The Ariel Helwani Show - Diego Lopes, Carlos Prates, Paul Craig, Corey Anderson in studio, more

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with a check-in on Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford fight week (03:19).Diego Lopes returns ahead of this weekend’s Noche UFC matchup with Jean Silva to break down the fight, respond to Silva’s proposed bet, talk about accepting fights against Yair Rodriguez and Aaron Pico, and more (13:46).Carlos Prates looks back at his highlight-reel knockout of Geoff Neal, before discussing a tough night in Paris for The Fighting Nerds, his upcoming meeting with Leon Edwards, his prediction for Jack Della Maddalena vs. Islam Makhachev, wanting to rematch Ian Machado Garry, and more (31:53).Corey Anderson joins Ariel in-studio to preview his PFL light heavyweight title fight against Dovlet Yagshimuradov in October, express frustrations about being sidelined for over a year before his last fight, call for a trilogy fight against Vadim Nemkov, react to teammate Frankie Edgar coming out of retirement, explain his passion for bowhunting, and more (57:52).Paul Craig reminiscences about his career following an emotional retirement in Paris, including his highest moments and regrets, messages from his peers and more (1:57:24).The Boys in the Back join Ariel to close out with some more news items, before ripping open PFL trading card packs and answering your Super Chats (2:23:00).

Ladies and gentlemen, now, welcome to the Eria, Hawaii Show. Back in your life on this Tuesday, September 9th, 2000. And 25, hello. I sure hope you're doing well. It's great to be back on a lovely... Not two for Tuesday around these parts. A lot to get into, a lot to discuss, inching closer to a fantastic weekend of combat sports. Coming up a fantastic Saturday, if I am to be specific.

Big fight over in Belfast, big fight over in Las Vegas. Big fight over in San Antonio will be talking about one half of the main eventors for this Saturday's third installment of Noce UFC in about 10 minutes time. The one and only Diego Lopez, former UFC Featherweight title contender just lost to Alex Wokinovsky in his last fight back in April. He looks to get back on track against John Silva, and there's some spice there between the two of them. Main event, San Antonio Frost Bank Center this Saturday, the appetizer for Canelo Crawford. He'll join us at 110 at 130, The Nightmare, Carlos Praches, of the Fighting Nerds team, which right now stocked down. sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. John Silva wins this weekend.

They're back up. Prochus wins last month. They're back up. Boholio and Hoofee lose on Saturday. They're back down. It's a crazy game. It's a crazy game, my friends. Prochis will join us at around 135

to talk about his fight against Leon Edwards, Madison Square Garden, November 15th, right here in the Mecca, the city that never sleeps, the eventual home of the 2026 NBA world champion, New York, Knikobacher, at about 2 p.m. Eastern, Mr. Overtime, Mr. Beeston 258, the one and only Corey Anderson, former Bellator Light Heavyweight Champion, perhaps soon to be, PFL light heavyweight champion.

He's fighting for that title on October 3rd in Dubai against a guy he beat. He'll join us in studio. So coming off of yesterday's great chat with Maven in studio, another in studio guest on this fine Tuesday afternoon. Corey Anderson, a vet will stop by. been a while since we had him on the program, and we'll round out the day as far as guests are concerned with the one and only Paul Craig of Scotland, who retired on Saturday following his laws to Modestis Bukascus, always been a great guy to speak to, always very kind and gracious with his time, and we appreciate him stopping by after the emotional scenes on Saturday at the

Acre Arena in Paris, France. shout out. There's the lineup. Want to give a shout out to the chat. Thumbs up to the chat. Haven't done that in a while. Want to give a shout out? I was looking at the chat before we went live. I saw that our good friend Matt McDermott is having a tough day. Matt, hope you're doing well, my man. Hope the day gets better. We're here for you. Better days ahead. Better moments ahead. Better hours ahead. So keep your head up and appreciate you hanging with us on this Tuesday afternoon. A lot to get into. Want to give a big shout out to my friend Tom Jrbacy, who I just got this book in the mail today, it is called Boxing, the 100 Greatest Fighters.

Tom Jerbacy is one of the nicest human beings that have ever met covering combat sports. Longtime editor of UFC.com has written for boxing scene and so many other sites, MMA and boxing. This is a phenomenal read. A great present for the boxing fan in your life. I just got it and a piece of paper just fell out of it. I'm looking forward to getting into it in the coming days and weeks. So thank you very much to Tom and go check this out if you're looking to get a great book.

If Tom's name is on it, it's great. And also one of the nicest human beings I've ever come across. If I'm being 100% on it's like literally salt of the earth, great guy who I can't say enough good things about. Speaking of the sweet science, yesterday we got the first face-off for the Canello Crawford fight. Of course, that goes down this Saturday, Netflix, Allegiance Stadium. we had all the particulars involved. Did you guys see this? I believe it was in front of the...

Is that the Bellagio? I'm not sure what that is. It is the Belagio, I think. That's the only one with the big... Yes, that's the Blasio, for sure. There you have Cannell on the left with... Are those flared pants? What's going on there?

Bell bottoms. That looks good, man. He's on trend. It looked great. Crawford on the right. DFW in the middle, looking jacked with the ring shirt. and, of course, turkey by his side.

Dana's looking like a fridge, man. He looks big. He looks good. Yeah, well, usually a fridge. Hitting the weight. Is it on a loop or something? No, this is an intense one. What's the clock at here?

What do we at? 25 seconds, 30 seconds? Let's see, we're at 45. 45 seconds. Dana looks kind of cold, by the way. It looks like he's regretting not bringing a light jacket. Yeah, just like something, you know, a windbreaker.

Also, do you think they're getting wet? Yeah, absolutely. At least the mist, right? There's a little bit of mist, yeah. For sure, not helping with the cold. Canello's locked in. Crawford's locked in. Crawford, the only one wearing shorts. Dana's like, all right, boys, we got this. We got the shot.

Now face ahead. It's all kind of surreal, right? They had the embedded treatment. Did you guys see that? Yeah, yeah. The embedded treatment for this is kind of wild as well. like we're getting a sprinkling of UFC but it's also boxing

yeah not just that we're getting the Dana White it's Fight Week tweet oh we got that yeah for both nocha UFC and then you can watch Canelo Crawford live on Netflix for free you know it would be a fun little exercise end of the day like I see people do this all the time like look at the grid on Instagram

and see how much real estate will be devoted to nocha UFC and how much to Canela Crawford on the UFC's Instagram Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Probably more to Canella Crawford, would you say? 1,000%. This is the bigger fight this weekend.

I mean, it's very important for their business and, you know, the first show with Netflix and a lot of tickets being sold and all this stuff. So much more content, I would say, is to come. But I thought that was kind of, you know, surreal one. Dana White, Canela Alvarez, Terrence Crawford, Turkey, the Bellagio, the elongated face off your first taste of things to come this week. I think they're having the grand arrivals later today. I also saw an interview where Dana White was speaking to a local Las Vegas reporter saying that Canelo Crawford is going to be the third biggest boxing

gate of all time, which is an incredible number. According to Jedi, number one, is May Mac, 55.4 million. Canelo Triple G1, 27.05 million. So it would be somewhere in that vicinity. That's a pretty big number. He also said it would be the biggest stadium gate of all time. Usually the stadium would mean more, but you probably have to spread the love a little bit, right?

I would think. So very, very interesting things happening. as far as the boxing world is concerned. Also, speaking of which, earlier today, they had a press conference in England for the Joseph Parker-Fabio Wardley fight, which goes down October 25th. You know what occurred to me?

Same time, same day as Tom Aspinall. Parker just can't win. October 25th in the afternoon, over in England. Horrible. Anyway, I saw this post from Anthony Joshua which has ruffled some feathers, I think. I learned that ICL is, I can't lie. That's according to resident millennial G.C.

Is G.C. a millennial? Or are you a zoomer? No, millennial for sure. Who's a zoomer? 20. I think I'm pretty sure on ICL. I don't know. Frank? Like a Gen Z? Yeah. Who me? Frank is not Gen Z.

I'm proud of Joe Boxer Parker. That's his Instagram name, even though he is a competitor. Real recognizes real. He's in the game to fight whoever, whenever, and whoever, whenever. And that's the DNA of a real general. Unlike his dippy mate, Tyson Fury, I would dissect his career slash record in minutes, but I'll leave that for a potential gloves are off if he ever comes back and fights. Big Femi, that's him.

Fabio Wardley, respect you as well. Bro was working in recruitment helping. Your dad get a job. I don't know what a cutla years ago but I mean it's a nice little nod there let that be a testament to God rooting in one's favor and a statement to show nothing is impossible if you can have a scrap ha ha to my supporters I'll be back to lace up my boots and put on my gloves sooner rather than later hopefully punching Fury's head and dancing around his flicker jab with ease very rare that he kind of like take some open shots at Fury

like that but I liked it from Big Femi so let's see also yesterday I started the show with great energy, optimism, happiness as I dropped my pencil. Today I start with great sadness. I just saw the logo and it reminded me that our Gaffer, Nuno Espirito Santo, out at Nottingham Forest. What a year and a half it was. I would ask Frank and G.C. for confirmation, but they jumped off the bandwagon after year one. But he did get sacked early this morning, early hours and has been replaced by Ange Postokoglu formerly of Tottenham. The man who wins always in his second year.

Now, I do hope that the second year championship isn't an actual championship trophy. It's a crazy, crazy tournament events. I know you're not here for the football takes, but it is insane that someone goes from 17th place to, I think it was six-place, Europa League qualification, doubles the points, and then get sacked.

What the hell? hell? What the hell? Where's the consistency? Which is a crazier turn of events? Tom Tibido getting sacked after leading the Knicks to the Eastern Conference final or Nuno Spirto Sento getting sacked after leading force to a dream season, a dream finish, Europa League qualification. I'm not sure. Probably Nuno because it was shorter. Tibbs for sure. No, I think Tibbs was kind of, you know, he had his chance five years. Nuno is a year and a half. Yeah, but the soccer landscape is just like so much turnover like coaches go

they come they come back first full season Jose de merino I'm pretty sure it has to have coach three teams in one season before

I just first full season the guy goes into Europa League was almost in Champions League and then he gets sacked after you're bringing in a winner he took a team

I don't know the Tottenham Hotsper I believe the Champions League you know you're welcome well everyone's freaking out everyone's freaking out anyway you're not here

for the football takes everyone gets very upset, but sometimes I do have to share. Okay, I'm a human being. Everyone stop chatting shit. If you prick me, do I not bleed? Anyway, in a matter of seconds, hopefully we'll be joined by Diego Lopez. Unless he's there, is he there? No, not yet.

Perfect. Very interesting stuff happening with Diego Lopez. Of course, we remember him fighting in April, losing Alex Wokanovski. I think we all thought that it would be Diego Lopez versus Ye. Rodriguez in this Noce UFC slot it didn't end up being a year it ended up being John Silva and there seems to be some bad blood I was watching some of the clips from the preview show on ESPN Plus and John openly saying he does not like Diego Lopez there it is clear as day longer beard longer hair John Silva much at stake here much at stake here

in the featherweight division, because John trying to get that title shot, trying to leapfrog Lorraine Murphy, you still have Moser of Loev out there, Ye'eir is out there, Diego wants to get back, it's a brilliant fight. And it's happening in San Antonio, Texas.

It was, I guess there was some talk of it happening back in Vegas, but once they did the Canella Crawford fight, didn't really make sense to have two big fights being put on by the same company at the same time on the same day. So it's the first Nocha UFC card to happen outside of Vegas, the very first one a couple of years ago, was at T-Mobile. That was the Valentina Shvchenko-Elexo Grasso one.

And then, of course, last year is what's, I can't believe it's been a year since the much-talked about, much dissected sphere card, which was headlined by Latino favorites Marabdo Wally Shvili and Shugashana O'Malley. We were in Vegas. We were there. Remember that? What a time it was. And so here we are a year later with a phenomenal main event. And it's a really good card as well. Looking forward to it in what's going to be a fantastic day of fighting. The main event, very important, like I said, in the featherweight division. Let's talk to you one half of the main event right here and now the aforementioned Diego Lopez.

Kind enough to join us alongside his interpreter Diego. Hello, Diego. How are you, my friend? How good, how are you? I'm doing well. I like the mustache. Ah, thank you. Thank you. We're keeping it? Yeah, I hope. I hope. I don't know.

I like it. I like it. Well done. Yeah, but for this fight, I have the mustache. Perfect, perfect. And by the way, I like you English. We don't need Edgar. You're good. Edgar, he's my side, but I'm trying no need the hit today. Okay, I like it. Well done. Okay, it's been a few months since we spoke, Diego. First, can I ask about the lessons that you learned in the fight against Alex? What's the difference between this Diego Lopez and the one that we saw back in April? Oh, it's a completely different to Diego Lopez.

I feel much better now. I learned too much in this fight with Vogue. I have more confidence in myself now. Yeah, it's like different Diego. So it's interesting to hear you say you have more confidence in yourself coming off the loss. Were you not feeling confident going into that fight? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have confidence a while time in my fight, but now I have more confidence because I prove myself

with the best guys in the world, you know, he's Alex and Loconox. After this, I think it's nothing new for me. Okay. That fight was so big for you, we were so close to becoming a champion. How did you deal with the aftermath after not getting the belt? Were you very down, were you sad, did you need a long break? How did you deal with it? No, after the fight, I mean, I'm, I tell you, I'm more confidence myself.

I go back to the gym, keep working, keep training. It's like it's like, it's like, conceding, a regla. Correct. As correct, money mistakes I make in the fight. Yeah, don't you, bro, my life now is a great life. I don't have a time for stay sad, you know? Okay, I love that. I think a lot of us thought that you would be a perfect candidate for this card,

and I think a lot of us thought it would be you versus Yaya Rodriguez as the main event because of your history, because of his background. Why isn't that the main event? Why aren't you fighting Yair on Saturday? Oh, it's like I asked you for this fight, no, but this guy said no. It's like, I don't know for why. Maybe this guy has the problem with your personal life. I don't know.

I don't understand because this guy said not. because, like, this is a great fight for Mexico, no? For Independence Day, I think it's the more sense for the red line. But it's okay. I have a John Silver in my front now. It's like I make the job. I finish the fight. Yeah, I ask you for the next opponent.

Were you disappointed that it wasn't Yair year initially? No, no, no, no. Everyone knows this guy knows. At the time it's like, like he said no for the fight. It's like this is no new. like it's okay he thinks that he should fight for the belt next what do you what do you make of that um i don't think so after after little moffi knock out is like i don't picko i don't think so this guy taking the shot for the next cycle container okay and so you end up with john sylva did

you did you like that idea when it was presented to you yeah i the people know i i love a fire you know i love friday it's like you website sending me okay this is your next opponent okay send me, I mean, I'm okay. I remember his website before, before, before I'm signing the, the fact to John Silver, website mentioned for me, it's like Aaron Pico and say yes, John Silver, and say yes. Joe Rodriguez and say, yes, I don't know, it's happy. The website is sending me against John Silver and say, yes, it's okay. It's like I love the fight.

I love his stay active, you know. He's been on a role as of late. He's had a good start to his UFC career. Have you been impressed with what he's done? Yeah, I built in my career, it's last episode, the fight, you know. It's like, it's no, I never stay, sit down in my, in my house for, for way to one fight in my, it's like he's comfortable for me. You know, I like the big challenge. I think now having John Silver in the front is a big challenge for me, but I prove it and test myself with the best in the world, you know.

You know, we were showing some of his antics there, you know, grabbing onto the cage and. the glasses and all that. What do you make of just his demeanor overall? It's okay. It's you personally, you know. I'm a calm guy. I know this guy tries like he do many things for try to have my attention, but it's okay. It's this is different, in the case, it's only me and him. We showed the clip just moments ago from the ESPN preview where he says, I don't like Diego Lopez. Do you not like him as well? Oh, it's okay.

This guy knows like me? Okay, I'm not like him now. Why do you think he doesn't like you? I don't know. You need to ask him. Do you have a reason not to like him? No. You don't have a relationship with him, right?

No, I don't have a relationship with him. But I think this guy is elizabeth because I have great hair, he, you know. That is possible. He also said in Brazil we have a saying Our saints don't match Do you know this saying? Our saints don't match And he says his saint and your saint

Like I think your spirits don't match Does this make sense? Oh yeah, yeah Yeah, this is normal in Brazil It's like the people say this Like it's like it's like it's like it's like It's a saint in Brazil Yeah

It's okay, I don't know for why but Do you agree with that? Bro like I'm in chill for for everyone, you know. It's like, I mean, a good guy for whoever am, but this guy said, I'm not like him. Okay, I'm not like you too.

This card, Noche UFC, is obviously built around celebrating Latino fighting, Mexican fighting. Because of your ties, obviously, to Mexico. Are you expecting to be the fan favorite in San Antonio? Yeah, I'm so grateful with WFC because the UFC sent me the chance for the headline in the Notch WFC.

This is great for me. I represent my country, Brazil, but I represent the people from Mexico too. I live my 10 days in my life in Mexico. I build my career in Mexico. I'm so grateful with the FCSA for the shot. I hope the people stay so happy with my fight Saturday night. I've seen you post the picture. I think it was from that press conference in April of you with the cowboy hat and covering your face.

You look like The Undertaker. I don't know if you know the pro wrestler or The Undertaker, but like this guy right here, very intimidating, very, very scary. What does that represent? What are you trying to say when you post that picture? Oh, this, no? This is like, I'm coming. I'm coming for him.

It's like, I mean, I don't talk too much. I think this photo represents me. It's like this guy, it's like he stay your position, no? It's like, no need to talk too much. Like intense, focus. Yeah, like this. With all the activity right now in the, featherweight division with Vogue, obviously, champion, but Lorone Murphy, as you said,

and Yair is out there, and Mofsar is out there. Do you feel like you're being forgotten about? Do you feel like people aren't talking about you enough as one of the top contenders still because your last fight was for the belt? Yeah, I think now in the division is a mix in the top five, like the people, was no, no have idea who's the next for the title shot. But I think I think I make the great job Saturday night, a big knockout, big submission, or completely domination. I think I put my name in the table again.

Did you happen to see that John tried to make a bet with you about if you can take him down? Did you see this? Yeah, yeah, bro. It's okay. He proposed a bet. He said that...

Talk a lot. It's like, it's okay. But Saturday night, I mean, one side. Are you going to accept the bet? No, this guy needed the money. Trust me. This guy needed the money for him. Needed the money.

It's like it's okay. Just for the audience, he said, I bet my purse that you won't be able to take me down and you can go on and keep lying to yourself. And so you're saying you don't want his money because you think that he needs the money, but you'll still take him down. Yeah, because this guy,

this guy needs your money after this fight, trust me. Because this guy knows we know, no, this guy knows when he will show bonus this fight. Okay. Okay. Can I ask your opinion on the fighting nerds? Because everyone has an opinion on them. Last weekend, they didn't have a great weekend with Boholio and Hufi. Is that any sort of indication as to what kind of a fighter he is, or is everyone different in your opinion?

I think everyone's different, no? Everyone's different. But this guy, like, have his same start, no? He's like, this, I think, is, now Jim has too much pressure on your back because the only guy in the team is staying on the film in the UFC. I think he had a lot of pressure, no? A lot of pressure. Maybe this has affected him in this fight. That's a very interesting point. But overall, as far as the team is concerned, what do you think of them?

So I think this guy makes a great job in the last three years, no? I think the number, talk about. talk alone because like this guy had a great job in the last year it's a great team could I ask do you think that they are overrated as a team I think that they're overrated

I think the people think it's like money think the not only the team because it's like the same way to me no before the fight with the people have a lot of expectations with my in myself. It's like, yeah, a lot of confidence in myself, too. But now I'm lost the fighting title. The people forget me, you know? It's like it. Talk a lot. I think this is normal.

You want this fight? Okay, the people stay your side. No, but you lost, okay, the people go to another side. It's as normal. It's this. It's MMA, you know. Could I ask you, who do you think should fight Volk next for the belt? I think a little more. Little Moffes make a great job in the last fight. I think he deserved the title shot. But I feel bad for Movis-Sah, bro. I feel bad for Mobsar, because this guy is there on the Finiwaxi, but Saturday, but Saturday, I don't know,

for why this guy pulled out in your last fight. If all goes well for you on Saturday, is that the one that you would like to run it back with Moffsar and get that one back? Yes, yeah, Ganes. I wanted the fight to put me in the next line, you know? My focus now is making the best job Saturday night. I told big knockout, big submission, completely dominates this fight.

It puts my name again for the title shot. But you have said, okay, you need one more fight? Okay, send me more side, Jay Rodriguez, Zarno Di Allen. Everyone was they think is better for me for Biti for taking the shot the next. and take the fight. Do you think Lorone could beat Alex? It's tough fighting. Two guys have a lot of experience.

Leron is heavy too much. It's like I killed the fight. It's like this guy proved this. You last two fights. So confidence yourself too. But I think Volk stayed one step in the front. I saw that you were in Oklahoma and Stillwater with David Taylor and I think Wyatt Hendricksson as well.

What is that experience like for you to learn wrestling from some of the best wrestlers in America? It's a great experience for me. I enjoy too much. My time is still water. I have a great relationship with David Taylor. Yeah, I'm so happy in this place, bro. I ask my money, bro.

I needed you back to Oklahoma State after my next fight. Because the energy in the Vermont is the best, you know. You know, it's like the store, the Oklahoma State, New Wesley is the only one of the amazing store. Because this guy having money champions, Olympic champions, money, NCAA champions, national champions, like a lot of, a lot, like I think is the high level now in the college, you know. I'm going to for this place for proof myself before learning Wesley.

not specific for one fight, but for me. The great Daniel Kormier went there too. Yes, Daniel Kormier too. It's like compared for in the college for Oklahoma State. Every time I mean, I, I, come here, Daniel. Every time he sees Daniel, every time I see Daniel. Every time I see Daniel, he asks me, it's like, oh, who's the Stewart, who's the training, who's the Wesley? Yeah.

Like, it's a great experience. I say, the people, the people say still water is special, no? Will David be in your corner on Saturday? No, no, no, not this time. I hope one day David stayed my corner. I need to ask him, but this guy, he's a great coach. This guy's this guy now for the world. Okay.

This guy competed in the semi-weekend with me. But one day, one day I'm with David first staying the corner. I think it is a great experience for him to not stand there. in the different deport. I saw you with the horses over there in the country. Do you like that type of lifestyle? Yeah, bro.

Trust me. I stayed this place to water is like it's different life. It's only training, rested, training, rested. Yeah, it's the life is I think for me is the best life

is so calm, I like, I like, I like, consists of course. I like the courses too, like the people, it's, the people in the college with me, my team go to the courses, courses. Yeah, it's nice. I also saw that you were doing commentary for a UFC BJJ. Did you enjoy doing that? Oh, I enjoy, I enjoy a lot.

I enjoy a lot of this new job in my life because, like, the, the, the, you know, The people know I'm starting in Jiu-Jitsu, five years old. It, for me, it's like, it's so grateful for being part of the UFC BJJs, like the broadcast, no? Yeah, I'm so, I'm so happy for the new, the new job in my life. You appear to be in incredible shape. You're usually in very good shape, but I don't know, something different this time. Like, I see, like, 10 abs as opposed to 8 abs this time from the photos. Is this the best shape you've ever been in

because it looks just a little bit different than your last time? Yeah, I think now it's like it's a little bit different because I improve many things in my training camp, no? I train is like more. It's like different things, no?

Well, you look fantastic. Finally, before I let you go, what are you feeling? You're obviously feeling confident. You're feeling you're going to win, but how do you actually expect it to play out on Saturday? I feel amazing, bro. I feel amazing.

I'm so confident to myself. I'm so confident in my job. I'm so confident in my training camp. Me and my team make a great camp this time. I fix money things. Yeah. Yeah, I'm so confident for the win Saturday night. I love it.

Well, good luck to you. Thank you so much, Diego. Appreciate it very much. And thank you, Edgar, as well, for your help. Looking forward to the fight. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. thank you. There is. Great English by Diego Lopez. He has come a very long way in that regard and very long way, obviously, as a fighter. His story is a phenomenal one. He returns action on Saturday against John Silva. This is a really great and important main event. John Silva is obviously on a role as well. He was also on that card, that same card in Miami. He defeated Bryce Mitchell. The other notable fights on the card, Rob Font, David Martinez, Jared Gordon, Hafa Garcia, Kelvin Gasselm, Dustin Stoltzvus, Alex Hernandez, who will join us tomorrow on the program against Diego Fejara, Santiago Luna, against Kwong Lee, Jose Medina on there. Quadio Pueyes, Tatiana Suarez is on there. Honestly, that kind of flew under a lot of fights on here. We'll get to the rest of the card at a later time, but there it is on Saturday.

It's before the Canel Crawford card. Prelum started three, main card at six. It will be over by nine, and then you roll into next. Netflix. So an incredible, incredible weekend. If you're a fan of mixed martial arts and boxing, looking forward to it very much. Looking forward to talking to our next guest, he was just in action in mid-August in Chicago, pulled off one of the great knockouts of 2025, the spinning back elbow knockout of Jeff Neal. You'll recall right before that fight we spoke to him, and he said he wanted to be the first guy to finish Jeff Neal via strikes in the UFC. He did just that. He was also in

Paris supporting his team this past weekend, Kyle Bahalio and Maricio Hofi in action, his other teammate, John Silva, fighting this weekend as well. We're talking about the nightmare Carlos Prakas, who knows his next assignment. We're going to talk to him about that as well. He's coming to New York to fight the former champion Leon Edwards. There he is. Hello, Carlos. How are you, my friend? How are you doing, brother? I'm good. I'm great. Thank you for invite me. He's a huge honor to talk with you. Thank you. You shaved the mustache in the end. How come? Yeah, bro, and I'm going to let the mustache stay here only during the fight, you know, on the fight week. It was good luck last time.

Yeah, I never fought with the mustache, you know. And then I say, I was like, not really thinking really nice things about that. But all my teammates say, no, it's okay, you can't fight with the mustache, and then I fought. All right, so every time when I fight now and I come to the field, fight on the fight week, I'm going to stay with my mustache. I wanted to go in order because we haven't talked to you since the win. And so first, just congratulations on

the incredible win. How many times have you watched that finish, that knockout? It was a thing of beauty. It was unbelievable. Yeah, bro, you know, I trained so much that, you know, before fight UFC, early on my career, fighting Muay Thai, I had some spinning back elbows, spinning back kicks

winning. But when I moved to Thailand, I stopped to do that, you know, because in Thailand, you cannot do, like, spinning back kick or flying knee, you know, it's not working there. So, now I'm back to do that and got a really nice knockout. Whose was better, in your opinion? Yours or Lorone? Bro, I think Leon looks more painful, you know, because his opponent comes, like, straight to his elbow, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. At first with yours, I thought it was a spinning back fist. But then when they

showed the other angle, you could tell it was the elbow. Yeah, yeah, it was an elbow. But I think Lerone was a bit better. What does that feel? Can you even describe what that feels like? To connect like that was such an amazing and unique, you know, sequence. It's a, it's a beautiful thing to watch. But for you to be in your shoes, or you weren't wearing shoes, but you get my point, your body, what does that feel like, that moment where you connect and he goes down? Ah, bro, I don't remember at all what I was feeling at the moment, but I was really happy, but also really calm, you know, because I knew already some point of the life, I knew already I would knock him out, you know. He was trying to rush too much to finish the fight against me, you know? And I was like, he's done, just now I just need to wait the right moment.

And we got it. So I don't know. Sometimes I'm really explosive, really happy, but sometimes I really count, you know, so I just go to Dana, ask my $50,000, and that's it. You got the $50,000. Congratulations. You asked for your teammate to be signed.

What was his name again? Marcos Dagli. He's the best pound for pound in Brazil. LFA flyway champ 11th winning streak 25 years old The most ugly guy on the gym He's a

He's a young gun Did he get signed Not yet They asked him to fight a container series On 2 September September 2nd But he didn't Got the visa yet

So he didn't fight Okay, but clearly he's on the radar, so good on you. You also asked to fight in Rio, and clearly you're not fighting in Rio. Why not? You say, me, I don't fight in Rio? Well, you asked on the microphone, you said, I want the bonus, I want my friend, and I want to fight in Rio together with him, right? But now we know you're fighting in New York.

So what happened with Rio? How come you didn't end up on that card in October? you know i'm i'm really expecting they call him to fight in rio but for me you know they offer leon edwards in new york so i cannot say like no you know they ask him some names like daniel rodriguez uh to fight in rio if i want but also they say but the second option is fight leon in msg in new york and i say of course you're going to fight Leon. Yeah, it's a bigger fight, it's a bigger stage.

Are you disappointed, though, that you can't fight in Rio because that seemed to be something that you really wanted to do. Yeah, yeah, I really wanted to fight in Rio, but for sure next time, you're going to fight there. By the way, what was it like celebrating your birthday in Chicago afterwards? Ah, bro, you know, like easy party, you know, easy drinks, easy water. Very chill, very chill. Yeah, more things, you know, bro.

Not too much fun, you know? Like only, just only you guys saw on Instagram, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, very chill, very relaxed. Like, you went to the library, the park, just walked around. Yeah. I feel like you haven't gone to sleep since then. Say again? I feel like you haven't gone to bed since that party a month ago.

Yeah, I live a party really early, and then I come home to sleep, you know, to stay like health. You know that. I love everything about what you do. The fighting is great, but then when you show up with the cigarette to the press conference, you need to keep that going. It reminds me of Ricardo Mayorga.

You remember Ricardo Mayorga, the boxer? Yeah. That's you. You're the modern day Ricardo Mayorga. Yeah, yeah. Look at this guy. You're the freaking man. Did anyone get mad at you for doing that?

Oh, look at Ricardo there. That's you. Yeah. Not really. they don't get mad they think it's funny I think it's brilliant you gotta keep that going yeah yeah

okay we keep that going and then okay and then you find out about the Leon fight and clearly you just gave us some sort of you know insight into your thought process this this is a gigantic fight like you have the the Ian fight a bit of a down

you get back now you're right back in the same spot I feel like yeah I think so yeah I feel the same yeah I feel the same same you know like it bro you know it's business you know it's fights but also it's business so on the end of the day they're gonna call who bring the real entertainment you know and i respect to another guys but i bring the right entertainment and people's pay tickets to watch you know like of course the most important thing is get a win but the people's pay ticket to get people's

to watch people get knocked out and I'm doing that you know so I think it's business there is a a thought out there

that Leon is past his prime that he isn't as good as he once was do you agree with that sentiment or no I don't think so I don't think he's not old guy he trained a lot he's a former champ

you know lion is always a lion bro you know i don't i don't i don't think on this way like ah he's not on his prime no i i expect him fight against the better in leon uh the best leon the best version of leon i expected to fight that's why i train too much i work a lot you know uh the main event is also in your weight class jdm and islam who do you think is going to win that but Jack he grew up a lot as a fighter since his top fight now

he was a long time without fight almost two years and he got really good skills to fight Belal Mohammedi, defense takedowns so I think he's going to win you think Jack is going to win yeah wow do you think he wins a decision or do you think he stops him

I think decision is really hard fight you think Islam stays at 170 or he goes back? If he lose, I don't know. It depends how he feels during the fights. How close is going to be the fight, you know? Yeah. Well, okay, well, we'll see how that plays out.

By the way, have you ever been to MSG? Sorry? Have you ever been to MSG? No, never. It's a special place. Yeah. I know I heard a lot of things about that place. I can't wait to fight there

They call it the world's most famous arena It has aura Yeah, I know For sure But that's why I Really excited to fight there This past weekend

We saw you in Paris And I know it was a tough weekend For you in the team We could see how disappointed you were Can I ask how you're feeling And how everyone's doing A couple of days later Ah, it's a mix of sadness

Angry, you know I like that guys a lot They are my brothers, my family And it's never easy to see Like you really like to Losing But it's a game It is what it is

You know So I think they They're gonna keep you working You're gonna back stronger You know how it goes in this game Two teammates lose Everyone starts saying Oh the fighting nerds no good

You know And everyone piles on And then if John wins this weekend everyone's back are you feeling that and do you see that and does it get under your skin does it make you upset when you see people talk like this no bro like to be honest when I see people like this I need to see the people and then I think that people talking shit about us they are like one of the 20 people on the best of the world on they they they they they work i don't think so okay so i don't want to take it serious you know

you've been back you've been back to the gym like i i like i say on brazilian on the brazilian media like he bro a lot of people like to talk shit you know a lot of brazilians also start to laugh you know like uh cai you lose rufe lose also ha ha ha and they laugh you know and it's weird like see people's doing that you know not because they are my friend but in general like he when somebody see like like bad things happen on against on the life of famous people and they start to laughing and like it don't make too much sense for me you know you're never going to see me comment something on instagram about life of another people's or bad thing about other people's because you know you're a fighter we are fighting on the biggest show in the

world we are between the 10 best guys in the world and i don't know i don't know i like people gonna come to like instagram for example i start to comment some shit like he you know i just i like to see like probably that guy he's not between the best of the world on his work so okay I don't want to take it serious you know what it is though right it's jealousy

yeah you guys had a lot of success a lot of people talking about you big spotlight you're doing very well at the very top and oh people lose and all of a sudden people want to celebrate that because it makes them feel better about themselves

yeah I think if you get happy because somebody lose somebody who ever don't know nothing about you

sometimes I don't imagine you so if you get happy with that it means a lot about you not about me you know like if you say some shit about me

because I lose and you are happy I ever don't know who you are so it means a lot about you not about me I'm going to keep fighting, going to keep making money,

going to keep get famous, you know, so that's it. Have you been back to the gym since Saturday? Yeah. I come straight to France, to my gym here in Talbatea, my city, and then I started to train to fight Leon.

What is the mood like? What is the vibe like on the team after this weekend? On the fighting arts, I don't know because I didn't come to San Paulo. I come to train in my city in Talbatea, but everybody here is like, oh, it's not nice, you know, but we need to keep to working. Okay.

I saw when I think it was after Maricio's fight, you were watching with Ian Gary, and that was interesting because obviously you just fought. Are you guys cool now? Yeah, we're always cool. Having after a fight, you know, like we're not enemy. I tell him many times, I have to compete with him again, you know. It was really nice there on France

because I say, I'm going to fight for the belts, for the belts. First of him, I'm going to win the belt. And then I'm going to challenge him to do a rematch. And then, okay, then I'm going to stop to fight MMA. And that's it. Then you're going to retire? I think so. I don't fight too much, bro.

I just want to get the belt. And then, of course, make a rematch against Ian. You know, he's a nice guy, his wife, his son. They are really nice people. But I feel like I have to compete him again, you know. I was six years without lose, and then he come and give me a lose again. It's not nice, you know. I feel like I could beat this guy.

I could win that fight. So I'm going to fix some mistakes. So that's the plan. Get the belt. I tell him last time in Paris, say, bro, I'm going to win the belt. And then I'm going to challenge you for doing a rematch. And then that's it. I'm over.

So how many more is that? Because I feel like you're not too far away from. You beat Leon, maybe one more there. Then you fight for the belt. You win the belt. You fight him. That's like three or four fights. And then you're done.

Yeah, exactly. And what do you do then? When you're done fighting, what do you do? Just enjoy my life, barbecue, some beers. That's it? You know? Yeah, that's it. But you're only 32.

So this is what? 34, 35. You still have your whole life. I plan to fight to 35. Okay. But if I become champ early, I don't stop early. And then what do you do, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40? You have a whole life.

Nothing, bro. Just relax. Just enjoy my time on the pool. Just chill. Take care about my mom. Take care about my mom, you know. Okay. That's a good life.

Sometimes go to the gym, sometimes go to the gym, help them other guys. Be a coach. No, not really. I'm okay, but, yeah, just, you know, invest a lot of money to be safe after fight and just enjoy the life. Are you worried about the health? Like, are you worried about not sticking around too long so that it doesn't affect your health? Not about my health, but I already have many injuries, you know, my neck is bad, my back is bad, my feet, my hand, my shoulder, elbow. you know so i don't know till how long i gonna i gonna keep you wanted it's still training hard

fighting you know okay uh yeah are you're not going to um san antonio for john sylva right no no my mom had some accident here and she had to do some surgery on his shoulder so i back to stay with her, they care about her, like planning out my fight camp because we have 10 weeks, you know, and then start to next week. This week, I started ready to train here in my city, Talbatea, and then next week I'm going to back to start to go to San Paulo often. Okay. How is she doing, your mom? Now she's better. She broken her shoulder, and yeah, she got surgery, but now she's much better. I'm sorry to hear that.

I hope she makes a speedy recovery. Yeah, she's doing. She's tough, like her son. Yeah. I think more tough than her son. Yeah, usually that's the case. Yeah. Can I ask, how do you feel about the fight this weekend with John and Diego Lopez?

I'm really excited, you know. Giannis is really happy. Of course, he's two guys I really like, but Gianni is my teammates, my brother. So I think he's going to win. I think I'm expecting a tough fight, but I think he's going to win. I saw a clip from this past weekend, but it was very far. Was there like some sort of argument with Nasur Dien's manager at the Wayans, you and him?

Yeah. What happened? Yeah. Could you tell us what happened? Yeah, because when I was on the Wains, I was on front of the stage, and then I was starting to record, screen to Kyle. And then he was on the side, on the corner. And then he comes front of me and start to say like,

Ah, Kai are you going to die. Let's go Imavov. And then he started to argue, you know. But everything's okay. A lot of emotions going on, you know. After we talk with each other, I talk with himavov's brother also. Nothing but just respect for these guys, you know. But there's a lot of emotions going on.

So that's why you are, you know. almost five but that's okay okay so just to be clear you were recording and they were saying your friend is going to die and that's how it all kicked off yeah yeah no he come front of me because he was on the corner ah yeah yeah he sits was like far away of not far away but little bit far than me you know on the stage and then he come like on my side like front of me and start to say interesting yeah it weird no a little bit I mean, it's just You're all rooting for your friends

And his client, your teammate Yeah Seems unnecessary But like I said Like a lot of emotions going on, you know Yeah Yeah, yeah Revolti, Brazil and France

And Yeah, but everything's okay now I saw you with Kunia Are you a big football fan? Yeah, bro, yeah You know, to be honest The only sport to really watch is football soccer. Okay, who's your, there you are. I watch MMA.

Of course I watch MMA, but I like, you know, all the fights, you know, I like the fighters who I like, but football, I really, I really like soccer. Who's your, which team do you support? Corinthius. Corinthius, yeah. I think that's, uh, biggest team in Brazil. It's not Botafogo. Uh, isn't that, Corincius is, uh, which is, uh, Josealdo's team, or is that flamenco? Yeah. you don't like them either

no okay okay and they're the best team corinthias corinches yeah we're not we're not only you're not bigger than

only real Madrid and milan oh wow most championship corinches is bigger than PSG master knighted uh Barcelona no they weren't in the club

world cup I didn't see them in the club world cup yeah because you know we are on the bad moment right now but we're going to get better okay fair enough did you like paris did you enjoy it yeah it's really a really nice city really nice country

first time there i really like to spend time there first time yeah first time did you have the food the croissant all this stuff did you eat the food oh the food there is so good yeah yeah yeah all the foods there really like he a lot of kebabs there yeah but the french food also is really nice custom cigarettes now? Yeah, they give me some. No, I didn't believe when I saw, but the fans are crazy. And I still here, it's still keeping it with me,

you know, like a trophy, and it's really nice. Who made that for you? Some fans from French. I don't know how they did it, but it's just really nice. Well, okay, I thought it was a sponsor that was doing it for you. It was just a fan that did it for you. No, no, yeah, it's just a fan. They did.

Gosh, the people love you. You're the people's champion. Yeah, I love them also, bro. I really like to spend time with that kind of people, like, really support me, support us, you know? Like we were talking before, like people who say like you right now, and then you lose, then start to laughing or talk shit about you,

that's okay, they're not fun. They are fun of MMA. They're not your fan, you know? But for me, it's crazy. also say like my fans I think they're like my friends and all my colleagues fans is

I get hard to say I don't think I'm too famous like this to be to have fans you know I have some colleagues friends but it is what it is did you get a lot of love from the French fans yeah

even though you were you know Kyle's teammate and everything they were showing you love they see very passionate nice no they are really nice They come talk with me, take picture. Really nice week I spend there. Amazing.

And so now you stay home and you get ready for New York. Yeah. And what do you think as far as the way this fight against Leon goes? How are you feeling? What are you feeling as far as the way it plays out? I think it's going to be a tough fight. I plan to knock him out, of course. But, you know, Leon is a former champion.

I respect to him. He beat for me the greatest of Alzheimer's World Race. Kamar Usman So I'm expecting a Really tough fight Looking forward to it Thank you Carlos Looking forward to the fight

Good luck to you in training My best to your mother I hope she feels better And my best of the whole team Cayo and Maricio And John Silva this weekend The fighting nerds will be back And anyone who has jumped off the bandwagon

They're not allowed back on If you jump off you can't go back on right Yeah Okay that's the rule At least my rule Thank you Carlos all the best. Thank you, brother. Thanks so much. There he is. Carlos Prachis, big fight for him coming up on the 15th of November here in New York City.

What a card that is. So far we know of a few fights on that card. Issa Machachev against Jack Della Madelana for the welterweight title, Zhang Wei League against Valentina Shepchenko for the women's flyway title and of course that one. Many, many more to come. In a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by a guy who lives in the area. Corey Anderson, he's going to Dubai very soon to fight on that. massive October 3rd card headline by Paul Hughes versus Usman Nirmagamadeov. Don't go anywhere. Also, Paul Craig coming up, but first this quick break.

All right, back on the program. That was Carlos Prachis. Coming up later, Paul Craig is going to join us. Looking forward to that conversation. We will have some time to answer your questions. P.C. Carroll are going to stop by as well. Coming up on October 3rd, October 3rd, October 3rd, October 4th is a very good weekend in the world of mixed martial arts.

fourth we know is UFC 320, and that's the one headline by Marabdu Ali Sheffili versus Corey Sanhagan, also Khalil Rauntrigan, Tiri Prakashka, and Alec-Pera versus Magamon Kalayaev 2 is the actual headliner. On October 3rd, though, it's PFL champion series 2, back in Dubai at the world-renowned Coca-Cola Arena in the United Arab Emirates. Usbander Magamadov versus Paul Hughes, too, probably the most anticipated fight in PFL right now. Archie Calglin against J.J. Wilson, Luis McGrillin, against Kowlochran, Magomed Magomerov against Sergio Pettis. I mean, it's a nice little card. I'm not going to lie, Zubaira Tahuv against Artem Lobov. We spoke to Artem a few weeks back about this. And in the co-main event, we do believe that the vacant

PFL light heavyweight title is on the line. And it's an important fight. division as they attempt to establish a champion at 205 pounds. You got Dovlet, Dovlet Yagshu Miradov, who won the PFL light heavyweight tournament last year, late last year, defeating Impagasananay, trying to get revenge against the former Belator light heavyweight champion, overtime himself, the one and only Corey Anderson, who is here in studio with us to talk about it all. Is he there? Yeah, there he is.

What's up, Corey? Good to see you, my man. You too? Long time, no, see. How are you? How's everything? Good. You know, since it's been such a long time.

Okay, okay. I know you was one of the ones I always loved in. You know, I found the old shirts. I had to bring you on. Yo, this is a relic right here. You had to bring you. That's right here. I want to see that on the wall with all this.

No problem. Because you drop Easton 25A. Look at that right there. Yeah. This is a memorabilia right here. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

How are you? Good. And yourself? It's good to see you. It's great to see you. When do you go to Dubai? We leave the 20th, September 20th. So in 11 days.

Have you ever been there? No, sir. You were just in South Africa. Yep. Did you enjoy that? Yes, that was a blast. I didn't want to go out front. Like, I ain't trying to go all over there.

It's like Africa, you don't know what to expect. And you get to know the complete opposite of what I thought. It was awesome. What were the fans like? Did you feel like they knew MMA? Were they up to speed? Were they educated? The ones I met, and they knew MMA pretty well.

A lot of them was listing stuff from my career. some of the best moments like of course the Johnny Walker everybody talks about that but people were talking about the Glover

fighting and I took it on short notice and dominated that they're talking about the ultimate fighter how I beat Matt Van Baren so it's pretty cool

just to hear like it's mainstream MMA is all over the world yeah yeah in the US we were trying to figure this out

and you could probably help us you're not the PFL light heavyweight champion right it's weird so they told me

the bellitor champs are the champs but we fighting the first fight is to get the new bill so this is for in many respects, like the vacant PFL light heavyweight title.

Pretty much. So you win this fight. You're the PFL light heavyweight champion. As of right now, you're both kind of, he's the tournament champion, you're the Bellator champion. Basically what it seems like, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like they're trying to establish now champions in each weight class, like Costello Van Steenis, Usman and Paul, you in the light heavyweight.

Is that what's happening? I think that's what they're doing. From there, the PFL tournament winners from this year, 2025 will fight those champs. Okay. The next fight. Now, your last fight in South Africa was at heavyweight. A little side quest. Yeah.

Okay, so what was that about? And why did you come back to 205? I mean, that was an opportunity. You know, I wanted to fight. Had been sitting for a while. It was asking for a fight. Asked for a fight. And I believe they already had the Yaksa Murdof fight sit, like working for Dubai because

he's got a following over there, and there was nothing else there at the time. An opportunity to came and had to get him a fight. I wanted to fight, and I took the fight, and we saw how that happens. Okay. Now, coming back to 205, it was, like I said, they asked me right after, do you want to fight in October for the belt? Like, 100%. I'm still good. So, here we are. Yeah, quick turnaround. So you went from maybe not getting a fight to now having two in the span of three months. Back to the back. Love it.

Yeah. How did your body feel at heavy weight? Like I told her, it felt a little slower. Like, it was energy-wise. I felt great because I was eating like nine meals a day. My wife's shot Jennifer Anderson out there. She put it down in the kitchen all the time with pasta. it wasn't like your boring no seasoning meals like it was seasoning that I could still perform well like it wasn't going to make me feel bloated but the food was like high energy heavy protein and carbs so like the energy I felt great I felt a little heavy slower in the beginning of camp it was like getting used to moving a heavier weight and then in the fight I felt great how much did you weigh in the fight two four oh for weigh-ins I was 240 I would probably say in the fight probably like 2402 43

wow when you fight it let heavyweight how much you think you weighed the next day the day of the fight or after the fight? So the next day, usually so I remember when it was in the U.S.C. The way of seeing, it was, it would range from 225 to 229, 2.30. Okay. So this is kind of like 10 to 15 pounds heavier than usual. Yes. You feel more comfortable at 205.

It feels more normal at 205. Yeah. I'm going to say comfortable because I felt pretty good at heavyweight. It just, I think the biggest point or the biggest takeaway for me was being out for 16 months. And at first, I just was slow to start. And it was first time getting back into action with the lights. But once I started seeing the punches and getting the rhythm, I felt like it was back like I never left.

Why were you out for 16 months? They just, I think with the co-ownership with PFL and Belichord, they were just coming together, they were just trying to get fights together. They didn't know where exactly to go. I had just won the belt from Carl Moore and all the Yags was in the PFL tournament. I don't think there's really any fights there.

So it was just until an opportunity came. And I wasn't the only one, a lot of the guys were out. we figured out what was next. Was that frustrating? I mean, of course it is. I mean, it's not like we work everyday jobs where you got to check. So for me, like, yes, everybody knows like saving money, but at the same time, I don't like not having money coming in for such a long period of time.

But once the ball was running it, we got the fight. We're here now, and I'm happy. 16 months, a long time to not earn, like, a steady paycheck. Is that uncomfortable for you? Or, like, were you good? Like, financially, it was always good. But it was, it's frustrating because. I've come from a blue-collar family.

We always work and earn. Always having money come in and always saving. At the time, it was the first time of my life. My bank account was always dropping every month. You get like the mortgages, the properties were on, the rental houses, the stuff was coming out. And it was like, we had nothing going in. So that, it was frustrating at times. But at the same time, I always kept putting faith in God.

Like, it's going to happen. He's got a plan. He's got a plan. You're training during this time, right? I train. You know, me. I never stopped training. So is it hard to train without sort of a light at the time? end of the tunnel without someone to shoot for? Yes and no because I went to a new gym like I moved

Indiana so I was working with a new coach anyway so it's kind of like getting in sync with him and doing a lot of striking a lot of pad work seeing the way they train out of Ivy uh uh Indiana boxing grappling so IBG seeing how they work and figuring out the team getting the feel of all those guys of getting in sync with the coaches so it was it sucked because I wasn't training for anything but the same time I was training and getting better because he would go out to like the Thailand gyms and learn how to throw calf kicks and different stuff. So I was adding things

to my repertoire on the time off and it was kind of just building me up to be a better fighter when the return happened. So you live in Indiana now. Yes. When did you leave Jersey? So we actually left, what was it? After the Nimcroft won is when we bought the house. We had already had a house there

anyway. And the plan was a move there when I retired and coach college wrestling with my old coach. Well, when the Nimcroft won, all the stuff was going on, then the pandemic and everything was going to New Jersey, and how they are with all that. And the vaccines was, we just wanted, didn't want to deal with all that. So we just up and moved into the end. Wow.

So we come back to Jersey for fight camps. Okay, so I still have the house here. Yeah, well, I don't train with Mark. I'm going to Mark retired. Mark is done. Yeah, he's kind of fading. Yeah, he's a cowboy now. He thinks he's a city slicker, want to be cowboy.

But he's still with, like, Frankie, right? So he came back with Frankie. Okay. We knew when that happened, he was going to come back with Frank. Yeah. I don't think Frankie had any other striking coach other than Phil Nurse. And that's just a relationship. I get it.

Like he's going to come back and be with his little bro. Right, right, right. Is it hard to find a new team? You guys were together for so long. You have chemistry. Is it hard to find a new guy to lead the charge? I mean, it's hard to find another Mark Hinder. Yeah.

It's not hard to find another guy. So we got a guy, I got a striking coach Frank Savannah now. He was always been part of the team. He was Nick Cotone's coach back in. He worked with some of the guys, Nick Cones's gym. So he knew what we was already doing. We had Ryan Kaffar, who's been in the corner with Caitlin Jew Kagan, Frank Yeager, and those guys, so they know what we're doing. It was just finding a guy like Mark that's so obsessed and crazy and wild and full of energy one day and depressed the next day.

You never know. It was a roller coaster of emotions. Like, you know, you talk with him with the Buffalo Bills. The way he is with his football, the way he is with our fighters, if they lose, oh, it's a horrible day. If they win, we won the Super Bowl. So it's to find that energy to match his energy and the aura he carries around. around them. Now, that's hard to find. You'll never find other Mark Hinder. But to find somebody else that can do the job as will do it the same as Mark, probably not, but can you do

it as well as Mark? I think so. So funny you say that because I'm on a group chat with him and his son Pino about the Bills. It's only Bills talk. And on game days, we're going back and forth. Pino is very, you know Pino, right? He's very level-headed. Mark is like, this is game one, week one on Sunday and it was a crazy game but like season's over we're winning the Super Bowl season's done we suck

they don't know what they're doing we're incredible like the range of emotions Pino keeps them in check but it's one of my favorite experiences so on Sunday we were going nuts when they had that crazy comeback against Baltimore but there was like five times throughout the day

that Mark kind of threw in the towel I remember we used to go over there so I used to pass at his house on Monday and Thursday so Monday morning Monday was like a 7 a.m. session or 6th or whatever And the gang was on Sunday.

You go to the house. He got like a shrine, like Christmas trees of all Buffalo Bill stuff. And I come in, he'd be in the basement. I'm ready to gym-watch TV. Like, what are you doing? They're watching my stock just crash. Like, what are you talking about? The bill's lost yesterday.

So I'm trying to see what they're saying about. Every week it was something. Like, is he going to be happy or is he going to be sad? Because I don't watch football. But I can tell when I walked in. If he was down there on a treadmill happy, they won. And he's sitting on a bench like this, look. They lost.

But, yeah. That basement is legendary with the paper and the, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, the codes and the quotes, hesitation equals debt. That's my favorite one. Hesitigal equals death. That's a paper. I think Akira, somebody wrote it years ago.

Said it's a mark and he wrote it down, meaning if you sit in front and you hesitate too long, that's when you get hit. Like, you're not worried about it. If you're not sure what you're going to do next and you start waiting, that's when you're about to get hit, and it's usually probably when you get knocked out.

So that's probably one of my favorite quotes down there. Love it. The difference between living in Indiana and New Jersey, what's the difference? So, New Jersey, New York, it's fast, fast-paced. Like, you look outside now, cars, people, noise, the smell of the air, smell like boo-boo, you know, all that. So, but then you go to Indiana and it's peaceful. Like, I live, I own 200 acres out there.

My backyard is a 500-acre beanfield or cornfield from the neighboring farm. I have my hot tub, cold plunging, song on my back deck. I go out and just sit in peace at night, and you see the stars, the planes are going over, and you don't hear anything. You don't hear cars. No ambulances. I can come on my back door, grab a rifle, and start shooting squirrels, shooting targets, whatever I want, right there. Just that's where I like living, just for no, it's like, pretty much no rules.

Technically, like that's the cops. You're shooting squirrels back there? Yeah, man. Remember we got squirrels the size of coyotes in Indiana. They'd be out there eating up my wife's garden. I got to get them off somehow. Wow. What do you do with them after you shoot them?

You eat them, you can eat squirrel, rabbit. Stop. I'm a country boy. I eat all that. You eat a squirrel? Yeah. How? You have them in a free.

What you mean? You can take, make them stew. You can show. him out, put them on the grill, smoke a mile. The squirrel? Yeah, you couldn't. Get out of here. Squirrel and rabbit, that's what I grew up on.

Really? Yeah. So you shoot the squirrel and then you pick it up? Yeah. Even my kid, I got a picture of my wife, got a picture of me and my kids and my daughter. When she's like three holding the squirrels each other, yeah. We skated or whatever right there. So on it, putting a zip lock bag and put it in the freezer.

It's a time to eat it. Stop it. I should have brought you a squirrel. No, no, thank you. You're going to squirrel. What does it taste like? What is it's like, is it's like, is it like, is it like chewy? What is it?

You're doing like a crock pot with a stew. Like when I did it as a kid, we did rabbit stew and you didn't, like, pull apart really easy. I got, I want to say, like, it's like chicken. But it's kind of like it comes out of the bone like chicken. Rabbit or squirrel? What do you prefer? Rabbit.

Okay, why? It's just, I don't know. I'm just more used to it. Okay. I grew up on a living there. There are a lot of rabbit back there? We get, I got a couple rabbits in the backyard, more squirrel than anything. Okay.

But we got a lot of acorn, oak trees, so they out there getting the acorns. The rabbits come from the field. here and there when the fields are still growing. What about deer? Deer everywhere. That's what I do. I'm a big deer hunter. So I own the 200 acres,

and I hunt those pretty hard. Hunting season coming up, right? Saturday, baby. Open day in September 13th and Saturday in New Jersey. So, wait, oh, in New Jersey. What about in Indiana? In Indiana, it's not until October 1st. Kentucky opened last week.

I missed the season opener for the first time in like eight years. So what does that mean, season opener? First day you can be in the woods, baby. That's a holiday in the hunting community. So, like, if you went now, you get a fine. Yes, it's called poaching.

If I went out now and I was out there killing something, because you got to tag it. If you tag it ahead of this, you get it fine, and you probably lose your license for, like, five years or depending. If it's a real big bug, you can probably, I know some people I've heard get lifetime banned for doing certain things. Really? So is it as of midnight?

So you can't hunt. It's like 30 minutes from sunup. So sunrise, say it's 7 o'clock, 30 minutes before you can shoot for the first time. Is this the most exciting day of the year for you? For me, baby, that's it. So what do you do? Like, will you be in New Jersey on Saturday? Yep.

Okay. So I'm going to hunt. I'm going to go at night, though. I got training. In camp, I've tried not in camp. I try not to hunt before practice. When I'm not in camp, I used to go, that's Frank. That comes to the gym in Camo.

Come in Cammo, change the locker room, going to mat, leave, put my Camel back on and go to the woods. Like, I hunt every day. Why not before practice? Well, because I want to be fully rested and hydrated and ready, focus for hunting. You got to get up at like 4 o'clock in the morning. Okay. So I'll be, by time I get to practice, I'm yawning and I'm sleepy.

and Saturday, it's sparring day, so I want to be on my peas and cues. What's your favorite thing to hunt? Deer. Deer. Why is that? It's just something about it, man. It's just, it's an art. For me, hunting with a bow, like I do with a bow.

Just a hunting deer with a bow is like fighting. It's like if I don't practice every day with my bow, if I don't practice hanging my stand properly and being silent and practicing the wind for the deer to come in, that deer is going to spot me. I'm going to miss my shot. As for fighting is the same way. If I'm not in the gym every day, working on my jab, working on my taked, my ground a pound when I get into the fight the guy's going to have that advantage on me he's

going to see what's coming and so I can just sit in the woods one after the OSP head kick knock out when I just didn't know what to do next I was kind of playing retirement do I what I do can I keep fighting do I still got it I remember going to the woods still what two days later and just sitting there and listen to nature and I forgot all about the fight and that's one I love hunting deer because it doesn't happen fast it take time so are you sitting there's like therapy with my mind I can study fight film up there long as I'm just looking with no something I can study the film, I can read a book, whatever. And once I hear that noise in the woods,

whatever, I start looking. It was a deer or a squirrel, whatever. I'm right back. And then when it's time to go, man, you start shaking like booty meat. I'm telling you, when you start shaking your heart racing, and then when you get the shot off, and it's just like, you can't stop it, your body is shaking, and you just can literally under-controlable for like 10, 15

minutes, and so you finally calm your nerves, and I've been the same way since my very first deer, and now I've probably shot 200 deer from doing it, and I still get the same feeling every time. I love it why bow as opposed to gun again it's an art with a gun i can be out there i've been i've hunted with veterans with the gun and we're in the blind and i love it they love it so i'm with them trying to help them pass time help them get over things but you can smoke cigarettes you can drink

and be loud and deer come from 300 yards you can pop them it's a good shot as for with a bow you have to be stelle you can't be out there talking i take my son with me i got to teach him son you got to be quiet you whispered to communicate but at the same time you got to be able to stand up I'm 6-3, so I'm in a tree saying 6-3-2-40. When I stand, I got to stand up slow enough where that deer, he's within 15 yards. He can see me a hundred yards away, but within 10 yards, he really can see me. He can smell me. I got to be able to move, get my bow and get everything back and get fully drawn and still get a shot off what I'm seeing me.

That's an art. To do that, that's impressive. Now, if he has 300 yards, I can grab a gun and shoot two, three times, hit him. It's cool, but it's not as impressive for me. Who taught you how to bow hunt? So me and my father started together. So we kind of learned that this bow shop, I can't remember the name of the bowl shop, I think it was like obsession archer or something, when I was like 12 or 13. And then in my first hunt, I learned from a high school teammate, Steve DeWire, he took me out. And then from there, just meeting different people in industry from like, even when I was out with Joe Roken and like John Doug, I asked questions and they show me different things I don't know. Right. And now it's like, I got a pretty good grasp on it. Your son is how old, the one that goes with you?

He's five, or six, sorry. Is it, is he your oldest? Yes. Is it surreal for you? you to now be the dad teaching the son like you and your dad went back together love it's probably my best memories like i come home i shoot my bow every day and like i'm shooting now my daughter she's four and she got his first bow and when i'm shooting they're going dad dad can we shoot like yeah and i put my bow down just filmed him and shoot with him taking my son out this year he shot his first he didn't recover but for him she was for it it was awesome like deer came in right in front of us and just like oh he was like dad dad he was like yeah yeah he's gonna come and just wait and he had the cross bow, he shot it, he hit it high, but

to this day he'd tell everybody, like, oh, I killed my first deal, like he shot his first, he didn't track it, but, or we didn't recover it, but that's awesome. Like, for me, that's probably the highlight of my life, fighting knockouts, all that is cool, but to see my son come out and shoot his boat and I want to go hunting with Daddy, just want to go to the woods of Daddy, those are my

best members in life right now. So, yes, OSP fight, you consider retirement for a moment after that. It just, you didn't know, I mean, it was two knockouts back to back. Yeah. That was the biggest thing. Like, if you just got knocked out, twice like do we still got out we like lacking in something like we not lose a focus enough what's the problem and for me after hunting for so long I realized my only thing I had was fighting

like I didn't do anything else I didn't go out and party I didn't drink all it is fight train train train that's why overtime I was always in the gym and if I'm in the gym this much and I lost now what then after the hunting and realizing it's more in life other than fighting so now it's like I got fighting I got my family and I got hunting so I'm at peace all the time I don't wake up a day in my life and regret. I work up, wake up and live the dream every day because I get to go film content for my YouTube channel, jump on a plane or drive and go hunting somewhere.

I head to the gym where I come home and spend time with my family. I can't complain. Life is beautiful. How much longer do you want to do this for? That's another question, man. I get it a lot. And when I was sitting out for a while, I kept saying, I'm going to finish my contract.

Whenever my contract is over, I'm done. I'm retired. I don't think I want to do this anymore. I've been out for long. For so long, I don't think I love fighting no more. Then I got back in that last camp, and I was like, I'll tell Ricardo the other day. Like, I love this coach. It was like, I'm a white belt all over again.

I don't want to stop. So to me, it's the point I feel like when the coach is teaching something and I don't want to listen no more, like, oh, this stuff again. Or I'm not excited about fighting or getting up and going to the gym, that's when I walk away. Or if I'm not hanging with the young bucks anymore, when the young guys come to the gym and they start dog walking me and I can't stop a takedown, I'm getting hit all the time. It's like, all right, I ain't got it no more. Let's walk away. So when you say I want to fight until this contract is up, how many more fights do you have on this contract?

I have to be honest, I'm not sure, because when I won the champ, they did the extension. When you come to champ, we've got to extend it. So that's the talk we've got to have with Ali after. So I'm just focusing on one fight at a time right now. We're not worried about it. When keep winning, like I said, right now I'm worried about stacking checks and bills.

That's all I'm worried about. When you were out and other guys were out, as you know, a lot of guys were vocal in their displeasure, right? And some got released. Correct me from my first. wrong. I didn't really see that from you that much. Were you, were you vocal about how you were feeling? Because I didn't see it as much as some of the other guys who have been, you know, the pit bulls of the world who got Aaron Pico. I was vocal to the point, but at the same time, like,

vocal, I was already at the other organization. So if I went out there and started, oh, we'll release this and that. Oh, you just did that for the last place. And at the same time, I know for me, I'm making more money I ever made in my life. So I knew it was going to happen eventually. It was just when. Like I said, I would vocalize stuff. But, you know, I would vocalize stuff. to a point. Like, I didn't want to make anyone upset and mad where they make me sit longer. But at the same time, I just kept, like I said, I put in God's hands. I would say something slick or say something small, reach out to Cogan or Don Davis, and just pray on it. Like, just pray eventually, just answer come. I'll tell the wife, like, we can't stress it.

We can't keep getting mad. It's going to happen in time. Everything is in God's plan. Maybe he's doing this for a reason. We don't know. We hope it happens sooner or later. But at the same time, just have patience, just keep praying and stay on our Bible and just hope. It's going to turn around. How do you feel about the state of PFL now? Right now, like I said, just being at the headquarters, I've been talking with these guys and girls walk around, I see the things going. I met the new CEO, John, today, and

it just seems like it's going in a great direction. Like, I even said it, I slipped up, and I didn't mean it like, I know after I said it, and I said, ooh, that sounds kind of bad. I said something to one guy, it's something like, so it looked like PFL's here to stay, huh? But I didn't mean it. Like, you guys are going off, man, like, yo, you guys are doing things

like, you guys got the ball world, you're doing your marketing, You're doing advertising, you're trying to get fighters out, you're doing the tours. You're trying to promote the brand good. And that's how you grow a brand. I feel like that's what was missing in Bellator. Like we were a great payment, and we loved the organization. But it wasn't much marketing on Ask Pay.

I'm an aspect of promoting the brand. As far I can see these guys and girls now. Like I'm walking with them, talking with them, asking questions. It's like, okay, you guys, like you're building a plan. You're building for a future. And that's the biggest thing. If you don't have a plan for a future, you plan to fail. It seems like they got the big plans ahead.

Towards the end of Bellator, it just kind of felt like it was just fizzling out, right? Like, there was no real umph to it. Did you feel that way as well? I mean, like, everybody knew it was heading out of the door. We all knew it was coming to an end. And, like, yeah, it's kind of like they were just saving the rest of the pennies they had. We're not going to keep investing money if we're getting ready to sell. So, yeah, in the way, it felt like they just kind of, the soda was flat.

I mean, there was no flavor anymore. We're just going to finish what we got until we sell off and then let them take over the headache. One thing that I like, like this card in particular, right? one that you're fighting on, this is a really good card. You know what I mean? And sometimes I felt like PFL was handcuffing itself with this, like, tournament format or the season format. Like, ultimately, just put on the best fights, in my opinion. Lusman v. Paul is the best fight to make a 55. You versus Doble is the best fight to make a two of a while. Just put on the, put Ardum on there, have some fun fights on there.

That's what gets fans excited. Not necessarily, oh, this guy won in the semifinal, so now he's going to, that stuff is cool for a little bit, but don't just make that your whole identity and I like that now they're starting to move away from just the tournament or season being their full identity. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, they got a championship series or fights going, but then a tournament thing like I like the change, they made

the tournament, like I said, the two fights or two playoff fights, you've got to earn points, and I was like one and done. And that is awesome because I mean, it's ironic because Sean O'Connell who ended up winning, if they had the one and done, he wouldn't ever won. He wouldn't be in a position he is. So yes, for guys like him, it's awesome.

It worked out for a guy like them, but then what about their guys that had beat him, and they end up losing because at the same time, now it's like you win or go home, and that is big and in the championship series fights, like you said. These guys are not in the tournament that people want to see, we can get these awesome matchups, and then you've got the title or the champion who's waiting for whoever wins the tournament to come up and fight him or until the tournament is done. If it's one of these other guys that's not in a tournament, another big fight, yes, it's awesome. I think it's going to take them in the right direction.

Did you consider going into the tournament when you were, trying to figure out what was going on i try i just i just wanted to fight what happened i was just conflict your interest with the contract and everything just you make too much i think pretty much yeah like pretty much trying to be not say that yeah yeah pretty much in order to make the tournament if i was getting my contract with that it would have been yeah and you weren't down with that i mean i was down but they the option to renegotiate would just didn't come up i'm sure they probably still thought i would more sure i'm sure i would have but it all kind of worked out right yeah It worked out perfect.

Like, I have no complaints at all right now. Like, I'm happy. My wife is happy. The kids is happy. We live in life. The bank account looks good, so let's keep rocking. Fighting Dovlett again, you fought him in Bellator way back when. He's been on a nice run.

He beat Impa in the finals. Do you feel like he's the same guy, or do you feel like he's much better? No, he's definitely a different guy. He's better in aspects, and I think his mindset is better this time. When he came over, he was the ACHent. And I remember with all the media, and they kept saying he's a dark horse, and now he was always dangerous in. I remember that camp, like it had that puckering your booty hole feeling when I was trying,

like he has those big shots that can catch you. And I still in the same way. I got that same thing in me now. Like he's gotten better, and he's a champion again. He's motivated, and we know he's lost, but I don't think he's ever been finished. And if he has been finished, he hasn't been finished the way I have. And I know for me, if I go to the gym, a new gym, and somebody get the best of me, it eats me up for a week.

And so I can get back and get that pay. payback. He's had eating them up for three to four years. So I know the mindset I have coming back in after somebody might, I feel like they got the best of them, even if they didn't. I can only imagine what's going on in his head. He's coming back a whole new dangerous fighter with new tools. He's going to try the things that work for him and stay away from the things that didn't. Now, I hope he comes with a solid game plan and makes it a really good fight. So explain to me something. I saw you say, Vadim re-signed, Vadim Knav, who you have a history with. And a lot of people, including myself, said, oh, maybe this will be.

be the guy that they have Francis fight because they're looking for an opponent for Francis. You said he has to go through you first. How does he get a Francis fight off of a retired truck driver win when I just beat the champ in dominant fashion? But different weight class? No, that was heavy weight. No, okay. Well, I'm saying I just kind of view you as a light heavy weight.

Well, you can view me where everyone to view me as long as the Deem across from me. He can get it at 205 or a heavyweight. You can't go out there and first of all that fight with Tim Johnson. He was supposed to fight me. And then he does a media and say, I need more time. to prepare. Then I don't know where the week of the fight,

he announced he's going to come back and fight Tim Johnson, who's been retired for two years, then wins that fight and calls out Nimca or Vanee, Ugano? Like, come on, man.

Then I go in there and I just beat the PFL champ who's been active and was dominant. And now you say you can jump me? No, no, no, no, no, no, sir, old boy. If you want to come get that,

come get this smoke first. I'm going to send you back to the back of line and I ain't got to hear about you no more. Do you want the Francis, I mean, I want whatever fight is going to get the biggest payday, man. That's the biggest one. That's exactly.

But at the same time, if Vadilla, they came right now and said, you got Vadim or Nimcah. Or, like, you said, Vadim or Nugano? I'm going to take Vadine. Why? Because that's that trilogy, I got to get back. Right, right, right. Because I know in that second fight, like, I did his media tour, and I was overlooking him. I thought, oh, he can't get that much better, this and that, this and that.

And I didn't go into that camp the way I should have. Wow. It wasn't overtime. It was Corey Anderson in that camp. Why did you overlook him? Because, you see, the first fight. fight yeah it just seemed too easy you were overconfident i was very overconfident i went in like my wife said remember it's not the same fight it's a new fight not to get you right but in my head like it's the

same fight and i worked hard but i didn't work overtime hard it was like oh he in the gym he's working hard but it wasn't that blood sweat and tears like i'm willing to get something broken train i'm willing to kill myself in a training session to get this w i mean it was kind of like we worked hard but to the point like i practice over we're out but engano's the bigger fight yeah he's a bigger name, but it's not. It's okay. I get the Nogano fight and I get the big check and I beat him and the people are still going to say, oh, Corey, there's a bum, this and that. At this point,

it's like, what is the fight that I want for me? If you beat Angano, no one's calling you a bum. Still there. I'll be there. Every name I didn't beat him. I didn't beat him. Oh, he's still a bum. It happens. I beat Glover's a share on a week notice. Eating, drinking beer and eating burgers. I take a contract and I dominate him. Oh, it was a bum, it was a

flute. Now, all of a sudden, he went, oh, he's a greatest champion that we ever has. Like, no matter what happens, well, long as my name is attached to it, it's going to be a bump. You don't get the respect you deserve. I don't care about it no more. That's the point. I know I'm never going to get it, so I'm at the point now. I'm just going to keep doing it. Why? Why don't you get it? Couldn't tell you.

I don't like country. They like flashy. The only people out there with Rolexes and Lamborghinis, funny color hair and making skits and stuff like that, you know? I'm a country boy. I'm true to my roots. Blue collar. Come from a small town of like 1,200 people, and I still live in my head. I'm still that same 300-pound

fat kid from Rocks, Illinois, living a home life quiet with his family and that's it that's all I want to be I love my family I love my body the Jesus I love reading my Bible and people don't like that they want somebody to be flashy flamboyant talking trash I can't be that guy because one in the back of my head anytime I think something like that I got my mom on my right shoulder telling me no and my dad on the right shoulder saying boy people you pass on the way up gonna be the same people you pass on the way down remember that and it keeps me humble every day right was there a point though that you were

annoyed by this that you were bothered by it why don't I get the love the respect, all that stuff? 100%. My last UFC fight. And that's why I went out there trying to strike with Yom Blokowitz, and we see what happens. And ever since then,

I realized we're not going to worry of what the fans were thinking anymore. We don't go out there and do what we do. Dominate. You dominate wrestling. That's what you're good at. Don't try to strike with nobody. It cost you the last time.

Let's go out and just do what we do. So after that fight, you said to help with this. The hell, just beat Corey Anderson. That's what the conversation I had with Scott Coker, when I met him for months with DZ. He took around and I said,

look, Mr. Coker, I'm saying right now, I don't want to have to try to peace of the fans. I literally just want to go out and just beat me. I just want to win fights and keep going. I don't want to have the crowd behind me. I got to sell tickets. He said, Mr. Anderson, you come in, you do your job,

and we're going to do our, you'll move forward. And that was it. Did you like working with Scott? Scott was great. Just like Kogan, I mean, they both great people. Like I messaged Scott now. I feel like we still have a great conversation. I mean, they took a chance on me at the time,

coming off a loss, and I think it paid off both of us. Do you follow the UFC's light heavyweight division do you follow what's going on of course your your old friend johnny walker getting a big win did that surprise you i mean he's he's athletic he can get away with anything i've trained with him in Vegas when i go out there and train with john stricken extramcature i mean he's still getting better he still has holes but he's getting better um you can see in the first round i didn't go the way i'm sure he wanted to but then when he found his weapon that calf kick he went back to it and it didn't have to take a long to add up it was really quick put the guy down got the win

Happy for him. Who do you think is the best light heavyweight in the world right now? Other than me, Magga met Ankaloff. You think so? Is that because he beat Alex?

Or do you think it's because he is legit the best? I mean, I've trained with Maga before, like after his first fight when he lost to Paul Craig, he came to Jersey to do his camp with us for Jiu Jizzi. And I'm working with him there.

And Markle, yo, this guy's good. Yeah, he's a problem. Like, it was, like usually we do small glove MMA on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but we were like going out to Markle and all you guys

do know just big gloves. Y'all can kill each other because you guys are going at it. Like, it's been times we've met to UFCPI when I've been down here helping him with camp and I had a cameraman come and like the whole PI would like circle the cage

and I would get in trouble because I would get in trouble because we were going at it like we would put rounds on and I said it then like other than me I talk about other than me he's the best in the world he's going to win the belt

and he did and I'm having it for a while long as nobody did a challenge you think he beats Alex in the rematch Yes but you think you're number one right now you're not just saying obviously everyone believes that they're the best

you beat any light heavyweight on the planet, you're better than all of them. Yes. Does it bother you that you can't prove that? No, really. I bring this up because there's all this Aliyak talk happening right now in the world of boxing about the best fighting the best and all this stuff.

MMA will never get to that point. It seems like the ship has sailed. The train has left the station. And so someone who's the best guy in PFL will never get that opportunity. You don't really care. You get to a point, like I said, you'll never please the fans at the end of the day. No matter what you do.

Even like I said it when I was in the UFC When I beat Glover to Xxera I beat him when he was ranked third And they ranked me eighth How does that work? How do I go down? I was ranked seventh or ninth And I moved to eight like what?

Like how does that like I said it right then Like no matter what I don't never I don't think they ever gonna put the respect on me No matter who I beat It's just it is what it is They just don't like me as a person For some reason I don't know why

It is what it is That's their opinion about me And I'm happy like I said I'm mad I got my wife and kids now I realize that's all that matters. My wife is my business partner, my best friend, my soulmate, so I don't, the rest is to the birds.

Do you stand to benefit from the class action lawsuit that was settled? Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Did you get your payments yet? I don't think the payments were not yet. I don't pay attention. My wife do all that.

Pay attention all that. That's good stuff. I mean, 100%. I mean, look, some people are complaining. We're not getting them enough. Some people are complaining and they're getting too much. Look, nobody expect to get any money.

Right. Look, we just got what is, like 18,000 or whatever it is, times, whatever. If we just got one payment of that, that's more money than we had sitting at home anyway. Right. So you can't complain. Just take whatever we're getting. I mean, yes, we do we deserve more? Probably. I don't know what all goes into? I know it was what, like

three, six people that did all this fight for us to get whatever money we coming. So who am I to hear and complain about anything? I didn't put any of that work in. So I'm thankful either way that we're getting the payment. Like if you're in a hard place and you don't have no money you're not broke because you got money coming eventually. Whether it's going to be enough to

help you buy a house or just get you on your feet is something. Now what you do with it from there is you. What do you think of some fighters saying they didn't want the money? Shame on y'all. To get your money. It's like it's your money. It ain't like it's, I don't think you're going to get punished for taking it. I mean, I think

the UFC want to give it. They had to. They agreed to it. Yeah, like they agreed to it to get it off their case. It's like, we don't want to keep dealing here. Just pay them on and get out of here. So you're not taking the money, but at the same time if you don't take it, thank you because we just split what you don't give. Right, right, right. Do you think there will be a point where everything, like where you guys are more

in line with the boxers? I don't think so. No? Why not? Just Dana White and UFC, they got the game on lock, I feel. They just, they well now, especially like he got Trump and stuff helping them out. I think all that stuff helps. It's like, the world of business

is not what you know, it's who you know. And Dana White knows a lot of the top guys and he knows what he's doing. He's not a bad business, man. He is doing business that benefits him. And I feel like ideally, he would keep doing something that's going to benefit him and not everybody. Well, right now, I think one thing that could help is if there's more competition.

Right now, there's only two players in America, right? There's the UFC and PFL. Do you think it would be better if there were more, or do you think it's better if it's just two? Because then, you know, the best are sort of fighting the best. It's not as splintered. I mean, anything, it's always best to have more. It's always best to have more options for anything. Because, like, think about it, if it wasn't another option, when I was in my situation,

I was still by either be in UFC or just be done. But the fact that there was another organization to give me an opportunity to kind of like reset my life and do all my wrongs right and do better, it's better. So the same thing for having anybody else. It could be other people that don't succeed in PFL or didn't succeed in bellatory. They can't go to the UFC, but they can go somewhere else and have a better stardom. And then they can put on such a good show there and then possibly get picked up by the UFC. But more is always better. So, but right now it is, like you said, it's only two players.

It's kind of hard for you. to make a name out there, but then you've got the contender now, and we've got guys and girls going on there that's making a name and making opportunities that wouldn't from a regional circuit. So it's things moving in the right direction. How did you feel on how the whole John Jones situation played out with the UFC, him saying that he was going to retire now,

coming back, it dragging out? I know you're a vocal about him in the past. What do you think? That's John Jones business. I mean, I don't think he's going to come back, but I think he's doing what he's got to do. keep his name in the media right you don't think he wants to come back i don't see why he for what like you got all that money you've done it all already you've already beat everybody

while i come back and take a chance of losing to this new young gun that they are already saying can beat you and then you go out there and lose and now everybody was right i feel like it's just best thing would just keep the media talking yeah keep posting my name like i says it's in the more people talk about him the more you type his name in he says he's working on his brand i think his youtube or twitch or whatever kick whatever he's streaming on and i got to dirty box and the more y'all keep talking about his name the more he pops up in google then he comes trending that just grows his brand and even if come back to fight or not right now he's doing what he has to do to stay relevant what are you doing on youtube i do hunting baby outdoors with overtime

if you ain't yet going to youtube and check me out so that's life outside the cage and that's literally my life out when i'm not in the cage or in the gym with my family are in the woods with a bowing hand you want to have a show like do you want to be on tv and do this or you like doing it on on on YouTube. I like the YouTube. There's no overhead, you know what I mean? But right now, TV for hunting is dwelling down because all the influences and stuff from YouTube, there's a lot of people that do YouTube just for the free year. You get a lot of free stuff. Like, I have partners and contracts where I promote. A lot of these guys in YouTube, they do it for the free year. And what that does is the guys that's getting paid to do it on TV. It costs like $75,000

to get a show on TV. But if the partner can pay, kind of like the Contender series, not in the way like contender, they can get these new guys for less money so they don't have to pay the big name guys to fill that car. It's the same thing with the YouTube. If I can get somebody that can represent my brand and I can just give them a discount code and they get 10% of whatever they sell compared to giving this guy 50,000 a year just to promote it, like I'm just going, okay, we're going to go a different way. We're going in-house.

We're going a different route this year. And they're going to get somebody else free year with a discount code so they don't have to pay the people to advertise on TV. Yes, some companies want to still be on TV. TV because they get more views and it helps their brand grow. But at the same time, in the outdoor industry, what's happening now is a lot of these companies are getting bought out by one mega company. So when you go to get one brand is owned by 20 of the different brands.

So it's kind of like all in-house. And those are the guys that don't have to pay out anymore because they own a lot of the businesses. So when you're done fighting, do you think this will be your main thing? Do you think you'll be doing hunting full-time? Hunting and coaching college wrestling and we can open a gym. I'd never sit steel. That's the thing.

That's overtime. Another thing, I have to have a lot of things going where I go crazy. So the two things I'm doing right now is coaching college wrestling and then outdoors overtime to YouTube. Now, once I'm done fighting,

we're going to open the gym. Now, when we were sitting out for that year, we started looking at buildings, finding spaces, trying to figure out, do we want to do this now? But the thing was, we didn't want to open a gym

and then get called in the fight camp and it's hard to focus on that. I'm going to focus on one thing at a time in each field. So the moment we're done fighting, 100% overtime fitness. outdoor, O.T. Beaton 25A. Some gym going to be opening up in Indiana, and that's going to be the heart and soul of the Anderson family. But the rest of it is all kind of like side quests,

passions that I love. Wrestling coach, I volunteer. I don't get paid for that. I just love giving back to the community. The coach that made me who the man I am, he's a head coach there. So I helped those guys out. And that's Stephen Bradley. Shout out to him. And then the hunting is something I can do for the rest of my life. From a wheelchair with a crossbow or rifle, whatever, I can hunt the rest of my life and it's it's fun it's a passion it's how i when things go bad things are going wrong i go out and shoot my bow and nothing else matters uh which school are you coaching at marion university it's the n a i school in indianapolis okay and you're an assistant coach right now yes sir eventually do you want to be a head coach no i don't want to be so i'm i'm sure i could get a head coach

without having my master's degree but to be a head coach i usually want a master's but i'll just i love coaching i'm going to have my own gym so it's going to be hard to be the head coached head coach, I don't want to do like the D.C. be the coach of a high school, Gilroy, and running the gym. Like, I've actually seen D.C. on the road at the tournament in Reno. And I've talked to him, like, yo, man, how are you doing this and still commenting? He left there and flew out from there to go do one of the big paper views. I can't remember which one it was. I remember Dustin Jacoby fought Alonzo Manifield on that car because I was talking to Destin that week. And it's like, how do you do that? You hear coaching. You're going to go there. And then you've got

the gym stuff too. I just like volunteering. You know, I love it. It'd be cool to get paid for, but at the same time, the best payment for me is when those kids go on the mat and someone like, I got one kid, we worked all year long. He, like, wasn't that good, was the backup, came and started, beat ranked guys, and he would do something. He hit me up, like, coach, that move, we worked on it worked. That's the best payment for me. That, right there, that's better than any payment because what I did in time I spent with this athlete to get better, it paid off. And that, I can do that all day long for free. Are you surprised Frankie's coming back? Yes and no. It's weird.

We went to Eddie Alvarez's fight in Philly, the Nucomania, whatever it was. Yeah. And we met up with Frankie. Me and my wife met up with Frankie in the crowd. And he was talking about it. He was excited. You can tell me he's talking. And Frankie, you get this.

When he's innocent, he'd get excited. He's talking fast. And my wife tapped me, and we went back to that she's like, I don't like to look at his face. Like, what you mean? Like, his wheels are turning. He's coming back. Like, I don't think Frankie are going to come back.

Like, do you hear the way he was talking? Like, he likes this a lot. He thinks it would be fun. And Frankie loves fighting. And he's still sparse. he's going to come back and sure enough when he can like I was like Frank ain't no way because he's cornering me that day before

ain't no way he's fighting and next day he called me like bro I'm taking that fight I ain't gonna be your corner like huh okay I mean I support you I'm I ain't excited about it but I support him Why aren't you excited about it? Just because Frankie's like somebody I truly love and look up to and you know the last few fights seeing the way they went and just seeing him hurt

I just I don't want to see it again like I believe 100% he can win I've seen him and Jimmy Rivera's bar before and I've seen Frankie go with the best in the box and everything else. But in the fight game, everybody has a puncher's chance. And I guess I told the same thing to Frankie. Like, I love you, bro. I'm going to support you.

I just don't want to see you heard for a check. That's it. Are you nervous? I mean, I'm always nervous. Yeah. I'm nervous. I'm nervous with my guys. Bairnuckles is, like, you saw it, right?

It's brutal. It's different beasts. Like, that's what put into, in the picture for me when I saw Eddie get hit by Jeremy Stevens. And, like, just, I've seen Eddie's spot. I've watched Eddie fight for years and that. And I was like, that hurt different. And then the final, his jaw was broken.

Like, yeah, that sucks. But at the same time, if a man want to do something, who am I to tell him no? Like, I support 100%. You, my dog. I'm probably your biggest fan. I support you. So I'm in your corner. Do I like it?

I don't have to like it. I support you and I love you. I see him every Sunday. I go to his house to recover and everything. Yeah, we talked about this time. He's like, yo, I feel good. I feel great. Like, I'm glad you feel good.

I hope you go out there and get it done. So do you think you'll ever do something like that? Are you interested? My wife wouldn't let me. She wouldn't let you. They asked me, what was that knuckleman? Like, how much it would cost to get you in? Like, nothing.

He'll never. Nope, I'm not letting him do it. Forget it. There you go. The boss has spoken. When you saw it, though, were you like, hmm? I mean, I'll say that a while. So the guy used to be my cameraman for my show outdoors at overtime.

He's the main cameraman now for Bear Knuckle Nick Vespi. He'd make that for dope photo, Mike Perry spitting the blood out in the cage. And he even told me before, like, bro, I mentioned your name once. Like, I'll do photos for you. And he was like, we would love it for him. Like, what you think he would do it? And I thought about it, man, it would be cool to go out and do it. The way I move and people don't think I can box.

I'm going to the boxing gym the night to sport. I do a lot of my training at box bar. I feel like I would do pretty well in there with the movement and head movement, not getting hit and hitting and getting out of there. But like I said, I'm talking with the wife. She's like, no, I'm already going to be pushing around in a wheelchair. I'm not going to be feeding you from a spoon either. I was like, all right.

Is she going to be the one to decide when you're done? So we got like an agreement already. We already got that pretty much the things that need to happen. and she's on it as well. Like, we talked about it the other night in bed. Like, I was telling her I still loved this. And I don't, like, our plan was to be done when the contract was, whenever that it is. Like, and that can't be too far from now.

But at the same time, I'm still loving us. What now? She just said, look, babe, just like always. We're going to always be all right. We're going to take it one day at a time. We'll see what happens after this fight. What opportunities come? And then we go from there.

When the contract again, we go, what happens from there. If we get another contract, it's better. And the opportunity to come, we go from there. But the one thing we know is if we get this. knocked out again it's over that's the what's the one right there the one more knock it's a that's the deal that's the main that's the fine print the big printer the main thing one more knockout is what if you're winning you know 98% of the fight and then you get caught i mean that's just you got it but it's not so much like oh you ain't got it it's just helps yeah we've had quite a few

knockouts in this game what if she says i want you to stop and you really don't want to in your heart what happens who wins i mean guys take care of my family's was most important for me So, you know what I mean? At the same time, we sit and talk, we talk everything over. It's nothing, this isn't the one show thing. We are a team. Like, we make every decision together. And if she would say that, it would be for a certain reason.

Okay. And I would have to sit there and listen, and we do the pros and cons and go over it, and we make our decision together at the end. Some of these guys who have stayed around a little bit too long, are you one to look at that and say, I don't want that to be me? Oh, 100%. I've always said it when I started, I'm going to retire from the game. The game isn't going to retire me.

Right. A lot of these guys, they fight so long. So they can't fight no more. And it's like, you have no choice but to retire now because you can't get a fight. Nobody wants that risk to put your own health insurance or whatever for the fight. I don't want to walk away, kind of like Andre Ward did. I was talking about that. I want to leave like Andre Ward did.

When, obviously I'm not undefeated, but I want to be able to walk away with life full ahead of me, with my kids and all that stuff. And I ain't got to worry about like, oh, but what if? And then I walked away of my own peas and cues on my own piece. And I'm happy with that. By the way, we were talking about there not being maybe a ton of, um, other MMA leagues, you know, other opportunities for guys other than UFC and PFL, but it is a fascinating time because there's like real American freestyle wrestling

and there's Jiu-Jitsu leagues popping up and there's bare knuckle and dirty boxing. So there's like ancillary... Of the feeders. Yeah, you know what I mean? Did you watch this real American freestyle? I was there. You were there.

Yeah, Ben Asthen, so, you know, Ben reached out after a guy to coma, we started talking. I messaged him like, bro, I was messaging why he was sick and in the coma why he was irresponsible and doing interviews. Then he messed me after thanking me. Then we just started talking, and we would talk all, like, we've talked probably once a week since it's been out of his coma. Wow. And when they're like, hey, brother, would you want to go to the RF1 or would you be interested in the wrestling ever?

Like, 100% I'd be interested in the wrestling. I definitely want to go. So they flew me out there and everything. So that was awesome to see, like, wrestling in the mainstream lights with the bright lights because, like, I wrestle in NCAA finals. And when you come out, it was just like that stuff. You're up on the stage with the bright lights and everybody watching you. And it was awesome. And just put back them old memories in my head to like, yo, this would be dope to come.

competing sometimes so is that going to happen oh i was 100% definitely if i don't have a fight no can't hey call me izzie then all y'all if you ever need with a little a 205 match a heavyweight match something let me know if i have a show uh november 8th in penn state yeah yeah um can you do that under your pfl deal i don't know something i never looked into it was like boe nickel was on there and he's in the ufc yeah i know i'm sure you can get you can get a contract right out because Like, even Sergio Pettis, he was under contract. He went in box twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, I'm sure you just reach out and talk to them. Do you like what they did? Like, did you like to show the production? It was awesome. I think it has legs. That's what I talked to, Boba Jenga, who's a commentator. After at the, after, at the, after finals, I said, yo, y'all, I was nervous, like, you guys overpressed and underdelivered, but you guys did exactly. Like, like, you promised and delivered great in the little edge that I think people really like was the ring card girls, like, walking out.

Like, I heard the crowd, pop. That first time the girl came out in the swimsuit. they love like that's definitely that just still the extra deal like that's gonna help Fox when they see it or whatever I think it's Fox there's up yeah Fox Nation when they see it they go that's pretty awesome like they doing a good job Holly home surprise was great

that was I went to the bathroom like I thought it was gonna be Kennedy Blais like oh she gonna kill this girl I'm about to rush to the bathroom quick when I come back she'd probably be done I come out and I'm looking like dang play yeah I look at the screen like home is that and I got caught that's Holly and I ran just say like yo that is dope like first time ever wrestling and she put this thing on and went out there

almost one yeah yeah how has ben doing been doing good i mean i've talked to him i mean last time i talked to him about is healthy so he's got he's got a long way to go but he's doing well he's feeling good and not seeing the video him running the other day yeah so it's like my wife stays more in contact with his wife and other stuff in his group chat going on about him i hear he's doing very well i try not to when i talk to him i try not to mention the health to him yeah i don't want him through all i'm just worried about you i was just like you still know you still been to me right right so that was that was i mean when when that first came out it wasn't sounding too good no and he's very close to you you're very close to him you you feel very strongly about him

that must have been terrifying yeah everything i got was for bin i got found out from my wife was traveling from Vegas with the family but it was yeah was coming back from Vegas with the family uh was out of training or going one or two was going out to train and i remember her we had layover and she's like did you hear about ben it's just not something the UFC like what so he's in hospital he's like you come like what What are you talking about? And I looked it up. Like, oh, my goodness.

Then the next day, we started asking people, like, oh, he might not make this. And I mean, you really start thinking, like, yo. And, like, everything from my senior year in wrestling to that day, kind of like this flash. And it was all, at the middle of it, it was Ben. Ben coached me in college wrestling. Ben took me to Rufelsport. If it wasn't me going to Rufusport, I would have never met my wife. I never met my wife who wouldn't have these kids.

He told me when I said, I don't want to fight. I want to wrestle. Like, bro, I know you want to wrestle, but you could be a really good fighter. I see it. I can see it. And just the way you move and the way you do things, you could be a really good fighter, man. You could be like a UFC in three fights.

Awesome fighter, three fights. Like everything he said, and if I have any questions, and ever somebody calling me out, or I got any issues with the media or with promotions, I would call it being like, what would you do? How do I handle the situation? It was like, in that quick, like just sitting in the layover and everything flashed.

Like, I'm not one for crime, but I got kind of emotional. So I made a post about it, kind of like Jay-Z says, I'm not, I can't see him coming down my eye, so I got to make this song cry. to let you know like if you can read this being like you mean a lot to me bro and i just hope you can make it so i can come to you and tell you in person did you tell him i told him in text but uh after the fight what is it october 24th and 5th they got home coming at my old college which where he coached me at he's like 30 minutes from there so i'm gonna go back to that and try to

drive up and try to see okay okay um it's amazing to see like him jogging recently yeah like i got I told my wife when he can't, when he had a group chat going or a prayer every night at 9 p.m. And the person came in and said, well, today he made movement. His hands moved and he woke up and said somebody, he won coffee. And he went back in the car. And I told my wife, then he'll be back. He's going to be out of no time. So what do you mean?

He's got a long way to go. And I said, like, what they never worked with somebody like being a world champion, Olympian. He's got a mind. He said, like, once he comes to, if they say he can't, he's going to show you he can't. And he's going to be in hospital. for months he's got he needed a heart a long transplant he ain't gonna make it i said he's gonna have his long in a week he gonna have him money in a week don't worry what you mean he's a lot

of money he didn't have his money in a week he's touched too many people in the world not to put money for like it's gonna happen sure enough too he's like oh he's got a long road to recover like he'd be out in about a week two weeks max they're gonna be gone trust me what you're talking about like just watch it's a video of him and amy's car going home like it's just being like i just believe from what he didn't talk me coaching and fighting I know how his mindset work. I just believe that's the same mindset he's going through while he's fighting these battles. Like, they keep trying to say it's going to take me 10 months. I'm going to get out and one. And it's just, ah. A gamer. Yeah, exactly. I see you repping the brand, the PFL brand. Do you follow

PFL? Do you stay up to speed? Do you watch the other fights? Watch all the fights. Anytime it's fight, so I try to watch fights. Okay, okay. Okay, this is good. I'm happy you said this because I don't know if you know this. There's a new Panini PFL cards that are out. You just ripped the pack? You just ripped the pack? Yeah. I wanted to test your PFL knowledge. I wanted to open a pack and see if you could predict who I have. See, now, I'll follow the fight, but the names,

I ain't going to say I know all the names. Let's just try. You think it's going to be tough? You think it's going to be tough? I don't know. It depends, because some cars in there, some of the fighters I don't know. I don't watch the whole car. You just told me you watch everything. I watched every fight organization. I don't watch every car. All right, let's try. Like, fight started like three o'clock.

I'm in the gym steel. Yeah, I know, I know. Sometimes. Okay, let's try. Let's try one pack. All right. Here we go. I'm going to, I'm going to open it. cards per pack pinini contenders 2025 shout out to pinini joy work i'm gonna need you with me on this one he's a car ripper he does where is he where is he he's in jersey oh he's not gonna help you out right now that's for sure okay let's see let's see if you can open it yeah okay here we go here we go all right i hope i don't stump myself here you know what i'm saying okay this guy um former former beltor fighter fights out of hawaii you just stopped me when you got it fights out of hawaii he's a third

Oh, uh, 85 pounder. Yep. With a Robert? Uh, no. Ah, he won the PFL tournament twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's got long hair. Yeah, he had long. He shaved it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's, you know, that's, you know, I know who he is. He's, uh, ah, oh my goodness. Somewhere are, I believe. I can't remember, sorry. I don't remember the name. I know who it is. Ray Cooper.

Gray Cooper. Ray Cooper the third. Ray Cooper the third. I don't want to say Rob, but I was like, it ain't Rob. This is the guy you were thinking of? Yes. He's the only one who won it twice from Hawaii. That's right.

That's right. That's right. Okay, okay, okay. Oh, this is too easy. If you don't get... Okay, so first of all, we're 0 for one, just for the record. That's one for one. This dude is in the studio right now.

His bobblehead is here. His dad is a former UFC fighter, among many other things. Also, his coach. His dad, former Bellator champion. point in here had a great had a great rivalry with a certain pit bull brother AJ McGee it is ah there I was just like I thought you say it was USC I was like no his dad fought in the US oh okay I was like Antonio got it he's right over there there he is next to Kimbo okay I'm looking like oh this is good right here this dude just scored a head kick knockout

three years to the day oh uh Fabio network. Wow, look at you. All right, all right. Now we're rolling. Now we're rolling. That's a special card. This is nice. This looks like a groovy card right here. I like these cards. Ooh, look at this. This is a signature. I got a signature here. Did you get a signature when you open? Former UFC, excuse me, not UFC. Former Bellator Flyweight title contender. It's going to be tough. Women's flyweight. Women's flyweight. That wouldn't be the Hawaiian chick.

You know what? My bad. Former Belator Flyweight. world champion. One of the toughest grapplers in MMA possesses a black belt in judo. Now in the PFL, fighting out of Brazil. No, not Vasquez. Is that Velasquez?

Yeah. Okay, okay. Juliana. Yeah, Joe. There we go. Look at you. Signature. Yeah, so she just came back with a shave head. That's right. In the tournament. That's right. That's right.

Wow, look at this. You just mentioned this girl. former Bellator Women's Flyway Champion from Hawaii I don't remember her name no I remember it's like the Eliminator her nickname or something like that

Elima Le McFarland There you go Look yo you know what You're doing Other than the first Oh this is a good Wow this is a good one I don't even know if this guy

Ever fought for PFO Is this PFL and Bellator? It's PFL and Bellator yeah Because when I had had only some Bellator Fightersers Legit one of my favorite People in the History of the fight game

Royalty royalty a very good friend of one Daniel Cormier has now become a coach at American top team former Strike Force light heavyweight champion

turned Bellator that um the punk no I know this dude Oklahoma State not DC what you say

you were fought Oklahoma State ATT coach fought for Strike Force fought for Bellator had a very heated feud with Rampage Jackson Royalty I don't know I'm stumped on this one You're gonna feel bad about this one

I know I'm trying to think royalty Royalty Can I phone a friend? I don't know this one I got me King Moe I forgot he was in Bellator you're right I forgot I forgot I'm thinking who for this one I thought you were going to get for sure So I forgot he fought in King or Bellisor you're right

I'm thinking Risen I can even get him on Belvoir and Strike Force Yeah Dang Okay This one I don't know

This is gonna be a tough one A native of Dagestan You don't even know it He finished He finished 34 as a champion His undefeated record Yo Yo

There you go Respect Not bad He said finish of the champion Yeah Okay And this is a fight Gadsi Rabadanov

Against Elvin Espinoza You know this fight What can you tell me about this fight? uh i don't i can't is that the one in chicago i'm not sure who knows but hey you know what i enjoyed that you did not bad six out of eight the king mo one was a bit of uh i can't believe i i forgot he was in i'm sorry mo i'm sorry i'm sorry become a good coach yeah at a tttian well that was fun and it's fun to have you in studio good luck to you uh it goes down october 3rd it's on espn it's in dubin

have you been to duby yespian they had an elsewhere was at yet i thought oh i just figured it was what do you know what do you know what do you know what's a breaking news that's not somewhere else i know it's in dubai but they said they're supposed to announce well well the uh the south africa one was on you know what i guess i assume maybe i'm wrong all right well we'll see the nose nose yeah well apparently not uh it's october 3rd it's a friday and usman versus paul hughes in the main event who do you like in that one i'm going with usman i mean paul hugh's definitely i mean That key is tough, but I've trained with Uspin, those guys when they come to Jersey. The last time they fought for the Prudential Center, or Islaan was in the Prudential Center.

He did his camp at Nick Hottom, so I got to work with those guys. I flew back and trained with those guys for a couple weeks. You see him yoked as a 170-pound with this dude. Yeah. His arms are gigantic. Looks good. Yeah. I mean, he was big when he came here.

It's just a good group of guys is the way they train. I like their way they train. Good luck to you. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for the gift. Appreciate it. and we look forward to seeing him soon. Corey Anderson will take a break.

Paul Craig will join us after the break. Don't go anywhere. All right, that was the conversation with Maven from yesterday, which was great. I enjoyed it. Hope you did as well.

Corey Anderson was great. Shout out to Panini. I enjoyed opening those cards. Haven't done that in a while. That's more GC and Rick's thing. Perhaps we can do more of that later back into the show. Okay, maybe we won't.

Maybe we won't. All right, I'm sorry. I thought it would be fun. Let's go to our final guest the day we saw him in action on Saturday. He called it a career after a great 10-year run in the UFC. In total, 17, 10, and 1. You know him as the bear Jew, the pride of Scotland, the one and only Paul Craig. Kind enough to join us on this Tuesday evening in Scotland. There he is. Hello, Paul. How are you, my friend? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great, and I really appreciate you

coming on. I'm sure the last couple days haven't been the easiest, and we saw the emotion afterwards. And so could I ask off the top, three or so days later, 72 hours later, how are you dealing with everything that transpired on Saturday? Still really emotional. Lots of people are showing me love on social media. And the videos that people are making and the song choices are just, they're sticking in my throat. But I do believe it was the right decision to walk away for the sport, but I'm still relatively sharp in my mind. And so was this something you were thinking of going into the fight or did it hit you in the moment after the result? No, I've been telling me this for a good few months.

I changed teams three years ago and one of the things I wanted to do was rack up a couple of victories. It never really worked out for me. Now, I was getting better. I was getting, my striking was getting better. My jiu-jitsu was getting better. But age was catching up with me. and I sort of toyed your idea after I lost at Kyle Barallo in Brazil

and then they offered me New York, Madison Square Garden against Bonickle and I went like, right, I'm able to do this Middle Way Cup one more time, let's go for it. Didn't end the way I wanted it to end and then I was going to retire then that's when I sort of made up my mind right,

this sport probably isn't for me it's probably seen me, I've seen better days in it and then they offered me sort of redemption at 205 and I decided to go back up and then there was this whole nonsense with a rash the night of the fight and then the fight was then moved four weeks later and then the fight ended in a no contest

and I didn't want that to be my last fight if I was going to go out and I was going to get beat and I wanted to get beat and that's how I wanted to leave the sport so then it was one more chance and then it was Paris and one of the things that happened in this sport is you're going to make way for the young guys and then Modestis he's a young

up-and-coming guy he's on a great streak he's the one of the top UK prospects so it just seemed like a great opportunity for me if I beat him then I beat a young up-and-coming guy and if I lost him then it was sort of passing the batten I'd toyed with it for a long time so I'm kind of glad that it's out there I hadn't told any of my close friends or family or even my teammates I was going to do it. I just had to sort of deal with it myself. I didn't want to end date to try and top me out yet because when you know it's

time, it's time to go. And I'd done a few interviews where I made a few comments about it where I sort of trickled it in and I had to you kind of not almost retract the statement but make out as if I was retiring. And if you would have wanted to be clear,

would you have stuck around or do you think you would have walked away regardless of the result? If the victim was there. I would have walked away. I made a deal with myself. When loser drop, I was walking away. That video, like, so emotional to watch. I'm unable to speak because I love this sport. It's been so good to me. I know a lot of people leave this sport with a sour taste. I'm definitely not leaving a sour taste in my mouth. The reception I got in Paris was incredible. So I'm leaving happy. Everybody around

about me is upset because I have walked away for the sport but I do believe it's the time to walk away. I'm 37, I'm 30th and the end of November I've got a full life in front of me. Is there any part of you that wishes you did it at Madison Square Garden that you didn't stick

around for these last two fights? Yes, because then you're just prolonging it and then the last thing you want to happen is the whole Tony Ferguson thing where people are looking at previous fights and that's why I wanted to leave that's why like when I look at some of these moments in my career I'm happy that I've done it like this that's for me I've been there I've done it 21 fights in the UFC 25 fight camps fought some of the best guys in the world

and for me when I first started this sport and we spoke a way back and I'm sure it was Vegas the first time yeah I know we'd spoke after my first victory but in person and said to you, like, I'm not in this sport for anything other than memories. I've got nothing about memories over the last 10 years and they are pretty positive. Some of the cool stuff that I've done, being part of the video game, having the Panini

cards, that's all I wanted for this sport. So I'm more than happy to walk away. Knowing that I never got the title, the highest I got was number seven, there's a light heavyweight. But not everybody in this sport will be a champion. Right, and that's pretty damn great. I mean, that's

one percent of the world that could even fathom, less than 1% of society that could fathom of doing what you guys doing to become number seven is an incredible feat. What would you say was sort of like the apex of the career? What was your happiest moment?

Happiest moment has to be the last setting submission because at that point I was ready to leave the sport because I always made it deal with myself I wouldn't take anything less than the best and when I say the best I mean I've always held the

UFC is the pinnacle of this sport so even at the time where Bellator was still there and there was another few promotions, UFC was always my goal and the UFC decided to cut me after that fight against Ankaliev then I was going to walk away. Wow. That was seven

years ago? It was. So I've prolonged this career for seven years and I'm happy with going through that last setting submission after taking a bleaching from the current champ. and then having the opportunity to stand in Rio

and standing South Palo against Shogun Hoor to break Jamal Hill's arm, to get the victory after COVID against Cry Love. Like, I've had so many good memories. Like, I genuinely cannot pick one moment where I've been so happy. And even the losses, the losses are still part of the career

and still enjoy them. It's still, that feeling that you get for win, lose or draw, It's still an amazing feeling that no one will ever experience apart from a fighter. I don't know. Maybe this is a crazy thought, but does it make it a little easier to digest the fact that you're walking away and the champion is the guy that you pulled off this incredible submission? I don't know.

Does that give you any sort of solace in the end or is that a crazy thought? You know, I always really had that sort of cue jump mentality where like, oh, just one more victory. a victory in the light heavyweight division can easily put in the top 10 when I moved as I said I think I was number 7 at my highest point number 9 as I left to go to middle weight

and I always thought one victory in the light heavyweight division would get me in that mix that victory never came but I can't take any away for the career that Ankalievs had like right I was his first friend the UFC and yes I've got the victory over him

but when you look at what he's done to people and what he couldn't put me away he couldn't finish me he did put an absolute beating on me but it's 15 minutes and if you can get the job done in 15 minutes then you get the victory and that's how i managed to get that last minute submission so i'm not taking away end fiancoaiev's career because i think he'll be chained for a long time do you leave with any regrets um i do one of my major regrets is not leaving my gym in the time when i did i was in a small gym in Scotland we didn't have any high prospects coming out of the gym who were going to make it to the

UFC and that's not insulting to empty from the gym I just had to be with Kellers and there was I was the biggest guy in the gym so for a long time I was able to bully people and then when I started to get into these harder fights I wasn't able to use my my skill as best as I could so the only the only regret I have is not leaving when I did as far as the fight on Saturday obviously you know the ending was was hard to watch it was a pretty brutal shot I even saw a photo of your ear

it looked like it was cut oh okay yes how is it doing yeah it's only it's only a bit of damage nothing the stitches won't sort out but my modeling career is kind of over now because it kind of sticks out

it almost sticks out like this size I didn't know by the record I did not notice until you just pointed it out so yes so just as i'm getting older i'm taking a lot more damage and the saturday morning we were doing the shakeout and a like we ended up with like a fracture and a wrist oh my gosh and it's just i've never left the fight with any sort of cauliflower ears i've never broke a bone and then within one day i ended up with a crack in my wrist my ears now the cauliflower other so it was all just kind of yep it's time to walk away it made it so much easier so you

you fractured your wrist before the fight yeah holy smoke so after so after we've done a wake on the friday your body ends up retaining a lot of like junk inside it like uh buy products from the wake up um like toxins so we like to in the morning we end up doing like a little shake out get the blood flow and get all the crap out your blood and it was the fourth last punch the combination was step through across overhook right overhook left overhook right and it went and

I tried to sleep after it and it was just excruciating and then thanks to Bob the corner the cut man and then who was wrapping the hands he wrapped up and made sure it was tight enough so even if I was going to fling a shot it was it wasn't going to abandon me but the fight never happened the way I wanted to happen

because in my head I had this glory of going out there and winning and even though I was looking to walk away to the sport I still wanted to win everybody that steps in and they're gone wants to win and just wasn't my night

Modestis was the better practitioner made a silly mistake to try and jump a flying triangle in my head what better way to go out of the sport flying triangle and that resulted in me just getting caned away elbows

by the way did you consider not fighting after the injury no that was never going to happen because then it would have been I would have to have done a brand new fight camp then it would do another and it's just a it's just this prolonged there's always something there's always something going to stop if you do it you know what it's probably not the right time I could just one more just one more the next thing you know you're 40 and a broken man with a mind that isn't his sharp

in a face that looks like a potato. I asked you about regrets earlier. I'm just curious about the move to middleweight. I know you've talked about how you developed an eating disorder and it just wasn't very healthy for you. Do you wish you never did that in retrospect? You know what? Yes, I do.

I've never actually said that. I've never thought about it. But until you point it out there, there was so many negatives that went along with it. At the time, I believed it was a great opportunity for me. Hindsight, I look at it and I think it was a terrible idea. He only lost to Johnny Walker in Osdemeer, two highly ranked individuals in the late heavyweight division. You easily could have been back in the mix there a lot sooner rather than taking the damage.

As well as the issues that came along with being a middleweight, the reduction of white blood cell count, the eating disorder, the lower testosterone. There was just a whole host of things that went along with that. But I made sure I had left no stone on. covered as a middleweight. So, yeah, as you're saying it now, that seems like that. Do you feel like your body has recovered from that experience?

I do. Mentally, yes. The eating disorder, although it still creeps in every once in a while, it's not as bad as it was. It was really bad. And I do believe that more fairer, they're suffering with us, because we're in a

weight-making sport. We're in a sport where people look at how we look. Like, the first thing that I remember when Jamal Hill come back after his layoff, nobody was talking about what he was going to do to people or his training or his fight. Everybody was talking about how he looked, and it was like, well, Jamal Hill's fat. Now, the guy's clearly not fat. He was just carrying a little bit of excess weight from being injured. In the same weekend, was it Tai Bura.

People are already seeing another fat headweight. Like, the fans put a lot of pressure on us to look a certain way. and I'm kind of glad to see that but the indiss order was probably the worst and I'm still feeling benefit, I'm still feeling negative effects for that but not as bad as it was by the way and I think it's only going to get better

the further I walk away for this sport we showed that clip of you walking out obviously you're emotion on and I don't blame you what was it like when you got to the back to the locker room you're with your team and you know the cameras are off you now what was it like when things started to settle in backstage?

I was fine until people spoke to me and the UFC people are lovely the blue shirts, the people that run backstage, they would all come up to me and make me feel loved within this sport and that was making me more emotional when I was just sitting there myself

I was fine I reflected massively this Saturday night once everybody left me and I was just left alone in my room with my own thoughts watched some clips the people had shared off me read some messages and had a good cry that was like I'm sure they're emotional for me

phoneed my wife and we had a good cry together just about the good times because they were tears of both sadness, happiness, joy there was a whole host of emotions that went along with us sometimes when

when guys walk away as you know a year or two goes by and they come back in some way shape or form you seem to be very conscious of your health and not wanting to affect your health long term do you think this is it for you? Do you think you're done competing in any way, shape or form?

I believe I'll still do the jujitsu element, I love that sport, but I don't get punched in the face. You don't take as much damage as a jiu jihitsu fighter as you do as an MMA fighter. So I'll definitely dip my toe in the jiu jihitsu scene, but I can't see myself coming back as one of these

MMA shadows and I hate to see these guys do it MMA was never my first career choice I fell into it I was lucky enough to fall into it because it gave me so many good opportunities if I go back to teaching

if I go and use doing something with the sport in the world of I don't know coaching PTE and I'm not sure what I'm going to do I can't just sit down and do nothing because that's going to make my mind go absolutely wild. I do believe I'm going to be involved in the sport some way. I obviously run the podcast and I love doing that. I love talking about the fights. I love

discussing with my friends about the fights so I will be involved in the sport. Just no getting punched in the face for a career is going to be right up there with things I'm not going to do. Do you think you'll coach? Coaching's a very fickle thing. I don't mind dipping my toe in the world of coaching but I don't think I'll be a full-time coach. When I look at my coach James Duelan and what he does because it's not just about standing on that map for a

another. There's a whole host of things dealing with individual people doing the travelling to local shows. There's a lot of emotion involved in that as well where although we lost a team on Saturday night, my coach went away home

and deals with his own emotions with being a coach and his fight or losing. He's now going away on Saturday they coach again and cage warriors so it's that constant chasing other fights helping other fighters

dealing with their emotional problems dealing with their financial issues whole host of things I don't think I'm the way I'm sitting right now is a 37 year old man I don't think I'm ready to step into that realm yet do you think there's something completely outside of combat that you'll do of course

we know the story of you formerly being in a totally different life now a school teacher that was much talked about in your early days. Do you think you'll do something completely off the combat sports grid? I think I will. I love this sport and it was taken away from me by doing it as a job.

When I first joined the sport and I started learning, I was good at the sport because I had passion for it. Somewhere along the lines, that passion moved through being something I really loved doing to something that I had to do because it was my job. I want to get the passion back. I want to enjoy the learning elements

rather than chasing a fight chasing a position fight camps are tough and they're not the best things to be party so I think I probably will be somewhere else and see if it is working on a local news agents I'll do that

I don't mind working a Monday 95 job not that I need to but I don't mind doing it any chance you go back to being a school teacher you know where I would like to go I'd like to go to the element of working with disadvantaged kids. Kids who, that sounds a bit cheesy, but kids who don't have a positive male role model,

don't have the, don't know where they want to go in life. I think I can offer them something because as a young adult, I was exactly the same. I didn't know what I want to do. I still don't know what I want to do. But I believe I've learned some vital skills along the journey that I've had

that can help these kids. I love to go to that kind of, world and use all the skills that I've collected over these, let's say, 20 years to help somebody else grow up. That would be amazing. And I could see you being a great role model and inspiration for these young kids. I was talking to a colleague, someone who works on the show about your style and about your legacy, and they made a really interesting comparison. I wonder if you've ever been approached with this and thought of it comparing you to Sakuraba and that you would sometimes take a beating to get the submission

off your back. Given your background obviously in grappling, I was like, wow, I never really thought of him being the Scottish Sakuraba, but I kind of loved that and wish I thought of it earlier. Did you ever think of that comparison before? No, but as you're saying it, I've got a smell on our face because, yeah, we'd take

a beating. And there was that element when Modestis was raining down these shots. I still believed, I'm like, I can catch him. And I know we're talking seconds in this sport, but in my head, I'm like, I can still catch him. And it's classic Sakaraba. And I think it's a better comparison than being Homer Simpson, the boxer.

Yes, 100%. Especially in this sport, 100%. Although, you know, Homer's not bad as well. You are beloved by your fans, by your country. I saw a lot of media members, our own PT Cow writing very nice things about you as well. Seeing all of that, what is that like to see this outpouring? Because, you know, you kind of go through life and you get nice things said here and there. but then when you retire,

it's somewhat like a funeral and that everyone comes out and says something nice about you, but you're alive and you're reading it. How do you deal with that? Yeah, it was overwhelming because social media can be a bit of a fickle place if you're a losing fighter.

There's always going to be a diehard fans who will follow you to the ends of the earth, but the messages that stick in your head are normally the ones of unwell-wishers, if you will, the people who have thrown you shade. So I see all these people that have met or I've had some sort of relationship with over the years come out and I'm talking hundreds of people have come out and showed me some bit of love. It's been overwhelming and I wasn't expecting it. I didn't expect the standing ovation in Paris, the same again, I didn't know what to expect.

And I'm just going to keep riding the wave. right now I'm on a nice place with the retirement because it's a few days it's still pretty raw the emotions are still high all the messages are coming in

all the nice videos photos all that kind of stuff it's going to be in a few weeks a few months when everything dies down and then you just return back to you being Paul that's when it's going to be out

when the music kind of stops right when the spotlight kind of moves away yep and this sport that's what happens do you think that's going to be difficult you know see the last part of this sport I fell out of love with it I fell out of love with being in the

like I know I wasn't a huge celebrity in the world of mixed martial arts but I still had a lot of fans and I still had a lot of love and I kind of fell out with that kind of element of being in the spotlight so I'm kind of looking forward to just going out and being Paul Craig

and not being Paul the Beardrow Craig because it's almost like an alter ego right right now you could just kind of chill and not be on so much. I think you should shave my beard. No. Are you thinking of this? Are you considering that?

I did actually consider it. I have considered about just losing the beard because it was part of that guy. Yeah. When's the last time you were clean shaven? I think I shaved after my last Bama fight. Wow. So that's like 12 years ago. Wow, wow, wow.

Okay, so it'll be a total refresh. Yes. and I'm not the most highestness for the fight my build. Well, okay. Well, we'll, you know, give it a shot if you want,

if you're interested. Was there someone who reached out someone who said something that really struck a chord that hit you hard? There was a message that I got from one of the, one of the producer from my podcast,

he had written me, his name's Craig. He had written me like almost a piece and the guys are putting it out and I'll tag you in it and it was just lovely and I read it and as I'm reading it

the tears were literally running down my face hitting the phone and it was it was lovely in thinking about it now so I will send you and you can do what you will with it but for me it was a really emotional

from the heart statement from this guy Craig I love it I love it anything before we let you go anything you want to say to the people who have been so kind to you and supported you and had your back yeah just that you know this sport is all about ups and downs we had more ups than we had downs but the the time has came from me to walk away so thank you so much for a love and support and always be the

bear duties i i uh i have thoroughly enjoyed as i've said uh to you covering your career having you on talking to you all the chats i'll never forget when i asked you about what was under the, the kilt, and you let us know that it was nothing, and I respected that mightily, but it was never boring with you. It was never boring in and out of the cage, not in a bad way, but it was sort of kill or be killed, right? You were winning big and in spectacular fashion, or sometimes it didn't go your way, but it was always very entertaining. And so perhaps as a prize fighter, that's the very best that you can ask for. So congratulations on a phenomenal career. Well done. You made your country proud. It was really great covering and watching you,

thank you for coming on and talking about this and hopefully you're not too far away and we'll hear from you in the future as well. Thank you so much man. I really appreciate it, kind of gods. All the best you, Paul. Thank you. There he is. Paul Craig, the Barajou, the pride of Scotland, kind enough to join us after announcing his retirement on Saturday after a tough night against Modestis Bukascus. We had him on the program yesterday, the Baltic Gladiator, great win for him. and this is the sport right it's it's it's it's uh it's the circle of life and uh another one from uh that era of when you know i first started covering the sport and uh connecting with fighters and having them on this show and seeing them on fight week uh it's it's just bound to

happen um but it sounds like he's going to stick around podcasts doing other things and so that is great um perhaps you know one of the european outlets can have them on board as well. He's very well-spoken, very thoughtful, very smart when it comes to fighting, empathetic. Much love to the great Paul Craig. All right, a few more things to discuss before we call it a day. I did see that Brian Ortega posted something on his Instagram speaking for the first time regarding what happened with that failed weight cut in Shanghai prior to the fight against Al Jermaine Sterling. It was a pretty lengthy video from what I understand, but we've condensed it into a sort of two minute or so highlight clip. And so let's hear what Brian Ortega had to say about the

weight cut. We cut weight on Thursday. We hit the first one. We got down the 51. Second one later on. I decided to jump the gun on that one at 12. But we cut from midnight all the way to eight in the morning, heading weight the entire time. I realized I had 1.7 to go. still. We're confused on how my body wasn't really pouring out the water or why I was just holding it in, but no matter what, we have to get this weight off, so we did. We went downstairs at about eight, eight something, decided to cut more weight, put the plastics on, sweet sweat. I mean, you name the whole thing. I hit 20 minutes on the bike. Once I got off, I went unconscious. I was unconscious for about 30 minutes. During that time, they were putting ice on me. They took all my, you know, my clothes off.

woke up in the ER, I ripped everything off, I tried to speak, I couldn't really, you know, translate to them because I'm like, if they don't take everything off, I'm going to take it off myself, so I started taking everything off myself. We knew that we had a time limit to get to the weigh-ins, otherwise I could not fight. If you saw the way-ins, you obviously know that I looked delirious and just coming off of being 30 minutes unconscious in the ton of what they say. After that, wait in, we figured if I didn't feel good, or if something was seriously off, that we would call the fight. Don't matter who you are, like your health comes first. Always stand by that. You know, how Jermaine came to me and he talked to me, he said, hey, man, I heard what happened. I said, I was under for 30 minutes.

I ain't going to lie to you. I know we have the same manager, so I know he told you. I'm here and I'm trying, and I'm a shot. He said, they already have a replacement fighter. Don't worry about it. But I told him, nah, I don't want to waste your time. And I showed up. We ate food.

We rehydrated the entire day. I didn't feel good. I wanted to call it off. I got up and just walking outside. I almost passed out and fainted. Everything in my body is telling me not to fight. There's much more there, but that is terrifying stuff. And probably in retrospect, he shouldn't have fought.

Respect him mightily for fighting. Great respect for him. you know, sometimes, you know, the fighters are fighters and they're built different and they possess DNA that we don't possess. Most human beings on the planet say, I'm good, I'm not fighting. The fact that he went five rounds in that state, I know he's not looking for, you know, a moral victory here, participation trophy, but it is remarkable. It's really remarkable. And hopefully he's never in that situation. Hopefully there's no long-term effects. And hopefully that was his last fight at 145. He should fight at 155. I said that before the Diego Lopez fight.

And that was last September, Notche UFC. And then I was surprised that he fought this fight at 145. But hopefully that's it at 145 and he just sticks around at 155. Still a great fighter and exciting fighter has had some bad luck. But that is also, you know, that is scary stuff and that's the kind of stuff that can alter your future. So wish Brian the best. Hope he gets well soon. there's no lasting effects there and yeah it's scary when you see the guys walk up there and it's actually somewhat

it's amazing that we haven't had any serious serious accident as a result of weight cutting because weight cutting is insane. When I fast on Yom Kippur I can't even like function by the end of the day to then think that these guys have to rehydrate

and fight the next day another human being in the cage stuff I mean to put it mildly court McGee posted this on september 9th 2005 i overdosed on heroin and was gone for eight minutes that is also tough that's 20 years ago today which should have been the end of my story became the beginning of a second chance today i carry deep gratitude for recovery for the breath in my lungs the strength to live with purpose and the gift of life i almost lost every day sober is proof that hope is stronger than

despair. Shout out to Court McGee, 20 years ago today. That's unbelievable. It's amazing. Still in the UFC, still doing his thing. Incredible. Inspirational, dare I say. Going through some items here. What about this custom

Noce UFC luchador mask? How do we feel about this, guys? You want us to get you one? I'm a big fan of the luchador mask. As you know, El Nauri's world-renowned. I have a couple of luchador masks here in the studio. We've got the Jessica Aguilar one somewhere. Oh, there it is.

It's up there. I think I have another one. Got the Ray Mysterio from back of the day. I don't know about the all green like that. I add this one to the collection, I feel like. No, I'm down with it. If I was there, I'm absolutely. That's yellow?

It's yellow with green, yellow and red. You should tell Osari. You're the expert. What do you think? I think it looks of it shit. Thank you. I was trying to be nice. Looks of it shit.

You're not buying that if you're there this weekend? No, this is not a luchador mask. This looks... Wait, what? How is this not a luchador mask? This is like, when WWE... When they bring in like... Luchador number one, luchador number two,

like some generic jobber that's going to get beat up who happens to be a quote-unquote luchador, that's what they wear. You're telling me people are not going to be wearing this in the streets. of Las Vegas. Or San Antonio? Or San Antonio, rather, sorry.

El-Goyito. You remember the El-Goyito mask? That was mass-produced, the Eric Prez mask. That was better than this one. I'm, I just found a picture of the back. I'm sending it over to Jordan. This looks pretty legit to me. I think people are going to need to send us photos of them wearing these. By the way, by the way,

if there's no tie, like string or zipper, if it's a straight-on, if it's a straight-on mask like that, like full, then... I've got bad news. for you. It's that, right? String. No, it's a string, man. It's a real Lutador mask.

Okay. Oh, here's RIMStero wearing one. Get them. No, I'm just kidding. You're kidding. That's legit. Okay. That's the back. What do you think the MSRP is? Back is not, I thought it was going to be like a straight on like... What do you think this bad boy is going for on UFC store.com? 349.

50. 50. No. I'm going to say more. I'm going to say 250. 3.5. Boys? I got a deal for you. $799. 99. We can each get one. one for 280 bucks. Ah, you go, you go crazy.

Wow. I've already added it to the cart. Special event item. Is this the first time they sell one of these for Noce? I think so, right? Man, they picked a good one to do it, eh? Yeah. Sand in town?

Hell yeah. Love it. By the way, what about that, Paul Craig? I'm PT. I know you covered him for a very long time. Think highly of him. Lovely guy. Well spoken.

Yeah, like, I think you really have so many options available to him. It's a pity that in this neck of the woods, We don't have, you know, like BBC talks about all these places. They cover boxing. They have various personalities that come in. As you know, when you're covering boxing events, like all the big outlets are there. We don't really have that in MMA. But as he was talking to you, I was thinking, wouldn't he be brilliant at that, like a kind of a color commentator role?

A guy you can, like, he's experienced all kinds of things in the sports, as we say, the highest, the highest, the lowest, lowest lows, go who's beat champions. A guy who's been in prominent places and hometown cards. And, you know, he's experienced. at all. I think he'd be a great actor. I think he's underselling how big of a deal he is. I can remember one day he was on the way to do some media. So he had to fly from Glasgow to Dublin and then to

Vegas. And he just had to like, you know, change Floyd or whatever when he was in Dublin. And I got like six phone calls. People seeing Paul Craig in Dublin Airport. It was like a massive deal. He was on a skateboard apparently going through. What? A skateboard? He's on a skateboard going from... Like Bart Simpson?

Yeah, he's a cool motherfucker. I think it's all in front of him. I'm a big fan of the lettered podcast, him and Ross do it. And he's been a fantastic ambassador for Scottish MMA. I think it definitely won't be the last we hear of him. And I think a media slot, like something I was talking about previously, would be an ideal way to let him fall in love with the sport again. Oh, yeah.

A TNT, you know, Oh, yeah. Slot as an analyst, that would be great. They've been doing that. Like I saw Jack Shaw recently was part of someone of Sophie. be now Tom has done it previously. A lot of them have done various things, but they might love to see him

give an opportunity like that as well. Speaking of the light heavyweight division, Alex Perr was in studio last week. He is rapidly approaching that October 4th date. Training once again with the one and only Sean Strickland. He posted on his YouTube page. Today we're training with Sean Strickland and getting stronger.

And here they are. The old pals together. Who would have ever thought these two, right? Look at them. It's like Creed and Rocky, working hard. I don't know. I thought this was nice. Beautiful.

Does this make you think he's going to beat on Kaleev? That's question. It doesn't make me feel anything really. I don't know what to tell you. All right. Yeah. It looks good. Just thought it was good stuff.

It didn't provoke any feeling inside me about how he's going to do against fucking Ankleyev him hitting a bag besides Sean Strickland hitting a bag What are you talking about? Boys are back together I thought this would inspire

He's got the guy This is it He's got the secret He's got the guy The former 185 champ Yes That's how he's going to be No

This didn't make you feel anything Any sort of pump In hindsight In hindsight that's how I felt Yeah okay That's what I thought Exactly That's what I thought

Well what about this spinning back fist here from Charles Olivera did this inspire you when you saw this

did you see this one he's working on the spinning shit look at this bang wow

whoa whoa wait yeah oh it's spinning back the elbow by the way why are their cars in the gym

is this fucking there's a garage there's also a motorcycle in there as well yeah what's happening

it's like two Porsche's as well like what yeah is this like his basement or something it looks like a

garage ceiling is super low It could just be his basement. Yeah, is this what we're going to see in Rio in a couple weeks? It's a garage. The cars have to get out of the... How many cars do you have in your basement?

Garage? I don't know. Maybe they're just props. Maybe they're just seeing, you know, like things... Trophies, if you will. I don't know. I just thought it was interesting. Sort of like this video of...

Surely this has to inspire confidence going into the... All right. Here we go. This video of Marab. Marab. Did you see this video of him training? Marab Dolly Shvili Let's get sound up on this, Frankie

Yes Oh fucking hell Are those rocks? I don't know what the thing Oh, fuck my Yes, that was a stick This has really solidified for me That he's going to beat Corey

Actually this has solidified for me That he's going to beat Corey Look at him's going opposite field here Look at that The gummer the side quest The better Marab performs To me I think when he broke his head on the ice

He had his best performance of his career. The thing is, this dude's serving them up, like, kind of high. What if it hits him in the head? He's not concerned about that, man. Put a Band-Aid on it and keep it moving. We got training at 6 a.m. Just hitting stones with a baseball match. Also, what if he hits someone else with that thing?

He's not concerned about that either. Call insurance, we've got training at 6 a. Not for nothing. Like, the hand-eye coordination is pretty damn impressive. It's not easy to do that. A lefty, too. Barry Bonds-esque. I go to the local batting cage.

I'm missing 75% of those slow-pitch softballs. Where's the last time you did a batting cage? Oh, very recently. Oh, yeah, yeah. Love a batting cage. With my kids, I go, all right, guys, let me show you, let me show you. And I'm freaking whiffing, whiffing. Got to load up the stones.

Forget the baseballs. Load up the... Have you ever gone to a batting cage, PT? No, I took a picture of one because I saw one in New York. The last one was here. I was like, oh, they're real. They don't have them in Ireland, I would assume. Yeah.

No. They do, they do throw, like, they're sort of like these things. This is a schlider, by the way. Schlatter. Slaughter. Slafter. Yeah. Slater so that you get at.

And they just. They zip them by, boys, are when they get wet, see, you feel that. Imagine the wet hitting you in the face. In the Noggin. This is the national sport of Ireland, right? Hurling is, yeah, and that's the ball they use. Hurling. Play hurling.

Hurling, it's like, it's with the stick, right? Yeah. That's right. Like field hockey almost. It's like a curve stick. They say it's a cross between hockey and murder. That's how to describe it. Wow.

Jesus. It's not football because I'm seeing here. No, don't let's... Okay, I don't know what that flag was. Was that... It's Armenian. Oh, Armenia. Armenia.

We've never lost to a team that isn't ranked in the top 90 in the world today. We have lost to that team. Expecting big things coming into this match, you know. A lot of optimism here in the Emerald Oil. And Shay Given, our legendary goalkeeper, said it's the worst result in the history of Irish football. You're kidding. Really? I was just, wow.

You know? And we had a big result at the weekend and, you know, pulled it over our asses against Hungary, 2-0 down, get the fucking draw, show up in fucking Armenia and get our ass handed to us. us. And they beat the shit out of us. It wasn't like they weren't lucky. It wasn't like they were lucky. They kicked us up and down the field and made sure out of us. So, very bad day for Irish football. Always

is, to be fair. Are they still in it, though? No. That's it. They're out. I mean, can we beat Portugal in Portugal? I don't think we can't. We be hungry and hungry. The field has expanded, so there's more chances now. Oh, it has?

Yeah, yeah. For 32 teams? Forty-eight now. thing. Wow. So a lot of Gibroni countries will be. Not suggesting, I'm not suggesting, but there's 16 more countries that are going to get a chance. Oh, I don't know, man. I'd say we're bought me to the group. We're bottom of the group. I think it's, I think you're third right now. Yeah, I see. There's hope. And I think the top two advance, right? Yeah, so Hungary. No, Finland has zero points. They've gone 0 and 6. Wow. Basketball powerhouse. Almost as bad of a goal differential, though, as old Finland. speaking of which I think the Eurobasket is going on now

Greece beating Lithuania Turkey beat Poland you guys didn't make it into the far from I mean Great Britain had a tough that was enough for that part of the country or the continent I should say tomorrow Finland Georgia though what a what a scene that's going to be

Germany Slovenia I mean it's been great it's been great theater speaking of great theater and speaking of Marab we did actually get some new footage of him training for the Corey Sanhagen fight. Here he is against all his former opponents and I think he's blindfolded there right? The pair of sound.

Are those real heads or what? Are those, what is going on here? How does Corey Sanhagen? Fair play to the lads all shown up. Do you think this is real by the way? Yeah, I think so. No, no, no. My point is like, do you think he's actually trying to or is this just a skit? It's just a skit. Oh, okay. Yeah, this is six men against one

who's blindfolded. Listen, I wouldn't put it past Marab to actually try to beat up dudes blindfolded all and see if he can land something, you know? Also, was that just like a monster t-shirt tied around his face? Yeah, some kind of. Who's to check? Who's to check? I believe Diego Lopez was the man who, who he, not Diego, Diego Sanchez, he was the man who initiated the blindfold training phone, remember correctly. Oh, yes, that's right.

Was that with, uh, yep, there it is. I think so, yes, I think it was, Josh Fabby. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. There was knives, there was blindfolds. Oh gosh, I thought of shit was happening by. Yeah, a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. There's a great story up right now on uncrown.com guys, the number one, and some say the only, really.

So by only, we would be number one. Unbiased combat sports platform on the planet. UFC fighters are finally getting their money. Antitrust payouts explained from highest earners to next steps. There's a picture of Anderson Silva, who reportedly, according to John Nash, who is the author of this very, very, very interesting article. He seems to be the big winner, about $10 million coming his way.

I don't think anyone that I've talked to just yet has received the payout, but they all believe it's going to happen. Anyway, some interesting nuggets from this. A thousand and 88 of the 1,121 eligible class members filed for their money is staggering 97% participation rate. So we know of Moikano, who are the others? That figure unprecedented in antitrust settlements administered by Angion dispels earlier fears

that fighters might hesitate to claim funds due to potential UFC retaliation. I wonder what percentage of those fighters are still in the UFC, and if any of the ones other than Moikano just didn't publicize it. Estimated that the filed claims accounted for, more than 99% of total compensation earned during the class period, making it highly unlikely

that any of the highest earning UFC fighters fail to file. Even fighters with reputations as loyal company men were not willing to leave money on the table, millions on the table. What else? What else? The average projected payout is 230,792 with a median of 85,949. The smallest payout for a fighter with a single bout is 6,000. Excuse me, a single bout is expected to be 16,122. Highest will be 10.3 million. This is Anderson. Disclosed earnings for Connor McGregor and Ron Rousey also allows to estimate

McGregor's settlement payout will be 9 million. Rousey around 6 million. So some interesting stuff there. Do check it out, uncrown.com. A ton of great stuff right now on uncrown.com from the world of M.M. obviously a ton of coverage as we get closer to Canello Crawford this weekend

and a lot going on in the world of pro wrestling I mean next Saturday is going to be fascinating in the world of pro wrestling. WW having its debut on ESPN with Russell Pallusa AEW having all out they were going head-to-head AEW announces that they're going earlier in the day it's a fascinating time guys

AJ Lee returning anyone excited about that? CN Punk's wife I think it's pretty cool Yeah, talking about therapy and whatnot. I actually found out about that because it was on Sports Center this morning. They're now covering it. They're now covering it like it's real news.

Like when they cover it. Highlights, they were like, oh, we'll head over to WWB Raw last night. Becky Lynch teaming up with Seth Rollins and... And they're covering it like it's baseball highlights. Oh, yeah. Not tongue and cheek. What did you guys miss? And then it's just like, and now they're locked in for a match for Russell Palozo,

which you can watch on the new ESPN app. Yeah, I was like, wow, they're all in now. that will replace UFC. For sure. For sure. I mean, they play to the rights that they have. Exactly. Wow, that is fascinating.

Actually breaking it down. Yes, I saw that this morning on the TV. Who, Randy and Gary? I can't remember who was hosting. But yeah, shout out to Randy and Gary. Every time I turn on the TV, they're on the desk. They're hosting. They're hosting.

That is wild. But it is a crazy time. it's a crazy time. What about us what about the packs? Yeah, are you going to finish or no? What does that mean? One more? There's three more packs in that box, man. We already got one auto. Let's go, let's go. Let me see. Let me see. Okay, this is the game right here.

Actually, on of Alaska's auto? You better put that in a case and keep it on ice, man. Okay, this is the game. This is the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First one, you got to raise a hand, or you blurt out the answer. Rick was nailing them back here. When you did the Hawaiian one, I guess, when you said a Hawaiian the third, I was like Kaakamaka.

Oh. Ray Cooper, though. Okay, so what are we doing? Raising hands, or are we doing? I think we're all adults. We can just say the answer. Yeah, we can just say the answer. But I was mistaken because

Kaakamauga is a tough enough fighter. That's right, that's right. We were there, 1.45. Okay. Geez, tough out of the gate. 97 of 99. Oh, that's not bad, though. James Tehuno?

There's only 99 mid. Yeah, a bunch of these. Like, the next one is 25. Okay. this guy is a three-time wrestling All-American at Wyoming. He cowboyed up and went on a tear to start his

MMA career. Bantamweight entered 2025 with a spotless 7-and-no record. Archie Colgan. Final answer, everyone? J.J.J. Wilson. I have no idea. This would be Bryce Meredith. If you kept me going, I could have got it. It's a tough one.

I hate my fucking name. That's a great one. That is so good. That is so good. Okay, the face of PFL in a lot of people's eyes. Go to Dichita. They call it Dichita? Yeah, G.C. gets it. Oh, out of 25 to go to Dichita?

Yeah, 25 to 25. What does that count for? I don't know. That one on ice. Okay, okay. Famously beat a current UFC lightweight superstar slash contender at Madison Square Garden in a very somewhat controversial, inconclusive, unceremonious Bellator, lightweight title fight on pay-per-view

at MSG. Brent Primis? Oh, there it is. There it is. Chandler. Yeah, there it is. Right there. Okay, so what are we?

1-10, right? Okay. Well, I don't know what's going on here, but there's just another Brent Primus card. It's a double bread It's a winning ticket I don't know what winning ticket is But there you have it with a bunch of

Okay this is very exciting This is the premise Autographs Is it autograph per pat? Auto auto auto Is it autograph per pack? I don't know I don't know

Wow I'm actually pretty excited about this Holy shit The now I'm about to say It's the now Former Bellator Middleweight

Johnny Evelyn Wow Johnny Eblen Otto That's huge That's not bad That's huge Really get buying for your book In these boxes

Yeah Yeah 111 retail At UFC 185 He lost in the curtain jerker Oh geez On in Dallas Texas

On the same night That a family member of his Lost in the main event Sergio Pettus Nice Nice That's a good one right there There's some action in this one

Yeah some blitzie shit We got a few We got a few names here. At UFC 104 in... A lot of

UFC references here. Well, you know what's interesting about it. You forget about the Bellator guys.

Yeah. Like they can really draw on... I mean, Corey forgot about King Mo. That was crazy.

At UFC 104 at the Staples Center. Jeez. Okay. He was robbed in the main event.

He came back some seven months later in Montreal at UFC 1113. Sorry, I'm taking it

all back. At UFC 104, he won, but didn't deserve to win. Okay. A lot of people thought he didn't deserve it. Came back at UFC 113 and then lost his UFC light heavyweight title. Viotta Machita. Yeah, what the fuck, Frank? What is that?

How did you know you know that? How did he actually, like, he's not even looking anything up. No, he Googled it. No, he's not. I swear he doesn't even have his. How is that possible? How did you know that, Frank? How did you know that, Frank?

Man, I was going to guess Omari Akmetov. UFC 104? My friend just isn't going at all. Machita fought for Belator for a while. He just entered the game. Crazy, right? We're just vacuuming these up. What about one of the most talented competitors

in the featherweight division? This man made it to the PFL World Championship in 2023. Brennan Lockney. No. Gabriel Braggis? You got to give us a second. Sorry. Gabriel Alves Braggas. Oh, fuck.

I conclude you another one. I'm actually having fun here. I want to see if we get an auto in every pack. Can we get sponsored by Panini here? Where are you guys at? I mean, I've been trying, for God's sick. I just start ripping back here. Should I just rip this thing open?

We're having a great time here on a Tuesday. You know what's great about this? No hard out! Okay, okay, very quickly. Oh, this is a great one. No hard out, very quickly. Let's go. Very quickly here.

A very good friend. Okay. Of who? Fights out of Northern Ireland? Paulius. No. A female? Leo McCart

Yeah, there it is There it is Liam McCourt Okay, are you guys counting your points Because I forgot Yeah, yeah, we're keeping track back I got two, that's all I know I got two now

At UFC 81 81 Holy shit, okay He pulled off a huge upset It was controversial Because a referee halted the action

In the middle of the fight Hammer Fists were raining down on his head but the referee in question said no no one of them was in the back of the head and thus he defeated a former WWE champion

who was making his Frank Mayor? Yes, Jesus Christ what the hell guys? So they're going back to like anybody who's ever... Yeah, all right, shout up. That's what was wrong with me there, Rick. I was like, on a second

Frank Mier How many Bellator fights did Frank Mier even have? Brazilian Yeah, you had a few probably like

three or four Brazilian fought at featherweight and bantam weight Bellator contender Patricio Bipple

In that In that Andro ego Yeah Shout out That should be worth too Okay A member of the most

famous family Royce Gracie Gracie Hodger Gracie Neiman Gracie There it is Neiman Gracie there it is For the win

There was only like Oh another signature So I guess it's a signature per pack Wow Maybe not Maybe we're just hot right now Maybe we're just hot right now Don't seem too excited

No No it's good It's good as fine Englishman Brendan Lagnane Made a big leap in 2025 All three of us Maybe in Edwards

He's shipping up to Mike Shipman Yeah That'll give it to it Put that one under your pillow Where was he shipping up to I don't know I was just hoping

It was just that This is a big one I wish this was the autograph There was a He was one half of a hard launch Very recently Oh Don't Rasta

No no no that's my That's my That's Rick No Yeah A hard lodge Oh We just

We just talked about this man he drew the ire of one Paul Hughes very recently as it seemed like he was trying to position himself to get the next shot. Yeah, that's good shit. Jonathan Coachman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a coachman card?

Is there a coachman card? And finally, are you guys having fun in the chat? Thumbs up in the chat if you're having fun. I used to do this on Instagram live and people would love it. I would get like Steveo who jump in. It was a great time. Burst onto the scene in 2021, made his PFL debut from Brazil 4-0 with three wins.

via KOTKO won the PFL heavyweight world championship. Oh, Hanan for her? No, no. Bruno Capoloza. Wow.

Good shit. That is good shit. Jesus Christ. Wow, wow. I just learned something. Okay, one last one. Yeah, one last one last one. Rip it, rip it, rip it.

Yeah, this is fun. Fucking deep cuts. Yeah, Bruno Capoloza and Leonardo Velasquez. I couldn't have said it faster back here. Yeah, you find, Higo and Capoloza is big. There's something about the opening of the pack. It's fun, it's fun. It's fun.

It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. It's like... Is that new backroper? It's just something.

It's... Oh, my God. Do we have another auto? Okay. This guy was just talked about seconds ago. Pitbull, Brazilian, bant-to-wait... Leandro Higo. Another one?

Oh, yeah. Start building the Leandro Higo come. I like how his reference for it was pit bull. He's like, we just talked about him. Okay, we also talked about this guy. I don't know if they've run out of names here, but this is a supernatural card. I don't know if there's... Delta Costa.

No, but former Bellator Middleweight champion Johnny Evelyn Yeah, there he is I don't know if you could see that Ooh, that's a nice one It is a nice one, number four This man is currently thriving

in the Ultimate Fighting Championship He is one of the most exciting fighters Michael Van Goghagia There he is, there he is Look at that one That's nice one, Michael Vanipage Not bad Okay, okay, MCC's crushing this pack

He's killing this pack Former Belator Welterweight champion has beaten Actually, yes, Walterway champion of Russia has beaten the likes of... Magamara Ulamatov. No. Benson Henderson,

Douglas Lima, Lorenz Larkin. Second stand. Oh, Karishkoff. Yeah. Nice. Nice. My pick for the tournament and then washed out in the first round. This, wow, this is a blast in the past. Famously defeated the most well-known fighter on the 10th season of the Ultimate Fighter.

He's a former intern. Wow. Hey, Pizzi. Nice. Big country. Big country. Oh, this might be tough. Some of these people have had, like,

a literal cup of coffee in Bellator, and they're in these BFLbacks. No, no. Native of Japan. He trains at a gym called Never Quit His attitude clearly is taken from that

He's a rising Walterway contender First two fights at Beltaural Victory Let's just go with Massey Yamiuchi Kikuri Okay

Okay Never gonna happen Oh okay You guys No autographs so far in this one right Not yet This man is Going to be

Known as the Prince He's treated the opposition In the PFL cage like he's a king waiting to be crowned. It says he fights out of America, but I don't think he's originally from America. He's beaten the likes of Nima Gracie, Brennan Ward, Andre Koreshkov.

His initials are M.U. Yazio Ali Walsh. Oh, Malatov. Yeah. Oh, good call. And holy shit. Autograph. Holy shit.

What? Yes. Holy shit. In Ghana. Autograph card. Don Davis. last one Chris Cyborg

Paul Hughes one of one this is wild Dakota he is he is arguably the most dominant

and decorated champion to hold PFL excuse me I take that back Bellator Gold he had a great

run he is a champion in another organization he was a part of the one and only trade in MMA history Oh, Ben Ascran

Funky Ben Ascran Funky Ben Ascent Wow, Otto? Oh, that's going to stay on the set. That's going to stay on the set. That's a great one. That's a great one. The old school bellator people

Who never even got close to competing for PFL throws me off. Those ones are, I love it. Bizarre. Yeah, we got to keep that one. Look at your fingers all over that. Yeah, yeah, fuck. I'm all sweaty.

Hey, that's great. Oh, shout out Ben Ascred. Let's do this more. Someone hit up... That great story by Corey Anderson talking about Ben. I mean, this is great. Yeah, seriously. Put that there.

Yeah. Can we get that graded? What does that cost? I mean, you know what? You have to get in the slab. I know somebody who works at PSA. Can we sell that and then give the money to Ben? What does that go for?

Yeah, I don't know. We don't know the market for these cards yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, that was fun. Panini contenders, 2025. Thank you to Panini. They sent us some boxes. We appreciate them.

This was a lot of fun. fun. I love that there's an autograph per pack. Find four autographs per box, on average, and you got one per pack. That's amazing. I enjoyed that. They reminded me of the old days. Okay, Super Chats. What do we got?

Got some super ones. Okay. I met Rampage randomly on the street while he was streaming and I got so nervous I forgot to ask him anything exciting. Ever get starstruck? Oh, wow. I don't know if I've ever gone Starstruck. I'm sure I have.

I mean, especially back in the day, I used to go to baseball games and ask guys for autographs, but nothing really comes to mind right now. How about you guys? Anyone ever get Starstruck? No, not me. Not really. No, no, no.

All right. What else? What else? Question for Pizzi, Ariel, and the crew. Thoughts on Connor McGregor's desire to be president of Ireland. Does he have a chance? And would you vote for him? Pete, why did you handle this one? Oh, great.

He can't get on the ballot as far as I know. Yeah, okay. Actually, I'm so happy you said that. Can we take a step back? We don't know how this works. I don't really either. Oh, okay. How does it work in your country?

Can anyone run for president? He needs to be nominated by a county council or like someone in the doll, I think. And I think Skoy's, Skoy Newell. did a thing in March I think it was and every single member of the doll said they wouldn't vote for him and then I think that video we put out where he was like people of Ireland I think that one was like an appeal to the the county councillors to put him forward but I don't think anyone is

as far as I know but it's like the candidacy like there is candidates already out there and the guy who's leading the charge at the moment is like a really famous football coach he famously led Dublin to like the greatest a greatest run of football championships ever like he's the favorite to win at Jim Gavin he's also like an Air Force poiler here so yeah I'd probably vote for Jim Gavin

when is when is the election November I think so I don't think like I don't think it's like he definitely isn't on the ballot yet it's just the the problem is getting him getting onto the ballot if you get me okay like that's where he's happy he is not getting

the nominations to get on the ballot. I was just thinking about these cards, sorry to go back to the cards, but this might be the greatest thing. Good transition. This might be the best thing that PFL has benefited from with regards to acquiring Bellator. Just the names and like being able to use those. Yeah. On the cards.

Anyway, back to, I was just putting... Explaining the intricacies of Irish politics. By the way, Pinini is plural for a pinito. Thank you. That's a good point. I didn't think of that. I didn't think of that. All right, well, let's see. Let's see. I mean, I know nothing about this. I hardly know anything about American politics, for goodness sakes. I'm Canadian and I know nothing about Canadian politics. It's also very boring. What is it? This has literally been my whole life in politics, just various Connor McGregor moves. Yes. I'm like, oh, shit, I'm going to be asked about this today. I have no idea. Well, you did great there. Thanks. Thanks. Nailed it. What else? What else? Petsy, Carol, you didn't answer my super chat last time.

You completely end the show. So, Ariel, what do you think of Namofazil? He misspelled my name, misspelled... 9-1 is UFC next? Is Namofazel even the person's name? Yeah, I mean, you know? Yeah, no. Yeah, I got him.

Nambo-fazil, he's 9-1. Yeah, no, listen. That's what he said. He's going off the left hook on 971 FC2. against Jacob Salamanov. One of the best nicknames in the sport, the grandson of Saladin, is his nickname. Wait, is that legit?

Yeah. Yeah, we're deep diving now. No, no, no, this is all off. I almost thought you pulled that too fast to be looking it up, but okay, fairly. His last fight was actually the same night as... Oh, was he back to the car? No, the last fight was the same night

as Joaquin Buckeme, Kamar Usman, the memorable night in Atlanta. We all remember that one. Yes, so remember that night You were there, you were there Yeah, of course He didn't fight on that card He just happened to fight on that date

No, it was the same night, pizza He didn't fight there Yeah Oh, he fought on He fought on the undercard of Muhammad Mahayev Yeah Hang on, are we still talking

Are we talking about the card now Or we're talking about this lad We were just asked about this guy You weren't watching Nammo You were not watching Fighting Championship 971

Oh no, it was Now did you say it James Gallagher got a win. Did he, really? Kiposa's over here like... Kane Musa was on this card. Well, that's actually... Yeah, it's a big Duboy card.

He is the pride of Kurdistan. You know who did watch that card? No doubt about it. Yeah, Caposa. Caposa. Just type it in. I actually did watch a little bit of that card. Coposa was making the argument on why 9-7-1 fighting championship was a better card that weekend than UFC Atlanta.

100%. No, no, he's not a hipster. He was doing... You know what he kind of looks like in his picture here. He sort of looks like a bit of a, like, a trimmer version of who's that dude James Tehuno

no the guy Dan Blazerian doesn't you know I don't look like that was over the hair I don't know about trimmer

I mean he's a pretty big motherfucker were you starstruck when you met him he's not that big man that's what we said to him he's like I thought you were going to be

that's what you actually said to him yeah yeah he was very upset yeah it sounds like he would be upset we were drunk though so we just kept laughing

and he didn't really know what to do like you're real small you look you look huge on the telly. Did you meet him in in Wank City? Las Vegas.

No, all right. What else? What else? Please explain Connors McGregor New M.M.A. Venture. There is? Yeah, there was

announcement earlier today from M.MA. Inc. So the train out of the crowd? No, no. It's the same one. It's just they changed their name. Yes, but the announcement was that Donald Trump Jr. Yeah, yeah. I think he's just like

an advisor, an investor. or something like that. It's not really new. It's... I don't think a lot of people were aware of that MMA Inc. Changed, Alta thing. It went from...

What was the first name? Wimp to Warrior. Wint to Warrior. Alta. M.M.A. M. There actually used to be a... Mike Roberts,

long-time M.A. manager who managed the likes of Chale Sunnon and the Pettis brothers, Uriah. The name of his MMA management team was MMA Inc. for the longest time. Like their version of paradigm or first round or anything.

What else? What else? Last one. Next time Ian Gary is on, your conversation is 100. Oh, when will he be on? I presume maybe like the next time, like whenever we find out when he's fighting. You know?

Hopefully it's against Sean Brady. Maybe December card. Feels like a good time for it, right? What was that? Frank's talking shit back here, but he didn't realize. as the mics. About Ian Gary? Absolutely not.

We're not going to repeat who he's talking to you. Well, thank you for that, Frank. I was, I was vibing there, and now you threw me off. One last thing. I did want to bring this up yesterday. We were talking about this Muhammad Ali Revival Act vote. The likes of Eric McGrack and others reported that they had sort of delayed the vote on it in California.

I was going through Jedi's tweets. I don't know how Jedi finds all these things, but he had posted some clips. of people speaking up in favor and not in favor. I think for the most part it was people not in favor. Eric was on it. MacDangzig, formerly of the UFC,

and Cajun Johnson, who obviously has been a part of this, you know, the class action lawsuit group, MMAFA. And I thought Cajun's clip was very well said, very well spoken, and wanted to share it. So here's Cajun Johnson talking about why he does not think, the Muhammad Ali Act should be, quote, quote, revived, given his experiences as an MMA fighter. Take a listen. Hi, guys.

My name's Kajan, and I am currently an MMA fighter used to fight with a UFC. I am also a professional boxer, and I'm also on the Athlete's Voice Commission. So I feel like I have a lot of understanding of these issues. First of all, there is no leverage with which we can negotiate contracts. It was a question earlier about renegotiated. If you have a good manager, under the UFC's UBO model that they're proposing, the TKO UBO model that they're proposing, you will have no leverage to negotiate because you will be locked up in a very exclusive, coercive contract. So there will be no ability to get out. They will just sit you on the bench and wait until it is over, right?

Everyone in MMA, everyone in boxing is trying to be a unicorn. So you're talking about these unicorns, that's what we're chasing. That's why we're here. If we were trying to make smaller money, we would just go and start a business, right? Fighters will be abused by the control of the rankings. If you allow the promoter to control rank and title, they will be able to dictate who fights who, and you will no longer have a sport that is merit-based. You will have just a reality show.

This is easy to see because the UFC model, right, this TKO UBO model that they are, that they are proposing has already led to the UFC settling a lawsuit for $375 million for being an illegal monopoly and a monopsony. You cannot in good conscience make fighters suffer in order to allow boxing to be revived. If this was even going to do that, it will not. This will harm fighters guaranteed. It is guaranteed to harm fighters. I urge you guys. I urge you. I urge you I'm pleading with you. Do not let this bill pass. Do not allow you.

Do not support this vile bill because it will harm every single combat sports athlete on the planet. Time. So there you see it. Very passionate stuff, or there you hear it, I should say, from Cajun Johnson. I thought, well-spoken, well-said to a degree.

Obviously, he has his experiences. TKO leading the charge to try to, you know, as they say, revive this. Others call it destroy it. We'll see it. Another very interesting story to follow over the next few months. And certainly as we head into this new era of Zufa boxing, which I haven't really seen like this card being promoted as Zufa boxing.

I've seen The Ring. I've seen Netflix. I've seen Re-ed season. I found that to be interesting. But let's see. Let's see how it all plays out. I wanted to share that because, yeah, I thought it was interesting. tomorrow on the program. We're going to be joined by Alex Hernandez, like I said, earlier. He's

going to be competing on that Noce UFC card. We're going to be joined by Charles DuBronk's Olivera. Looking forward to that. Big fight for him coming up against Rafael Fiziev, our old friend, the Big Us himself, Joseph Parker, will join us. And Jaime Mungia is going to join us to talk about some drama in his life with some drug testing and whatnot. So much to discuss. Plus on the knows areahawani.substack.com the place to be for all the questions. Would you like that?

Yeah. I heard that. This is like when a teacher comes into the classroom and they have an apple. You know when a teacher comes into a classroom and they have an apple and they're like... Yeah, like the worst sitcom ever. That shit never happened in real life. Why do they do that? What is this? You got to clean the apple off, man. On your dirty shirt?

Yeah, clean it off. Why do they do that? By the way, when's the last time you've eaten an apple like this? I can't. I mean, what did you eat it? I have to cut it. Oh, Rick, you have to cut it too. I cut my apple, yeah, for sure. What?

No. Before, after the orderly put you down for sleep. Sown through the apple with a plastic knife. Yeah, it's crazy. They don't let me rigging my real knives, you know, to the... Ever since the incident. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. All right, gents.

Time to go. See a PT. Talk to you. All right. See you guys. At a later day. Bye-bye. God bless, God bless.

Hey, Ariel, we got a little bit of a mess in the control room. Do you have a brand of vacuum cleaner that you can recommend? I don't understand the joke. Is it a joke about my nose? What the fuck? What's the joke? That cut teeth all of a sudden. What's the joke?

Jordan put me up for this. Is it because of outside? Yeah. It's a joke that would have hit better 20 minutes. ago. Maybe 30. Tell me the joke. Tell me the joke.

No, it's not for repeating, but... I need to know. Is it... Does that have anything to do with something that happened outside? No. We'd all go to HR if we told it. Yeah, we can't tell it. Oh, I know what it is.

I know what it is. It's... Connor just tweeted about it. Yes. Oh, no. The reason I thought you guys were making fun of me was because when I opened... You know some packages like when you open... By the way, shout out to Tom Jervaisy.

Yeah, the man. Look at this book. It's a great coffee table book. Some of the packaging, like, you just kind of rip it. Oh, did you make a mess over there? And, you know, like, all this, like, brown sort of, like, dusty stuff comes out? Sometimes it's a clean rip, and there's nothing. It's, like, bubble wrap.

But sometimes it's like, holy shit. Well, in a hurry before the show, I wanted to show this to everyone, boxing, the 100 Greatest Fight, it freaking exploded out there. So I thought you guys were... You thought Frank was referencing that? Yes. But you're sweating because you realize that we need. No, I just thought...

We were having a good laugh at that thing that thing. Connor tweeted and then that was like 30 minutes ago. Okay, all right. All right, well, uh, that's that. Thank you very much to all our guests today. Diego Lopez. Thank you very much, Carlos Prachas, Corey Anderson, Paul Craig. Thanks to you.

Thanks to that. Back tomorrow's time. This is it.