxes are making, 15 million economy. Like, what the fuck, man, what am I getting?

Then Dan White goes, you send this contract? In this contract, there's a law saying that you have to give me these fights. I can put your ass on ice. I can do this. I can relinquish you. I can touch you. He has that power. Yeah.

And we have to respect that because it's a contract. Okay, a few more, a few more. Josh Fan. I love him. Love him. He's great. Do you believe him when he says that he didn't know you fought in the UFC? I believe him.

I believe him. I do. I love him too, but I'm like, holy shit, man. Is that possible? If I asked him who Ernesto Huss is and he says, I had no idea, I would believe him. But that's like the lineage of his belt. And you are the guy. But some people don't care about the history of the sport.

I mean, I do you not know DJ. If you're a flyway champion, you don't know a DJ. That's like being an NBA champion and not knowing him Michael Jordan is. Like everyone knows Michael Jordan. But once again, that's the same thing. That's somebody who appreciates the history of the sport. It's basic history. Maybe.

Is he incredible? I think he's great. I think what makes Joshua Avant special is that he has a style that he goes about when he fights people, right? Like when I first started watching, I was, okay, he's a boxer. For me, I like to see the wrestling, you know, the clinching, the jihitsu and all my stuff. But he is, you know, gunkho about boxing. He pulls his shorts up. He gets to the edge of the void.

He moves. He moves. He doesn't really throw all his power in his jabs. His jabs are basically like trying to figure out what you're going to do, how you're going to navigate it. And then when he gets in horrible positions, like when Tatsu Udi Taira took him down in the first round dry, mounted him easily, he was able to battle through that.

Then when Alex Pantoja got him down, he was able to navigate, getting out of there easily. So I think he's going to continue to get better. Yeah, and I think the star is a limit for him. Will you corner below, Hassan? I would not. So, I would not. So I've worked with Bala for about five, six years now.

Five or six years now. I haven't earned that right to corner Bala. What do you mean? Meaning that Charlie Pearson, his coach, has earned that right. But everyone gets three or four. Everyone gets three or four corner money. Yeah, I mean, maybe if he wants me there, I will. But at the same time, I think that's a special moment for him and his team.

If he wants me there, then I'll consider it. But in the day, that's his journey. If he wants me there, what's the reason for me being there? What's my purpose? I got to make sure when I'm there, I'm there for him and making sure he is locked in and sharp. When you met him, and by the way, do me a favor of your cameras right here. So they're probably getting upset.

Why is he turning this way? I know we're locked in. But be locked with the people. When you met him, did you feel like he had something? He had very good distance control, very good footwork. very athletic and he was he was he was young i mean he's like what 24 yeah i met him he was like maybe 17 18 so um yeah he he has great skill you feel like he could be a champion oh 1,000 yeah yeah i think the biggest thing like when i work with bala you know it was funny we're

training together and i was fucking him up and i said i said bala like again again again and i said do you want to make in the ufc make a thousand 10 000 five thousand dollars or do you want to make fucking millions of dollars. He goes, I want to make millions of dollars? I'm like, okay, let's fucking go. Like, let's train. Like, fucking let's, let's go. And he started bringing it. And I was like, this is like, sometimes I'll go with him. I was like, I'm not even trying, blah. Like, blah, it's not you're wasting my time. And then he comes back to the gym and he goes, okay, I'm going to try. And I was like, please do. Like, go. And then we'll try. And I'm like, thank you. Actually, I got a great workout today. He goes, fuck you, D. I'm like, just being

honest. Right. So he has the ability. But for me, I tell him, I was like, you're going to meet another good boxer, right? You're going to, like, let's say him and Joshua Yvonne are fighting right now, right? I will, I look at an athlete and I see where they're good at. And then I see, we're going to play there so that the keys, I call it flirting. We're going to flirt there to make him think that, oh, I'm good. I'm safe here. And then that's where we're going to penalize him, right? But then you need to be able to fight in other areas. You can't just rely on your footwork. You got to be able to wrestle. Like, you got to be able to go out there and blast a double leg. You have to. Like, at that level, you just have to. Because one,

One day he's going to meet somebody who's going to be able to move just as good as him on the feet. But if he doesn't have that blast double leg and run a single to an elbow, then boom, it throwing high kick and then push and then move, you got to be able to flow. And I tell him, I was like, you need to get to that level. So when you get there, you're not getting hit. You're not getting a concussion. You're not getting CTE. You want to have a long career, not, you know, I never forget when I fought E.

The first time in Australia. And I was, we and him were going back and forth, back and forth. And I was like, man, I was sick. We're banging back and forth. Matt goes, that was the stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. I said, what you're talking about? We were hitting each other.

He goes, that's the point. You're getting hit, dumbass? Don't get hit. So I try to, when I look at athletes and I see people get hit all the time. I'm like, dude, boom, move, move, move, or move. So, I don't know, but for Belaw, I think he can be a world champion.

He's just got to take a nice and slow, you know, get the right tools for the right job. And then I think, once again, sky's limit for him too. And you're training with him on a weekly basis? Not on a weekly basis. Only when he needs me. Okay, okay.

He comes to me when he needs me. Me and him, we talk, but this is his journey. He's got to navigate it himself. I'm here when he needs me. And I'll give him my honesty opinion and we'll work together. And my opinion is not always going to be correct, right? At the end of day, his headmaster is Charlie Pearson. What Charlie Pearson says, that's what goes.

More impressive sub. DJ Ray Borg, KSio and ELA at UFC 331. You know, her arm bar is a very unique one. If you don't watch Brazilian Jitsu and a ghee, you've never seen it before, but I've seen it all the time. It's like, boom, boom, boom. And how she was able to belly down on it was pretty impressive. So I think, you know, her creativity would very impress me a lot. You know, I'll leave it to the fans who thinks it's the best.

You have an opinion. You know, it's, it's, you can say yourself. I think most people would say yours. It's one of the more creative. one since yours in my opinion. 1,000%. I think for a woman to pull that off, that for women's, it's way...

Why is that? What's a difference? There is no difference. But there hasn't been another woman who's been able to do that in mixed martial arts. So I'm just keeping him separate. I mean, if you want to go that route. No, no, I mean, you brought it up, not me. Yo, I saw Kayla Harrison coming after you.

I know, man, I know. What's your beef with Kayla? It was just me. It was just me. I know. Man, like I said, if Wayne Kong, if she, if they would have... I don't know Wayne Kong by her name. I know her by her face as a Joker.

Okay, yeah, yeah. I've attached that image to her face. So if they would have said, oh, it's Talia Silva, which I wasn't familiar with her, versus the Joker girl who paints her face, I wouldn't know exactly who that is? But wasn't the thing that you guys thought it was a fight night and not a number of that?

That was it. Yes. Well, you know, we could have cut that piece out. No, it was authentic. It was authentic. We could have cut that piece out, right? but when we're looking, we're game planning on what's going on, and we're talking and like, hey, you know, we got this UFC coming up next.

And then, you know, Izzy goes, who is it? And I was like, exactly. You don't know who it is. Like, there's no promotion behind it. And then next you know, it goes on this whole clip and gets posted. And then, yeah, and then Kaylee Harrison. I understand Kaylee Harrison. I mean, guys, I used to be, nobody fucking bought my pay-per-view.

So at the day, it was an authentic reaction to what was happening. You and Izzy, you're doing the podcast, Precision Podcast. Precision podcast. I remember when you announced it when I was sitting right next to you in Vegas. There you guys are doing your thing, crushing it. You have in the past suggested that he should retire.

Yeah. Does this come up at all? When we talk all the time. Off air or on air? Off air. Exactly. So is he picky? Does he say like, yo man,

he understands. He understands. But he's continuing to go. Yeah, he's continuing to go. He's training. Training's going great. He's looking great. He feels great.

I know he has a date coming up. Yeah. He's got something. He's got, so we'll be seeing him soon. Yeah, you'll be seeing him soon, but he's training, and he's been very vocal about he's getting ready for something. You haven't announced it yet. And I think the biggest thing is that there has to come a point in time when an athlete has to walk away from the sport, whether it's football, mixed martial arts, or it's boxing, whatever it is, you have to walk away. And sometimes it's better, it's just like Sean, Sean Shoraf, who just knocked out Gable Steven.

We have on a podcast, he goes, man, I might want to walk away. I'm up on the chips, everything is good. And I told him, I was like, what do you want to do? Like, what do you want to do? He goes, I don't know. And I was like, I think you should figure out what you want to do before you make that next step. So for Izzy, he knows he knows he wants to fight. He's still hungry.

He still wants it. And I talked to him all the time. I said, dog, you don't need it. You got plenty of money. You got everything you need. So what are doing? And he goes, I need it. Like, I just love the shit.

And now I'm like, well, if you love the shit, then you got to go on that path. On Wednesday, Colby Covington was on my show. And he said, speaking of Gable, the best thing... He's like it, hilarious. The best thing he could do is get rid of that guy, that demon, John Jones. And this created a whole thing between him and you saw some of this? I laugh. See, is that good advice from Colby?

What would you say my humor is, babe? My humor is sick. Okay, okay. The stuff that Colby says just literally makes me laugh, right? And you know what? Gable Stevenson has to figure out what he wants to do with his career. Is that good advice? Is it possible that John Jones is the greatest fighter of all time?

is holding Gable back. I don't, I've never seen his training camp. I've never seen how they train, right? I don't know, I can't, I'm not going to make an opinion, make an opinion on something where I've never seen, I had never seen Gable Steve's training camp. I don't know if he's sparring. I don't know if they're working on, okay, you know this,

if they're working on, okay, this is taking it back and then we're going to, you can transition to a body triangle and then after that, you can push him down and go to a reverse triangle from here and go like this. and I don't know what his training is like, right? I was talking to someone, I was like when I was a world champion, I was still taking basic boxing classes.

I was taking advanced kickboxing classes. I was taking Muay Thai classes. I was showing up to the original class that if this person showed up to the gym, they would be in the same class as me. There was no separate like, oh, this is pro training. You can't be part of this. You can't be part of this training.

I train with the guy who's trying to develop the next halo, right? So that worked for me. It might not work for Gable. So for me to make an opinion on how John Jones is evolved in Gable Ceevison's life in his career, I don't know if it's good or bad because I don't know what it is like. Okay. And also there's like a history there between them. So anytime he can get a shot.

Yeah, I might even go there. But the shit, he, the stuff like, I'm on. Yeah. John and Islam, they're going back and forth. John Jones and Islam? Yeah. Oh, Lord. Here we go.

You know, because this guy has the record, but this guy has the picogram. but this guy has the defenses. And I'm thinking, well, DJ's right over there. What about him? Where does he factor into all this? He has the title defenses. Everybody I fought sucked. That's what everybody says.

When I hear that, I'm like, well, I guess Joseph sucks. I guess John Notton sucks. Kioroguchi, he sucked ass too. Who else? Ray Borg, he fucking sucked. Sehudo? Yeah, Suhudo, he fucking sucked, too. They all just sucked, and I guess I was just, I suck, too.

But no, when you see them arguing, you say, like, what about me? I know you're going to say, like, we talk about the pound for pout thing, But they're arguing about who has the – your resume stacks up. Yeah, I think all Islam and John Jones have done an incredible thing. The thing that Islam has done that I love the most is that he's gone up and he's fought bigger competition. You know, if we're going to break it down like literally just down to the nitty-gritty and like I love Michael. Mygoes, you're so fucking stupid for defending somebody who, you know, who failed a drug test.

I don't care. I've never failed a drug test. Never once. Peel Graham, whatever it is, I've never failed. Never. Neither has GSP. Yeah. Right. So that, if we're going to go, okay, who's the goat?

Like, what is the criteria? If it's like, okay, you have to pass all the drug tests. And everybody's going to be different. Everybody has their own list. But for you, for you, it's, for me. This matters. We've talked about this. Yeah, we talk about it.

But when they're arguing, I'm just wondering if you say, I don't give a shit. You don't give a shit? Yeah, yeah. I think they're both great athletes. I think they're both great athletes and they've both done amazing things. And Islam's still doing his thing. Like, Islam doesn't have to fight.

Islam can just retire, do his horse, you know, run his horses, his farm, ride a moto. He can do that, but there's something that's, you know, he saw as that drive to continue to fight. How do you feel about what's going on with Dana and Eddie right now? Because I said last week, I've never seen this version of Dana. I think it's hilarious. But isn't he waving the white flag? Who? Dana.

I don't know. Stop talking about me. Let's move on with our life. He's always the guy who, if you come after him, dig his heels in and wants to fight back. Well, I love how Eddie Herns goes, sorry I came out of my dad's nutsack. Yeah. And I came into this. And like, you know what?

They both are trying to do something. And I think at the end of the day that I don't understand. That's why I wouldn't talk to Eddie Hern. And you do a name. You're going to have them on? I asked, but they haven't got back to me. But I just want to know from a standpoint. You come on for sure.

It's just fascinating. Like when I sit there and look at it like, oh, you know, Tom asked when all times with Eddie Hearn. And then you also have Ian, Gary's time with Eddie Hearn. I'm like, you guys are. are still under contract. So no matter what, you're still bound by this contract.

So the only way you can get out of that contract is if the UFC lets you out. There's no, I don't think there's an expiration date in a contract. I could be wrong, but like... Some of them do. Some of them do, right?

Because I know, you know, Matt Humey's told me before, like, because I've been in some of those meetings when contracts are being discussed, that you have to give, you know, two fights guaranteed. You have to offer at least two fights guaranteed a year.

If you don't... Sometimes three. Sometimes three. And then if not, the contracts for like five years or four years and then it expires and you can do what you want. So I'll be kind of curious to see, you know, when those guys signed with Eddie Hearn, it doesn't change their contract because they're still bound by that original contract. Ban obliquicks, yay or nay?

I think so. Why? Because it's, it can ruin somebody's career. Yeah, but so can a heel hook. Yeah, I agree. I would ban heel hooks too. What are we doing then? Elbows also?

You know, I made different from elbows. are designed to cut. So I would be okay with, no, you need elbows. Elbows have to say. Are Obli kick's that big of a deal that they need to be banned? I mean, are they that prevalent? I mean, look at fucking, what, Rampage Jackson said his knees aren't. Yeah, that was UFC 135. Exactly. That was still fucked. That was 15 years ago. I mean, is it happening every event? No, no, no, no. It's not happening every event, but it's a, it's a technique that's used that you, bah, you just jump on somebody's, you're jumping on their knee. So. Anyone ever tried to do it with you? Fuck no. Did you ever try to do it? No. Okay. I

I don't do heel hooks and I don't do oblique kicks. Because you feel like it's dirty? Because there's another way I can take you out. There's no options. That's how I grapple and how I fight. Like, I don't need to go, wham. I don't need to. I want to, you know, I'll break somebody's arm

because you have an opportunity to tap, right? But heel hooks and step on on somebody's, you know, knee. For me, it's like... Is it dirty? I don't like the technique. I don't teach that technique. Okay. I don't teach it.

Like heel hooks, I'll say you need to know how which way to turn and how it works. But I'm not the biggest fan of a heel hook because you can destroy somebody's career. It's like same thing with NFL, right? You can't rough the passer. You cannot rough the quarterback because they want to make sure the quarterback

has a long career, right? So I see it the same thing for mixing martial arts, right? Like, even in jih Tzu, like Mikey and his heel hooks, I understand why he does it, right? Because it's the quickest way to get the fight to end. Like trying to choke somebody out, you know, Darstruck when he had Bryce Mitchell. If he would have jumped on Bryce Mitchell's leg, even though it's gay, he would have got him out of there super fast because he would have jumped on it and just tore it.

Right. You have no ACL, no MCL. No MCL. I saw, I was there in Asia when Mikey tore homeboys knee completely off. He will never fight again. He's done. His career is over. Wow.

Wow. Is he going to have a good MMA career, you think, Mikey Musa? He can. Oh, yeah. You think he will? 1,000 percent. He can. The thing about Jiu guys is I got to get used to getting him.

it. Then he's got to be athletic on the feet. Because Jitsu, excuse me, MMA is an athletic sport, meaning that you, if I, if I was to work with Mikey, I would say, okay, we're going to work on your footwork. We're, pop, you know, quick job, pop, pop, boom, blast a double leg. They sprawl. Okay, perfect. You pull guard, boom, you go underneath his legs, boom, he'll hook. That's my favorite part. This is my favorite part. Yeah. But that's how my brain thinks is like he has a, he's very good in areas where people are white belts in. And you can get far in mixed martial arts, by being far superior in a realm of fighting than your opponent. So I can't beat Mikey in grappling because he's far superior than me in grappling.

But if we were to fight in mixed martial arts, I'm way, I'm far superior on my feet and moving and flirting with him and he shoots. I'm like, no, you got to stand up. Or I'm like, okay, I'm going to try to pass your guard and elbow you. Then I cut him. Then it's like, okay, I get up. Now you got blood in your eyes. And it's like, okay, high kick.

And then I beat him because I'm far superior. but if he can get me in the realm on the ground where he's far superior and goes off on my legs, I'm like, I want to walk tomorrow. I want to play football with my kids. He just beat me. Right. So that's how I think of it. Are you surprised MVP signed with misfits?

I am. 1,000%. Why? Why? Because I think you have MVP, Jake Paul, Nikisa, PFL, Netflix, and all that stuff going on. So, once again, you have MVP, great athlete, 6 and 1, 6 and 2 in the UFC? Oh, 5 and 1. 5-1 in UFC, doesn't reach time with the UFC.

Now he has options. What was the deal that MVP gave him, right? Like, what was it? What was the deal that misfits gave him? For me, I like to know that because you have Jake Paul saying, like, we're going to pay you right, we're going to give it what you want, da-da-da-da. It wasn't good enough to bring MVP over there. So that's where I'm shocked that.

I thought he was going to sign with Jake Paul in his promotion, but he went to misfits. What's your beef with Mof-Sar, by the way? Mopsar. Yeah. No, no beef whatsoever. Okay,

I'm a clear us up too, okay, because you like to, you like to, you, you like to clip. Listen, no,

I'm asking, I'm asking what I see people say. We got to go. This is the last one. No, no, no, no, you're fine. You've got five minutes.

Okay, no, no, no, no, this is the last one. So, for me, I sit here and I listen. Yeah.

I like to listen before I speak my opinion. And so I watch the Dana White's, the press conference, right? And for me, when I hear Dana White says

we want to make the best fight the best. We want to have the best talent on the roster. Have you heard him say this before? Of course. I'm asking you, is the best no. Okay. Okay, boom. They shouldn't have gotten rid of them.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Right? So we want the best and the best on the talent. Then they're like, oh, then there's another side to it. They're not exciting. Right. Right. You've heard him say this before, right? So when we're sitting here talking, me, Michael, Nick, Izzy, Dave, we're all sitting here talking. We're just flowing. We're just flowing.

And we're sitting here and Alex Volcanosti's on there. And I'm like, fuck, man. I was like, you know what's interesting? I was like, Mobstar does not have one to finish in the UFC. I'm like, how the fucks he's still here? Like, not one to finish. And Dana White's always talking about like, oh, this guy's not boring. We're going to let him go.

That and da-da-da-da-da. I'm like, I don't think he's got one to finish. Not one. Now, he's great. He's a great athlete, and he's won all his fights. But at the same time, that just came in my mind. It's like, look at Mohamukayev. He's got to finish in the UFC, right?

Yeah, but the problem was he was, you know, he had some incidents in the hotel, and they were saying, like, yeah, the juices are worth the squeeze. I think it's all nonsense. He should be in the UFC. He should be in the UFC. He should be fighting Josh Finn. He beat Menalka. It doesn't matter what anybody's done.

Connor has literally gone down to fucking ramp and thrown a dolly. This is what we've established. different strokes for different folks. 1,000% There's no rhyme or reason for anything They can do whatever they want So Strickland, he's shit out of luck But this guy's gonna get a new deal

Because he's in good standing with this And this guy's gonna get a new contract And this guy's not I tell Mike all the time The UFC's gonna do what the When we've had this conversation too The UFC's gonna do what they're gonna do It's up to you to decide

If you're gonna watch it or not Right? So when they make decisions On this guy's gonna fight here Or them keeping Mavzar around Like I have nothing against mobsar around Like everybody looks at me like Oh you're an asshole

I was like guys That's what came to my mind This is why they like hearing from you. At the same time, it doesn't justify what I said. Like, oh, it's okay, you can say whatever's on your mind. It's what everyone's thinking. It's what it was thinking. Because there's a double standard.

That's the biggest thing that people are looking through the fine print. Right. It's like when I see, Dan one says, we want to keep the best athletes on the planet. Inconsistent. Yeah. Why are you letting, you want to do everything you can to keep a guy like Michael Vindon Page, even if you don't like his fighting style, if you don't like the way he approaches it. Fine.

Put him against somebody who's going to. to make him fight? Get him beat, yeah. You get to fucking make the matches. Make the matches then. It's like, oh, he's like Bobby Green, right? I love Bobby Green. Bobby goes out there and he goes on his fucking shield.

He has his hands out and what's up. Come on what you want. Boom, Taito Vasa. Eight fight losing streak, right? But he's not the best, he's not the best guy on the roster. Like, there's probably a guy out there in a heavyweight and in the world who's probably on a four, four fight win streak. Give him an opportunity.

So it's just like how, and I love Taito Abasa. It's just how they get to pick and choose what they want to do, which goes back to that one thing I said. It's not a sport. It's entertainment, which is fine. Just say it's entertainment. I rather than say like, hey, sports entertainment. Well, I rather than say this.

Mike of a page, absolute legend, great. He has a very unique way of stifling people when they fight him, right? You could probably put a dangerous animal in front of Mike of Vennepage, and he will be able to calm that athlete. And right now, we're just not in the business of having an athlete so skillful, so good to be able to tear down an absolute monster. So we have to let him go part of our ways

and we wish nothing but the best for Michael Vividum page. And we're going to start signing guys. We want to sign guys who are just going to go out there and, you know, just entertain. We're not looking. I'd rather him say it like that instead of just like, ah, well, you know, it's just, we just don't want to do business with them.

It's like, why? Like, if I'm going to get invested, I want to know why. And it's not even the UFC. It's even when I was in one championship. I talked to Matt about something. I'm like, hey, where did this champion go? He was a champion. He beat the shit out of this guy.

I'm invested in him. Where did he go? And then Matt was like, well, you know, and I'm like, so what's... It's business. And that's, at the end of the day, for the fans out there, for Michael, whoever's listening, if you just realize UFC's going to do what they're going to do, it's way more easier, in my opinion, to digest when they do things. and not get you all wowed up.

We've talked about that. We've been flowing. I hit you with like 45 topics there on the back end. Speaking of flowing, F-L-O-W-M-U-S-H-I-N.com. Check it out. Flow-Machine. We've got a QR code.

Thank you for this. Oh, you're welcome, man. You've got to make a flight, so I don't want to keep you any longer. We do this whole fucking day. It's been amazing. Check this guy. I'm going to say goodbye to him

and his lovely wife will be back talking Sean Strickland. I'm going to give you my full breakdown, so don't go anywhere. All right, back on the program. That was my conversation with one Conrad Thompson. I'm still getting tweets regarding his convo on the show last week, his take on Roman Raines. The belt was pretty damn cool as well.

I enjoyed that very much. I enjoyed having the freaking man, Demetrius Johnson. I could talk to him all day. He's got so much energy, so much passion, so much insight. He's lived it. He's breathed it. And I love picking his brain. So check out his YouTube channel, his show with Izzy, all that stuff and more.

He's killing it. and also his manga when it comes out, that I asked the right questions, Frank. You were. I mean, I feel like we spoke a good amount about it. 25? He did, he did. Ah, thank you, Frankie.

I appreciate it. Whoa, what? What? It's part of the schick. You know, it's a gimmick. I used what you said. I internalized it. And then I spouted it out in my own, you know, certain way.

Anyway, later in the program, we're going to be joined by Michael Venham Page. He's going to join us at 3 o'clock to talk about what we spoke to DJ about. We also talk to Andre Feeley, who had that incredible head kick knockout win over Kai Kamaka on Saturday. But I have been itching to talk about this Sean Strickland story. And yes, I gave you a little bit of insight, but there's a lot more that needs to be said. So let's get into it. A lot of this started to really blow up on Wednesday, but it's important to take a bit of a step back because I remember on on the nose on Wednesday as well. And even on Tuesday,

we started to talk about like, what's going on with Strickland Imov? I remember being at the watch party on Saturday, two Saturdays ago for 332. And some of the fans were asking me, what's going to headline the December 12th PLE or numbered event, which will be the last one of 2026? And I said, you know, all signs seem to point to Sean Strickland versus Nasruddin Imovov. That didn't happen, of course. We know it's Charles O'Olvera defending the BMF title against Diego Lopez. We spoke to Diego about it last week. Check it out if you missed it. Anyway, shortly thereafter, Imov tweets this on social media in regards to a fan saying that Sean Strickland is asking for a million dollars to fight on January 16th at UFC 336. By the way, last I heard the next numbered event is January 30th, not the 16th. So all of this is like, I Who knows who this guy is who's throwing this out there. But Nasrudein, worth noting, does reply to him and says, if it's really about the money, I'll put 500k of my own money on the line.

If you beat me in January, Sean Strickland, I'm putting this on record. If you still don't take it, then you're just scared. I'll handle you outside. UFC, this is your champ. Come on, strip him. And so it seemed like based on things that Sean Strickland was saying on social, that he was unhappy about something. and we end up finding out a little bit more about that.

But last week, Wednesday in particular, Imov is in Vegas and he just pulls up to extreme Couture, like a cowboy in an old Western film. Here he is with his squad pulling up. There they are. Looking for Sean. And here. And you gym, see the contract.

Do you need the pen? I have. Or do you need the boss? I have that too. I feel like that should have been, you know, the closing line there. But you see him very quickly speaking to Eric Nixick. He's looking for Sean. What he was trying to do when he saw Sean Strickland, I don't know.

But nevertheless, he's looking for him in Las Vegas. And guess what? He ended up finding Sean Strickland later in the day. Shortly thereafter, of course, at UFC HQ. Take a look. There is no problem. You're not seeing the contract? Say what?

You not seen contract? What is the problem? Money? I have money, I don't, yeah. Please stay inside. What do you mean that? He talk shit, and social media.

I'm here. Not, he's not going. It's crazy, brother. It's crazy. What are you going? I'm here. Hey, I'm here. What are you going to do now?

I'm here. You shit, stop, stop. Stop! Stop! You, you, This is it does. You, this is the help me?

This is the help me? Yes, it's not helping. It cuts off there. I can't quite tell who's saying this isn't helping. But this is all very smart and calculated on Imov's part. He's trying to drum up interest in a fight that he hasn't quite gotten just yet. And oh, by the way, there is the threat of Hamza. They haven't come out and said Nasrudeen is next. Nasserdin, in my opinion, should be next. And there was a strong case for him being upset for not getting the title shot back in May, even though they gave it to Sean. And so he's upset. He feels like it's. right there. He also probably feels like it could be given to someone else, i.e. Hamzad, and he's trying to grab it. He's trying to drum up interest. He's trying to make some buzz, some hype. And this is all very smart. Now, is he really trying to do something? I don't know. And that that argument in itself falls a little flat when you are reminded that Sean Strickland fought Naserdin Imov on January 14, 2023 and beat him in a light heavyweight bout.

on short notice. Sean Strickland fought on December 17th, 2020, and then came back, just reminding all of you, that's 48 days later, and fought at 205 against Imov and beat him be unanimous decision. So the idea that he's scared of Yombov is a little insane

when you consider the fact that just about, you know, almost three and a half to four years ago, he beat him fair and square at light heavyweight. But I get it. He's trying to get the fight. He's trying to make it happen. and he's trying to get people behind him. Did he have any intention of actually, like, fighting him?

I don't think that that would have been the smartest thing in the world. But from a social media perspective, it makes everyone talk about the fight. It gets people worked up about the fight. And it does certainly feel like there's a lot more momentum in terms of him getting the fight next as opposed to Hamzad. Shortly thereafter, you see this from Nasrudeen with Hunter Campbell. I'm safe. Security brought me to the boss. Now, we've seen this shot before with Alex Pereira and Hunter and thinking like, okay, he got what he wanted.

And then, of course, Alex Pereer didn't get what he wanted. It went to Josh Hokid, who ended up getting the booking against Suril Ghan next month, November 14th in Mattis Square Garden. But that at least suggests that picture right there. If it did, in fact, happen, that meeting, that picture, if it happened after all of this, that no one's too upset. And I don't think anyone would be all that upset. In fact, it actually surprises me that there aren't more incidents at the PI because you've got this building with all these fighters. Some like each other. Some don't like each other.

Some want to pick fights. And it actually feels like a very combustible situation that, you know, I know there have been a couple of things here and there, but nothing really too drastic or dramatic. It's actually kind of surprising to me that it hasn't happened more often. In response to all of this, we start to get a lot more information from Sean Strz. And there's a lot that he has put out there, a lot on social media. And so let's go through it together. And let's dissect it and decipher what's really going on in his mind. Here's Sean.

I got to be honest, unless things change with the UFC, I'm kind of over it. McGregor makes $30 million to fight for 30 seconds and they don't pay us a fraction of it. Contemplating just going to 205, knocking on my contract, and scrapping with Jake Paul, that sounds fun. Now, with regards to this, important to know, Connor McGregor, yes, 30 million. Connor is severely underpaid. To say Connor fights for 30 seconds against 30 million, obviously is distorting the picture he got injured. He sold the hell of a lot of tickets, a lot of subs, all that stuff and more, a lot of people

watched. Connor McGregor is the highest paid and the most underpaid fighter in UFC history. That is a fact. Sean's, you know, moving on with his career and moving up, but he's nowhere near. But I get the sentiment. The sentiment is we're not getting enough. And by the way, this is what we all thought was going to happen and what should have been happening. And people like myself have been talking about for the better part of 10 years. The fighters don't make enough. And I said it right before they signed the Paramount deal and

announce it. I'm going to predict they're going to sign a Paramount deal. Sorry, they're going to sign a TV deal. They're going to make a hell of a lot of money. And the fighters aren't going to get their piece of the pie. I remind you, in the NFL and NBA, the fight, the fight. get 50% of the revenue. We don't know exactly what that number is, but we do have a class action in a lawsuit that's from a period from about 10 or so years ago, which suggests it's more in the 20% range being kind

than the 50% range. And oh, by the way, when they sign this $1.1 billion a year deal with Paramount, what do we get? Oh, yeah, the bonuses are going to go up. That's nothing. Drops in the bucket. Oh, yeah, the minimum goes up. Again, nothing.

If they would up it to everyone gets a minimum of 150, it would still be nothing to them in the grand scheme of what they're making. And so everything that Sean is saying is echoing the things that people like me and other fighters have said. We continue. We'll continue with the tweets here from Sean. Yeah, man, I wouldn't even care if I give him my gip belt and go to 205. Easier cut.

Now, he's responding to someone here who's saying like, oh, you're the champion, whatever. And that's, you know, that's the game that's being played. in his possession is a very important, maybe I'll take the word very out and just say important piece of real estate. Now, as we established last week, that piece of real estate is getting more and more watered down as the time goes on

because they're just making vacant title fights and interim title fights and all this stuff more so than ever. We went through the stats last week. And it to me is making the title feel less important, which would then, I think, make it easy. for them to do something like this, which is, hey, you're not a defending champion. You're not willing to fight the next guy when we need you to fight them.

Well, just go look at Valentina Shevchenko, who we needed to fight on October 3rd, wasn't available, and we took that belt away from her. And by the way, I finally did reach out to Valentina as a side note, because we haven't heard much from her since all of this. And she said to me, it was not an easy decision to make. I care a lot about my division. I wanted to be active. and the belt to be in the game.

I couldn't be 100% for October, needing more time for proper recovery. I plan to come back in 2027. Why do I read this now? This was a quote that she texted me. Why do I read this now? I read this because Valentina Shepchenko is the most decorated women's flyway champion

of all time and one of the most decorated champions in UFC history. She wasn't available on the date that they needed her. And so they took her belt away. At some point, they're going to say to Sean, we need you. Pick a date. I don't know, February. I don't think they need him in January just yet. I think they have some other plans, perhaps in the Walterweight Division. But let's say February. If he's not going to say yes to that, they're just going to take that belt away. So I don't know if he thinks he has leverage with the belt.

Sounds like he doesn't. It sounds like he's threatening to move up. I don't think they bat an eye. I think they keep it moving and book something else. But it does make it a little bit more unique when you're a champion speaking about these things. and then we start to wonder about the state of his contract. We'll get to that in a moment. We'll continue now with the tweets. It also is just insulting how much McGregor and some lame boxer made. That would be Connor Ben, the $15 million deal that was reported all over the place. I can sit here and grind at mid-of-weight and kill myself to make $185 or just move up, enjoy it,

knock out my contract and get a bag, fight. Paul, sorry, beating the brakes off Paul. All right. that's interesting. So that, all right, that started to give us some insight. He's unhappy. Okay, okay, we continue. Let's rifle through these.

It's just hard. McGregor, 30 million to million. Okay, got it, got it. I mean, like the highest paid and most successful and popular fight of all time. That's the one example. The thought of just giving up my belt of going to 205 and speed running my contract to fight Jake and make what these guys are making sounds pretty damn. Great.

Okay, I don't know if this is, you know, like deep thoughts or he's trying to threaten. Let's keep going with the tweets here. It is funny when they say, but your contract says, I think being the new unfiltered face of Paramount sounds kind of entertaining. I guess that could be my consolation prize. Any request? I'm going to ask Kanye to corner me, LMAO. He's really laying it all out there.

All I'm saying is this could be a once in a lifetime crash out in the entire history of televised fighting. All right, whatever that means. Can I get a pay bump? All right, now he's tweeting to Paramount. Also tweeting to Paramount that Avatar is dope. I F with the Fire Nation. This is something completely unrelated, but it was in the midst of this quote-unquote crashout.

Here he is talking about Avatar. All right, guys, I've got to be honest. I'm having a slight crash out. Okay, thank you. Over what you paid McGregor, all right. There's a slight chance, and he does the Dustin Porier, he does the Dustin Porrier hashtag there.

Here comes Jake Paul weighing in on all this. If you want your fair share, call MVP when you are free. All right, so when is he free? More from Jake Paul. Strickland, I see your text, or does he mean tweets? Is Sean Strickland reaching out to Jake Paul? That wouldn't make a lot of sense and would be in breach if he's trying to get a fight while under contract. Tell your promoter to call MVP. Yeah, that ain't happening either. We've been through this song and dance ad nauseum. I haven't decided if I want to nuke my contract, not up to you,

but I got to say, man, putting hands on you sounds way better than the UFC right now. Okay. No insult. This is from Sean to Jake to you, but I'm shocked you would actually box me. Woodley I get, but me is impressive. All right, all right. This is fun. All right, I'm done being a bitch. I'll figure this out. Sometimes talking to you degenerates just help me work through thoughts. By the way, in what universe is talking it out on Twitter better than talking to another human being? I don't know, an agent, a spouse, a friend, a coach, a teammate. Anyone's better than this. But anyway, I mean, technically, you guys are the only friends I got. Also a little bit sad.

It's a small circle, but we're like-minded. Good night. All right, listen. You know, friends are friends. If that dude who was weighing in on the contract earlier, who didn't seem like much of a friend, seemed like he was outing his business, is the only sounding boardie he has, then, you know, far be it for me to criticize. He continues.

You all think I'm just frustrated because my body is crashing because MMA training is brutal. my heart just isn't in MMA anymore. Groydare, AC joint separation. I just don't think my heart is in MMA anymore. Boxing, there's more money. It's significantly easier. Okay. Here's Powell Costa weighing in.

Strickland, I have a solution for us. I sent you a message inbox. That one's not going to work out. Paolo has one fight left, and he can't seem to get that last fight. Booked. Here's Sean showing his legs, beaten up.

No one would ever deny. how brutal this is on their body, and no one would ever deny how underpaid these fighters are, including Sean Strickland, who is quite damn popular, by the way. There's a gunk thing on that bottom photo there. I would imagine that's what they drained from his knee slash leg. Anyway, here's Hamzat weighing in. You are the biggest bullshit. This shit happens with all of us.

Don't be a bitch. This is your champ. I mean, obviously he's upset. Hamza did retire at one point and then came back. So, you know, people are in time. title to their feelings being put out there and then thinking twice. Nevertheless, we continue, I will not fight or sign any contract until I get this figured out. Hopefully we get it figured out soon. Thanks for all your support. It helps. Now, what is he talking about there?

Is he talking about wanting more money? Is he talking about allowing him to go box? Is he talking about just being freed of his contract? I don't know. But that's quite the demand. That's quite the ultimatum. Now, this seems to have came after there was a report by Mike Bond of MMA Junkie, Mike Bonn was doing his show, the Bonfire, the Bonfire, excuse me, he was talking to Farah Hanoon of Junkie. They both do a great job. And he had some intel because I'll be honest,

I reached out to Sean's team and I said, hey, just to give us some context, can you tell us how many fights are left? Because if there's one fight left, this is a pretty big deal. If there's two fight left, it's a big deal. If there's more than that, like we've got a waste to go. here. They said, we're not talking about anything, all right? Mike Bonn reported that Sean Strickland signed a six-fight deal right before the Hamzad fight, and so now he's down to five,

and now all of a sudden, you know, he's upset about what he signed. And so here's someone who says, why did you sign the contract if it was too low? And Sean says, the UFC doesn't work like that. And then someone else weighs in, bro had a gun to his head. Sign this or we won't do this. They act like you have any power in this sport. So let's take a step back. Hamza Chamaev is the middleweight champion of the UFC. They're looking for a fight for him in Newark in May. It's down to Sean Strickland and Nasrudeen. The UFC wants Sean Strickland to fight for the belt very clearly. They don't want Nasrudeen. If they did, they would have given him a title shot already. Sean Strickland's coming off a very big win and an impressive win over Fluffy Hernandez. So it makes sense.

But they say to Sean very clearly, if you get this title shot, if you want this title shot, if we are to give you this title shot, because there's no sectioning body that's saying Chabhazat has to fight this guy who's the number one mandatory, contender, all that. You need to sign this new fight deal. You need to sign this new contract. I'm sure there's some negotiation, but Sean ultimately signs it and gets the title shot. Now, as I said to DJ, it was debatable in that there was no clear-cut number one contender. It was either him or imov. But the fluffy win, more popular, and probably the win over Imova back in 2023, all tipped the scales in his favor. And I thought it was the right call as well.

Sean is infinitely more popular. It was the bigger fight. Again, I did not agree with the rhetoric, the promotion, but it was the bigger fight and there was clearly a lot of interest surrounding it. But he signed a contract as a result of getting that title shot. And now he's crying about the fact that he wants to be out. he's underpaid, I don't have sympathy for that. I just don't.

If you have one fight left on your deal or two and you feel like you have been flying the flag, defending, DJ's story essentially, Francis's story, essentially, then I would say, yo man, this guy's been a good soldier, he's defended X, Y, and Z, Alex's story, Pereira. He's, he, you ask him to go on short notice, he shows up, he defends 300,

Connor gets hurt, he's there, Sean hasn't done that. They used the fact that he wanted a title shot to lock him in long term because they know, you know, this is around the time of MVP, MMA and all this stuff, they know people are coming, right? May, it was a week before,

so this is a couple months before when he gets the title shot. They know what's going on. They're very smart. They lock him in and now he's saying, I want out or I may give up the belt. If I'm the UFC, I'm like, no,

you just sign this deal. I will reiterate. before I get, you know, people weighing in and responding to me and all this bullshit and start bringing in like fucking the Middle East into all of this. Sean Strickland is underpaid. Sean Strickland should be getting more. Every single fighter on the roster should be getting more. Okay?

Let me reiterate that because I've been saying it for fucking 17 years here doing this show. But in life, when you sign a contract with the UFC in particular, not just shot anyone. Ask Randy Couture. you train at his gym. They hold all the power. They will cut you after a loss. They can re-up you

well before the contract is up as well. You have C could come to their senses today and be like, you know what, we fucked up, you're worth more, we're going to give you more. You can't do anything like that. You can't demand a renegotiation. You can't leave after one win. You have no power.

You don't get a cut of the pie. You don't get revenue sharing. There's no collective bargaining. They're going to drug test you 24-7. You're not new. You knew all of this. But you were happy to take the title fight, and is it possible that maybe in the back of your mind you didn't think you were going to win?

And so you thought, you know what? Let me take this bump in pay, which I'm sure it was, and I'll deal with the rest on the back end, and then I'll go on social media and try to rally the troops around me to get everyone to think that I'm the one who's getting screwed here. You're not the one getting screwed here. You got a title shot that could have easily gone to someone else. You agreed to terms. You signed that contract.

You won the fight fair and square. and now you've got five fights left, and you've got to deal with it, and they will keep you on the sidelines forever. Just ask Randy Couture, who wanted to fight Fader Emilianenko, and they said no, and then eventually came back and fought Brock Lester and got beat at UFC 91. This has all happened before, time and time again. And so I think that the UFC very smartly planted the info, that he signed a new deal, that he's got five fights left, and all of a sudden it felt like the tide had turned. And he's upset, and I don't blame him, because he is underpaid. but I do blame them for signing that deal and now saying we want more.

It just doesn't work like that. It works like that if you're the UFC. The UFC could change the contract whenever they want. You can't do that. Why? Because there's no union. There's no association. There's no backing.

There's no collective bargaining. There's none of that. And we know this. Everyone knew this. And so nothing's going to happen. You're either going to sit on the sidelines, not fight, get strip, being purgatory, get awful fights, get buried on the prelims, whatever it is. Anyway, we'll continue.

Are there more tweets from Sean? I think this is when Sean weighs in, right? Yeah, Sean now goes on social media and starts speaking to us about how he feels about everything. Let's take a look. So, you guys, I fought for the title four times. I won it twice. Beed all the boogeyman in the division.

Hell, I fought half the division already, man. I want a box. I want to put a fucking boxing title on my mantle. I deserve it. Hell, I don't even do it with me. I just box. I will put hands on any boxer. Jake Paul wants to give me a big old bag of money to fight him.

I'm under contract. Fine. I'll go to Zufa. I'll go beat your cruise weight champ. Easy. But let me tell you something about the UC. And I'm going to say the quiet part out loud that nobody says. You'll go where you watch his champions, right?

These like savages of the sport, man. They run the division and they take an L. And then they come back. And they just like, man, they just fight like three or four times. They get fucking flatlined. You're like, dude, what happened to you? And you realize that UFC happened to him. They just don't care anymore.

The UFC, they don't pay you enough money to walk away. Like, man, life is fucking good. I've dedicated my life to this. I put the time in this. The UFC builds a legacy. They keep you right here, but they build the legacy, and they don't pay you enough, so you have to come back and ruin your legacy.

So I want to do that, man. It's like this goyslop, repackaged McDonald's straight to the head, you know, just not into anymore. I want to fight. I want to box. I want to go win a boxing title. So we're trying to work that out. But if the UFC says, hey, we're not going to do that.

We're going to make you fight. Well, I'm going to stick and move. You guys are going to boo. Hell, I'll fucking boo with you while I'm doing it. Just stick and move. Click my check and then move on. But, I mean, hell, here we are. All right.

So there's more from Sean. And there's a little word salad there. Goyslop, McDonald. I don't know what he's talking about at that point. But there is some value in having someone as popular and successful as him speaking about these things. Again, things that we've all been talking about for about 20 years now. None of this is new.

You know what? It happens every time. Enter the UFC, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, happy to be here. Move your way up the ladder. Move your way. And sometimes it happens a little quicker than others. But eventually, and I'm skipping through many steps, eventually you'll become a contender, you'll fight for the belt, you'll win that belt.

And then you'll start to look around and be like, wait a second. I'm not getting my fair share. And wait a second, that guy who is right behind me who I just beat, he's on his last legs, and he definitely doesn't get his fair share. And now he's got no chance of winning the belt back and making at least a little bit more as a champion. Then you start to see like the end and you're wondering, I'm kind of screwed here. This is the same story over and over and over and over and over again. It's just smacking Sean Strickland in the face right now.

And so yes, to a degree, he is saying the quiet part loud. Yes. There's a lot of other things that you could say about those contracts and how one-sided they are and whatnot. But it's hard for me knowing how this played out. Again, contract, offer, title shot, five fights left, brand new. All this within the year of 2026. Post-Paramount deal.

You can't even lean on, hey, I signed this when there was a pay-per-view and I'm supposed to get paper view. No, this is all post-paramount. I'm having a hard time feeling bad. It would be like me signing this deal with Yahoo in August of 2024, six months into it, I get super, super popular, the freaking channels on fire were killing it. Every sponsor wants to work with us. And I say, you know what?

I'm getting screwed here. Sorry, you signed that deal six months ago. You got to honor it. There's still two and a half years left. That's just the way it works. That's how life works, business works, and certainly the business of the UFC. That's how it all works. And so I'm having a very hard time feeling bad right now.

Everything he's saying, I agree with. And I've talked about for about 17 years now on this show, some variation of this show. So I agree with everything. But man, you just sign that deal. And this idea that you're just going to walk to the other side of the street and box, and they're just going to willingly let you do that, they can't. They can't do that. Because now there's going to be a long line of people who are going to try the same tactic,

Make it public, complain, let me box. Make a public complain, let me fight Jake Paul. Make a public complain, release me. Make a public complain. Give me a Zufa boxing fight. They're not going to do any of it. Because they're in the business of the UFC. The UFC is the most powerful part of this whole thing.

All of this we've talked about for years. Dana White is the most powerful part of the whole thing. He's not going to leave. The UFC isn't going to leave. They can't set that precedent. They open that door for you. Now, holy shit, there's an avalanche of people who are going to be like, What about me?

I mean, he got Powell Costa with less leverage, because he's not a champion, singing the same tune. And he's got one fight left. He wants to be released from one fight and they won't do it. You think Sean Strickland's getting released from five fights? No chance. Anyway, Nina Drama, friend of Sean Strickland, asks Dana White, as one good friend would, about his chances of fighting Zufa Cruiserweight champion Jayopataya.

Here's what Dana had to say. Did you see that eye? Your boy, John Strickland, wants to buy. Jay Opataya? What did you do? John Strickland wants to box Jai Opataya. Ah, okay. How do you think that goes?

I don't think it ever goes good crossing over the boxing with the MMA, but Strickland is a tough guy, you know, and has hands. So there's a chance! No. There's a really good chance that Jai Obataya fights Yante Wilder. There's a really good chance of that. That would be a great fight. I agree. You know that Deiote Wilder went and did ayahuasca?

I did know that. I know a bunch of guys who've done ayahuasca, and they have to happen the same sense. Changes something about you. Or lovey-devy. Yeah. How you ever do it? Never in a million fucking years.

Somehow the clip started talking about Sean Strickland wanting to box, and it ends with ayahuasca. Probably the most notable part of that is Deonté versus Jai, which is a real thing for that Tyson Fury AJ card. And so at least for now, you'll hold the horse. Send to a fun fight. I love that. I mean, like, it's just a fun fight to put Deonté being on the Tyson.

AJ card is fun. Jai moving up and getting a high-profile name is fun. If he wins that fight, it makes the Benavides fight even bigger on Cinco de Mayo weekend. So all good. Dana White has told us that he's blocked every MMMA news source out there. So he probably doesn't even know about Sean Strickland's complaints unless someone alerted him of it. Maybe someone told him maybe a PR person told him, but there's a good chance.

He has no idea. And maybe that's why he was so playful and friendly with it all. You know, Brendan Allen fought this past weekend. And I thought the good folks over at Red Corner MMA, Red Corner MMA, they do a great job on social media and with their videos, their YouTube, and their coverage. They posted a clip that I saw Brendan Allen talking about Sean Strickland. from back in July. And I thought Brendan Allen

actually summed up the Sean Strickland experience perfectly. I thought he did a great job of summing up just sort of, I don't know if it's a gimmick. You know, I do think

what I said to DJ is how I feel in that, like, it's better for Sean to be anti-establishment, although I often feel like there's mixed messages. There's some flip-flopping going on.

Anyway, Brendan does a great job of breaking it down. Take a look. Do you feel like Sean Strickland is like a real American champion? Sean's a shifter, man. Whatever way the wind's blowing, that's the way he's going to go.

He's going to play whatever card he can. As soon as, like, he can say something bad about America. Then the next minute, oh, I'm American. I do this for you guys. I love you guys. I wouldn't be nothing. Then shit on him again. And then he would just keep playing that good cop, good cop, good cop, bad cop, good.

You know what I'm saying? Like, he just keeps playing that role. But, no, I mean, I'm just real with what I say. I'm honest. I'm very honest with what I feel. It's my opinion. And I have the right to it. I am American.

I have the right to my opinion. He's 100% right, by the way. And attention spans are so short these days that no one remembers that he said the opposite, maybe a week prior or even a day prior. But it's what can catch on right now. And more often than not, whatever is polarizing, hypersensitive, controversial, that's what he'll latch on to. And then people are going to start getting behind him. It's a great gimmick, and right now to be anti-UFC is a much smarter thing to be than to be pro-UFC.

Could you imagine if he came out and he's like, I love the way they treat me. They treat it so good. They pay me so well. They gave me this title shot. My life is made. I can't wait to defend this title five times. I'm going to make all this money. He would be a company guy.

He'd be a bootlicker. That's not good for the brand. That doesn't make any sense. Anyway, Brendan Allen was asked about this after his win against Christian Leroy-Dunkin on Saturday at the Post-Fight press conference. Here's what he had to say. And finally for me, what are your thoughts on your old pal,

Sean Strickland's contract dispute right now? You're trying to put me out there, ain't you? Hey, man, at the end of the day, you know, you'll never hear me bitch about my pay, but I'll never say that, fuck, I'd love to have more money. Who ain't going to want to have more money?

So the guys that don't need to fight that can speak up and, you know, make those stances for more money, fucking God bless you, I wish I could do that. but I'm happy. Like I said, I'm just a fucking dumb redneck from Louisiana,

you know, I'm happy with what I get paid. I'm doing shit. People wish they could. There's many people when I'm from them. Wish they could make what I make. They can do what I do. So I'm very thankful.

I don't want to feel like I'm greedy or something like that. But hats off to Sean for speaking up for trying to get more money because if you look at the scope of things based on the statistics that are out there, we are underpaid. but fuck that I ain't trying to get canceled at least from the bosses I like my paycheck

they know I like my paycheck I need that shit I need that shit my car collection is still growing my house still going I didn't mean nothing by it hunter apologize congrats enjoy this

thank you really and by the way this is part of the same old story contender who's trying to climb and get the title shot and get the opportunity is all team UFC. Why wouldn't you be? Because they hold the fate of your career in your hands. And Brandon

Allen is in that spot right now. Brennan is Sean Strickland, you know, pre-Issie fight. They hold your fate in their hands. They will decide where you will go. Will you go MVP route, meaning Michael Venom Page, Muhammad Mikhail Rout, or will they give you the opportunities? And then, of course, you have to, you know, do something with it. But right now he ain't going decide with Sean. I mean, he doesn't probably like Sean to begin with, but he's not going to decide with him right now. Why? But eventually, if he gets that title shot and he wins that belt and then he's in the title picture for a couple years, everyone's tune changes. Everyone. There ain't one. Name one. I'll give you a, give me a fighter and I'll, and I'll show you

when they're tune changed. It doesn't exist. There's no one that did the whole damn thing and maybe some of them kept it a little bit more personal. There is no one that does the whole damn thing, the whole damn story from Anderson to GSP to DJ. Like, name one. James Tuhna? There ain't Connor. There ain't one.

That once they complete the story, they're like, yep, this worked out well for me. So you could just add Sean to that list. And you know what they also all have in common? The UFC got to decide their fate. either by, you know, cutting them or stripping them or trading them, no one gets to go out on their own terms. They decide.

And that's what's going to happen here. They don't have to decide now. They don't have to decide tomorrow. They don't have to make any kind of deal with Sean today. They don't have to make any kind of fight. They're booked up until January. What I'm hearing is they don't need him in January. And so when they need him, they'll take,

they'll take their time to get to him. They'll let him sit it out, wait, and then they'll call him, and they'll say, do you want to fight for the belt? Do you want to defend your title against Nasrudeen? No. Thank you very much. And we'll let you know when we need you.

That's just what's going to happen. And if it sounds like I'm taking like a defeatist approach to all of this, it's not. It's a realist approach to all of this. This has happened. We've seen this story play out. And I don't really know what the sentiment is. And maybe Rick and G.C. know the sentiment.

Like, are you guys seeing the sentiment being pro UFC or pro Sean? I would imagine online the vast majority of the time it's anti-UFC. But in this case, I felt like once Mike Bonn reported that there are five fights left and he signed a six-fight deal before getting that title shot against Hamzad, people are like, you don't have much of a like to stay. You haven't been locked into this deal for five years. years just itching to get out and get your chance. You just signed it five months ago. I definitely think there's part that, right? Like, there's nothing that the fans, the public at

large, loves more than hating on rich athletes, right? If Sean Strickland's contract and salary gets revealed, then people think, wow, that's a lot of money. There's nothing they love more than tearing that guy down, despite the fact that he's railing against a company that's making bees, right? He's making M's, they're making B's, and there's nothing they love more than, you know, hating on the athlete that's making that. But I do feel like that turned the tide quite a bit because he was, look, Sean is very popular. Sean's very good at getting his message out. You read admirably, you know, 60 different tweets that he had put out in the course of a few hours.

And that can be engaging, right? People can go like, oh, shit, Sean's got a point. What's going on here? but then I think once the kind of like numbers, you know, reportedly came out that I think that changed a little bit. But I don't know. It seems pretty split. I think there are, you know, some people who are like, hey, Sean, shut up and, you know, fight or move out of the way. And I think there are some that are like, yeah, this could be, you know, another example of the UFC underpaying their athletes, despite the fact that like in this scenario, he doesn't have a ton of leverage. How do you think this plays out, GSI? to what you said, I don't think anything changes in terms of fighter pay in the UFC,

and we probably see Sean Strickland eventually fight Nasrini Move-Ovob. I imagine it'll take a little bit longer time to get there, but I think the money is too big, despite him saying that it's not enough, that he's going to take it, because he's not going to get the boxing match. He's not going to get Zufa. They hold all the power, and eventually he will give in and fight against Nassardini above. Can you guys not see this?

this scenario, eventually they announced this fight. Yep. Eventually, there's a press conference, media day press conference, whatever. And eventually some media member is going to ask him like, hey, Sean, back in October, like you were pretty vocal about all this, you were upset, you said you were going to do this and that. What happened? Let me tell you something, guys.

Like, I was having a bad day, you know? I was, this is not me, but I could, I was on my period. You know, let me, like, do you blame me? I get punching the head for a living. We figured it out. They called me up. We're all good. Everyone goes through a bad day, right?

Like, can you not see that happen? It's not the best imitation, but I could see it like it's sitting right in front of me. I was having a bad day, guys. I was having a female moment. Like some bullshit like that and everyone would be like, yes. Well, I mean, he was essentially doing that at the end of the rant. He was like, yeah, dude, I was just crashing out. I'm done being a bitch.

Thanks to let me talk through it. By the way, and then the video came after that. So I was just like, crash out isn't going to end right here. Okay. But, like, it will end eventually, and yes, he will change his town. I was just about to say, I don't think it's going to take till the announcement. We'll see this sooner than later, I imagine, because to the point you both made, he doesn't have the leverage to execute this, right?

It would be a big statement if he was like, yeah, I'm going up to 205. I'm not doing the title fight. And actually, like, you know, following through on his word, I just don't imagine that that's not the smartest option for him. The smartest option for him is to get paid to fight Nasserdin. Namovov. He said in this tweet, sign this or we won't do this law, they act like you have any power in the sport. I mean, he's essentially admitting right there that he has no power. Sure. Yeah, that's setting it up. By the way, I would imagine no one put a gun to his head to sign that six-fight deal, but you know why he did?

Because he wanted that title shot, right? And it's the best move for him. Why wouldn't you? But I'm just saying like, yo man, you signed it. If you didn't like it, don't sign it. You know what would be the big thing to do? The big thing to do would be like, you know what, I come on here and I've been a part of this sport for X amount of years, and I hear all these guys and these media people bitching about the UFC and its pay, and I feel the same way. But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to be different. I'm going to try to galvanize everyone.

I'm going to try to open everyone's mind and teach everyone about the economics of this game and finally stop this and finally get the fighters to figure out that they're being underpaid. Like that would be the cool-ass thing to do is to finally be like, yo, as a UFC champion, I'm going to try to rally the troops once and for all. It'll never work. It'll never work. Listen to Brendan Allen. Yo, my bad, Hunter.

I didn't have anything to say. I love my paycheck. I love my paycheck. You have to apologize five times in the midst of that answer. And there are hundreds of more fighters exactly like that on the roster. It will never, ever work. And hundreds who aren't signed, right? Or waiting in the wings.

Right. I think there is a part of Sean Strickland that has that in him. I really do. Oh, 100%. I agree. And we played a clip on, in the back from February, where he was in an interview with Complex. And he broke all this down. He said it exactly as it is. He said, we are replacement labor, right? Like, if I'm not available,

if I won't do what they want me to do, they will replace me with a guy making 10 and 10, no problem. They'll snatch them up from somewhere and they'll just do it. He has these moments where he does, like, lift the veil. He has these moments where he does speak true to the power. He has these moments where he really does, like, kind of think of the larger picture and present an example for people to kind of look at and follow. But when the time comes for the action part, he tends to just like, as you said, as Brendan Allen said,

kind of just flip and be like, ah, guys, I wasn't being that serious. And then just go back to the usual routine. Yeah. And so I agree with you guys. I don't think anything's going to happen. And it could be even by the end of the week where this gets resolved.

It would, listen, I'll give them a lot of credit. Stick to what you say. If you don't want to defend the title, if it's easier to cut to a 205, then 85, then give up the belt. Give up the belt. If we are to take your words at face value, then do as you say.

Give up the belt, fight out the deal at 205, and then go box Jake Paul, if he's still around. The fight out the deal thing, though, my operating assumption was like he's got a few left. And now I'm like, fight out the deal.

Like, you're going to be here forever. Oh, yeah. There's no fighting out the deal. They'll take two, three years. Yeah, they're not going to let you. Longer. probably. I'm in a Velocosta right now.

I would imagine it would take years and he's 35 right now. Yeah, there is no fighting out the deal. Jake Paul versus Sean Strickland would be a fun fight to watch. Oh, man. Who'd be the favorite in that? You'd have to think Jake Paul

just because he's coming over to box. Just because he's boxed? Jake has been in the news. It seems as though he has he's been cleared. It seems like he wants to fight. Maybe by the end of the year, he's put out his new hit list

that a lot of people who are weighing in on. He's got a long list of people. Before I rest, Canelo Alvarez, Frances Inganu, Connor McGregor, boxing and MMMA, Sean Strickland, Darren Till, Ryan Garcia, KSI, Chris Eubank, Edgar Berlanga, Tom Aspinall, boxing, Deante Wilder, Neideez, MMA. Smaller person who ruined her fight, that's Tank Davis, World Title, Make It Happen. So, one, two, three, and then I'll do four for Connor. No, you know what, I'll just do three, even though there's two fights listed there. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7,

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. I won't include the world title. How many of those actually happen in that 13? And if he gets three, it's a great career. You think he gets three? I don't know. I mean,

Francis is available now, right? He could do Francis whenever he wanted to. Nate he could do. You think he could do, Wilder he could do Canello, I think, is possible at the end of his upcoming deal. I think there will be enough money that Canello could try one more. Connor, I think, is super viable at the end of his UFC deal. I think these three to five of these could happen, no problem.

The strictly one would be big, but that one's definitely not happening. That's the least likely. Because he's tied up. Now, you can maybe cross KSI off that list because KSI announces his retirement on Saturday. I'm a big fan of KSI's, Jay J's, he's on America's Got Talent now. Is it America's Got Talent or is it like Britain's Got Talent?

I think I see him up there with... He's like up there with Howie Mandel and Sophia Vergara, right? Then that would be America's Got Talent. I mean, it's like as mainstream as it gets. This is news to me. I didn't know he was... Yes, TSAI joined Britain's Got Talent. Britain's Got Talent.

Is he with Vergara and Howie Mandel? Or is it like a spin-off? This is Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, and Aletia Dixon. Okay, so. Okay, maybe not as great. Still, Brids Got Talent. Not bad. Not quite America.

Made no sense to me when I said it, but went with it anyway. There was a misfits event on Saturday. He comes out and he announces his retirement. And the tough part about it, if I'm being honest, is there was no reaction to the retirement announcement. I have a theory as to why there was no reaction. Take a look. I want to make an announcement. The nightmare

The nightmare Has retired The nightmare has retired Simple Okay, that's a bit shocking Wait, so there was one man Across the pond Mr Jake Paul who had you on a hit list What do you got to say about? I know the nightmare is supposedly retired

But what do you got to say about that? First of all, fuck Jake Paul I'll say it again Fuck Jake Paul I'll say it one more time Fuck Jake Paul This was rough Because there was obviously no reaction

And they were probably expecting a reaction My theory as to perhaps why There was no reaction Is it possible Because he said the nightmare has retired And maybe the people in attendance Didn't realize that he was talking about himself I didn't know he was the nightmare

So if you would have said I'd like to make an announcement I've decided to retire from boxing. I'm hanging up the gloves. I'm done. Do you think there would have been a reaction? Bigger than that. I don't know how much bigger.

He hasn't fought in three years. I went to an engagement party last night. And it was... Congratulations. Thank you. I appreciate it. It was in a tent outdoors, and there were a lot of people,

and it was raining, and it was loud. And I really felt bad for the young man who was getting married. He was lovely guy. Shout out to Evan. And he was saying a speech about his family, is his fiancee, all that, and a lot of people were

talking in the background and no one was listening. And that, like that clip made me feel worse than what I experienced yesterday. Like, we're doing the, like, the, there was no one listening. It's like giving a speech at a party

and no one was listening and no one was reacting. He's like, it's a love of my life. I retired. Nothing. All you're hearing is people talking in the background. That was awful.

That was absolutely awful. And I can't imagine that the fans in a, were unaware of who KSI was. We went to that show three years ago and everyone loved him. He's a huge star in Britain. How come they had no reaction?

How did they have no reaction to this? I don't know. I think the nightmare thing. It's because he said the nightmare? When he said that, I was like, who is he talking about? Work or shoot? I also think it's inactivity as well.

Shoot. You think it's a shoot? If not Jake Paul, who's he boxing? I don't know. And the Jake Paul just never was happening. It felt like a work to me. Huh? Something about it felt like a work because he called himself the nightmare.

So now he could come back and be like, I'm not the nightmare anymore. Why did he say I? I just don't think. It felt like they were overthinking this one. Okay, so this is what we're going with. We're going with the theory because he didn't say I. He was referring in third person to his alter ego, the nightmare. A?

I just took it as like. And then it failed because no one reacted to the term because no one. You can't have two nicknames. His nickname is already KSI. Now we're going with the nickname to the nickname? Didn't work. What if he comes back and is like, He does KSI retirement now.

He's like, guys, the nightmares are already retired. But guess what? I am retiring. KSI? How big of a deal is KSI Jake Paul now in 2027? Less than it was. Is it dead? Not dead.

I used to think it was Wembley-esque. Like, it was worthy of Wembley. It could still get there. Like, 2023? Oh, yeah. You don't think it could still sell out Wembley. If they put, if Netflix partnered with Jake Paul, and they said, we're going to do this,

and they had, shoulder programming around KSI and Jake Paul. And the nightmare is back. And the nightmare returns. I really do think it could still sell out of a stadium, 100%. O2, maybe. An arena short. Like arena, I think is 100%.

No, dude, come on. MSG for sure. Okay, okay. A 20,000 stadium arena. They're filling up. I think they sell us. Tommy Fury. I know it was when he was much more active, but that was.

Oh, but that's right in his like, you know, Manchester. Stone cold sellout. We're also talking about the other side of this would be Jake Paul. was also on that, by the way. I mean... Yeah, Dylan Dennis. You teed this up yourself. Like, he's a...

He's a presenter on... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's still a massive... He'd also be fighting Jake Paul. Yeah, Jake. Okay, okay, okay. But I used to think it was just like a... Stadium?

A layup stadium. Yeah, I actually don't know. It used to be no-brainer, sold out instantly, blah, blah, blah. Now it's like, you might have to grind a little bit. You're going to have to put on your salesman hat. Were you guys shocked when he also announced the MVP signing? Not shocked, but I was not expecting it. Didn't see this one coming.

coming. I wasn't shocked. I mean, once I learned about the terms, he's going to tell us all about it and stuff like that, but it makes a lot of sense. Plus, at this stage, I guess the reason why we shouldn't be shocked, and I'd like your opinion on this as well, MVP at this stage is nearing 40. He's 39, turning 40 in April. What's he going to do? He's going to go build up key MMA? MVP made the most sense. as in most valuable promotions, that made the most sense or Risen. But now when I think of this, UK-based, there's the tills out there, he could do MMA or boxing, probably boxing, have some fun.

It all kind of makes sense to me. It's the perfect spot. It's a perfect spot for him. It makes all the sense in the world. I don't, to my understanding, right, this is, he is with them exclusively, right? He's with them exclusively for gambling. MMA and boxing, but not Jiu-Jitsu Raff type things. That's the only part that surprises me because I do think there's opportunity for him in those other realms outside, right?

Like more of the Mike Perry, like, I'm with BKFC, but I can go do a boxing match here. I can go do this here and I can do this here. That's the only part that's a little shocking for me, or surprising rather, not shocking, but surprising. But as far as like what makes sense, what's a fit, this makes all the sense in the world. this is the perfect spot. Is he immediately the biggest name on their roster? I guess Tony? Till.

I don't know. Is Till still on the roster? He's more BKFCs. Keep my name out of your mouth? That's a good point. Yo, are we getting Tony Ferg against MVP? Yeah, well, we'll talk to him in about four minutes. Pinio Cruz is the biggest name on the roster.

Oh, are we getting Plinyo versus MVP? Shout to Plinyo. Shout out. Big one. Well, while we're talking about Miss Fitz, let's look at Mr. Plinyo Cruz, the head coach for one. one Alex Pereira and others making his misfits debut.

Look at this against Gary Olive. A little Shama. The glow-up for Plinyo is something to behold, right? The hair, the svelness. Called it off. This dude was talking so much shit about Plinyo, saying that he was going to spark him out. Look at Pino.

Look at Pliny. With the left. Good, no. night. Fight to make. Plinyo Cruz, Chase DeMore. That's the one. I think maybe we end this Chase DeMore shit. Why? Clearly this fight's not supposed to be.

I actually do believe Plinyo that Chase DeMore does not want this fight. It's going to happen. Sure. Yeah, I mean, like he had his coach fill him. I mean, he's hurt. But this is not available. The coach steps in and gets sparked out in the second round. He's like, I can't deal with this. You go deal with it for me. Yeah, like, you have to fight him now.

No, man. You have to fight him now. I don't have faith. I don't have faith. Big time fight. What about Canelo fighting Christian and Bealey, October 31st? What do you guys think? Does it happen or not?

I can't see a world. It feels like it should not. It is October 12th. Over the course of the last few days, the Riyadh airport has been bombed. There's been multiple casualties, multiple injuries. They're involved in this war with the Houthis. And there's footage, we won't play, of people like in line at the King Khalid airport. I was there back in, what was it, 24, beautiful airport.

It was like all marble, just waiting in line and then getting bombed. It's a terrifying, awful, awful situation. And in 19 days, Canelo Alvarez is supposed to fight there. Now, last week I was joking about like how every time something comes out about this story, the first thing combat sports reporters are talking about is Canello. There's more important things than a fight. But at this point, it is like a sort of like a health and safety story that a major sporting event is going to be happening there,

and they're insisting on powering through. Turkey Al-Shake tweeting this yesterday regarding this fight, Canel reached out and told me he still fight in Riyadh this October. No matter what happens, he fears nothing. My country is home to the two holy mosques. land of peace, safety, rich civilization, deep history, and kind heart of people. They get everyone who's checked in and showed support hard times reveal true friends. And so I don't know if he's talking about Canello being a true friend here or the people who've checked in.

Canello is due to make a lot of money. And so I'm sure he probably wants that money. But I'm also sure that there's people in his team being like, yo, we can't go and fly there and live there and fight there in the midst of an actual war where people are getting bombed and killed. And so I wonder, I wonder if there's a standoff right now where it's like, hey, if you pull out, you're not getting paid. And if we pull out, well, we still have to pay you. Now, who knows what the contract is? Is there a force majeure and all that stuff? But this is, like, Canello is a shrewd and smart businessman.

Does it stay in his contract that if there's some type of war going on that they still have to pay him? Or does it state in their contract with him that they don't have to pay him? and are they trying to pull the plug and he's saying no, I'm showing up come hell or high water because I want to know. I do agree with you guys. It seems awfully reckless and careless and just not smart to go through with this event.

This fight does not have to happen and especially doesn't have to happen in Riyadh with a war going on. You can take a step back and be like this fight never should have happened in Riyadh. You know it's the crazy thing about it. Move this one to Guadalajara or Mexico City and you sell it out 10 times.

Maybe, maybe we have seen in recent history that cooler heads prevailed and the place that Joshua and Ferry was supposed to take place is the place that it took place. Sure. Maybe we can hope for a better outcome because it's in 19 days. It just seems silly.

Like at what point is human decency more important? Like, it just doesn't make any sense. I see people being like, you know, prayers for those traveling for the fight. Who would travel for it other than someone that was absolutely necessary. Beyond Canello and his team and Billy and his team,

why would you travel for this? Honestly, I feel for production people. Yeah. You have a job. Holy fun. That's another thing. Canello's going to be making tens of millions. His team making a bunch of money,

everything like that. Yeah. Some PA having to go out to Riyadh is a ridiculous idea. Apart from the safety of even just getting to Riyadh, you're now putting X amount of people in arena. You're just putting a target on this thing, right? For Pete, for these, who these two now be like, We're going to come in tack over here because you have a load of people and it's going to be used as leverage in a war.

I'd also love to know how many tickets have been sold to this. It's like you'd be like, oh, we sold 100,000 tickets. We can't let these people down. I mean, I'm having a hard time believing that a thousand tickets have been sold for this. Like I said, I've been to one of those events and it featured Anthony Joshua and there weren't that many people there. And we've seen enough of these events to know that there aren't that many people there. Again, make it re-ad season, do it for the Mexican people, put it on in Mexico. Mexico, safe, smart, not putting anyone in harm's way, and let's pray that this war ends,

seems to be the sensible thing to do for whatever reason. That doesn't seem to be the direction, at least as of right this second. I'm actually thinking about it more. If we had to go do like a production over there, I'd be like, I'm not going. I mean, I wouldn't blame, I wouldn't blame anyone for saying that. Yeah, I'm just not going. It's so much harder to think of one. But it's easy for you to say that, sorry, as opposed to like a PA who's working paycheck to paycheck on a freelance contract. I mean, I guess you could just be like, yeah, I'm not going to die. Yeah, I was going to say, like, it's just like, okay, do I want my, you know,

70K a year paycheck to come through or do I want to risk dying in Saudi Arabia? It's so much harder to think of one good reason why it is happening than the 100 that it's not. I can't think of one. There's not one reason why it needs to happen. Because it's re-ed season. And the show goes on. It's always another re-at season. And they've done it all.

Does it ever even end? It's going all the way to 2030. There's another time that this can happen. Or another location. There's been talks of them slowly but surely pulling out of combat. The ring deals. This is the last one that they're going to be a part of, AJ Fury. This feels like just another thing to be like in the end.

These are the reasons. Like when the story is told, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. And then this happened where they had to pull. This fight was supposed to happen in September, remember? And then they didn't want it going head to head with. the Connor Ben Ryan Garcia fight, Mexican Independence Day weekend. Then it was supposed to be end of September and then move to Halloween in Riyadh. And now there's this going on.

Like, there has to be some sort of sensibilities to all this. And I know that there's a lot of money at stake, but golly, someone has to make the call. Someone has to make the call. The best fight of the weekend, by the way, happened in Chicago. And that was Floyd Schofield against Lucas Body. Shout out to Floyd Schofield, who's now the new WBA lightweight champion. I said going into it that I thought it was the best fight of the weekend, and I think it delivered for the most part.

I know Lucas was upset with, as he said, some of the bicycle riding from Schofield, who is fast, who is strong, and look at some of the action here. Schofield hunting almost goes through the ropes here. This is in the third round. Body from Canada taking some big shots there. Schofield was coming off that incredible knockout of Tevin Farmer,

of a takedown, does train with the good folks at Niagara Top Team sometimes. And as you can see, this is all in the third round, by the way. Schofield getting rocked here. Nikisa in the corner over there. Chearing on his guy. Yes, this was MVP versus Golden Boy. Big shot there from Lucas Body, hard hitting. Lightweight who knocked out H2 O. Sylv, Ashton Silve, on that Mike Perry, Jake Paul

card. that was back in July of 24. And so more action here, but in the end, as you saw, Lucas Body loses to Floyd Schofield. The best thing that happened all weekend was Sergio Mendoza beating Ricardo Sandoval. Just look at the emotion here. Look at the emotion as he gets the belt. And, oh, I think it's a full sound, right?

Is it a full sound, or we could just play it? Just play. Go ahead. I just want the this is the win here in the fifth round but to anyone who says these belts don't matter to anyone who says like they'll just get rid of them and make promotional belts

look at the emotion here from late replacement Sergio Mendoza and then let's take a look at the I mean look at that unbelievable scenes look at the emotion when he's given the belt when they announce him as winner he's crying as he's being lifted up. Even the ref

is emotional. He's given the WBC belt and he can hardly stand up. I'm getting goosebumps just looking at him. This is amazing. So don't tell me for a second these belts don't matter and that's probably the best PR

the WBC has gotten all damn year long. We were talking about Michael Venham Page signing with misfits. Let's hear from the man himself. He's kind enough to join us right here now to talk about this breaking news that came out on Saturday. There he is, the newest member of the misfits team. Congratulations, Michael.

Very happy for you. I will admit, though, did not see this coming. We spoke about your options. We talked about PFL MVP, rise in, Coker's League is coming in, did not see this coming in. So could you give us the timeline? When did they reach out to you? How long ago?

And ultimately, why misfits? To be fair, again, as I did say to you, know, we had a lot of offers from a lot of different promotions. All, you know, excited to try and have me on board, but everyone was at very, very different times. An example of that is, you know, like Scott Coker and those guys, they're only just getting started. So they're like, you know, it's just a bad timing for them right now to, you know, to have me on board because, you know, they don't necessarily, necessarily know they don't have enough opponents for me and stuff as of yet. They've, you know, they've got ideas of doing a competition in a different weight division as well.

So again, it's just, it was just badly timed. And there's a few of those kind of things with a few other shows as well. But then also, Misfits came, they came with a crazy deal. Absolutely crazy deal, which means I've only, I've continued to grow and get better. financially. But then also, KSI is my boy. I've worked alongside the Misfit guys

before with some of my teammates that I thought I've been in corners and my coaches has worked closely with them as well. So yeah, it just, you know, their vision for the future as well and what they're trying to do, they're looking to get an MMA show

going and, you know, me kind of lead that way, be the face of that. It's a lot of exciting stuff as well as a better payday. When you say they came to you with a crazy deal, what do you mean by crazy? I mean, I've left the UFC and I'm making more money. Making a seven-figure deal. Two times, three times, four times?

Like two times, two times more, maybe just over. And in a shorter period, so it's a three-fight deal. in a three-fight deal, I'll make more than I have my whole UFC contract. Wow, and congratulations. And when you said you said seven-figure deals, it's seven figures per fight? Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Have you ever been in that position before? No, no, no. So it's nice. I feel like I've worked hard in my career. I've done a lot to kind of build my name to what it is now. So, yeah, I feel like I'm deserving of it. I'm just, you know, thankful to be in this position. And it's just three fights.

Yeah, yeah, just three fights to begin with. And I think, you know, there'll be more, you know, potential to do more afterwards. We wanted to kind of, it's almost like an introductory. We kind of want to get, you know, they've got goals. You know, we've got ideas as well. We want to try and partner together, see how that gets going at the beginning. And then, you know, maybe continue from there. But it sounds very, very exciting.

Like, I'm really looking forward to it. And more importantly, for me anyway, as a fighter, as a fighter that I've always been and haven't really had the chance to be in the UFC, is kind of get back to my creative ways, you know? Like, they're like, man, everything, every idea you have in the book, we want to hear and we're happy to do.

So that was music to my ears. When you say three fights, is there also a term attached to it? they have to give you the three fights in an X amount of time? Yes, it's over 18 months. Okay. Anything happened before or after, sorry, it can happen before. If it happens in a year,

depending on how quickly the fights come. So, yeah. And is there any distinction, X amount have to be in boxing, X amount have to be in MMA or it doesn't matter? Doesn't matter. To be fair, that's one thing I said I'm excited about. I'm happy to go on box as well. And they're happy for me to box.

But again, they are, you know, they're passionate and looking forward to developing the MMA space. And like I said, they said, I can be that face of that. And also kind of bring that professional look to the space, you know, like I think I will help attract other fighters come in. you really see misfits kind of making ways within the MMA space as well. If you were to guess, of those three fights, how many are in boxing, how many will be in MMA if you were to guess? It's a difficult one because it's going to depend on, you know, the opportunities, opponents. For example, I feel like, you know, people are going to be more encouraged to want to

fight me in boxing because, you know, they haven't seen me box for a while. They may feel safer boxing me, boxing me instead of you know. going into MMA. So it just depends. You know, we're speaking to them now about, you know, potential opponents. And it's exciting, yeah. So it's difficult to tell at the moment, but I definitely will be doing an MMA fight with Misfits. Usually when someone is trying to entice someone to sign with them, they lay out a plan,

hey, we think this would be good and we could do big business here and there. So can you give us any type of insight? Like, who are they talking about matching you up against? Who are the names that were being presented? Because as you know in the world of misfits, like we don't know who's in, who's out, people come and go. Is Till in there?

Is he not? Because that's the first one that came to mind, but he's more bare knuckle these days. So what did they lay out for you? Again, I think Till still has a fight left with them. Okay. You'd have to speak to him, but I think that's a great fight.

Yep. In MMA or boxing, that's the great thing. Yep. You know, he's done so well in boxing. I don't know if he's happy to stay there. But yeah, either or. I think, you know, Till's game. He's similar to myself.

He's happy to do whatever. He just loves to fight and get busy, stay active. So that could be either or Tommy Fury is only going to be like a boxing. I can see that fight happening as well. I know he's, I think he's got a couple of fights left with them as well. You know, I don't want to have to beat up at Ferguson. But if he steps forward, then he will get run over. You know, Diaz, again, if he's still a very very important.

and he wants to fight. And then again, like I said, I'm going to start attracting more people as well. So we will see who else's names come forward. And my understanding was this is exclusive, except if you want to do grappling or R.A.F, things like that, right? Yeah, yeah. So again, even R.E.F, I've spoken to them. And, you know, I'm excited about, you know, potentially doing a wrestling bout with them. Jiu-Jitsu.

I love Jiu-Zitsu. I've done it once and I definitely, you know, I see myself jumping back in there as well. You know me, Ariel, I'm a martial artist. Like, if there's an opportunity for me to showcase martial arts, I'm there. I said that I was surprised. When you left, were they in the back of your mind, Misfits, or were there other organizations that you're like, yeah, I'm probably going to go here. And then all of a sudden when they came, you're like, oh, wow, I didn't expect this.

Yeah, to be fair, I didn't expect it. like, misfits are always on the table. Again, you know, JJ's my boy, so it's always going to be a possibility and I'll always listen to them. But, yeah, I was shocked with what,

you know, again, I was shocked with the amount of money they presented. I was shocked with their goals. I didn't know any of this. I didn't know that what they were trying to do their aspirations and goals and what direction they were looking to move in.

So when they were explaining, it to me. I was like, yo, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. And they got the paper to back it up. So, yeah, again, MVP was definitely, I guess, the more obvious one. They are dealing with a lot with regards to, you know, the PFL collaboration. So they've got a lot of things, a lot of business on the table that they need to deal with first as well. But, you know, they were very respectful and inside. It said, you know, keep us in mind. So yeah, like, you know, I had great conversation with people. I would have said, if I had to guess, I would have said, you know, MVP made the most sense at the time. But then again, hearing what Missoux was, you know,

talking about that definitely makes the more sense. So, so obviously there are some options, as you said. I feel, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like you've had to this boxing itch for a minute now. And so that might be the most enticing. So if I were a betting man, I'm putting, I'm putting money on MVP's next fight being in the boxing ring. Am I fair? Again, it's genuinely difficult to tell.

It's about speaking to the potential opponents and finding out, one, what they want to do. Again, these guys have aspirations in the MMA world, when they're looking to launch that. Yeah, there's still a few. you know, hurdles to jump over before we, it's a clearer picture, but I'm excited to box. I'm definitely excited to get back into the, into the square, the square cage. Was there anyone that came close to the misfits offer that you had to really like dig deep

and decide between two, or did they blow everyone out of the water? No, they, they definitely blew everybody out of the water. Like I said, financially, but also just in terms of, you know, what they're looking to do within the space it just made so much sense and then again to do it with people

that I'm very familiar with you know I've worked with before I'm very friendly with I've trained with it just makes it 10 times easier

it's like doing business with your friends is a great thing to be able to do if done wrongs do you think you fight again this year the goal is to

I don't Getting tight now? Yeah, I don't believe it's going to be this year. Okay. It can do. You know, I'm still training and I'm still preparing myself. I do have ITM in the moment productions first feature film that we're doing this year, in which I'm acting in as well. So there's going to be a bit of work and focus on that.

But I've always got many plates spinning at the same time. So again, if there is an opportunity, I will be still training and making sure I'm ready to fight. But likelihoodness is early, you know, next year. Do you think that if you were going from Bellator to free agency and you didn't have those six fights in the UFC, you would command as much money? Or do you think that there is true value in the platform the UFC put on,

put you on? And also being MVP, now former UFC fighter, going on into the open market, is their value attached to that? In the end, it probably didn't work out the way in which you wanted to. You've already said this, but the byproduct of that is you've got that UFC on your resume, and that makes people want to pay you more. Yeah, again, I can't say for sure.

And one thing I always remind people is MVP wasn't made in the UFC. It was made before the UFC. You know, my brand has always been, I've always done extremely well with my brand. I didn't need UFC to be. become this presence. But yes, having the UFC and, you know, being what, top 10 in two divisions, having five fights, five wins and four fights undefeated before leaving is always going to be great, especially when it's in a platform like the UFC, because it's such a respectable platform.

It's the biggest, you know, MMA platform in the world. is still great regardless of how it went. It's still great for me to say that I've done. And definitely a question mark, like I said, when I first got to the UFC, was the main question was, can he do it in the UFC? And I've more than proven that. So, yeah, I think it definitely does help. Definitely does help.

But, you know, I reckon I'd demand a lot just because of my brand anyway. It's interesting to see this play out. out at the same time that another middleweight fighter is openly unhappy with his pay, that being Sean Strickland. You were in that machine. Now you're out of the machine. He's the champion. You want it to be the champion, but you see how unhappy he is.

And he wants to go box and have some freedom. What is your take on all of this? Well, if he wants to go boxing, I asked for him while I was in the UFC, he can come and box me. We can make that happen and misfit. But, yeah, it's unfortunately, it seems to be a common. conversation with regards to the UFC, which is, if I was, you know, the higher ups in the UFC, I'd want to kind of get put, lay that to bed and just, you know, whatever that means,

it means maybe go and speak to the fighters, what can we do more? How can we help? What, you know, what is the, what is the struggles? Why are people upset? Go and do some research, speak to your fighters, see, and then, you know, do, see if you can do more for them. Because then, for me, it would just be embarrassing that my champions are complaining. I would personally, you know, want to rectify that. But again, I think we're in a very different time. There's no pay-per-views anymore. I don't believe the UFC are, it's about finding out who's the most talented martial artist anymore.

I think it's a little bit of a factory line and we're just catering for, you know, the, the bar casuals that just want blood. So, because, you know, I was actually having a conversation with a friend of mine and he actually said, I'd say specifically in the UFC, but MMA in general is probably the only sport where you could win and move backwards

and lose and progress forward. There's no other sport that would happen in. So, yeah, it's this, It's unfortunate. I think it needs to, we need to get back to finding out who the most skillful person is. It's not just about the entertainment. There are, you know, there's usually, what, 12 to 15 fights on the card.

You're gonna find entertainment in, somewhere in there, but it should be about mostly who is the best martial arts, who is the top. So, and I think we're kind of steering away from that at the moment. Do you think anything happens with this Sean's story? Or do you think eventually it's like, so many others. He's contracted.

So he can complain as much as you want. If he doesn't fight, they're going to extend his contract. If he fights and fights crap, yeah, he, I get he potentially they might cut him, but you know, you kind of, you know, dampen your brand. You might not be able to demand as much, potentially unless people are paying attention to what's going on. But yeah, unfortunately, that's what it is. We don't have like a governing body to.

look out for the MMA fighters. I think if we did have that, you wouldn't have so many of us complaining about the things that are happening. Obviously, the UFC are not they're not going to be willing to, you know, encourage

that to happen because it's going to put a lot more pressure on themselves. But yeah, I think it's wrong. We should have a governing body that is looking out for fighters. And I think you'll just hear, you know, there'll be more happy fighters, great fights, still and then

this will be, you know, it wouldn't even be a talking point. When you say governing body I think of like an association, like a group that's, you know, do you think we ever see that in our lifetime? Oh, it's difficult. I've seen people have tried and if you, you know, especially

if you're within the UFC, you're going to get benched. That's the dangers. If you're outside the UFC, you might not have as much, you know, power or moving power or much as much say so to encourage other fighters to do, you know, to partner up and do the same thing. Yeah, I would, you know, I'm an advocate.

I'm going to, I'd love to figure out a way to make that happen myself. But I'm not sure if that happens. By the way, when you were asking to fight Sean in the UFC, what were you told or your team told? Like, why didn't that fight happen? Well, it's more a case of that I wasn't ranked high enough. So this is why I wanted higher ranked fighters in the first place. and I wasn't getting that.

So again, my goal is to get to the top. So you're giving me people that are like not even ranked. It doesn't make sense. When there's guys that are even within like close to me in rankings that are not fighting. It just didn't make sense. Again, this is just like, you know, it was just frustrating. It just didn't work. It's weird though because I swear to you, I had an amazing time with the UFC.

I think the staff is great. like I seriously I got on with so many members of the staff there it genuinely felt like I was at home even one of my teammates Felix Klinghammer he was with me at one of the UFC's he was at my second fight in my corner and he was saying like he's like you're talking to people

like you've known them for years it's weird to see that you know and they're responding to you as if you've known them for years and he said it was nice to see that you know you've only been here one fight but you know there was so much much kind of love and mutual respect amongst the staff and the team. So literally, like, everybody, I had a great time. Obviously, I had my grievances, but for the most part, I absolutely loved it.

You turned 40 in April. Is there a chance this is your last contract that you signed? No, it just depends. Look at your Romero. He's the goal. He's the one leading the way. Again, it just depends. It all depends on how I feel.

could have stopped five years ago if I didn't feel good about the sport, whether it be my body, whether it be injuries, whatever it is. I'm going, I'm going and until I genuinely feel like, yeah, I've had enough. So I can't say because I'm actually, I feel re-inspired and re-motivated. Now I'm here with Misfit, so we'll see. Also on that card, your friend, JJ, AK KSai, I announced his retirement, but I heard you say over the weekend, you don't believe him. Why not? I don't know. I just don't believe him. He's focusing on a lot of things. And I think that's why he said he's retiring. Even when he showed me his schedule, I was like, that's crazy. I thought I was busy. That is insane. So I understand why. He's like, look, I can't be distracted with this kind of stuff. But he still trains. I still see him in the gym. He still loves combat. He still enjoys it. I just think he's at the moment

he can't focus all of his time on it, as much time as he would need on it. And then having constant people questioning him about fighting, I think it's easier for him to just be like I've retired. But, you know, I feel like potentially he's going to

you know, he could be re- you know, that fire could be reignited and he'll just be like, yeah, cool, let's go. And I said it the other day I was like, how many times is Fury retired? Yes. And, you know, he's about to the biggest fight of his life. So,

um, with my boy AJ. So yeah, like again, I don't, until, until it's, it's been years,

then I'm not going to believe it. Uh, I agree by the way, because he said the nightmare has retired. And I felt like that was the key. Like, he kept saying the nightmare, not I.

And so I feel like he's maybe retiring the alter ego. But K. Asi or JJ will, will live on and fight on. That's, that's the way I read the whole. Oh, I didn't even,

not even, like, I've had it to be fair, even look into it that deep. That's how I dissected it. Two last quick ones for you. You were supposed to do RAF against Alexander Schlamenco. What happened?

No, no, no. So. Was that not true? No, so I got, I got contacted to, you know, potentially, would you be interested? Yeah, I'd be interested in what kind of opponents. They mentioned Alexander Schoenmanco. I'd love to, I'd love to do that. That sounds good.

You know, speak to my management and get it all. sorted and then they announced it. And I was like, wait, what? Oh, wow. They just had it. I think they just jumped the gun and they hadn't like, we hadn't negotiated anything and hadn't done it. So it just, they just jumped the gun on that one.

But I am publicly saying I am interested in, in, in, wrestling against whoever. So it has to make sense. There's no point me going up against a guy that's been wrestling in their whole life. But, you know, somebody like a shaman. or that's, you know, a past kickboxer that can wrestle as well. And there's other guys that have put their names forward. Yeah, I'd love to wrestle and love to be part of that show.

It looks super exciting. And as I said to you, I love to, I'm a martial arts. So I'd love to just jump in there and showcase even my weaker areas and show people that it's not as weak as you think. If you were to score Eddie versus Dana, who's winning, right now. You know what? Honestly speaking,

it's, you know, when you take a step back, you're like, oh, yeah, this is, it's funny and so on and so forth. But when you're in it,

it's, it's disappointing. You know, I'm kind of like, guys, instead of just being petty and having a pissing competition, can we just focus back on fighters,

please? Instead of, oh yeah, I promote it. No, I promote it. No, I promote it. Like, who cares? Like, look,

You guys are supposed to be the figureheads to an amazing sport or amazing sports. So just promote the fighters, man. All of this for me is embarrassing. It's just, you know, come on, we're all adults here. Let's put that to bed now, shake hands and then just try and promote together. You guys are both exceptional promoters as you guys have showcasing your careers. what you guys have done. So just put your hands together,

sit down, say, yeah, let's just put this to bed. And let's put on some exceptional fights together. Who cares who's the main face, whatever? It's more about the fighters. And yeah, for me, this back and forth is boring, to be honest. Okay. You're not signing up for any Dana White, Eddie Hearn, debates, or all that stuff.

You're not interested. Anytime I see it, I just scroll on. If I, the only time I hear about what's going on is usually like some talks in the gym where people are talking about it. Some of my teammates would be talking, oh, this person said this, but I generally switch off. I don't care. Okay, okay. I appreciate that and respect that. So congratulations. Thank you.

Hopefully first quarter of 27. Yeah, that's the plan. Early portion of next year, boxing, MMA. There's the hit list. By the way, would you fight KSA. You would have fight him, right? No, no, no. That's my boy.

My boy. And I'm my boss now as well. That's right. That's a good point. That's a good point. Didn't see this coming, like I said. Enjoyed the walkout, the reveal, all that stuff and more. And looking forward to what you do with them and very happy for you.

Happy that you're getting paid when you're owed and what you've worked so hard to put yourself in the position to get. You earned it. You deserved it. You've done it the right way. So I couldn't be happier for you. Congratulations. I appreciate you. I appreciate you, man.

And seriously, always thankful to be welcomed onto your space. So I appreciate you. And when they announce that fight, I will bother you again. So just see you're warning. No worries. Thanks, MVP. Appreciate it, my man. Thank you so much.

There he is. The great Michael Venom Page, the newest member of the Misfits roster, who has given us some great moments and memories. And now is going to do it. He's going to do it. Listen, him versus Darren Till is a big time fight, especially over in the UK. Him versus Tommy Fury is a big time fight, especially over in the UK. The mansion, what is it, the Echo.

No, no, Echo was in Liverpool. It was, um, uh, the, oh, co-op live. Co-Up live. And then there was the other one that used to be known as the Manchester Evening News Arena. There's also the, uh, the O2. So there's options for him, no doubt about it. And, uh, to hear seven figures, a fight, three fights or 18 months.

So they got to give him, you know, some, some fights very soon. Um, what's 18 months? 18 months from now would be if he signed in October, then we go to October of 27, and then there'd be six months left. And so we're talking like April of 28. So he's got to fight three times in, you know, a pretty short amount of time and get seven figs per fight. Love it. Love it for him. And there's actual guy. If Till's still around, if Tommy Furry still around, like there's two right there that I think a lot of people would sign up for, including DeZone, who has their deal with. with misfits. Coming up in a couple of seconds, one of the best moments of Saturday's UFC card, and we'll talk more about it

on the back end of this. We had DJ first hour that I wanted to talk about the Strickland thing and some other news and notes, and then we're getting into the interviews now, but don't worry, I will give Brendan Allen

his flowers, but a fight and a performance that got a performance bonus was the second round knockout by one Andre Tucci Fee against Kai Kamaka, got 22 seconds left in the second round, a beautiful, beautiful head kick knockout. And then, of course, what was talked about afterwards was the fact that he could have very easily hit Kai with an extra shot or two or three.

And he did not do that. And that speaks to the kind of person that he is, the class act that he is, the martial artist that he is, the good person that he. I mean, just like sometimes it's unnecessary. Now, people like me will sit here and dissect those things and not remember the fact that, you know, there's a lot of adrenaline, there's a lot of emotion, a lot of stake it's so I tend to not get too hard on anyone who does that even though it may be hard for us to watch it from our vantage point it was great to see it he deserves all that credit for it I always look forward to these chats because he's one of the more introspective and thoughtful people on the roster he is kind enough to join us on this Monday afternoon there he is

hello Andre how are you my man what's up what's up brother how you doing man I'm doing great congratulations on the win thank you can you guys hear me right I can hear you yes you got the headphones plugged into where the car or the where I got the headphones plugged into the, I got the headphones plugged into the phone. I got my ice coffee. I got a little, a little bit of a Shiner. It's a beautiful Monday morning. Yeah, what is in that ice coffee at the top there? What is that some cinnamon? Oh, brother. Cinnamon, maple, macadamia. Cinnamon, maple, macadamia milk. Holy smokes. That's the one. Every day? That's the one. It's called the Canadian. Is it really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's at a place called Besta here in Vegas.

highly recommend. Oh yes. On this Canadian Thanksgiving, very apropos. Today's Canadian Thanksgiving. So thank you for that. Happy Thanksgiving. What's the, is the history of Canadian Thanksgiving similar? Like, what's the reason behind it? Is this the same as American Thanksgiving? It's actually a little bit different. It's more about the crops. That's why it's so early. It's the second Monday in October and it's more about the harvest and the crops. It's less about, you know, the taking over of land and whatnot. The wholesale, the wholesale slaughter of indigenous people. Yeah, it's less about that. It's less about that.

Less about that. But don't try to play the nice Canadian shit because you guys did that too. Don't. Listen. You guys had plenty of that. That's 100%. I would actually, before we proceed, I'm going to need a land acknowledgement from you, Ariel. A what?

A land acknowledgement. I'm going to need a land acknowledgement from you, Ariel, before we proceed this interview. Tell me. I know Canadians are big on that, right? It's a thing you guys do. Yes, yes, that's okay. Please. A land acknowledge.

No, I'm not Canadian. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've never done one before. so I don't want to disrespect you. How do I do a proper landowner? I'll acknowledge.

I don't know. I'm Hawaiian, and I live in America. I don't know how Canadians do land acknowledgement. Do you want me? I don't know if there's like a proper ceremony or something like that. Is it just me saying who was there first? Bro, I, I, this is a year, this is a Canadian thing. I don't know why you're asking me how to, this, it's your holiday, dude.

I don't know. Okay, well, shout out to those. I'm a visitor. I'm a visitor here on your holiday. I don't, don't ask me about the traditions, man. I'm just here to observe. I'm thankful for you and I'm thankful for the people who were here first and I acknowledge them and I respect them and I appreciate them. I haven't lived in Canada for 25 years.

So I'm a little rusty when it comes to my. Oh, you don't live in Canada? Fuck, contrary. Has it been that long since we last spoke? Yeah, man. You're too busy. Oh, you're too busy. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I've been the UFC 13 years. You've had me on like three times. I get it, you're busy interviewing and Dylan Danis and stuff. So that makes perfect sense. I know how hectic to schedule. must be but yeah wow wait we have beef no no no we don't beef no I feel like we have animosity now I feel like we have no I actually think you're very good I think you're very good at what you do I love what you do I do I do I do I understand you got to get some clicks you got an

interview you got to be a little tabloid sometimes but um no no I've had you on a bunch of times no no no I've had you haven't no that's this is wild yeah really how many times no I've been in the UFC 13 years as of like this week. How many times have I been on your show? I mean, I'd be long if I had the number, but I mean, I could look it up or I can have someone. You don't have a land acknowledgement. You don't have the numbers on these things?

What kind of operation are you running here, brother? You think I know how many times everyone has been on the show off the top of my dome? Well, there's got it. I mean, don't you hire people? You have to have hired people. Yeah, but you think I said to them, Hey, guys, Andre never comes on because, in fact, I thought you have been a consistent sort of character over the years.

I think I've covered you. I think character is a, I think, I think, character meaning like a reoccurring figure. Friend of the show. I think so, but apparently you think otherwise.

No, I like your show. I like what you do. Also, uh, also, uh, you work with Jose Youngs, who was like one of my favorite people.

Not anymore. You don't work. Well, he, he's at MMA fighting and I'm at on Crown. Yeah, never mind. You're dead to me.

Never mind. Holy shit. I wasn't, listen, I'm just, How did I intro you? I said you're one of my favorite people to talk to, thoughtful, introspective, and you came out with the freaking guns blazing on me, which is okay.

No, no, same team. Same team. It's Thanksgiving, Ariel. Let's make it's a nice show, man. We rewind the tape and start over? Yeah, I do. I am a fan of what you do. I think it's, I think you do very good.

But you think sometimes it's tabloidy. Tell me, I can handle it. I was just giving you shit because you, you mentioned how many times I've been on the show, but that isn't true actually. I think I've been invited on your show maybe three times ever. So I was just giving you a little bit of shit on that. So in the past four to five years,

they're telling me this is your fourth appearance. And then there were three more, this is what they're telling me. No. Let me get this straight. You don't know your land, you can't do a proper landing knowledge. That's right.

You're jukeing the stats on appearances. I actually believe it. In the past four to five years, That's one a year. You don't think we're good for one a year? Yeah, one of years probably good. One of years is good. I mean, in four to five years is literally one a year.

I don't believe it. I don't believe it, dude. All right. I actually don't believe that. Is that true? But anyways, all right. Happy Thanksgiving, man. Happy Thanksgiving.

It's good to talk to you. I've been covering a lot of wrestling, which I really like. Do you know the rascals? Do you know the rascals? Do you know the rascals? Zach Wentz and, um, oh, no. And Desmond Xavier. Do you know them?

They wrestle for AEW. Tell me about them. Why do you like them? They're just like the coolest tag team ever. I'm way behind on pro wrestling, but I know you've been covering a lot of pro wrestling, so I want to shout out the rascals, man. There's something special.

You've got to check them out. Okay. Are you a wrestling fan, or are you just fans of those guys? I am fans of those guys, but the only reason, not the only, but the biggest reason that I'm in. Oh, do we lose Andre? Maybe he had enough of me.

What? I was talking the pits. Guys, thanks for helping me out over there. I mean, really. We just wanted us to do, man. We kept counting three trying to find out. We just cut his internet feed. Oh, thank you.

The uncrowned higher-ups. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. When he rejoins, you could count that as the fifth one. I feel like I've, oh, yeah. That's a good. Thank you, Frank. I'm going to use that.

I feel like I've said before that he's one of my favorite people to talk to. Just don't talk to him that line. For what it's worth, my recollection was that number was higher as well. I was like, oh, Andre, we just have a amount of the time. I'm, it's tough. stunned this is the first of the uncrowned era. Yeah. Oh, is it the first of the uncrowned era?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the number that Shaheen gave me, which is fourth appearance on the show in the past four to five years. So this would be the forest. The prior three came when we were with, with MMA fighting. Let me take a quick look. So we started uncrowned in August of 24, right? in that stretch,

he fought Melchi Costa, Christian Rodriguez, Jose Miguel Delgado, Vinici Silva, and Kaikamaka. There was one win there, so I should have had him after the Christian Rodriguez fight. The other two, I'm not going to ask him to come on after a loss.

I don't think you'd want to come on after a loss. So this is my first opportunity. I feel like that's worth noting, right? Is that not? It is. I mean, I'm looking at our text here. I'm showing him the Oh, this is crazy, man.

Which wasn't expecting. I was born. Do you think his phone overheated? It did have the classic shutdown signs. I got to be honest. He's back. He's back. Wait, it just happened to you.

He got so excited. He muted. Okay, well, we'll reconnect with it. I actually love this. I love when someone comes with that energy. I mean, I prefer not, but it's, you know, might as well get it out there. I think it's very healthy.

It's important to not. Oh, there he is. He's back. I'm back. I'm back. Sorry. Does this count as two appearances? Can I add this to the list? This is two. I keep you're juke in the stats, but yeah, we'll count this too. That's fair. By the way, I wanted to mention I've started this company, this site called Uncrown.

You probably have it blocked on social media. It's all good because you hate me, apparently. But I went through the stats now. I went through the stats now. And in the Uncrowned era, which started in August of 2024, you have fought one, two, three, four, five times. right? Hit me with it. What's the number? No, the number is, so you had the win over C-Rod.

Yeah. Right? And so that one's on me. I should have had you on after the C-Rod. The other ones were unfortunately not wins. And so I'm not going to bother you after. Like, you don't want to talk to me. I mean, I even heard you on a post-fight press conference.

On Saturday, you were like, don't talk to me about fighting for a week. You said that. So. And here's the next one. Well, it's nice to be invited. Even if you don't go to the party, it's still nice to be invited.

You want me to text your guys and be like, yo, it didn't go feel his way on Saturday? Can he come on anyway and talk about it? You'd probably tell me to go fuck myself. No, I wouldn't say it like that. You know, what's funny is I actually don't I actually don't like doing a lot of, like I never do

podcasts, I don't like to do a lot of media. I like to be left alone. But there's a few people I say yes to, you being one of them. The MMA uncensored guys, I love those guys too. There's a few people I really enjoy talking to, Jose Yonz. The few people I really enjoy talking

to. So you are on that list. So thank you for having me. Hopefully my phone doesn't die again. Is it overheated? No, I just not charged because it's been an eventful couple days and just out here, living. Do you live in Vegas full

time now? Yeah, I moved to Vegas like two years ago. Yeah. And what led to that? I know you're still with Danny who's associated with team Alpha Mel Danny Castillo, but why did you feel the need to do that? Alpha male is always going to be home. Look, now we're going for number six.

This counts as now the third appearance, right, Frankie? Exactly. But what do we do now? Because I'm really actually enjoying this conversation. I like the energy. I feel like the last time I... Oh, dying? Yeah, how does it continuously start to die?

Is it a faulty charger? You think it's not being plugged in properly? Or maybe it's just like one of those jank chargers that like doesn't give it the proper juice. Or he needs Frank to get his tool like he did for your phone. Yeah. When I went on my trip, there was a little, there was like a little pebble, like smaller than a pebble. What's smaller than a pebble? A pebbleito. Yeah, maybe a, maybe a... I would took it out. It was a green from the sand of the beaches of Hawaii. I could smell it. I was like, damn. It had a bit of something, right? In aroma? Yeah. Anyway, yeah, you took it out with precision. You brought the, the little, like, tweezers out. It was tremendous. It's like surgery.

and then I upgraded to fixing your laptop. That's just amazing. You didn't really fix my laptop. You encouraged me to buy a new laptop and then you fix my son's laptop. There we go. We're all about facts here, all right? And getting the story straight.

So do you think he's going to come back or no? Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Andre Touchy-Feeley, one of the all-time best. Actually, legit, one of my favorite people to speak to you on the program. One on Saturday. Let's read some of his stats, shall we.

11 career wins via CO, three via submission, 12 via decision. Actually, a member of the UFC roster since 2013. What a run for him, right? 26 wins overall. 36 years young. Still's got, you know, some prime years left.

October 19th is going to be the 13-year anniversary of his debut. I remember that fight. I think it was UFC 166. Am I right about that? It was UFC 166 in Houston, if my memory serves me correct. Wait for it. Wait for it. TKO against Jeremy Larson.

I mean, who's better than me? UFC 166, October 19th. Headline by? Headline by. Kane Velasquez, JDS. Also, Diego Sanchez, Gilbert Melendez was on that card. I remember it like it was yesterday. Second most fights all time in the UFC featherweight division 28, one behind.

Darren Elkins. Career wins over Cub Swanson, Charles Jordane, Dennis Bermudez, Artim Lobov, Miles Jury. Also, we haven't had Dylan on that much, you know. And we had him in studio a year ago, never really posted the interview, and then we did the face-to-face with Mr. Perry, right?

Recently became a father. Very happy about that. Seems to have really enjoyed fatherhood so far, and he is going to enjoy it more. And so hopefully we'll be able to, to reconnect. Should I tell his guy? Rick, are you tracking him down?

Efforting. Tell his guy. You know his guy is, right? Yeah. All right. James Tujano? Maybe you don't know his guy because we haven't had him on recently.

You know what I'm saying? Hey, brother, can you tell Andre to plug his phone in? Or at least get him to a spot where, you know? All right, well, I'll just go through like more news and notes and stuff. How about that? You guys cool with that? Sounds great. The headliner for that card, which Andre won a performance bonus on, was Brendan Allen against CLD, Christian Leroy Duncan.

Another great win for Brendan Allen, who I feel like is on the cusp, like, one or two more of these wins, and he's going to get his shot. He's still so very young. He's still, you know, like, he's just 30. He's turning 31 on December 28th. He's now won four in a row. You know, he had that stretch there where he lost in Nasrudeen and Anthony Fluffy Hernandez, but I feel like he's right there. I really do feel like he's right there.

And I feel like just a couple more, and he's going to be in that mix, especially if all of a sudden... I think Brandon Allen's going to fight for a belt at some point, and especially if all of a sudden this Sean St. Strickland situation just kind of explodes. I don't think it will. But he's right in that spot. There was an interesting moment in that fight,

a fight in which he won via fifth round rear naked choke. When he sunk that on, he, I mean, he was not letting go. CLD tried his damnedest to fight it off. But in the end, he succumbed. There was a moment in the second round in which Mark Goddard took a point away from CLD for an eye poke. And I thought that that was notable and I thought it was very interesting because those

are the types of moments where referees have typically said, like, I'm giving you a warning. Don't do that again. We saw another point deduction earlier in the night for a fence grab. And I think this is very good. Goddard went online afterwards and spoke about this. I'd like to offer some clarity on this as I believe it's a teachable moment and gives insight into what we are doing as officials to overcome certain obstacles. As referees, we go over the rules one-to-one with fighters in the back.

Before the fight begins, here we specifically cover potential eye-pokes. If you watch, you will hear me warn CLD in round one for outstretched fingers towards the face. I then again, before the start of the next round, ask him to be careful and mindful of the hands. It is then when the eye-poke occurs, do I take definitive action. CLD is a credit to the sport of MMA, an exceptional athlete. There is so much more mechanically to addressing Ipokes and MMA both preventatively before the action and correctively after the action. It is very hard to expect an athlete to change 20 years of training and habit with a few minutes of conversation pre-fight. Just know that both myself and my colleagues know it is a firm priority to address and fix this.

All respect to the athletes in our sport, thank you. Mark Goddard, in my opinion, is one of the very best in the game at what he does. I appreciate that transparency and that insight. And I thought it was 100% the right call. And he more often than not is on the right side of those calls. And so I'm glad to see this. I'm glad to see more of this because these are two fight defining. There's too much data that suggests that the person who is inflicting those penalties, fouls, ends up benefiting from it.

So I like that. I like that very much. As far as who might be next for one, Brendan Allen, just a quick gander at the middleweight division would again suggest that he's right in the mix. Joe Piper is fourth coming off that win over Izzy back in March. He is booked against Bo Nickel in November. Imov looking for a title fight.

Drickus DuPlazi is free. and Hamsad is obviously out there as well. I think he's going to get one of those names. I really do. I think he is in the mix for one of those names. And I think he has earned that. After the win, Brendan Allen was going off on some of these individuals. And he had a chip on his shoulder.

He had a pep in his step, so to speak. Here's what he had to say. You fought four times. You're fighting down. You're fighting these guys. Edmund was unranked. She said CLD is way below you. you like what's it going to take for you to get someone above you well most of those guys don't

want to fight they don't want to really be challenged i think we see that with the matchups that they get you know like um jerkus let's see for kamaro everyone's hyping up kamara because of his resume yes he has a great resume he is one of the best to ever do it at welterweight off of his accolades that's true but we're not there anymore we're not we're very far past that and father time and we'll get every single one of us if we stay in this game long enough. So, yeah, he was an easier fight than me. There's no question in that. You could say what you want.

You could think what you want. I'm younger. I'm bigger. I'm faster. I'm stronger. I'm close to just experience. You know, he's just got more title fights, but amount of fights I've got probably close. So I'm tough.

You know, I think I'm technically better. But that's just my opinion. By the way, no matter what, no matter how you cut it, at this point in time or at that point in time I was the harder fight. No questions about it. So he took the easier fight. He knows it. I know it. Everyone else knows it. And fuck Henry Sehuda too. Just saying.

It really seems trash-ass podcast. It really seems you've... And if he don't like it, tell Usman he can see my boy Belaw and Henry can see me if he wants. I don't give a fuck. Either one of them. Usman Balal makes sense. I don't know if Henry Brandon Allen makes sense.

but I don't disagree with anything that he said. There's another issue that the UFC consistently faces, and that's when you get to that top five, everyone gets super selective about who they fight. And by the way, I don't necessarily blame them either. And this is not me trying to be wishy-washy. It's because you get there and you know you're so close. I mean, just look at Michael Morales.

Guys in Fawtz and so never, you're there, you're so close. One wrong step on that minefield, and now all of a sudden you're not getting a title fight, and you're going all the way to the back of the queue, and you know, you're back to 100 and 100. So it's very frustrating for someone like Brendan who wants to go up the rankings and beat everyone and fight. And I think he is a fighting guy, so to speak.

I do think he wants to fight all these guys. And I think a fight against Hamza would make sense. I think a fight against DDP would make sense. Let's go. Jai Herbert beat Mateus Camillo. Lupi Godinez. Won against Caitlin Sousa, a fight that Ketland's team was very vocal.

Alex Davis, a longtime MMA manager that she deserved to win. That was at a catchweight of 117 pounds. As I said, Andre Feeley knocked out Kai Kamaka. What about Otari Tanzilovi of Georgia? Marab, very, very happy that he defeated Malcolm Wellmaker. An unbelievable stretch here for Malcolm Wellmaker. It was almost exactly a year ago. He was in our studio, one of the hottest prospects in the sport.

And since then, he has lost three times. He was fighting on the MSG card. He was scheduled to fight Ethan Ewing. Actually, at the time, he wasn't scheduled to fight Ethan Ewing. He jumped in like a day or so later, but there was so much going on for him. And now all of a sudden he's kind of stuck in this rut, and I feel for him. Great story, just an easy guy to root for. And, you know, it piles on.

Anyway, he went online afterwards and spoke a bit about what he's been dealing with. Here's what he had to say. What's going on guys? I am back in Florida and I wanted to make a quick video to give an update to all my family, friends, and supporters out there. First and foremost, I'm healthy, no major injuries. So that's the biggest blessing so far. As far as fight night goes, I had a game plan and I was working it and I felt like it was working well. We wanted to focus on the body, try to stay inside the kicking range because obviously he's a dangerous kicker and really abused the pace and volume.

And yeah, man, it was going good until it wasn't. And I got caught and hats off to Otari because he's a great striker and we all knew how dangerous he was. As far as like my camp and preparation, man, I gave everything I had to it. You know, I moved my whole family to Florida to prepare for this one. I showed up to every training session I could and gave 110% and I improved. And I feel like some of those improvements showed during the fight. And obviously I still have a ton of room for improvement. You know, I've only been at ATT for a few months.

I didn't even start fighting or training at all until the age of 23. As far as what's next for me, to be honest, I don't know yet. But as long as the possibility of me providing for my family with fighting is there, I'm going to pursue it. And I feel like I've built a positive platform and had a positive impact. And I want to continue to use it as long as I can. So I'm going to take the next two weeks to go back home to August. Georgia hang out with all my family and friends that I've been missing while I've been

out here in Florida and then after those two weeks are up I plan on coming back getting right back in the gym getting right back in the training making improvements and went on a phone call for my manager to see what's next but as always it is an absolute blessing to be in the position that I'm in coming from where I came from because I never saw this in the cars for me so whether I'm winning or losing knocking people out or getting knocked out it doesn't matter I'm happy, I'm going to be okay and I got faith that God is the absolute best of planners

so until next time thank y'all very much and I love y'all. How can you not root for that guy? How can you not want to see him succeed and wish him the best? A great perspective there, you know, respect him for showing up and talking about him,

talking about it all and most certainly hope that he can turn things around and get back on track because that guy is still there. That fighter, that those skills that we saw about a year ago, still there, but he has hit a bit of a rough patch, and he's certainly not the first. Gerald Mirchart retired after 60 fights. He retired on Saturday after his second round loss to Julius Walker. Shout out to GM3. Also, earlier in the night, Nico Price seemingly retired for the second time. He retired, and then he came back and beat

Leon Shabazi in this time, and it was great to see his family in the cage, and It was the type of send-off that I think was more, you know, befitting of the type of fighter and career that he had. So shout out to him. We'll actually talk to him on Wednesday, and I'm looking forward to that. Francisco Prado beat Ismail Bonfim, who missed weight rather horribly. The fight was a catchweight, 163.5 pound catchweight fight. That is not good. Brensen Hibero beat Philipp Franco

The entire prelims Other than the first fight Which was a win for Melissa Gato Won via stoppage Every single fight Alan Frye Alis Pereira What a freaking cut that was

I noted on Twitter I was watching that fight with my kids And then all of a sudden Darya's head just complete I mean the gash was gnarly The elbows there were vicious. It was most certainly the right call. And they said to me, why do you watch this?

What is this? Incredible stuff from Elise, who is still so very young, I believe 21. Here's her reaction to winning the 100K bonus. Look at her. Look how happy she is. There it is. When you're that young, 100K goes a long way. I mean, it goes a long way regardless, let's be honest.

But great stuff there. Overall, I thought a relatively entertaining card, especially with all the stoppages. Actually, our good friend, duty of she loves the gloves fame, but also the uncrown newsletter, she actually had a breakdown of some of the stats, which I thought were interesting from today's newsletter. she said that UFC Apex 122 saw 75% of its bouts end in a finish

later Where is this Where is this? 75% of the protection pals Is this where we're going? No, I skip that part. Okay, here's a wild stat. Yes, I know she was hitting you guys

below the belt there. Oh, that's okay, man. I mean, screen grab and all. Receipts and all. I guess because we We picked against her fellow Georgian. Oh. Yeah, you picked Wellmaker, of course.

I thought maybe she was just upset because she tailed you guys. She trusted you guys. I get the fog out of you. If you were dumb enough to tail the prediction pals, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. Currently for those wondering, you know, you're sitting at minus 153. Well, minus 253 now. Oh, this is before.

Yeah. Damn. It's all right. Sorry, sorry. Sorry. I thought it was an updated graphic. I apologize. Anyway,

okay, wild stat she hit us with. The UFC is tracking toward having just 13 undisputed championship fights in 2026, marking the lowest total in 14 years. Okay, so by the end of the year, there's going to be 17 championship fights, 11 of which will be for undisputed titles, two for vacant titles,

two for interim titles, and two for the BMF belt. The previous lowest number of undisputed title fights in a calendar year was 11 back in 2012. That's not great. Now, is this a byproduct of the new normal where you don't have to load the deck? There's no pay-per-view. There's not much pressure on them to try to, you know, just got to keep the wheels moving. Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming. Just keep churning out the content. Or is it a cyclical thing where fighters aren't as active or, you know, it's just a bad stretch and it's hard to make fights? I guess we'll find out. I don't know. I feel like it's cyclical, right? It's definitely cyclical. I don't think we'll get as many vacant and interim or BMF in the future.

100%. It's got that down to half and it's 15 or 16. For sure. But I will also say in like three or four years, it's a little too early to. know, but there's a very good chance of three or four years to be like, yeah, like this did change the way the whole business was run, meaning the abolishment of pay-per-view.

Yeah, I think that's bound to happen. The early signs aren't great in that regard. Even like the marketing and all that, we've talked about this, right? Like, there just isn't that onus to go out there and market like they did, do the video shoots and all that stuff, the promos. But it does feel like there will,

if it's all bought and paid for, the product is going to suffer. There'll be less pressure to put on, you know, loaded cards. UFC 334 is coming up. That's at Madison Square Garden, November 14th. Poster is out. And news flash, breaking news, I love the poster. I'd be lying if I said I remembered what the last MSG poster looked like or the one before that.

But I love the fact that the most famous ceiling in all of sports is featured prominently. You look at that and you think, Yeah, this is a big deal. The ceiling actually makes the poster and the fight feel bigger. Agree or disagree? The hell of a ceiling, man. It's one of the all-time great ceilings. It's missing one thing.

A banner. He nailed it. Eight days, baby. Banners. But don't you guys agree? I actually think this is one of their better offerings. I can report last year, 322. Sealing?

No ceiling. Come on. Telling you. Credit where it's due. 309, Steep A Jones? No ceiling. No ceiling. Is this the first one to feature a ceiling?

205 didn't have the ceiling. That's on 295. No ceiling. No ceiling on 295 either. It was before that. It felt old school Ali Frazier-esque. 282? Was that the last one?

No, 281. No ceiling. No ceiling there. It's a big deal. 268? Yeah, wow. The ceiling's a number. new thing. I wonder if it's because of the next one.

It's iconic. It has elevated everything. It's elevated the card. It's elevated the stakes. Does it not feel bigger just seeing that ceiling? You know what the ceiling is, right? No, what's the ceiling? The MSG's ceiling. Oh, that's Madison Square Garden? Actually, you can make a case of the two most famous ceilings in all of

sports, MSG, MSG Theater. With the lights? Anyway, I'm told Andre Fili is back? Is he actually back? Third appearance today. We did three in the last 10 years and we did three today. We're making up for lost time. But now the Wi-Fi is awful. Are you home?

Am I glitchy? Yeah. Are my own? I know. Can you guys hear me or is it still glitchy? It's a little choppy. Oh. Let me see.

Man, this is going to be your last appearance because we've just annoyed you immensely today. Yeah, I think this is actually, this one's actually on me. But, I mean, we did three in 10 years and we've, we did three just today. So that's got to count for something, dude. I'd like to think, though. Who'd it's up? What's thought?

So here's this end. It's getting better. Yeah, we've been dealing with technical difficulties. And now we're in a place where we can finally have a conversation, right? Is my one and a half year wakes up from his nap and starts screaming. So I'm ready for that. Okay, okay. Are you near him?

I'm in the next room. So we'll see how this goes. But whatever, we're doing it. No one can say we didn't do it. I appreciate the effort. You seem to love fatherhood. Why do you like it so much? I think the best thing about fatherhood for me has been like I get to,

I didn't exactly have like a sunshine and rainbows childhood. So I get to do fatherhood. The fatherhood lets me do childhood again. But now from, you know, from the father point of from the father perspective. I get to some breaks and generational curses and it's the best feeling in the world

it's the best job in the world I thought fighting was the best job in the world but being a dad is even cooler and it's my favorite thing I've ever done then yeah considering that history were you worried about being a father were you worried about the kind of father you would be because of that you know that generational history no

no I was just excited to be honest I don't know man it's like I wasn't worried. I just, I know it's actually similar to fighting, you know? It's like, I just want to do a good job. I'm not scared about, like, what could happen. I'm not scared of my opponent.

I just want to go perform the way that I know I can perform. And it was similar with fighting, you know, I just want, I know that the stakes are high, but I trust myself and I just want to do a good job. But honestly, man, the fighting, the fatherhood stuff is like, it comes pretty natural. It's like, I remember being in high school and people, the thing that adults around you would always say when you're in high school, when you're in middle school, when you're a kid getting

in trouble is, oh, well, wait to you get to the real world, wait to get to the real world, wait to the real world. And then you graduate high school and you get out in the real world and you start working and training and trying to be a professional fighter. And you're like, this is the same shit I've been dealing with my whole life. Like, I've been in the real world. It's just now, now I'm not like beholden to the whims of the psychopass that we're in charge in my life because I'm going to.

adult now, you know? It's like the whole like welcome to the real world thing. That's how I feel about people when they used to say like, oh, wait till you're a parent, wait till you're a parent, wait till you're a parent. And like now I'm a parent and not, I mean, it's difficult, but it's not that it's it's hard, but it's pretty simple. Love them, take care of them, be nice to them, you know, hold boundaries for them. It's not that complicated. You just, be a good person and and give them as much love as possible and I don't know man I don't know everybody everybody makes it out to be some crazy thing it's not that crazy um anybody listening any like millennials or gen z kids listening don't let anybody tell you don't let our generation tell you that

being a parent is like going to get in the way of whatever else you're doing it's the coolest thing ever and it's hard but it's pretty simple you just love them as much as possible and everything else kind of works itself out. I appreciate that perspective and agree with it as well. I also think when people say it's going to get in the way of what I'm trying to do as far as my career is concerned, I have always felt that it has made me better as far as my career is concerned. It's given me balance and perspective, motivation. And I heard you on Saturday say that like sometimes you didn't allow yourself to enjoy these moments. Do you feel like being a dad has allowed you to enjoy your career more and have more of that balance? Yeah, I think it's just given me a

perspective, it helps me fixate less because for a long time being a fighter was my whole identity or was it was the, you know, the major part of my identity. And so you fixate on how your career is going. You fixate on how much time you have. You fixate on each individual practice or this one thing you keep fucking up or this one round that didn't go your way. And now, in a weird way, I'm a much better fighter because fighting isn't the only thing that I used to define myself. You know, it's like not the most important thing in my life. And to some people listening, they might think that makes me less invested, but or or less dangerous because I have a nice, I have a beautiful family to come home to in a nice house. and that's something I never had.

That's something a lot of fighters didn't have. But I actually feel more dangerous because fighting is my job now. It's how I provide and I facilitate being the best father I can be. So I'm willing to die for this. I mean, I was always willing to die for this. But now it's like I will do anything to provide the best life that I can for my family. And I go to work. I am the absolute best fighter I can be.

and then when I leave the gym, I have like a 20 minutes of, you know, just being, just being me. And then I'm back on the clock when I walk in the door being the best father that I can be. And it's like it's like it's not about me anymore, you know, that's really liberating. It's not about me anymore. And I love it. I love that feeling. I love the feeling of doing it for something bigger than myself. I also notice you were speaking a lot about religion and God.

That seems to be relatively new. How does that happen? How did you develop this newfound faith? It's very new. I became, I wasn't raised with religion. I wasn't raised with spirituality. It's just not something that came up in our household growing up, you know, good or bad. There was never, this wasn't something.

We didn't go to church. We didn't talk about it. It just wasn't a factor in our lives, you know. And then when my wife was delivering our son was giving birth to our son, things got really, things got really scary, really fast in the delivery. And for the first time of my entire life, I prayed. Like really prayed. I actually prayed a lot throughout my life.

But it was always sort of like I was hedging my bet. you know, it was like if someone had walked in while I was praying, I would have been like a little embarrassed. Like, you know, I'm just, it was like I was covered my, it was like I was covering my ass, you know, like just in case. That's not how I prayed in the hospital when my, when my wife was rushed into emergency delivery. I prayed for the first time of my life completely unironically. It was not tongue in cheek. It was not just in case I was, I prayed with my entire heart and soul to get them. through that experience safely so that my son and my wife would be healthy. And I got exactly what I asked for.

And as far as I'm concerned, from that moment on, I'm a Christian, you know. And I'm not here to lecture anybody. I don't have the answers. I don't, I'm new to this. I'm still learning. But I'm a Christian. And it's for the first time of my life. I'll say unequivocally, like, everything I have is a gift from God.

I'm trying to be worthy of these blessings every day. I fall short a lot, but I'm trying really hard. First of all, I'm very happy to hear that she's okay and that, you know, there are no, I'm assuming no issues anymore. Like, that was no, they're great. No, it was like, it got really scary for like a 20-minute window. Oh, wow. It was great again. Yeah.

Okay. Thank God for that. What does that mean as far as, like, religion is a part of your life? Like, what does that mean now? You pray every day. Yeah, I mean, I don't. It means that I, it means that I, it's reframed my entire life in that I recognize that it's not about me. Everything I do, like I feel like a middleman almost.

All the strength and speed and confidence and instincts that I have that allow me to get a finish like I did on Saturday. those are all just gifts from God. And the results of those gifts, like I get to make good money and provide for my family, that's all about my son. And so I'm almost like a middleman. It's not about me. You know, it's not, it's not a selfish thing anymore. Fighting is a really selfish sport.

And for me, it's just, it's not that anymore. I want to set an example for my son. I want to honor God with the way they carry myself. my thoughts, my words, my actions. I still don't really go to church. I don't have a lot of answers. If you quiz me about the Bible, I'd be able to maybe answer five out of ten questions

just from studying and my own personal interest. But I'm not an expert. I'm not pretending to be some like enlightened figure. You know, like I just have built a relationship with God and I give the glory to Jesus. And I understand why a lot of people would roll their eyes at that because that's who I was for a long time. But, you know, you just, I can only, I can only, I can only live my own subjective experience

and my prayers were answered. And for me, that's, that's enough. Like, I'm in. After the fight on Saturday, one of the first things you said that I alluded to earlier was, like, I don't want to talk about fighting for a week. Have you always been that way? Has that always been a different? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, Yeah, like I I love fighting fighting is my it's my favorite thing ever before being for being a dad fighting is there was nothing even close Yeah, but that's that's how it is you know like I I used to live with a I used to live with one of my best friends Anthony Avala he was a very good Pro fighter was very close to the UFC for a long time fought in Japan had a lot of local titles and um were my very best friends this day And we would we would fight on local cards We'd win our fights we were both racing to the the UFC, we were two 45ers, like I was 8 and 1, he was 8 and 1.

I go 9-1, he'd go 9-1. We fight on the same cards, and then we party for like a month straight because we live together. We just have like a couple hundred people in our house every weekend partying for a month straight and we get back to practice. You know, and as I've gotten older and more professional, that time frame has sort of shrunk down. I'm not partying for a month.

Now it's like I'm having a weekend of eating bad food and like watching cartoons and and reading comic books and getting tattooed. It's like the party has become more reason. and the time between has become more reasonable because I'm a professional and I get right back to training. But yeah, like, leave me the fuck alone, man. Like, we don't have to. I just did, I just did UFC Unfiltered with Sarah and Norton. And I, we talked about comic books the entire time.

Like, we don't need to talk about fighting at all. This is why I love Jose Young so much. Like, I just spent two months being obsessed with fighting. We don't need to talk about fighting for the next week. Also, speaking of which, before we got interrupted, pro wrestling, you asked me about pro wrestling, before you forget, you were asking me if I'm a fan of wrestling. One of the biggest reasons I'm in the UFC now is because I believed with my whole heart until I was like 11 years old that I was going to be a WWF superstar. I believe that. My dad and my uncles are these big Simone dudes, so I thought, yeah, I'll be a 300-pound Simone dude and I'll wrestle in UFC.

I'll be the rock. Why wouldn't I be the next rock, you know, the rock? And then somewhere around like sixth grade I started doing like folk style wrestling like wrestling for my middle school. I realized that there were some things I was seen on TV that weren't adding up. And people had told me wrestling was fake for my whole life and I was always like, I don't want to hear that shit. I started wrestling in middle school realized that yeah, pro wrestling is not fake but is scripted. And then also realized that I'm a pretty regular size dude. I wasn't going to be a 300 pound someone dude.

So I pivoted to fist fighting. But I love wrestling. I love pro wrestling. I don't watch a lot of pro wrestling now, but I still love it. I'll watch dark side of the ring. Yeah. I watch people talk with my YouTube. I'll watch people talk about pro wrestling.

I'll throw on an old WrestleMania sometimes in the backyard and show my son. And after the UFC career, there's a good chance that I, I just have my 50th test, so nobody get mad at me. I've pissed clean 50 times for you, Sada, or drug-free sport, wherever. But when I'm done with my own-a career, I'm going to get on a healthy amount of steroids. I'm going to get big as fuck, and then you might see me in a pro wrestling ring. Okay. And some tights and some boots.

Hell yeah. You already got a great name. Touchy-feely. It's tremendous. Yeah, but don't you think we got to? I mean, thank you. I appreciate that. I feel like we got to switch it up.

I feel like for a pro wrestling name you need like. I think that people are already emotionally invested in that name and you, you have a leg up on the competition as opposed to someone coming in and we got to learn about you. We already know who you are. So to change it, be like, no, I've just been watching that guy for 20 years, do this other thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's valid. No, you're right. I think you're right.

But I actually do think, I'm going to say this because you're more in touch with pro wrestling than I am. There's something that I actually think the influence of MMA in pro wrestling style. has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, has, the undertaker was, like, doing the Gogolata and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think the more you try to make pro wrestling look like an MMA fight, like, actually the worst it is. Yeah.

Because, because, because you see the real thing and it doesn't make sense. Right. Right. Actually, to that point, by the way, it's a great point. Um, I actually think Ronda got off on the wrong foot because right off the bat, they had her do the arm bar. It makes sense, right? The arm bar is already established. It's over, as they say. Everyone knows Rhonda hits the arm bar and it's over, but they treated the arm bar in the world of pro wrestling as another pro wrestling move. So in her first match, she's going up against Stephanie McMahon, who's a

tremendous person, but she's a 40-something-year-old executive mom of three who's never competed before, and she had to hit her with the arm bar like four to five times before she eventually succumb. And we had just seen Rhonda tap out some of the baddest women on the planet, like, That, like at a second. And now of a sudden you're treating it like as just another move in wrestling. And we were like, we know what it's like when someone hits the arm bar. And so when you pro wrestling a size, not a real word, but you get what I'm saying, the MMA moves, it diminishes and devalues all of it. Agreed.

100%. It's like I think it's like, I remember watching Jackie Chan movies and Bruce Lee movies with my dad when I was, you know, single digit age, seven, eight years old, six years old. and that's what I thought fighting looked like like that's what those guys thought they watched a kung fu movie the old generation would watch a kung fu movie and that's what they thought fighting looked like which never made sense

to me looking back because it's like even yeah in the 70s you had Bruce Lee movies where but you also had Sugar Ray Leonard like you knew what fighting really looked like right but you could kind of like suspend disbelief that Jackie Chan could do

could actually do some of these things you know and it's like now you know what mama looks like you know what a fist fight looks like between two of the best fighters in the world so when you go back and watch a jacky chan movie or a bruce lee movie or any of these or a chuck norse movie you watch it and you you don't watch it for the realism you know what i mean like you don't if you if you if you put those two things next to each other it would ruin the kung fu movie for you you just enjoy the brusley movie for a brusley movie and that's kind of how i look when i watch poor wrestling i don't need you to try to make it look like an fight because it's not.

Right. If you've ever watched any number, if you've ever watched any amount of MMA, you know how, how, you know, it's just a, it's a visceral thing when you watch a real fight. And I think it does a disservice to the, not to be all whatever about it, but it does a disservice to both crafts when you try to make them the same thing. It's just, it's just not. Your left arm, it's all like inked out there. Why?

Black down. Yeah. Yeah. I had a bunch of negative shit. I had a bunch of negative stuff on there that I didn't want my son to see. Damn, that thing looks good. Yeah.

Shout out to Hood in Philly and shout out to Walker X in San Diego. Best guys in the country to do blackout. I actually go Thursday to finish the rest of the whole arm will be blacked out. Oh my gosh. I'm going to do part of my leg too. Yeah, it's going to look great.

It's a fresh start. I started this arm blacking it out because I had a bunch of negative stuff on there. And I had a son and I just didn't want to have to explain to him why I had those things tattooed. You know, I didn't want to have to have that conversation. I don't want him to think. So, you know, it's part of breaking generational curses is that, which is what I'm doing. You know, I take that very serious.

It's a sacred responsibility. And you got to get out of your own way and you've got to take a look at yourself. You know, there's things, motorcycles and tattoo. tattoos and fist fighting and and and and hip hop and punk and all these things that I love you know my my son already loves all those things like but he doesn't need the baggage that comes with that you know he doesn't need um he doesn't need to see his dad like celebrate dysfunction and that's that's something that I did for a long time um this whole left sleeve was was uh some pretty gnarly shit you know and I don't want to explain that to him will you put new stuff on there or you just going to leave

it black there's some guys doing some really cool stuff. They're like guys doing white outlines and stuff. But to be honest, I think I think I'm going to leave it black. It's a fresh start. I like how smooth it looks. I like that there's not a bunch of negative shit, you know. I had a fight at Tachi Palace.

Shout out for the OGs that know about Tachi Palace. I fought at Tachi Palace before I was in the UFC. I had a fight where I didn't realize it at the time, but my orbiter was fractured. My eye was swollen shut for two weeks. I took pictures. My tattoo artist at the time took pictures of me with my face all busted up, photoshopped those over Emmett Kelly, this old hobo clown. And then he drew up a design with a clown with my face all busted up on a clown with a noose around his neck.

And so, you know, these are the kinds of things I got tattooed on me when I was 21 years old. and I don't want to explain that type of shit to my son, you know. How do you even get to that point, by the way? Like, how do you even come up with the idea as a 21-year-old of the busted-up face on the clown with the news? A lot of this thing that we do is a lot of MMA for me at that age was as much about self-improvement as self-destruction. I really did not like myself for a large part of my. you know, adolescence and, you know, some of these tattoos are a roadmap of that. And, you know, thankfully I found a way to get a fresh start. And I just, I came up with that idea because I was

dealing with a lot of self-loading. And actually what inspired that specific tattoo was a poem by Joe Benavita's called The Entertainer. It's a beautiful poem. You guys should go, go read that if you haven't read it. Joe Benevede has wrote a poem called The Entertainer, and it sums up what it's like to be a fighter. And that was part of the inspiration for that tattoo. I got arrested when I was 19 for a fight. Some kids snitched on me.

I got a felony battery charge. And so then I got out of jail and got a big snake eating a rat. Oh, my. Those are the kinds of things I was doing when I was 19 or 20, which is funny as a well-adjusted, like 36-year-old looking at it. It's like, I wouldn't. to jail, some kids snitched on me, and then I went and got a rat getting eaten by a snake. Like, yeah, you know, that'll, that'll show them, you know, that'll show everybody that you're not,

you know, it's like, that's exactly what a fucking criminal will do. So, yeah, you just live and you learn, you know, and thankfully I found a way to cover this stuff up. And actually, what's cool is I started blacking out this whole arm. And then I started doing research. And I found out there as a practice, ancient Hawaiian warriors, you used. to black out half their body with tattoos as a sign

of strength and intimidation. And it's actually a practice in Polynesian tattooing culture. And so that was huge for me because I'm Hawaiian Samoan. And that made me actually really happy, even happy with my decision.

And so I'm actually going to be blacking out this whole left arm and a good portion of my left leg as well. So very, yeah, I'm very happy. Yeah, it feels good to just have a fresh start, you know. You made a point to talk about the Polynesian influence on the sport of M. Yeah.

I'm just wondering what compelled you in that moment to, like, you get this great knockout, this great win, you're riding high, and you have this message, which, by the way, you're 100% right. Polynesian fighters have been ruling the UFC since long before this was quote unquote mainstream. Obviously, the greatest of all time, in my opinion, is BJ Penn, but there have been so many. What is my favorite fighter BJ Nick Diaz tied for a favorite fighter ever for me So yeah agreed What made you in that moment

Feel like you should do that Well I'm Hawaiian Samoan And I just got a big knockout Against a tough Hawaiian kid And I just felt like It should be acknowledged Because I don't see people talking about it enough Yeah BJ Penn's one of the greatest fighters

Ever in my opinion Max Holloway is another incredible part. Like I'm an amazing fighter. You can go down the list. Robert Whitaker. You know, Carlos Oldberg is a world champion right now. You know, we just don't see, we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't hear enough about, about Polynesian, about, about, about Polynesian fighters, in my opinion.

You know, when you have, when you have, uh, I, like, For example, when you see the guys on Khabib's team winning, the fact their Dagestani is mentioned a lot. And it should be. Those guys are, and I'm a big fan with those guys do. They're, you know, incredible fighters. Their team record is like unreal. You know, Khabi's father is obviously a legendary coach and their style is legendary. But them being Dagestani is a huge part of the story, it seems to be, right?

When Max Holloway breaks records, when Carlos Olberg gets a. knockout with one leg when I get maybe a fight of the a knockout of the year contender head kick knockout. Like those aren't things that, you know, we don't talk about us being Polynesian. And that's okay. There's no problem. Like it doesn't need to be like, we live in a time that's super politicized and there's always like some agenda.

It doesn't need to be some big thing. I just felt like it was worth mentioning. You know, I felt like it was worth acknowledging. The Polynesians have been in this sport, you know, as contenders and as champions since the beginning, man. I couldn't agree more. Actually, I was lucky enough to go with my family in August to Hawaii, take my kids in for the first time. It was an unbelievable trip. We went to Maui and Kauai.

Beautiful. Man, the people there were just like the soul, the spirit. And then the MMA fans. I was blown away by everywhere how many MMA fans there were. They got to figure it out at some point. Is that on the checklist for you at some point to fight in Hawaii as a member of the UFC? That would be really cool, man. I would love to fight in Hawaii.

I don't know if it'll happen. My dad's from the west side. He's from Wai on Oahu, and it would be really cool to be able to fight out there and have all my extended family, my dad's side of the family, my grandmother's mom's side of the family, come visit and come watch the fight and be able to fight in front of them. And that would be incredible. You know, I hope the UFC does that. If they don't, I'll just keep winning fights here in Vegas and take my family to Hawaii to visit with the money we make on these knockout bonuses.

So, but I would like to see the UFC go to Hawaii. I know that would be huge. I think Hawaii has produced Hawaii and Samoa and just, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the Maori guys from, from Australia, New Zealand. Just Polynesian fighters have produced so many incredible moments in the UFC. I think it would be cool. I think it would be cool to have some events in Hawaii. In a moment, and you can still see me? You were getting choppy there.

Can you see me? Uh-oh. Do we lose them? Yes, we still. Oh, you were going perfect. Not for the fourth time. No, no, no. You're frozen.

Okay. Wait, maybe you're back now? Yeah, yeah. Okay, you're back. You're back. I've been thinking... By back. Can you hear me?

I can hear you. You're stuck with me this time. I'm not going anywhere. We're not doing four today. Okay. I've been thinking a lot about what you said at the beginning of the interview, and I do genuinely feel bad if you felt some sort of way about me and my place. But that's just me.

So that's how I internalize things. While we were finding, reconnecting with you, I went back to our last text exchange. and I'm not trying to make a text exchange public, but it was we spoke about something that we spoke about on the show. It reminded me, the last thing we talked about was about gratitude and anxiety.

And I was telling you about how, you know, I enjoyed the conversation. And you told me, hey, I've been thinking a lot about gratitude and anxiety at our conversation. I'm going to, it's too long to type, I'm going to send you a log voice note and you listen to it when you can.

You never sent me that voice note, Andre. And that has like to do with you not being here. That's only for me... We've just been standing each other up. Look at us. No, no, no. Because we've de-ended stuff later.

But the point is, the only reason I bring that up is to ask you and acknowledge, A, it seems like the gratitude part is doing well because you just talked about your son and your wife surviving a scary situation and your career and moving to Vegas and all that. How's the anxiety doing? Yeah, the more grateful I am, the more I just look around. how blessed I am and say thank you, the more the anxiety stays in check, the more the depression stays in check. You know, it's funny, actually, I had this conversation with my ornament, Danny Castillo,

who is a pretty devout Catholic. And I told him, I saw this interview recently about, it was, I think she was an orthodox, I'm not sure, but she gave this message in this Instagram, you saw on it. It fucking stuck with me, man. She basically said stop being such a pussy. Like, she didn't say those words because she's a nun, but her message was essentially that we should stop trying to mitigate our suffering. We should stop trying to mitigate our suffering and just focus on managing our suffering.

When we go into situations trying to figure out how we can suffer as little as possible, you know, our cowardice makes us end up suffering more. If we can just focus on how well we can carry whatever burden we're going to carry, It's going to hurt however much it's going to hurt. It's going to, you're going to suffer. But if you can focus all your energy on how well you can carry the burden, how gracefully you can you can suffer, you will, things will go better.

And so I carried that into everything. I was working with Gavin, Gavin Pratt. I carried that nun's message into everything I did this fight camp. And for example, I was working with Gavin Pratt at the UFC. CPI, his incredible strength, good esteemed coach. And he had me doing these just fucking miserable, like, halacious conditioning sessions. Like, your head feels like it's going to fucking explode,

and your lungs are pumping fire, and your arms feel like each arm in leg feels like it's 100 pounds, and you just want it off this aerodyne bike, this assault bike. And in those moments of wanting to fall over, instead of, you know, asking God for strength or asking for anything or thinking about how I could make this easier or I just stopped and said thank you. Like in moments where I wanted to throw up, I just said, I just said, thank you, God. Thank you for my suffering. Thank you for a body that allows me to push as hard as I can. Thank you for allowing me to show you the strength of your

creation. Thank you for a world-class strength conditioning coach, a multimillion dollar facility to to prepare and thank you for for the meal I'm going to eat when I'm done with this with my family that I love like thank you for my suffering and thank you for my ability to endure it thank you more please thank you and not only did I not only did I actually be like a physiological response to that like my conditioning got better and it was it was more in I could endure more in those sessions, it just gave me a sense of peace. It's like I'm not going to try to mitigate my suffering. I'm not going to try to find a way to juk the stats. I'm not going to find a way to edge out the suffering and figure out a way around it and circumnavigate the shittiest part.

I'm going to go right through it. I'm going to, I'm going to manage it as well as I can. And if that's my focus and I just keep giving gratitude, there's not really much to stress about. There's not really much to have anxiety about because I know I can endure it. And if I can endure it well, it's even better. That is beautiful, man. That's maturation and evolution. I'm very, very happy for you. I'm happy with where you're at in your life and your career.

I'm not going to ask you a single question about the fight, even though it was amazing and you deserve to be asked a lot of questions about a beautiful piece of work. It hit me with one. You can hit me with one question. Okay, fair, fair. You can do with one question. What's the number one question about the fight? Well, the number one thing to me may not be, if I can, it's just like, how do you stop yourself in that moment from throwing those extra punches?

I know you say, like, in the aftermath, that's a, that's a brother, that's a father, but like, that is so hard. Like that looks. You know, look at that. Like, if I would have told someone who didn't see the fight and guess what, he didn't throw the punch, they would never believe me. Like, you're all the way cocked back. How do you stop yourself? Yeah. Two things. One, it wasn't necessary and that man's doing his job the way I'm doing my job. And I want him to enjoy as much of his life with his kids and his family after he's done fighting as he can. I don't need to take years off his life, which that punch would have done. And number two, I wanted Dan Yeag to feel really bad. Gotcha. I wanted Dan Yegay to feel really guilty. And tell me why?

Or tell us why? Because that's that's Dan Iga. Oh, sorry. Context. That's Dan Ige's email and close friend. And when Dan Ike knocked me out, he followed up with an extra shot. So in a way, it was two big wins for me. I got to make Dan Iie feel guilty.

And I got to have a picture like that where I can say, I showed mercy. Respect. Do you think he feels guilty? Dan I got me. Oh, big time. And he should. That's what you get, Dan, I get. Are you friends with Dan?

I love Dan. I love Dan. Dan is an incredible human being. I still wish he wouldn't have fucking hit me so hard. But Dan is an incredible human being, an incredible fighter, a great father. And he's become a guy that's a good friend of mine. It's weird. Fighting gives you these friendships, right?

Me and Dan don't hang out every day. We're not friends in that regard. We both have our families and our careers and stuff. But Dan's a guy that, like, I've had some real, you know, deep conversations with. If he called me to help, I'd be there. And vice versa if I called him for something. And, you know, there's a lot of guys like that. You know, like, there's guys like Coding No Love and Josh Emmett.

And there's friends that you make in fighting that are sort of your brothers in arms. We're all on the same journey. And you might not hang out every day, but, you know, you know they have your back. their back and it's a special sort of bond you share with the guys who know what it's like to be on that octagon and um you know dan's now one of those guys for me um great dude um great father great human being and um i hope he feels terrible about fucking hitting me with that second shock but because i because i'm showing so much grace i was so merciful okay now i can kind of walk around now i can be a sanctimonious prick to him for like a week okay

Fair enough. As friends do. As friends do. Of course. Of course. Well, I think you proved your point. And I hope, by the way, that your next one is out of the apex. I think you've, you've been there enough.

No. You want the apex? Nope. Well, you're fucking, you, you, I'm just let me say this real quick. I know you guys got to get out here. You and everyone else are so wrong about the apex. Which apex are we talking about? The new apex or the old apex?

Both, but a specific. especially the new one. Okay. Why am I wrong? But you guys, look, I want you guys to keep shooting on the apex so that people keep buying into that narrative

so that more people don't want to fight on the apex so that I can keep fighting at the apex. I will fight at the apex for the rest of my career with a big smile. I'm the apex predator, baby. I'm the king of the apex. That's home field for me. That's, it's beautiful.

As a fighter, fighting at the apex is like, there is so much, unnecessary shit that we have to do for a fight week in a big arena in a city you're not from there is so much dumb shit that no one actually cares about that you have to do on fight week just to get in the cage and then fight in an arena show in an apex show we forego almost all of that we get way more time to rehydrate because there's the ceremonial way in is non-existent the press that we do for the for the the you know the Wednesday media for apex show is generally way more chill um it doesn't get as much coverage that's valid um but as a fighter I get to sleep in my own bed all fight week I get to be left alone to focus on a fight I don't have to do all this gimmicky bullshit um and then I get to go into this really cool intimate unique setting that no

their sports league has. You can't go watch the Raiders play with a thousand people and no one else in a private setting. You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't go watch the Yankees or any other pro team play with a thousand people. You know, great, there isn't a bad seat in the house and it's this really cool, intimate special thing. Yeah, I don't, the, the apex hate is so forced, man. And I hope you guys keep doing it so that people keep buying into it. So they keep wanting on the big Madison Square Garden shows and all the other things. And I'll stay at my ass here. I'll fight in Nevada.

I won't pay any state taxes. I'll sleep in my own bed. I'll fight week. I'll wake up, fight day, and have breakfast with my wife and my son. I'll go beat the fuck out of somebody. And I'll come home and I'll be watching the post show for the event I just fought on, eating a big old burger from in and out in mind where on the couch. Shout out to the apex.

Y'all are wrong, but I love you anyways. Okay, so I appreciate and acknowledge everything that you say. So there's my acknowledgement. and I would never argue against the fighter's experience. I'm not a fighter. So the vast majority of the things that you said are from the fighters' experience, your POV. Yeah, for sure.

And I will also acknowledge that the new apex, the renovations have made it infinitely better. But if we want the sport to never grow and to not be true prize fighting and to not be the spectacle that say pro wrestling is, then, yeah, let's keep everything at the apex. If we want it to feel big and important and like those other sports league that you talked about, I think we need to go to Madison Square Garden and T-Mobile and some of the big arenas in the world. And so I get why it's comfortable and why it's convenient for you. But from the fan, the consumer perspective, the media perspective, it's just not the same product. It's just not as exciting and as big. It doesn't feel big.

You didn't fall in love with MMA because you watched shows at the apex. You fell in love with the, I would imagine, the magistrate and the beauty of MMA because there were big events with people going crazy and fans. You know, I know there's smaller shows and stuff like that. but like it's just, it's just not what the major leagues of MMA should look like. And you guys, I think deserve that. But I totally get the convenience and the, you know, the way it makes your life so much easier. I get that and I sympathize with that greatly.

But I'm talking about from like the consumer perspective. Yeah. I understand. I understand somewhat. And it's not forced, by the way, because I got to sit there and watch it every single week. And it's, uh, it drains the love of the sport out of my body. So what's forced about that? I don't.

I just don't. I don't see it, man. And like this, I, okay, I will concede. I understand the big spectrum. So, so what's the polar opposite of the APEC show? We'll say, like the White House show. Like that was in Congress. MSG.

That MSG. MSG. MSG, but I would say that White House card was like one of the great sporting events. 100%. But there wasn't like a huge 20,000 seat, you know, stadium there. So I'm talking about like energy and. Okay. And people are going crazy.

Right. But to me, to me, part of what why I fell in love with fighting is because I love fighting. I love fist fighting. Before I was fighting in the UFC, I was fighting at Indian casinos for, you know, 500 bucks. Before I was fighting at Indian casinos for 500 bucks,

I was fighting at the baseball field behind school with all my friends and all this guy's friends and everybody's circling around, like in parking lots and like I love fighting. And so to me, there's a uniqueness about the apex where it's like, yeah, there's a thousand, And what's best with the renovation is a thousand people going crazy.

That place went insane when I got that knockout. But it's also intimate and special and no other sport has that. And it's like, dude, if you don't get excited watching like a private, like watching two of the best fighters in the world fight and it's private. And you get to just like focus on that. I love fighting. So that's what's cool. When I watch an APEC show, when I watch an APEC show, it doesn't get me less excited than a matter. Destin Square Garden Show because I'm not excited about watching people in the stands scream.

No, but the energy is- Yeah, but to me the energy is from the dudes beating each other's ass in the middle of the- Pages like the package. Obviously, I'm not sitting there just watching the people, but the package, like those shows that they have in Paris and stuff, like the fans are going deep shit. It just feels bigger. I don't know, it's infectious. I fought, I fought in some big shows. I fought in Maraconda Zino, I fought in Rio.

twice with 30,000 people screaming, oh, buy more hair, you're going to die. Like, I felt that, and that is really cool. But, man, there's something really that I really love about the apex. And I can, but I do see your point. I see about the growth of the sport, and that's all good. And so I will concede that you have a point, but I will also say, you guys can keep that.

Okay. I will fight in the arena if I'm asked to fight in the arena. If I'm asked to fight an apex, I'm going to keep on fighting the apex, because I fucking love it and I think it's a really cool thing that sets us apart. All right, fair enough. I'm not trying to be a hater on it.

I just, I see your point. Here I am, try to wish good things upon you. Hey, I hope you grow up and you're like, you know what, fuck your good wishes.

I don't want to fight anywhere else. No, not, it's not, there was my olive brand. Yeah, it's just like, it's not, it's not,

it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not fuck your good, it's not fuck your good wishes. It's more like, thank you for giving me a gift I didn't ask.

for, I think what you should do is package it, is repackage it and then give that to someone who would use it because it will sit and collect dust. That gift you're trying to give me will sit in my closet of my guest room and collect dust. So give that to someone who wants it because we're doing good over here, player. We just cash three checks on Saturday. We're not paying any state taxes because we live in Nevada now. And life is good, man. I want to keep going to what I'm doing. I'm happy to hear that. And hopefully our next chat won't be in in two years' time, I will make sure of that. Yeah, we'll see.

We'll see. Thanks, Andre. I appreciate it. All right. Appreciate it. I appreciate it to you. There he is. Andre touchy-feely.

What a guy. And notice at the very end there, it was a very loose shocka. It was almost like that. Did you see that? That's how you know he knows ball. All right. Some news and notes here. Let's go through them.

That was a lot of fun. As I predicted, certainly not the direction I thought it was going to go, but that's the beauty of talking to someone like him. We were talking about Josh Hokka before we were reconnected. One last thing from Josh. Here's Josh posting something

on social media regarding Alex Pereira. My name Dum Dum, you bring me Gum Gum, LOL. I didn't realize that losing your aura affected your IQ. You aren't even BMF worthy. They prefer a little crotch stiffer over an oraless Sorceress. Hopefully

Sergei doesn't end you like he did, your Brazilian punching bag teammate. I think this is in reference to Alex posting on social media. How could the, there it is, why the women's fight not in the main event, okay, let me help promote this because no one is paying attention to it. There you go. So Alex, not a fan of the Amanda Nunes, Kayla Harrison fight being in the co-made event.

Alex, I love you. Shama, Potan, I fought this battle back in January and did not win. So it just is what it is. Kobe Covington was on our show on Wednesday, and you may recall him talking about John Jones. He had all sorts of things to say about the demon, quote unquote, his words, not mine. John Jones. John Jones shortly thereafter replied to Colby and had this to say on social media. Colby, I think your deep hatred is directed at the wrong black guy. It was Usman who broke your face, not me. It continues. It's funny that you blame Gable's loss on my negative

energy, quote unquote. Meanwhile, and I'm an undefeated fighter living the absolute American dream. Before he was caught, our guy had finished every opponent in the first round. Your logic doesn't make any sense. I also find a funny that you, of all people, are commenting on my supposedly negative energy. I travel the world alone and get mobbed by fans while you need full-time security in your own country. You come out once a quarter to do an interview about me and what a terrible person I am. Boy, you're obsessed with me. A blind man could see that.

We started off at the same dorm room, yet I've earned and achieved literally 10 times more than you have. I generally hope that one day you could start to feel better. It sucks to even have to address you again. It continues. Here's Kobe Covington, replying to John with a quote tweet and a tag. The things I say only bother you because they're true Johnny Bones. You're a narcissistic, abusive sociopath.

Your achievements inside the Octon don't make you a better person outside of it. Those same achievements definitely don't give you the right to abuse women either, John. At the end of the day, I feel bad for you. for Gable being in this situation. It's too bad. He can't take punches from heavyweights as well as your wife. Golly, I should have read this beforehand. If Gable really cares about advancing in his career, he should leave you and go train with a real man like Daniel Cormier. How about that? Here's Johnny replying. My boy, Colby, getting teabagued by a dude named Wachey. Why does Buckley catch a stray? He's fighting this weekend. And then released by the UFC

after his last fight. Thank you for your great service, Colby. I'm sure we'll all remember you. had 3,000 customers show up to my pizza shop, Graham opening so much for negative energy, Colby, clown emoji. It continues. Someone says you're 40 years old, holding grudges like a schoolgirl. Give it up, onk. Trust me, bud. I'm not the one holding the garage, aka grudge. I literally have zero reason to hate on anyone. God has been unimaginably good to me.

I just like reminding Colby that I'm not the man I used to be, and even at my weakest, I've always been better than him. I'm everything he could never be, and I know it kills him inside. You could see it in the passion he has when it comes to me. I just want to give him a little more to hate. That is all. And so there you have it. John and Colby, the beef that will never die,

we once thought the same about Ben Ascran and Jorge Mosvidal, but now here they are having breakfast with each other. Take a look at this. Have you ever watched Borat? You know what I was thinking of? People like, now that like, I mean the guy, it's like, you should show grace and humility. And you should like everyone?

except Colbert. And so here is Jorge Mosvedal and Ben Asperin having authentic Cuban food? This is amazing. This is from Jorge's YouTube channel. I believe that's Ben's daughter. And who would have ever thought? Who would have thought in the year 2019

these two would be actual pals? I know there's a documentary being filmed about Ben. I know Jorge is involved in that as well. It's a beautiful thing. It's a really beautiful thing. We await word on Carlos Prochess's next assignment. We assume it's going to be for the Walterway title. Maybe in January.

Anyway, here's Carlos Prochis talking about Islam Machaachev and actually showcasing a potential secret weapon as he prepares for the Walterway champion. Take a look. wrestling worst nightmares. He smokes American cigarettes. He drinks Irish whiskey. He breaks women's hearts, and he's coming to decrown the pound-for-pound king.

The wrestling's worst nightmare, I present to you. Real Rossian! Great Bert Watson impersonation there. That was Captain Eric Albara Seen, who's been in the game for so long. a great wrestling coach as well. It seems as though Mr. Carlos Pratchez is training with him. Obviously, Islam is a beast unto himself, but that is a good guy to have in your corner, and I hope we get to see that fight sooner rather than later.

Still no word on Michael Morales, although I suspect. What can I say? What can I say? I think we'll see him around the same time that title fight happens, and I do think that there is some credence to the Shavkat talks. Does that fight ultimately happen? I don't know. It's still unclear. But we got to see this guy fight.

I understand they want to keep him for maybe the winner, big fight, but he's got a fight. It's going to be almost a year since his last fight. Quill and Sal Kiel is someone that the UFC is very high on. And here he is. We were talking about this last week. Would he fight on that Australia card in February? Well, it seems like he will. He tweets reporting for duty.

hashtag Feb. Very curious to see who they line them up against. Definitely a future title contender, maybe even a future champion, although that is one of the best divisions of the UFC 155. It's a little bit in flux right now. He's like right, I think he's like one win away from being right there.

And he's a lot of fun and a lot of people are getting behind him. The newest women's flyway champion is Natalia Silva, and they threw a parade for her back home in Brazil. Look at this. Look at the sights and sounds. Reminiscent of June 2026 when the New York Knicks shut down New York City. It's like, here's my take on this.

I think people position this as a parade. I'm going to go ahead and say it wasn't a parade. I'm going to say they said, hey, jump in the car and let's celebrate. And so I feel like the way it was positioned was. unfair and Italia what's this? Nah man This is a

She's on the back of a of a truck with a This is organized Okay This is a video at it We just got a transition Yo, this is different This is from the municipal government

Yeah there's nobody on the streets Also she's wearing different clothes It's a different day Okay So the first one It doesn't look like anyone showed up Nobody showed up for either one bro No they had a car parade for this one

This was a car parade Just on the fire truck And you saw the cars behind People were in their offices Look at this. Look at that. The streets are flooded. There are no people.

Why did they do this? Why did they put the drone shot? That's a beautiful town, though. It is beautiful. This is incriminating. What is she saying here? What is happening? I don't speak Portuguese.

There's no people. There's no people? Streets are completely... Stop showing it. Stop. Those are just nine to five commuters, just making their way to work. They're like, can you hurry this up?

Lady on the fire truck? Can you hurry this up? I don't understand what did happen, though. Because I remember when Davis and Figuerado came back, and it was a similar thing, like he was on the truck, and it was just like... Was there more people there? Oh, there were tons of people. There literally wasn't a single person out there, yeah.

When Charles did it, I don't, I feel like the organization of this maybe just didn't go so hot. How many people live in? Ingoa. More than zero. Ingo de Guas. Is it possible the flyers were printed, but never, made the mailboxes? No, I got how many people live in India?

I don't think I spelled it right. Yeah, I don't know where we were, yeah, I don't know where that was that was crediting the municipal. Yeah. Anyway, Raoul Rosas was out with the UNLV football team. Take a look at Raoul. I could hear the Chiwiwiwiwiis coming out of his mouth.

That's a big-time coach, right? Yeah, Dan Mullen. Florida Gator. Oh, yeah. How are they doing? doing the running Rebs? I couldn't tell you, man. Let's see. I see you proudly rocking

the Big G there. Damn right. Packers, big win? Packers did have a big one yesterday. Shut down the... Who you guys beat? Bama? Bama, on the road, baby. New number one in town. Are they number one?

Yep. Texas law, so now we're number one. Wow, you're back in. Only back in. You know, V not doing bad. First in the Mountain West, four and two. Hell yeah. Big weekend for your Georgia Bulldogs. Congratulations.

Big weekend for Jalen Turner. He officiated a wedding. I think it was this weekend. Who else other than God, he says, would have known that a night almost four years ago after a UFC event in Salt Lake City would turn into this blessed moment. Justin and Rachel became a favorite couple of mine.

A couple of mine. Over the years, we've kept in contact. It felt like God kept bringing us together. I'm thankful for them and to see their faith growth. Their walk with the Lord continues. It was an absolute honor. What a blessing to be a part of their wedding in any way. Keep Jesus at the center of everything, Mr. and Mrs. Williams.

Here he is. Looks good there. What is that called? Was he an officiator? Efficient. Efficient? Are we, is your understanding of that that it was like a random encounter four years ago and then they just kept in touch and now he's officiating their wedding?

I mean, that's pretty cool. It's pretty amazing. I am getting some clarity here. Pingo da Gwa, if you're where Natalia Silva's from. And that's... 4,800 residents. Okay.

That's not many. 4,800 residents? That's what it says. Holy crap. More than the 12 cars we saw. Yeah. I mean, it looked really nice with the trees and everything.

Looks great. Yeah. Oh, wow. Who goes. Dimitri Bivel is back. He's defending his titles on December 12th. This is some news that broke this morning. They'll be fighting in

Russia, in Yekentereberg? I don't think I said that right. Anyway, he's fighting Kalm Smith, WBO, WBA, IBF, ring titles on the line? What's going on with those ring belts, huh? What's happening? Callum Smith, I'm trying to get this right. Don't want to screw it up.

The last fight was February of 2025 on the interim light heavyweight title for the WBO. So it's been a minute. I mean, by the time they fight, it'll be almost two years. actually. Juliana Pena, speaking of people returning, is going to be returning to R-A-F. Her first time competing with R-A-F, she's done some commentary work for them. But we haven't seen Julianna Pena in a minute.

We haven't seen her since June of 2025, when she lost to Kayla Harrison. She was championed at the time and dropped the belt to Kayla. So she's returning on that November 14th Abu Dhabi card for R-A-F. How about that? Speaking of R-A-F, they're coming to this part of the world, Long Island to be exact, the Nassau Coliseum to be exact. Not the UBS.

The poster says one thing, but the picture... Well, you alerted me. A proud Long Islander would only know this. What are we seeing here in the picture, Mr. Jordan? This is Queens. This is Long Island City. It could have shown the beautiful beaches. Greed?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, former home of four-time Stanley Cup champ winning Islanders. Yes. Yes. You could have shown Rick's house. Yes. You know what happened for?

We're not doing my house. They came to take the photo and they're like, where the beaches? It's three hours that way. They're like, fuck it. Just a check. No, but truly, this is not good. No, we got to do better than. You know, Frank didn't make a good point.

Only a Long Islander would be offended by this. Frank did make a good point. It was Queens and Queens is a part of Long Island. it actually checks out. It's not. It literally is the island. It is not. It is literally.

I think you guys are being elitist and a little bit too like, oh, you didn't get the turnpike. Just Googled Long Island. Yep. This picture comes up. This exact picture? Yeah, why would they have the sign as you enter? Yeah, I don't know. If you're not entering Long Island.

Yeah, what's the difference? For those that don't know, what's the difference between Long Island City and Long Island? Long Island City is a part of Queens. Long Island. And Long Island is a part of the island that is beyond Queens. What is Queens apart of? Yeah, yeah, yeah. New York City.

A borough of New York City. Yeah. Long Island, yeah. Do you guys remember NHL 94? Anyone old enough to play? Yeah, yeah, yeah. NHL is the best of the NHLs. It was the EA Sports NHL game.

The one where you can make them bleed, right? Not familiar. I'm not certain if that's the best one. Oh, it's 100%. It was made famous in swingers. Swingers. They played it all the time in Swingers. I mean, like, if you know ball, you know ball.

Anyway. So, stamped best best NHL game ever. Literally one of the best. It is honestly an iconic video game. What is the best NHL? You're saying this, like, I'm making it up. No, I was there.

I just don't think 94 is the best NHL game ever made. What is the best NHL video game ever? NHL 94. Oh, what is this? Google AI overview? I don't know what it is. Yeah, I don't know.

NHL HITzo 2 is steamrolling in 184. It's literally, Bleacher Report. NHL 94 is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. 2012 or something? 2018. Bleacher report is 8 years ago?

By the way, he's not even talking about greatest NHL games of all time. They're talking about greatest video games of all time.

NHL hits up too close. It's so ridiculous why I'm even bringing this up, but the only reason I'm bringing it up Yeah, why are you bringing it up? I'm so curious. Because they used to be

the New York Islanders, they would refer to them as the Long Island Islanders. And then when Wayne Gretzky had a hockey game on N64, they did the same thing. There is. There it is.

So when you would, as a kid, 94, I'm 12, you look through the teams, where are the islanders? And it's like Long Island. I'm like, what is Long Island? I didn't know what Long Island was as a kid growing up in Montreal in 1994, and then you come to realize, like, oh, they don't actually play in New York. This team is not cool. But the Jets and Lions don't play in New York either.

Every time I think of, no. But for some, why did the game have them listed as Long Island? With NHL rights as well. Yes. Yeah, that is weird. I got to think. You know what? I got to do a deep time.

You would have actually just been in a mistake. Why did NHL 94 refer to the Islanders? When we do this deep time, do we have to narrate every single thing being typed in? Or can we? Oh, EA Sports referred to the New York Islanders

as Long Island and NHLPA-93. The developer did not have the official NHL team name and logo license? What? But then they're the islanders. No? Maybe they just had them listed as

Long Island and didn't have their team name. Okay. The graphics were so bad. Bad? The graphics were pretty bad back then, you know. The only way you could score is a wraparound, if I'm correct. Oh, it was the best. It was the best. Is the only way you could score?

Far less. It wasn't the only way. It was like a glitch in the game that if you went around the net and did the wrap around, you always scored. If you were born between like 1976 and I'm going to say like 1987, you know about what I'm talking about. Frank Sinanu. He was fedded at the Harvard Business School. They were doing a deep dive into his dealings with the UFC from studying other people's cases, myself and being the subject of a Harvard Business School study in 23 to stepping into the classroom on Tuesday to discuss that very case with the students. What a full circle moment. Special thank you to Professor Anita for turning my journey into a case study and for the opportunity to share my experiences, challenges, and lessons. Life has a funny way of reminding you how far you've come from Batier to the classrooms of Harvard. The journey continues. And then there's Johnny Bones in the comments.

Wow, this is really cool. Congratulations, man. I wish there was a video of the event. I would definitely watch. God has definitely been good to you. Look at that. I'm seeing here, you've completely misremembered everything. And so, what?

NHL 93 didn't have any of the NHL rights. Yeah, yeah. Much like when they used to do the college football games for the players, like that, stuff like that. Go on, go on. So they just had teams called like Toronto and Long Island and stuff. The following year, in the 94 version, they had all the rights. I thought 94 was the iconic one. So 94 is still, do your little research there and confirm that 94 is the best.

best. Did I perhaps confuse 93 and 94 with the Long Island anecdote? Maybe, but the fact still remains greatest video game of all time. I mean, I'm seeing just on a quick type in NHL 14, NHL 2K8, NHL 2004. No. What does it say? Timeless Classics? No mention of 94. Timeless Classics, arcade favorites. NHL 94, NHL hits. With a Z. Is it with a Z? Is it with a Z? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, shout out of Z. Z. I still got that on GameCube, my only favorite. You have NHL hits on it?

0-2, yeah. Shut up. Thrashers. Guys, what did you make of this Jake Paul video of him hitting the heavy bag with a snake? That's a real snake, right? Yeah. What's going on here? I guess, to me, the most impressive thing was, like, the power, the speed, the precision,

but it seemed like a lot of people didn't like this. they felt it was cruel. Now, to be clear, it doesn't look like he's hitting the snake, but maybe the snake is getting rattled by the punches. What do you guys think? Is that a pun? Oh, you know what? No, but I just cooked there real quick.

So what do you guys think? I don't have many thoughts on this. I was going to say, what did I think? Nothing. I don't know that there's much to think here. The internet was all a Twitter over this. Another pun. All right.

I got nothing for it. Okay. Perhaps you will feel some sort of way about this Damien Lillard blind ranking. Did you guys see this? No, I did not. Let me see it. But I love a good blind ranking. He saw what we were doing.

He's a big fan of the program and he wanted to get in on his own blind ranking. Take a look. This is Dame Lillard. And right now I'm going to be ranking. Wrestlers from WWE from the goat down to whoever is not the goat. So here we go. I'm going to start with the goat. Okay.

So there's nothing blind about this ranking here. Wait a second, wait a second. I may have confused the plan. Wait, who's number one? Who's number one? Stonecold Steve Boston. Why is there a thing over the thing and it makes it so hard to seats?

Why are both of them? Yeah. You would think that the one that they make after would be bigger. Wait, wait, who's number two? I can't see. I think another stone cold. No, this is not number two. He's doing tears.

Oh. Why don't even know who he's at? He has Stone Cold as the goat I see Rick Flair Rick Flair is in S-tier I want Undertakers in Rick In Estier I thought it was a blind ranking of best

Restors of all time I can see what happened was you watched this video But then you came back to it later And forgot everything to happen Yeah so during acid review I actually have a feeling you haven't seen this video at all You're like oh this is gonna be great for the show Let me throw it in flag

I saw it The algorithm fed it to me They know we love Dame time No this is straight from Josh Markowitz. This is me. Go to the freaking slack. Even if I was watching this on a phone and I could zoom in, I wouldn't know who the fuck he is choosing.

Brett's there. Brett's in the eight years. Yeah, it's in the eight tier. So what is it? Thanks, man. I did. So Stone Cold is the goat according to day. So what's the breakdown?

Give me a recap, Jordan. Go back to it. Let me see the picture. Stone Cold was the ghost. And he had Brett Hart at the bottom. And Rick Flares. No, not at the bottom. He's in the A tier.

And Rick Flair was in the S tier Undertaker's in the S tier I can't quite make out who the What does S mean? Like that's a bugger is the rock Rick Flair and the Undertaker Oh that was rock Okay rock Rick Flair and Undertaker

Who's that at the start of the 8? What's the final row there? What's that thing? What is that? That's the A tier. That's the A tier. No, no, no. A tier.

Oh, the final tier is like Who gives a fuck? Oh wow. No one made it there. Just jobbers. Oh wow. That's the OL. Congrats.

Tier. Listen. He only had three tiers. I think the trip. Trailblazers tried to do something here. I don't know if it worked. I mean, they got me. 100% honesty.

Saw it real quick, said this would be good, threw it in there. Did I watch the whole thing? No. Did you watch even one second? Don't say whole thing like you watched any of it. Thought it would be good fodder for the program. It was. I watched the whole thing. Thought it would make for good conversation.

I like Dame. I'm into it. I'd like to see Game do fighters. You're not into it. No, no, no, no. Look, it made it onto the program. No, no, no, I'm cool with him watching WWE. It's don't need to see the ranking.

The blind, what if it was blind ranking? Yeah, then I would have, yeah. Top 5 blind? They should have just hit him with guys, right? John Michael. Big font. Big font. Yeah, bigger font.

I would like to see him do fighters. He's a big fight fan. He's actually a huge boxing fan. Yeah. I always try to get him on the show. You never come. That's what I thought it was. Can you see the tear coming down my cheek right now?

Yes. Yes. What is that from? What are we doing here? Are you okay? Look at that. I can see it. Don't be sad.

Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? Oh, he's right here. Yes, my guy. That's why I wanted. I was like, oh, this is perfect for the show. And by the way, there was once a time where this was outdated, now it's back.

It's back to Blazers. What's old is new again. Do we have any super chats? Someone sent me a message saying that they said that I sounded a little bit congested. Are you guys noticing that? Oh, yeah. I was trying to bring a Kleenex in front. A fan or someone in production?

No, that would be a family member. Oh. Yeah. Well, shout out to them. Yeah. We were all talking here about how you sounded kind of... Oh, thank. I was like, is he choked up or is he sick?

I mean, look at the eyes, glassy. The special isn't great. But I'm good. I'm good. I just want to let you guys know. I'm not sick. Okay. Benjamin Turk.

Have you seen these two videos and what are the team's reaction to them? One, no commentary White House fight, and Mazvedal and Ascran talking. Well, we just showed. the Masvedal won. Very nice, very heartwarming. The no commentary White House fight, that would be Ilya and his brother, and then the interaction with the doctor.

Yeah, I mean, I really don't have much of a take on this. I mean, the team, his brother was looking out for him, saying he couldn't see. It seemed to me like he wanted to keep fighting despite, you know there's sometimes where someone clearly doesn't want to fight, but they don't want to say it. I didn't get that feeling from the video. I didn't get the feeling like Ilya was looking for,

way out. Like, hey, guys, I can't see, I can't see. I think he was just, you know, kind of going through it. There was a lot going on. There was a lot of commotion. The doctors in there. His brother was looking out for him. Yeah, I didn't think that there was much of a, of a controversy there. If you're not an Ilya fan, maybe you will feel that way. But I just thought it was great insight. Why did that come out now is what I was wondering. It's like four months later, was there a reason why it came out? I don't even know. La Mancha, my guy. Thank you, Ariel, for the reposting of the article I wrote about you.

The article got a lot of views and got great feedback. I did not expect that. It was really nice of you to do that. Thank you. It was a really, really nice article. You may recall on Wednesday, La Mancha asked for some answers to an article he was writing about me, and I wondered out loud if he was trolling or if he would be trolling me. He has turned a new leaf, and it was a lovely, lovely article.

It warmed my heart. It was very thoughtful, and it was very well-wrote. written and my family liked it very much. I even sent it to my parents and my dad commented on the website, which was fun. And then La Mancha wrote back to my dad, referring to him as Mr. Halwani. So it was all very nice. Andy, in the article, he talked about late night TV and the sort of late night vibe that perhaps a show like this could have. I know we're not late at night and it's a lot longer than your typical one hour late night show. But he compared it to Sabado Gigantes.

Oh, Sabado Gigante. How about that? I totally butchered that. That's iconic. And the gentleman who's the host.

Don't tell me, Don, Don, not Don Carlos. Don Cornelius? Not a Spanish name. Do you know where Don Cornelius is from?

No. Anyone? Frank, you definitely know. Okay. No. Soul train. Soll train. What are we doing?

Don Cornelius is legend. Peace and love. You're saying something nice. Francisco. Don Francisco. Don Francisco? Hey. Ding, ding, ding. But iconic show, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. That show was... Isn't that like a... I asked a friend of mine who grew up in Latin America, is this a good comp? Is this a nice thing? And I was told that it was like the highest of compliments. Oh, it's huge.

It's on in every television. Everybody watches. Univion, right? Onevician? Not with a TH, but, you know, go off. Univision. What? Why are you talking like you're from Barcelona?

Yeah, what is this? Isn't that how they say it? No. Oh, damn. Sabato Gigante? Wait, what is, is Sabato Saturday? Yes. So it's big Saturday?

Is it like a Saturday live? It's like, no, it's like, it feels like it's a nine-hour show. Oh, wow. So it is like us. It's a variety show. I wouldn't say like skits necessarily. There's a lot of audience participation. It's like, it's pretty iconic.

It's literally on in every TV. What's better? That or Gordo I La Flaca? Look at you. Come on. Have you been watching? You've been watching. That's an iconic show.

It is. But that's more of a talk show, right? It's with a big guy and a lovely lady, right? And it's the same duo. Yeah, they've also like been doing this forever and ever and ever and ever. And now they're probably in their like 70s or 70s or 60s? They have to be.

Same too. There's never been like a change. I actually don't know if they've changed it, but I would assume no, because they were so recognizable. So which one is more cultural? Like which one is more? So El Jante 100%. Oh, really?

Yeah. Wow. Okay. Is it still on? I feel like I saw something about Don Francisco making a, like a return or something like that. I'll have to look into that. True or false.

Don Francisco? Jew. What? Yep. Are you asking me? No. You said true or false? Yes.

Over under. So true? Don Francisco born Mario Luis Kruitsberger Blumenfeld Stop. Is of German Jewish ancestry. What? His parents, Eric and Anna Kruzberger, were German Jewish Holocaust survivors who fled Nazi Germany and immigrated to Talca, Chile during World War II.

How about that? Did I just blow your mind? He first developed the Don Francisco character initially modeled as a humorous impression of a German Jewish immigrant struggling to speak Spanish while performing at the club Izirialita Makabi Community Center in Santiago, Chile. How about that? Legend, right? Oh, wow. Yeah, he's a legend. Now, do you feel differently about him that you know that he's a Jew?

What? What is this? For sure, yes. better. What the head is? Is he still alive? Yeah, yeah. He's 85.

Not only is he alive, as of an hour ago, he is reviving the show. See, that's what I was saying. Like, I feel like I just saw this. Wait, what? Literally reviving the show as of an hour ago.

Stop with the Gigante. Show revival. What are you talking about? Watch party. What I'm talking about is what I just said. Watch party. Wait a second. Wait a second.

I'm seeing an article here that in February of 2015, No, no, September of 2015, the Jewish dawn of Latin American TV says adios after 53 years. Where's the article that they're back? I saw it on Instagram a few days ago. I'm reading it from USA Today as of an hour ago.

Arizona Sun has it. This is crazy. He also looks great. And he's the host? Yeah, he was the host and it's how he got to two. Oh, it's a game show? Wait, yeah, yeah, yeah. Audio's participation and stuff he's saying.

Wait, October 12th, 2026, at 401 p.m. Eastern, Don Francisco returns to TV roots with Savago Gigante show revival, exclusive? What? How did this happen? You manifested. You made it happen. This might be one of the craziest things. Wait a second.

The new name of the show is Gigantes con Don Francisco. Sundays on univision at 7 p.m. Eastern. Where are we doing this? What is this? Wait a second. When does it start? I want to watch. That's funny.

If they just announced it, then I don't know why I saw it on Instagram a couple days ago, but I was definitely seeing his picture. Yeah, maybe. What I'm doing now is unprecedented because this is a new format. It is about paying tribute to a gigante former guest who accompanied us for a long time. We followed their career,

but we have been missing for the last 10 years. This is one of the craziest things ever happened. So you just Googled it, Rick, and you saw this article come up. Correct. Wow. All right, well, there you go. Thank you, Lamontz. This might be one of the best super chats we've ever had.

We just went into a crazy deep dive. about an iconic Latin American TV show. I taught Andy that he's actually a Jew whose parents fled Nazi Germany, and we all learned how to properly pronounce univision. I knew this was going. Here's Julian who says, Sup, Ariel, have you heard that Chris Lieben will be coming back to fight Yoshihiro Akiyama in a rematch? I did see that.

I train at Chris's gym, the Training Center in San Diego. Shout out to Baray submissions. All day. Every day. Yes, I did see that. It's for a promotion in Japan. Oh, my God. The amount of tears coming down my face throughout all this is crazy.

I did see that. Work or shoot? I think shoot. I think shoot. Yeah. Also, that's Barrett O'Shita, Barrett submissions. Ah, not Beret. No.

How do you spell Bray? B-E-R-E-T. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff. I was thinking of Black Comptain combat soul, 17. So it's not, it makes sense it would be in South Korea. Ariel, do you know Bart Hansen pro poker player and commentator who studied sports, journalism, and Syracuse ever wondered if you

cross pass with them? I do not. You know, someone once asked a Syracuse ESPN broadcaster on Twitter if they knew me and I was actually in this guy's class every single year and he said no, and it felt like a knife in the heart. So if I was in class, with Bart Hansen, I apologize. Man City were found guilty of fraud, but the EPL is letting them go about their biz? What are we doing here? Is there any integrity or values anymore?

I think they're getting their punishment soon. It's just taking a minute. I would suspect by the start of next season, I keep mocking my son, who's a Man City fan. I'm like, what do you think it's going to be like on a cold Tuesday in Stokes City? Or like, how do you guys are going to do against QPR next year? What do you think?

Is he a Spurs fan or a city fan? I can't tell the difference. What do you think about Holland and how he's going to look in the Barsa colors? You think Elliot Anderson's going to come back to Forrest now? He's not very happy. He claims he's going to stick with them. But he also told me that he would still use his iPad when I gave him a phone. And I have never seen him use his iPad ever again.

So he said he was going to beat the allegations. Well, it seems like neither he nor Man City are beating. any allegations. My white socks are out of the playoffs. After being up to O, I'm very upset. What is the MMA equivalent of feeling this upset? For me, it's when Silva lost to Wideman. Well, I guess it would be tough because it's like what made you upset in MMA.

But yeah, that was tough. Up to O, lose three straight. Cleveland moves on. I'm happy for the Cleveland fans. I think they have one of the longest droughts in all of North American sports, right? No. Longest The baseball team does

Baseball Not the city Cavs won in 2016 No no I'm talking about It's the baseball team It's been 80s You said sports 78 years

78 years 78 years I'm talking about the Guardians slash Indians Longest drought In just the guardians No In North American sports

On indigenous peoples day You're gonna call them The other name Don't say the other day Don't say the other day Be nice I'm just acknowledging their history Actually they were once known

of the spiders as well Wow Guardian slash Indian slash spiders. Can I say something? I'm getting offended now. Scareful. Spiders is actually

Liky one of the better. Why doesn't anyone steal spiders? Biggest droughts in North American sports. The amount of narration. Narration for the types. Second longest. Who's longest?

Okay, so let me just be clear on the terms. This is a single sports franchise. And there has to be, yes. What years? Wait, but I have to tell you one thing. This doesn't include teams that didn't win. Oh, okay. You know what I mean?

That I've never won. Exactly. It's since their last. I was going to say Falcons, they're 66. Yeah, because they've never won. But what year? Yeah. Well, Guardians 48, longest is 47, meaning 1948, 948.

Wow. That's 79 years for the other one. That's got to be baseball. No, Maple Leafs is 59 years, 1967. That's great sports trivia. Arizona Cardinals. Yeah, it had to be 179 years since their last championship wins. Cleveland Guardians, 78, 1948.

They were the spiders at the time? No, they weren't. They were the Indians by then. Be nice. Sacramento Kings were the Rochester Royals in 1951, last championship. Detroit Lions, 57. Atlanta Hawks. Damn.

1957? No, 58. St. Louis Hawks. Same franchise. Bob Pettett. Bob Pettett. May rest of peace. Toronto Maple Leafs,

96, 7. So yeah, I mean, it would be a good story. Give me Cleveland versus L.A. and they beat the big bad Dodgers and everyone's happy. How about that? Have the Brewers ever won one?

They did. Top of my head. Correct me on this, Jordan. 1983 Robin Yount I know the Royals won in 85 I know the

Cardinals won in 80 maybe they won in 83 Milwaukee Brewers have never won any World Series Maybe as the Braves

No Brewers played the Royals Oh in the 85 Are you're saying Am I right about that? No they were in the The ALCS No maybe

It says they won the A LPS and 82. 82. And who they play? The Cardinals? Or the... No.

Yeah, the Cardinals? Yeah, the Cardinals. World Series. Game 7. Cardinals, yeah. That's right. That's still pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad.

All right, back to the questions. Has UFC ironically made itself the gatekeeper of MMA competition to find yourself as a brand or get belt, then go off elsewhere for proper money? I mean, it's kind of hard to... They kind of have to, like, want you to leave in order for you to leave. If they don't want you to leave, it's very hard just as Francis. Cody Checci? Cici, Cici, six-man, six D-man for the L.A. Kings, who absolutely stinks, makes 4.5 mil a year.

The idea that he makes more than the most UFC champs is embarrassing. Frankis Pankus was throwing... What? Frankies Pankies. What? What? It was throwing asses. at my local KFC last Saturday? Is that true?

No. Is there any truth to Ilya fighting Saladin? Still break raw. Oh, yeah. Is that true? No. No truth. Is that true?

JJ with eye-poked penalty on the scorecard is what now? Oh. Meaning what would happen to John Jones retroactively if all of those were actually, you know, fouls that the ref deduct the points. What if my aunt was my uncle?

Yeah. He did say he's undefeated, although technically he's not. This show has me screaming STFU and watch the fights while I'm walking around my house. Shut the fuck up and watch the fights. So, by the way. And lastly,

this all went downhill when Philly brought that damn nice coffee, you see? You see? Oh, my God. That is so good. That's it. So good. I feel like we recovered well on that one.

That was a great interview in the end. In the end, I still feel like there's a bit of animosity, but I think we got past Who gives a shit? Yeah, you're right. Tomorrow on the programs, guys, on the program. Geez, been a flip my head of spinning. Well, programs.

Actually, we are doing two. That's right. On Crown Beat. Sal Everett, also known as Dana White's assistant. Going to be joining us. Alex Hernandez, looking forward to that. Spencer Brown, Manager 2-1 Tyson Fury. Maybe we'll get his take.

Not the bills, Spencer Brown. No. but funny you should say Oh Did you do that on purpose? You can't breathe Dion Dawkins going to be joining us

I hope? Yes Nah, don't give us that Dionne Dawkins Yeah You already snow We're playing the Rams In three hours

We'll beat the Rams Easy Dub We'll jump on that Jumbo jet Yep Thank you to the Pagula family We'll land in western New York At what time

Let's say game ends at 1130, 12 Eastern. You know, we're getting on the flight at 1. I don't know. Maybe 1.30. Six hour flight. We're landing at 7. We'll see you six hours later, Dion.

Bro. Nat. By the way, will that be one of the cooler moments in the show's history if we get a guy who won on Monday night football on the show tomorrow? That would be pretty cool. It won't be bad. I thought you said something else right there. Huh?

They said, it's going to be bad. Well, that too. Also, Uncramp Beat tomorrow. Check out the Uncramp Beat on Amazon Fire TV. Check it out on Uncrown.com. Also on our pod feed, just a few days later, it's exclusive first run on Fire TV. Check out Vice TV. Vice is killing it, by the way.

Have you guys seen Cornett's side of the ring? This is must-watch viewing. It's Jim Cornett telling stories about wacky pro wrestling things. It's amazing. Dark Side, Dark Side of the Cage. Chuck Minhaal was on the Affliction episode from last week. They're doing great things. and you can watch our show Fridays at 8 Best of shows.

So go check that out. For now, though, we're out of time. The parents in the room will know that when your kid's noses block, you put one of those things thingies and you go, you know that thing? No, it's like a, it's like a bulb thing, right? Like you stick it up there and then you squeeze it like a... Yeah, that's called an aspirator. Is it?

Well, I don't like that name. Do you need one, Ariel? Is that way this happening? No, I'm just thinking about it. Okay. So you need it. What else do you think about, bud? I was thinking of that ice coffee.

Yeah. You go home and play some NHL-94 before the bills game? That would be amazing. What do you say? Maple syrup. Macadamia, I think he said. Macadamia milk. It sounded amazing.

Cinnamon macadamia milk. Okay, so if any crew knows about coffee in Las Vegas, I think it's this crew. We're dandelion guys and gal. strip. Yeah, we don't go off strip. I think there is a Vesta on the strip. I think I've looked this up. I think I went there once and I

it wasn't top tier. It wasn't Daniline. There is not one on the strip. Okay, okay. There might have been one when he went. There was one in the summer of 2012. Wait. Anyway, oh.

There is not one. Nah. Point being... Can you narrow me while you're searching for things? Vegas has a lot of. lot of great things. Coffee is not one of them. Someone needs to come in there and just overhaul the whole Vegas coffee scene.

It's a problem, especially on the strip. It's Duncan. That's fucking illegal. No, it's Starbucks. Most Starbucks per capita in the world. That's crazy. It's crazy. Today's show, crazy in a good way.

DJ, MVP, Andre Feely, thanks to you, thanks to him. My man.