The Ariel Helwani Show - Dillon Danis pulls out again, Usman Nurmagomedov talks money, more | The Craic

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Petesy Carroll and Ben Fowlkes are back for a duo edition of The Craic. Dillon Danis has pulled out of his MMA fight with Mike Perry. The boys react to the news (02:11). Following her loss on Dana White’s Contender Series, Bella Mir has taken plenty of flack online. Petesy and Ben discuss the response to her defeat (23:21). Then, the lads weigh in on Usman Nurmagomedov’s claim that he turned down a $2 million offer from PFL (49:19). Looking ahead to the weekend, Petesy and Ben preview Moses Itauma’s return to the ring (59:05) and UFC Shanghai (01:03:41). To finish up, the duo answer your Super Chats (01:13:35).

It's Friday, baby. That can only mean one thing. It is the crack. That's right. We're back again. Fridays. What else you'd be doing, crackheads? Absolutely nothing. That's the truth. So you're here with us. I'm here with you. Very excited. I mean, we were going through what we're going to talk about today on the show. Bit of Bellamere. You know, Moses Atama. Is he popular in the United States of America? The Gris, of course. Ben was all over that one. Dana throwing out those figures. at the press conference Dana White's Contender Series. And then, well, we got news from the old jewel arena that Dylan Dennis would not be making the date. And that is why he is featured on our beautiful thumbnail,

Column of Ovin, on the side here, big, big deal. I mean, I think a lot of people were excited for this. Some will say it wasn't too shocking. And I'm a shortly going to introduce a man who definitely said it wasn't so shocking.

Because Mr. Ben, folks. When I floated the idea of this being the main topic, he was like, that fight ain't happening. But we'll let him, we'll let him out of his victory lap in just a second. Before that, let's have a quick word from our good friends over at Calci. This episode is sponsored by Calci, the largest prediction market in the United States. Here's what makes Calci different. You're not playing against a house. Calci is beer to bear trading. You buy yes or no contracts on whether something will happen and you're trading directly against other users. Think of it like buying or selling a stock. The line isn't set by some algorithm working against you. Public opinion sets the

the price. Calci is CFTC approved, federally regulated, which is why it's available all across the country, including California and Texas. Download the Calci app and use code crack that's C-R-A-I to get up to $25 off when you trade $25. Calci. K-A-L-S-H-H-I. Trade what's next. Well, I did mention someone deserves a bit of a victory lap. Let's let them in here. We don't have any Chuck Mennon-H-all to balanced this out this week because he was adamant that Dylan Dynos was going to make to the fight. Go on, Ben. Do what you got to do, man.

Doing the old Bobby the Brain Heenan. I told you. I told you, Pizzi. You sent me a text. You're like, okay, how about we talk about this? Or, you know, we're coming up other plans and you were like, oh, yeah, the Mike Perry, Dylan Dennis fight is happening this weekend. And I wrote back to you and I said, allegedly.

That fight is allegedly happening, which is the best you can possibly say when Dylan Dennis is on a fight. card and Dylan Dan is scheduled to do anything, frankly, is allegedly he's going to do that. I'll believe it when I see it. I was proven right mere hours later. I couldn't text you fast enough when I saw that news. I was like, Pizzi might be asleep. Might be the middle of the night in Ireland. I'm texting him anyway. I don't know if I woke you up with it or something. But God, that was a great moment for me personally and a bad moment for Mike Perry. Yeah, I mean, I will say I got the message.

You know, Ben has an acute mind. He is sharp as attack. And he's going to come at me. Like, I got the message and I gave him some, like, you know, fair play, Ben. You called it. Then he comes back with another one. And I was just sitting there at midnight going, I don't have the power to duel this man. I don't have the power.

So I just, you know, symbolically waved a white flag in my sitting room. And Ben got the victory. But, Ben, as much as it's not shocking. And I saw a report today on, oh. Where did I see this? It was SB Nation, one of the SB Nation sites, and they were saying that he's actually pulled out of more fights than he's gone into now,

across all of the various things that he's done. But yeah, I believe we have a video of Mike Perry. Maybe that will underline the frustration of proceedings. I don't know if Andy has that. Oh, here is. What's up, everybody? I appreciate everyone for being here and everyone who supported this card,

all these professional athletes who have showed up, prepared to make weight tomorrow morning and fight on Saturday night, but let's not beat around the bush. This pussy-ass bitch Dylan Dennis didn't show the fuck up. He's not here. He backed

the fuck out because he's a pussy. So, I want to give a shout out to my new opponent, Brandon Jenkins. He's getting on an airplane right now. He's flying here to weigh in in the morning like a professional. and fight me on Saturday night.

I no longer have to cut any more weight. So I've accepted his fight at a higher weight class. I was well prepared to, I'm still prepared to put on for the city of Orlando and spill some fucking blood in the arena. Let's go. Wow, here we go. Ariel Hwani's tweet says here,

Dylan is out of this weekend's fight against Mike Perry. Perry just announced it at the pre-fight presser, as we just saw. no communication i'm told brandon jenkins is replacing him would you like to be brandon jenkins in this situation um mike perry is screaming about spilling blood he is first let's talk about mike perry's announcement there because it was there was a range like he really came out there and was like i'm a keep it professional you could tell he was adopting a certain tone he thanked everybody for being there. He was just like, all right, you know, I'm, I'm going to do a different

thing than Mike Perry, the fighter here. I'm communicating with the public about what is happening at this show. And then when it came time to talk about Dylan Dennis not being there, then he couldn't help himself. Then we're letting the expletives fly. We're throwing around all kinds of names and accusations. And then towards the end where he's like, oh yeah, I should do something to hype up this crowd for the fight that is happening. And that's when he talks. The register goes up. Another level we're talking about we're going to spill some blood.

We're going to put on for the city of Orlando. Get people kind of hyped up. I got to imagine you get that phone call. Do you want to get on a plane and come fight Mike Perry on Saturday night? And you go, I mean, do I want to? No, I don't. But I'm not making any money sitting on the couch on Saturday. I can tell you that for sure.

So I guess I'll go out there and I'll give it my best shot. And who knows? Maybe something great happens for you and helps elevate your profile a little bit. But no, I don't feel like I'd want to go do that. Mike Perry seems like he has found kind of a groove right now. He's also going to be mad about this whole Dylan Dana's situation. So yeah, that's a tough one for him. But also, before I was about to feel bad for Mike Perry.

And then you realize, this is Dylan Dennis. You get what you deserve at this point. If you book Dylan Dennis for a fight and you are expecting him to show up and fight you at your show, that's, I can't feel too much sympathy. Because as you said, this is what he's known to do. He is a pullout merchant at this point. You say he's pulled out of more fights and he's gone through with it. At this point, we might be in a situation where he's been in more fights out on the street or in the crowd than he has been in a sanctioned capacity. He's, he's been in more fights with like,

bouncers or people just running up on him at an arena than he has been in terms of like, here are the fights that you were scheduled and you agreed to. That's really saying something. It is, it is. I agree with everything you're saying, honestly. We did have some reasons floated as to why Dylan was out of this. First, we had a video, I believe posted boy Dylan of his arm being afraid of. Oh, I don't know. That's a flop right there.

I don't like it. I don't like it. Well, there you go. Somebody was doing that to your arm and you were like, let me get my camera out. You know, I want to make sure I want to document this moment. I had once where I had a staff infection from like jujitsu mats on my arm and it got kind of bad before I went to the doctor because I was like, nah, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. I'll put the cream on it.

And then when I finally went in there to get it opened up and drained and I couldn't look at it. The whole time that they drained it and everything, I just like, look. away and they were like, are you right? And I'm good. Good as long as I don't. So nice. But then I did want to see what it looked like. So when they left the room at one point, I got my phone out and without looking, I just took some pictures in the area so that like later when I got home, because I was like, I know there's a hole in my arm, but how big is it and how deep is it? And later when I got home, I looked at the pictures and I was like, well, that hole is deep enough that you can't see the bottom of it. And I never want to look at it again. My brother had the

same thing on his forearm. You got a cut out or remember. And I can remember it looked horrific beforehand. And I was like, oh, it looks even worse. I thought they did that. Congratulations. So Dylan posted this video. But next of all, all these allegations pop up of clip, well, these, these conspiracy theory, but not conspiracy theory, theories of people screenshoting the same arm during his recent interview with Sean O'Malley's podcast, I believe.

And there it is there. You can see it looks like a, like a sealed wound, you might say, right? I can't quite tell from that. Yeah, it looks like something has happened, but I don't know, maybe that's the stage of you ignoring that there's something going on with your arm until you have to have some kind of medical advantage. I mean, the one thing you can count it, if you did try to get away with something, the internet sleuths are going to be on your ass, Dylan Dennis. They're not going to, like, no one's out here being like, well, let's take his word for it. They're going to go back and they're going to look. And if there is something that shows that maybe we're trying to mess with the chronology of what.

What happened here, they're going to get to the bottom of it, man. Yeah, it's also then Jewel Arena, the people who are promoting this event. If you remember, Dylan and Mike were on Ariel's show. And they're both complaining. A memorable segment. There had been a post. Yeah, a very memorable segment. It was fantastic to be fair.

And it actually got me like, well, Dylan's in a real fight. He's in a real fight. This is going to be crazy. That was also, though, the moment where me personally, I was like, he ain't showing up for that. Really? Yeah. You knew that. I mean, you always kind of suspect it with it, but like all that kind of stuff going back and forth.

And I was just like, is you sure? Are you sure you want to show up and fight Mike Perry? Well, Jewel arena have weighed in. They've replied to a lot of people's posts about this. And the same tone being used, his own management confirmed it to be drug abuse related. And there is all kinds of images and some videos going around of, uh, Dylan Dennis allegedly using, um, some substances will say. So that is kind of the undertone of all this as well.

But obviously that could be a very serious situation if that is the case. But there's also a case of regardless of all that, as we've mentioned, this is the umpt-in time. Like we can't even count them any times this has happened with Dylan. First of all, like, where does this put him in terms of like he's obviously got a lot of interest behind him? When he's booked for a point, people, like it generates a lot of intrigue online, people talk about it. We were just talking about him and Perry facing off and lots of that to do with Perry of course as well. But do you think promoters be lying up to to book this guy again after

this? Because seemingly the other ones didn't matter if he keeps on getting fights, right? Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, it works to a certain level. Like, I mentioned Bobby the Brain Heenan and the great old pro wrestling manager. Uh, he, one of his things he was so great at doing. I remember watching him when I was a kid. And Bobby the Brain Hean would always be this guy. who is just inflaming people with his withering criticisms and hilarious mean asides about people and always interfering in matches. And as a kid, when I was watching it, I was like, why doesn't someone just take this guy and break him in half? Like, he is not a physically imposing man.

All these pro wrestlers look like they could absolutely destroy him. Why isn't somebody just go beat him up? And I was so hungry for that. And they knew that as a fan, I was hungry for that. And so every once in a while, somebody would get their hands on Bobby Heenan. And sometimes they get their hands on him and it looks like, oh, here it is. And he's doing this thing. He's begging off and everything.

And then he gets saved at the last minute. Every once in a while, though, he'd have to take a bump. Maybe you'd show up next week in a neck brace, a comically large neck brace, stuff like that. And so they knew you can build this up to a point of people. They're just like, this guy is pissing. people off and running from the consequences, and he keeps getting away with it, and I keep getting madder about it, and my desire to see some kind of righteous comeuppance is getting greater and greater.

But you can only play that to a certain point. Every once in a while, you do have to show up and fight. And this Mike Perry thing seemed like the kind of thing where it's like, as soon as you hear a fight like that is announced, you're like, well, Mike Perry is a buzzsaw, and you are the guy where it seems like you don't really want to do this. no one questions whether Mike Perry wants to do this or not. Mike Perry wants to do it so much. The big problem is keeping him from doing it at the times he's not supposed to do it.

And so that's why this fight had a certain kind of appeal. You got to show up every once in a while, especially because these people have stuff on the line. And when you don't show up, you ruin everybody's plans. And then they're going around talking about you behind your back saying, I mean, it's not really behind your back. It's in full public view saying the guy is on drugs and that's why he didn't show up. And so like the whole thing of Dylan Dennis being this guy for the MMA community or the fight sports community where we go, this guy is a poser and he doesn't actually want to do this.

And when he does get himself in a real fight, he's in over his head and he's going to get beat up. And that that is a sort of appeal like it or not. Whether he's set out to do that, that is the character he's created for himself and the character that people know him by. But that guy does have to show up for some fights every once in a while or else that gimmick doesn't work. people stop giving you those opportunities. They stop being willing to risk it on you if they just don't know if you're going to show. Yeah.

It's, uh, what do you think in terms of this jewel arena, right? Like, in fairness, I don't think many people were like carrying that vernacular in their MMA fandom jewel arena. Like it was always just Perry v. Dennis.

But I think they would have probably put down a lot of money to get Perry, to get Danis in there. And they had this big press conference. They have like, I think there's like six boxing bouts and a few MMI fights on the card. And then this guy, like one of the key attractions doesn't, doesn't show up. It's devastating for them, right? Like, you're not, you're not buzzing to watch Mike Perry v. Brandon Jenkins.

Like, you're not going to seek that out. Like, you're, you know, Ben, I'm basically going to read your mind here, but you know, like, you'll be happy enough with the X highlights of them. Yeah. It's the kind of one where I'd probably forget it's happening until social media reminds me and then maybe tune in or something if it were made incredibly easy for me to do so. the problem is dual arena sounds like a place. That sounds like a physical location in the world more than it does like a promotional

company or something. And this is, it's a dual arena event taking place at like the Kia Center or something, right? So it's, I don't, that's the part that's just confusing for me linguistically. But, you know, maybe if you're trying to do something in combat sports, right, you need to find what your niche is. Like, we've seen that with so many other promotions like bare knuckle boxing, somewhere that's just like, you've got to figure out where do we fit in and where do we fit in in a way that we offer this kind of thing and people know us by it and they know

what to expect from us. And I don't know, maybe if you're being the thing where if your guy doesn't show up, you're the person who'll go out there and tell everybody he's on drugs. Maybe that's not the worst niche that you can come up with. I don't know. But it is, it does take a hit because honestly, you could, I'm ashamed to say the degree to which you could get me excited about this Mike Perry Dylan Dennis fight, especially after I saw them both going at on Ariel's show and I was just sort of like, man, Mike Perry is really, really about that life. Man, you better, you better know what you're doing when you get in there with Mike Perry. You know, you don't as a rule, this is a rule I try to follow in life, Pizzi. I don't want to fight a guy who seems too eager to fight. A guy, a guy where it's just like. he's like, oh, thank God. Here's an opportunity to bite some.

And Mike Perry has been that guy his entire life, you know? And so, like, a guy who seems like he's got nothing to lose and he is very enthusiastic about the idea of hand-to-hand combat. That's kind of a scary dude. And so, like, paired with Dylan Danes, who seemed like he had been trying to be in the combat sports world without doing much combat sports. It seemed like you kind of had a perfect mix there where it seemed like, okay, justice will be delivered. And then, you know, when you lose that and you have to do like Mike Perry against whoever he could convince to get on a plane and come fight him on a Saturday night, that's a different kind of a fight. Yeah. It's an interesting note you make, though, about guys who are willing to fight because I feel like Mike Perry's appearance.

Because he looks like he would fuck your right. I know. Imagine you got into a conflict in traffic. Somebody cut you off. You flip him the finger or something. And you see the brake lights in front of you. He stops. The car door opens.

He gets out. and you see Mike Perry, the tattoos on his face and everything, get out of the car, come walking over and you're just like, damn it. Let me hit, let me, let's a lot of people in Ireland like, you get enough points in Aladdin, Ireland, they all think they're the best fighter in the world, you know, like, so it's like the eager they are, sometimes there's a psych out, you know what I mean, like, oh, and you're like, I don't think so, actually, I don't think so.

Um, funny story, uh, can't name names. So you're, you're talking about a road rate incident, uh, friend of mine, we'll say friend of mine driving along. Something happens. There's a situation, you know, a road situation. I think there's a few fingers being thrown up, whatever. Next of all, the guy starts tearing after my friend. This guy is tearing after him in a car.

But friends are like, do you know what? Fuck, like, I don't mind. Let's do this. He drives to an industrial estate where he knows there is a massive car park and he pulls in and the guy pulls in behind him. my friend gets out of his car. He takes out a hurl. Do you know what a horrel?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A stick in order of sports. Big wooden bat kind of thing. So my friend takes out a hurl. Yeah. And he's like, right, let's do this. Guy gets out of the car, pops his boot, takes out a shotgun. Friend, back in the car, burns out of that fucking, that is the craziest shit.

So, I mean, that's a, look Perry doesn't need to go there. That's a high card wins type situation, you know, where you got on, and see, the thing is, like, maybe if you'd have just got out and just, uh, you know, done and Dustin Porye, hitch up your pants and start going into the Philly shell, the guy would have just thrown hands with you. But once he saw you wanted to get, let's get whatever weapons we happen to have in the car, he's like, well, this is why I carry that shotgun around all the time.

Speaking of just general degenerancy, do you know what you're communicating when you're running around with this Raiders hat and the black t-shirt on? Do you know the connotations of this? No, what is it? What is it? Are you a Raiders swim? The curls are out of control.

The curls are out of control at the moment. Got this hot in Vegas, just popped it on. Tell me what I'm doing. Well, first of all, you look like Ice Cube in the 90s with your black shirt and your Black Raiders hat on. Thank you. But also, I mean, this is all good still. Here in America, the connotation is that Raiders fans are bad people and they're excited

about it. Like, they are enthusiastically bad people who, like, want to, want to see their team commit egregious penalties and like they they take this pride and being like kind of that the dark side like we're all going to show up looking scary Darth Vader outfits something like that you're scarier looking than than you usually are but when you tell people you're a raiders fan especially since like now this geographic loyalty is kind of out of the picture for a lot of people you know they move when i was a kid there in l.A they moved back to oakland then they left oakland for las Vegas and so now If people who did not grow up with them are choosing to be a Raiders fan,

it's kind of like you saying, like, I carry around a knife and I will stab you. That's the vibe you're communicating. I don't like, I need an edge. Okay. All right. I need an edge to my appearance. And I'm happy with it. I also have like, I will say I have a Denver Broncos hat sent me with a great joke

men and all. I have a Minnesota Vikings hat bought at the game here in Crow Park. I have a Buffalo Bills hat bought in the presence of Ariel Hwani to appease him and to get behind. See, none of those suggests that you have a felony in your background. The Raiders hat does. It does. I just want to make sure you know what you're communicating to the American fans. When I was in college in San Diego and I worked for a while for the security company and the Chargers games were always like the things people wanted to work security for and then one week.

Because nobody went to them, right? Well, I mean, it weren't exactly sold out every week back then. But the, I remember one week where they were like, oh, yeah, no, hey, even though you you don't have much seniority, you can work the Chargers game this weekend if you want to. And I was kind of like, why? Why out of nowhere? And then I realized, oh, the Raiders are in town. And so many of the Chargers season ticket holders know the Raiders fans are awful.

They will make it feel like a Raiders home game when they come here. And so they sold their season tickets for that one on the internet. to Raiders fans, and they knew, man, it's going to be rowdy. And all the people who had a lot of experience working the security at the games were like, I'm calling it sick for this one. And I, the spidey senses were tingling and I was like, you know what? No, I'm not going to work this one. Oh, I wanted you to have a story about work in that event.

The story is I didn't work it and a dude got stabbed and I watched it on the news that night. They had footage. Like, somebody had a camera in the guy. You could see this guy stabbing somebody like up under his armpit. And I was like, you know what? And I was at home safe. I'm glad I made the right choice here. Are they the biggest hooligans in NFL, would you say?

Like, you know, the way they have hooligans in like soccer and stuff? They would just say they have the rep for that. Yeah, I would say. Like, just like historically they have the rep. I mean, other teams have a rep for like really showing up for their team. The Buffalo Bills, the Bills Mafia has a rep for party. Tables. Party and hard in the parking lot before the game.

And I respect the hell out of everything they're doing over there. But the Raiders fans have the reputation of like, we are the ones who. will resort to physical violence before during and after the game. Black hole, baby. The black hole. That's death. That's what that is.

It's nothing good. It's not a nice place when you call it the black hole. Speaking of the black hole, um, a lot of noise on good old X over there, which is quite like a black hole in itself in a way. Um, a lot of noise, not only about Dylan Dennis and what he may or may not have been doing and the shape that his arm may or may not be in. Um, Belamere, they are.

coming out to destroy this 23-year-old girl after Dana White's Contender Series, Ben, you wrote a lot about this. And, you know, I feel, and I know you highlighted this in one of the pieces, it's kind of weird to see so many people celebrating the demise of essentially, like, a young girl with not a lot of experience in MMA, put into a massive situation, of course, like it was a highly hyped Dana White's Contender series. I know, uncrowned, like, we're on special protocols compared to the other kind of Dana-Wa's Contender Series coverage because it was that big.

All that to say, is this not a bit extreme, guys? Yeah. Just calm with the... Well, also, I know people love the term fraud-checked. Whoever taught the internet and the MMA internet in particular, the term fraud-checked, they're kind of an Oppenheimer situation. They have unloosed a terror on this world, and I hope that they feel some guilt over it. Because people just want to throw it around all the time.

It's not like she went out there and she... she looked terrible or anything. Like she was a 4-0 fighter, 23 years old, very early in her career still. This was a big moment. She went out there and it seemed like to me, my read on the fight was she'd been rolling over people. She came in as a minus 6,000 favorite. You know that the UFC is sort of behind you.

Dana White is not even pretending that he is not all the way in favor of you. He said he met three years ago to plan out her career. Yeah. He said that on the show. Like I'm not at all unbiased about her. You know, I'm very pro Bellamere. And so you know you have all that going for you. And you probably, whether you want to let that get in your head or not, you probably

had it in your head. They gave me somebody I could destroy. I'm in a position where everybody's going to watch me destroy her. And then the next step is the UFC. And it seemed like she went out there. She started fast. And then when she looked across and saw your opponent's still there, she doesn't even look bothered.

She even when you hit her with a good. shot. She's just still right there and she never looks like she is intimidated or taking a backward step. Credits are for that, but it seemed like Bellamir was not able to transition to what's the next step after that when this person ended up still being here and still giving me a tough fight. And that's just inexperienced probably. You know, that's why you have these sort of development fights. It's not a disaster to go out there and lose a narrow decision, a 29, 28 decision in a close fight in a situation like that. It's only a disaster if you hype her up to the point where because of the name, because of the betting odds, because

the UFC clearly wanted her to win that fight, that then it seems like a disappointing result. Four and one is not a bad record for somebody early in their career. Like, these are the kind of fights that you learn more from than when you go out there and if you beat somebody in 30 seconds, you know, like this is a fight that you'll probably be able to take something from. And it is though, it's a double-edged sword, right? Because you, you You come in here, you've got the last name, MIR. Everybody in M&A knows what that means. They know your Frank Mears daughter.

They've been hearing about you for years. They've been expecting you to show up on the scene. They're dying for something interesting to happen in some of these women's divisions. And so when you show up, people kind of go, all right, here we go. You never get a chance to be a product in development. Everybody is watching and they're trying to draw a lot of conclusions every single time they see a fight. That's just the flip side of it that comes. with they also already care,

which is not the case for most four and one fighters. Like you have their attention, but also they're going to be jerks about it if you fail to meet expectations. Yeah. That's very well put. I also think that in a way,

she's like a victim of the modern era of UFC. Because Contender series has changed, and I talked about this a bit on Wednesday show, contender series has changed like, the criteria of what it is to get to the UFC. Because on the regional scenes, all the best fighters used to fight each other,

say like a regional scene being Europe, say, like a Cage Warriors, which was a dominant brand in Europe, or a KSW, which was the dominant brand in Europe. Not that KSW was a feeder for the UFC, but certainly Cage Warriors, the best fighters fought each other until one of them had the belt. And then they're the best fighter in Europe. Everyone kind of unanimously agrees that they go to the UFC

and they fight in the UFC. What's happened now is, because of the Contender Series, a conveyor belt of talent is now needed. And what do Contender Series want in talent? They want undefeated records. And so they have all these people going in there with these shiny, beautiful records that have never really faced a lot of adversity in the cage.

Like, I've met, and I'd like your take on this, Ben, I've met so many coaches over the years. And granted, the game has changed. but a common refrain I've heard from coaches is a fighter, like, it's nearly better if they lose before they get to the UFC. You do not want that loss, the first loss of your life, when the lights are showing the brightest. And I feel like that's exactly what's happened here.

Mere, to me, is a sense, like, she's a fantastic athlete. She has an incredible pedigree. She has a great coach and mentor in Frank Mare, who was a brilliant heavyweight champion. But what it looked like to me in there is that this person's never had to put on them like this. There's a panic in the corner nearly where she's like, oh my God, this was all set up as you, as you laid it out there, Ben, like this was meant to be a home run. Frank Mir's daughter, looks great getting off the bus too. All of these, you know, fantastic grappling achievements. She's going to run

right through her. She's back in her corner having a panic attack probably. Like what in the fuck is just, even if she won that first round, she is sitting down going, this is not what I expected. I am not getting this girl to the places I want to get her to. And then it kind of falls away. And, and it was a very close fight, but do you agree with that? Like this idea that they all need to be these perfect shiny prospects going on to Contender Series without the battle test that used to happen on the regional scene because there just wasn't that many opportunities to go to the UFC. It was a lot rarer and you didn't have to feed this new Contender Series system.

So I think that's a bit of the subtext there. Like are these guys actually getting real tests before they get to Contender Series? Yeah, that is a fair point, especially because one thing I've heard a lot of fighters say over the years is that you don't want to be trying to learn on the job in the UFC. You need to be pretty close to a polished product by the time you get in because you're not going to get that many opportunities to make an impression once you're in the UFC. You're going to face tough fights, for one thing. People are going to be drawing their conclusions about you pretty quickly when they see you.

If you show up and you go one and two in your first three fights, people are going, this person's not going to turn into anything. And they'll kind of give up on you. when you might still be a significant work in progress. And so you want to do all that stuff lower down. But also, there are fewer opportunities to do that now. I think that the contender series, especially, they highlight the contender aspect of it.

And how many times do you see Dana White show up and be like, I'm not looking for 33-year-old fighters on the contender series. Keeps booking them sometimes. They're there apparently to be opponents. That's what you're kind of telling people is that, like, We brought in one guy to win, look good, sign this development contract with the UFC. We brought in the other guy to be the punching bag for that or to be, you know, something of a test for that. But it is like a weird thing that has sort of disrupted a little bit of the normal ecosystem.

And it's not just the contender series that did it. I think COVID did a number on a lot of like regional promoters just because they didn't have TV deals. They didn't have huge sponsorships that they could count on if you're not running shows. You're selling tickets, you're selling sponsor tables. That's how you're making a living. And if you had to shut down for a while, a lot of them just decided, you know what, this is where I get out of the business. And I did a story maybe a couple years ago on the contender series.

It might have even been before uncrown. It might have been back when I was just writing for Yahoo. And I looked at a lot of different aspects of the contender series and talked to, you know, smaller promoters. And they were saying one thing about the contender series is that, if we have a guy who comes up, fights a few times for us, and then he goes to the contender series and he loses, we don't always necessarily want that guy back.

Like if he doesn't get the UFC contract, it's kind of a tough job sell for us to take him back because one of the things we're trying to sell people on when we're selling tickets to these events is, hey, come see these guys, they might be future UFC champions. These might be guys you're watching in the UFC someday and then you could tell everybody,

hey, I saw him when he was fighting at this casino in Wisconsin or whatever. And if you go to the contender series, everybody sees you lose, everybody sees you not get a contract, and then you come back to us, but you're still good enough to beat these other people we have. It tells everybody too much. These other people we have are not good enough for the UFC either, because it's been proven that you're not good enough. And so it kind of disrupts a little bit of the flow of what was happening there. And yet for the UFC, it works as such an efficient conveyor belt to get young talent in there, to start. To, sign them before they have a chance to go be a free agent somewhere else, maybe build up their

asking price. You sign them to pretty cheap contracts for the UFC. You treat them kind of as penny stocks. You just sign a whole bunch of them, bring a whole bunch of them in. And all you need is one or two of them can hit. And it's a big deal for you. And when you look at some of these fight cards, like you look at the fight card that we had last week is a bunch of contender series products on these fight cards. And so it works really for the UFC. But it does also have like a downstream effect in MMA. I think. Yeah, I would agree with all of that.

One of the people who was maybe most engaged on social media in the aftermath was Bella Mir's mother. She came out and she gave a lot of people what's for. And I can sympathize with that. I'm not apparent like you, Ben, but I can imagine you're in that situation and you see people having a field day that they were absolutely having online in the aftermath of this and your young daughters in this state of disarray, losing this massive opportunity with the light shining so

rightly, as we mentioned previously, she got on there and she gave him a piece of our mind, you know? She let him know that she didn't quite agree with what the judges had to say. Kind of went, yeah, maybe a little bit too far, but she has issued an apology. And I'm saying this all to bring you around to the, to you exploring this in the mailbag this week. Have you seen the apology? Yes.

Would you like me to read it? Yeah, go ahead, read the apology, but I saw it. I'm, it's very long, but let's get into it. I want to address the comments I made after the fight, but first, I want to give you all a very deserved explanation. After the fight, I went on to Bella's comments, and I saw comments telling my daughter to die and to kill herself. I reacted as purely an emotional and protective mother

after seeing my daughter go through such a hard loss and let the alcohol and adrenaline get the better of me. I've been there. However, that is zero excuse. I want to sincerely apologize to Alex Obadaca, her team, the judges, and the fans. Alex fought a brilliant fight, earned the wind, fair and square and deserves nothing but respect.

My other line comments were entirely my own and do not reflect Bella on her team or the values she trains boy. I'm stepping back from social media to let Bella focus on her recovery and I ask everyone to direct their frustration towards me and not my daughter. So please, in that vein, Ben, go ahead. Okay, first of all, I would not tell people that if they didn't already know, I wouldn't have told them about the alcohol. Because, I mean, it was pretty obvious, you know?

If you've ever had a couple of beers, you know, you know, you know what was happening. I think it's understandable to a degree that, for one thing, when it's your child, you are more likely to have a unrealistic sense of their ability and success. I know that from, you know, I've been, I've gone to and watched my daughter do ballet, and I'm just like, well, that's obviously the most perfect angel that anybody has ever seen, right? Like, should we call the Paris Opera Ballet right now and tell them just to keep yourself? spot warm. And then, you know, my, my wife who is a, who has been a professional dancer and is a professor of dance was like, yeah, she did good. She did good for, you know, and I was like, okay,

bring me back down to earth. But especially like, imagine how heightened it is. You've watched her come through and this a very dangerous and difficult job, a dangerous difficult job that you've seen how bad it can get. You've seen the ups and the downs by watching your husband go through it. And then you watch your child go through it. And the, like you said, the way people took certain like joy and delight some of that being like okay the ufc has clearly christened this person as their they're their chosen one and so when that person loses there's a little bit of like ah ha ha you can't script this and that's one of the things that we like about this sport but i can see how those sort of reactions and the internet is going to be extreme it's going to be like there's

just the internet is churning out assholes at an unprecedented rate so of course if you're paying attention to that if you're paying attention to all those negative comments And they're directed at your child, especially in this moment of disappointment, you're going to get really, really upset about it. And you're going to take it really personal. It'd be a lot easier probably to shrug off those comments if they were about you than if they are about your child. And so I can understand getting fired up about that, flying off the handle a little bit. You got to keep it off social media, though. And you got to not just keep feeding that hate.

Feeding the beast. Because especially at that point. while I understand where that can come from, you're embarrassing her. She doesn't need that. You know, she let her speak for herself, let her, like, stand on her own two feet, be a professional. And when she came out and made a comment about it, I was like, that's how you handle this. You know, she seemed like she had a good perspective on it.

Bella, she actually did. She was, she was incredible. Yeah. And you're like, that's what you should do. Like, you want to see that she's going to take her lumps. She's going to learn what she can from the loss and she's going to come back better the next time for it. And everything that about what she said seemed like that.

And then you just sort of take the attention away from her by going off on social media and detracting from that. Now that's what people remember from the fight. Like I can kind of understand the impulse, but you've got to resist that because otherwise, like, she's, you're really embarrassing her and you're putting a darker cloud over this thing that people are going to remember. Yeah, I agree with all of that. Um, interesting. You seem to have a different approach to parenting to my own father.

Wouldn't be the biggest Peter Carroll in sports fan out there, got to say. But with all this said, right? And Bellamere, like Dana White was talking to be a unicorn. You know, she is, and obviously she has, um, she is a stellar pedigree in terms of grappling. She's won a lot of, um, events. People were very hyped on her. I think the next step is so important because this is this is a lot of fight game to receive this early

she has looked into the belly of the beast there, she has been in the belly of the beast and swallowed her up essentially and now I feel like her next move is going to be so scrutinized like if my opinion is if I'm handling Bellamyre right now I'm just taking her out of the whole UFC universe

for this next fight. Like I don't want her on one of the feeder leagues that can go through the socials on UFC fight pass and therefore on the UFC. I want to keep the deal with Dana and the lads intact, but just say, listen, we need to take her over here for a minute, build back some confidence, get a few reps, and then maybe come back to Contender Series next year maybe.

What would your feeling be on that? And do you think the UFC would be open to that based on Dana's comments, highlighting how invested he was in her career already? I would think that she'll probably fight her next fight would probably also be on the contender series. Like I would not be surprised by that. I don't know about this season.

I mean, depending on what your timeline is for recovery and coming back. But it's hard to take those backwards steps. It's not like baseball where you can send you down to AAA and let you get a few hits and get your confidence back up and then we bring you back. Like every fight is so meaningful. And so if you send her back to a regional scene somewhere and she loses or just doesn't look great, then it's really a disaster.

I think the UFC is kind of going to go all in and see how far that they can ride this. But I also think that just a loss like that at this point in the career might be a good thing at times. You know, like maybe sometimes you need that. You need that little check to go back to the gym and be like, okay, I still got some work to do. Maybe the work is just rounding out the game or maybe the work is on the mental side of it, like going out there and not thinking it's going to be an easy night of work every single time. But there's plenty of examples of people who had absolutely amazing. in careers that had early losses in their career. We've seen it over and over and over.

I mean, Chris Cyborg lost what, like two fights. One of them was the first fight. The very first fight you ever had lost and came back. Like there's a lot of those kinds of examples. And so I don't think that this is something where they need to go into panic mode and be like, all right, let us go find the easiest tomato can that we can get. You know, don't go out here and do one of these things where you've all seen it on social media, where in one corner. it's like a polished, excited fighter on on the other corner. It's like a soccer mom who looks like she wandered it here by mistake.

Let's not do one of those because everyone's going to know what the hell of it is. That was a former Belator champion, Lima Leigh McFarlane. Who, like, there was a genuine soccer mom there. Yeah. You know, Kim Couture also had one of those early in her career, you know, the wife of one of the wives of Randy Couture. She had one of those where she was trying to come up and have a career. And she had one where it was like, okay, did we find this person at the consent? session stand and be like, what, these gloves look like they'll fit you and get in there,

you know, don't do one of those. Get out there and be somebody. Give her another real fight, like, maybe another like contender series fight and see what she has learned from it because I think there were a lot of positives you could take away for a 23-year-old fighter at that point in her career. Like you said, like there's a lot of like physical gifts and physical tools that she seems to have. I think she could still turn out to be a really good fighter.

Is Frank's role in the camp a good thing, a positive, given everything that he's been through? You wrote about, in your column you talked about Robert Follas talking about the Misha Tate and Caraway situation back in the day, that didn't go quite well. It's common off with with with female fighters to have a coach that they're involved with, but obviously a different situation, father and daughter here. Is that to be determined? How do you feel about it on the outlook on that? I am just on based on what I've seen over the years in fight sports, I'm against the coach being somebody who is like an important person in your personal life in addition to being your coach. Like a parent or a, you know, a relative or a romantic partner.

I just think that that's tough to do. It's, it's very common, but I think that it's really tough. And that was the thing that Robert Wallace was trying to tell Brian Carraway and Misha Tate. He was just like, you can't be her coach in the gym and then go home and be her boyfriend. What she needs at home is a boyfriend. And you're still going to be kind of wearing the coach hat. She's sitting down to eat dinner and you're just like, I don't know if I'd eat that. You know, and you eat that potato?

Yeah, like, we got to cut away, you know, is that the best? And she needs a different kind of thing there. And it's very tough to be changing those hats in time and making sure that you're being the person that she needs at that moment. It's way easier for her to show. up and the coach is the coach. He lives at the gym. That's when you see the coach. He's going to be responsible for you then. He's going to tell you what to do then. And then when you go home, you can get the support of the boyfriend who is not also the coach. And so I think that that's tough. We've seen a lot of fighters, you know, we've seen it in boxing a lot where a lot of people

be coached by their dads. And that can go for years and years and years. And the two most common things that happen as a result of that are the growth stops eventually. Or, you know, it becomes such a contentious relationship that then you destroy that personal relationship by trying to pursue this coach fighter relationship. Like you talk about, I don't know if you watch that HBO thing they did on Roy Jones Jr. I think when he was going to fight Joe Calzagi. And it was years ago. It was like 2008 probably. And, oh, what's the fight?

I didn't see the, we didn't get them over here. Oh, it was great. It was back when they used to do really, really great ones. And they go with. What were they called? HBO? It was like 24-7 or something like that. 24-7, yes, yes.

They go with Roy Jones Jr. where he goes back to visit his dad and talk. And you can see that he and his dad are trying to find anything but boxing to talk about. His dad knows the fights coming up. But you can tell they've had such a rocky relationship over the years that they've had to get to a point where in order to maintain any sort of father-son relationship, they've had to decide this topic is off limits for us. And they're just like, they're talking about. about livestock. They're talking about hunting. They're talking about anything else. And when they leave the producers, you know, they got the camera on Roy as they're driving away in the car and they're like,

you know, you guys didn't talk boxing. Like, do you think he just didn't want to talk? And Roy Jones says, he'd rather talk boxing than anything in the world. But we know we can't do it. Like, and so like, those, I think it's very tough to mix those things and have it go well for a long, long period of time. I just think, like, I don't know. I was coached by my dad exactly once in youth sports because my dad, my dad loves sports and and I always had lots of thoughts about it. We know when I would come home for practice or he'd watch me in a game. When I played high school football, my dad would wait up at night until I got home from the game so he could talk about every single play that went on.

I've been there. And when I played baseball, I remember playing baseball, you know, in like the youth leagues when I was like 13, 14. And I had said something to my four to my dad, like, you don't ever want to coach these little league teams or anything? And he was like, you don't want me to coach. And then we got to the point where, you know, there's just not enough parents volunteering to do it.

And so he was like the assistant coach or something. And I found out he was right. He knew what he was talking about. I remember like turning a double play or something. And I got out, I was jogging off the field and he was like, that's not how you're supposed to do that. You should have done this and said. And I was like, I turned a double play.

It worked. But, you know, on your own kids, you're going to be hard. You're going to be very, very critical. It's got like the pressure of it feels like you're always carrying it around. We get in the car to go home. We're still carrying it around. And especially if you're doing it. for a living, you're both adults,

you're doing it at this extremely high level, there's so little margin for error, that's a heavy weight to carry around with you for years and years. Yeah, and look, of course there's been famous successes, Abdulnamap, with Habib, but to your point,

like, I can remember I was talking to Andy Aspinall, and he has so many dilemmas that he's openly, openly talks about with Tom. You know what I mean? He's like, before, they were sparring before the Pavlovich fight, and I was interviewing Andy. And he was like, just an aside, I didn't even ask him about it. He was like, show how fucking crazy it is?

Like getting guys to come to the gym to try and fuck your son. Yeah. Do you know how crazy that is? You're like, I hope this guy's good so he can try and fuck him up good and proper. So he'll be ready for this fight. And he's like, he's having this mental battle in his head. Like, what am I actually doing here? You know what I mean?

It's insane. But then the flip side of that, as I mentioned in my column, you know, I remember talking to Antonio and A.J. McKee about it. I knew Antonio from way back in the IFL days. And he was somebody where he was always very realistic and practical that he knew this world, the fight sports world. It is exploitative by its very nature. It's cruel. It is unforgiving.

And it's just going to try to extract as much as it can out of you while giving as little as it has to back. And he was always like very clear eyed about that. And so I was surprised when his son went into it and proved very early on to be a great talent. And I remember asking about it and he was like, well, I really tried to keep him out of it because I was trying to steer him. I was like, how about a career in law enforcement or something where there's benefits, something where there's a pension and there's some like some job security because he said, I've been self-employed my whole life. And there's times where you don't know where the money's going to come from. You don't know how you're going to get yourself health insurance, all that stuff. And I didn't want to see him go down that route.

And then I realized, you know, he was fighting kids at school. Kids were betting on it. They were taking cell phone video in the bathroom. like they were setting up their own kind of fights and he was like well he's gonna do it it's in him to do it and maybe i shouldn't be surprised he grew up in the gym he's got my DNA in him he he's been around it his entire life and he's excited about it and so the next best thing i can do is make sure that he's really well prepared again he only seemed to relent on it when he realized i can't keep him out of it i also kind of realized like who was when i was his age and wanted a

fight who was going to tell me no and i would have listened so might as well see that he does that he gets good training. Yeah. Now, all good points. Moving on. Another one of the Normaga Madoff tree we've just there. Usman and Maga Madoff.

We talked about him at length next week. Claims he's already been offered 2 million, over 2 million, I believe it is, by PFL. Obviously, they're in the exclusive matching period at the moment, as far as I know, as far as John Martin has said.

Usman's quote, and I'm quoting, championship rounds here. Negotiations with PFS still going, 90 days have to pass. After that, we'll see, but I have previously turned down 2 million. When we made our request for a new contract, the numbers were different, higher than 2 million, it says there. Sorry, that's from our own article over there on, uncrowned, I should have quoted, but, right, you know, how much money do you think Usman is preparing? Not to say that he's made the wrong decision here. Like, he is in a situation where he's got to hear all the off. all right he's going to get out of this exclusive period he's going to hear all the operas

you know you don't look a gift horse in the mouth this is two million two million dollars for what though like two million per fight is that what he's saying per fight is what he's saying yeah that'd be tough tough turd down you know what i mean who is earning that who is i would say honest to god who is erring over right obviously let's take mcgregor and the superlative rousey's all damn out of the situation i would say right now people are earning over two million is like ilia perera um aspinall maybe you know like obviously john's not in the situation those kind of people like this is like this is top top money i would assume in i don't know yeah i mean if it's two million per fight and any fight whether it's a title fight whether who no matter who

it's against if it's like hey you will never make less than two million per fight that'd be hard to walk away from i understand though if you're saying not that hey two million, you're not even in the ballpark or what it's going to take to keep me, but if instead you were saying, it would be foolish of me not to hear other offers. I get that. Okay. Um, especially, but like,

you also are operating under the assumption that once you do hear the other offers, they're going to know what's up. If you hear the other offers, you call them back later that same day after the negotiating period, and it'd be like, okay, I'll take your deal. You know, they're going to know, like, all right, you know, that's,

he was not getting anywhere close to that. I do think for those guys, the quality of competition, legacy, things like that, those are probably very valuable things that mean something to them. I don't want to say they mean more than the money, but those are going to be factors for them. I think that they're thinking, hey, if you want to make a point and prove that you're the best in the world, we want to have, they're sitting around over there going, we want to have another UFC champion in our stable. we're not that impressed by having another PFL champion in our stable and we're already doing pretty good money wise. So like I'm sure that that factors in.

You just wonder how much because two million is the UFC going to offer you more than two million to come in and fight any fight, whether it's a title fight or not? If the UFC did do that, I would tell him it was a bad idea because the machine the UFC has built doesn't really need him.

I mean, I don't want to say that negatively. It would be great to have. him, especially if we're going to be talking to this, we have the best fight and the best stuff. It would be really good to have him. But from just a business perspective, are you going to be making that money back if you're paying him $3 million per fight to do absolutely any fight? I don't know if you will. And you also might just be sitting over there if you're the UFC going, hey, even if we don't get this guy as a free agent, if we can just make them way overpay for him and like hurt them as a competitor that way. that's also a win for us.

That's a great point. Does it make you feel any more confident of PFL's chances? If the information is correct, right? If Usman is not talking out of his ours here. Like, if they are actually offering $2 million a fight, does that make you feel like they have a better chance? Of keeping him? Yeah.

That's tough to turn down, you know? It's just knowing what we know. I will say, I will say, like, you know, there's graduates of contender series that have made an. to $11 million. And we don't know who that is. We don't know who that is.

But, you know, that's what I'd be saying to Usman. If on the UFC, you don't even have to go to contenders series here to us, man. Do you hear what I'm saying to you? You don't, you don't even have to go through the blender. We're letting you come right in. And maybe if you have 30 fights. Yeah.

If you have 35, six of my short notes. A bunch of them on short notice, a bunch of performance bonuses. 30 fights. that's 30 fights is a career and a half for most people in MMA so like that's crazy of like that's what your expectation is of like trying to map out your future you know 30 fights is a lot of wear and tear on your body to go through uh i mean 11 million dollars over the course of that i guess is pretty good but it's also a lot of work to get that you know if you were an NFL slot risk receiver, you get there without having to do the equivalent of 30 fights in the UFC.

So I don't, I mean, I'm sure, especially for somebody like Nurego-Metoff, where you're sitting over there and you're going, I think I'm going to be a champion either place I go. I am in top-tier fighter. I think I'm one of the best in the world. And so I could see the UFC enticing you over by being like, hey, maybe we're not saying two million per fight, but we're saying, we think you'll become a champion. you also think you're going to become a champion, right? And so if you become a champion and win five straight championship fights,

here's what the money will look like. It'll be way greater than two million and not taking into account how many UFC champions win five straight. UFC title fights. It's extremely hard to do. You're also going to face different competition if you stay in the PFL. I mean, one thing, maybe it's encouraging for the PFL that they think they have that money to spend to keep a fight over here. Yes. a good met off.

The Dubai deal must be re-uped already because my God. What do you think of Dana's kind of declarations at these press commerce? The other one was graduates of the Contemptor series since 2017, which make up most of every card now, have earned 225.3 million, very exact figure. I was talking about an Ariel show during the week and I was like, this is like saying,

fighters from Ireland in the last 10 years, have earned over 300 in the UFC. You know what I mean? It's like one guy in particular. Yeah, someone's doing the heavy living here, you know, is what I'm trying to get at. Yeah. The thing to me is I'm curious why he decided to start doing this because it wasn't something that it felt like he was under such tremendous pressure like he's showing up every week and people are going, tell us how well like our, like we think the contender series people are being. underpaid. You know, I mean, we know they're all getting like pretty poor entry level contracts

and everything. But it's not like you're under a new kind of pressure where he felt like, I got to go on the offensive on this and come armed with some numbers. Like that seemed a little bit strange to just decide like kind of like proactively that we want to do that. But also to me, every single time he does this kind of stuff, I'm like, do you want to tell us what they're paid or not because you want to kind of cherry pick and collect the numbers in such a way that it makes it sound good for you where you say collectively they have done this or there's one guy who you're not going to name who has done this and I'm just like why do that if you're not just going to tell us.

Show us all the numbers. We've seen the USC do this every once in a while because they'll tell you on one hand it's a state secret what everybody's paid. Can't possibly let you know what people are paid. And then we've seen instances in the past where somebody complained about their pay, you know, Tito Ortiz or a rampage or somebody like that would complain. And then Dana White would come in there with a damn spreadsheet. And like, no, he was paid this much over this many years.

And then they'll want to do it. But it's like, why do it if you're not going to give us like even a name to go with some of that? I don't understand what the impetus for that is. I also, here's the thing. I'm going to say this again to my MMA media colleague. when Dana White comes out here and says something like this, the word you want to use in your headlines is not Dana White revealed what Contender Series fighters are making.

Oh, I know what the word is. Claimed. Dana White claimed. He has not offered you any proof. He's just reading numbers off a piece of paper. Didn't even show you the piece of paper. He's just reading numbers off the piece of paper. And you're going, all right, that must be what it is.

It might entirely be true. Kevin Holland first said it wasn't him, then reverse course and was like, actually, maybe I do have a $11 million. I just didn't do the math. I forgot to carry the one or something. But it could absolutely be true. But if he's just coming there to the press conference and saying numbers to you, you have not verified that. You don't know if that is true. That is a claim, my friends.

If your mother says she loves you, check it out. That's the rule. Journalism, baby. Yeah. I look forward to more. We've got a whole feast of judgment. Dana White's Contender Series. He's going to say more stuff. All a good time, of course. Mosatama, big old fight against Herkovich this week. People are, this is the litmus test for

everyone over here. We're like, well, is this guy going to be the guy? We have a great article up on Crown at the moment about is he the next Mike Tyson. That is the things that people are saying about Moses Atama. There it is there. Make sure you go over and check that out. I've asked you this a number of times. And I mean, I'm pretty sure the answer has always been an unequivocal know. Has the Mosetama buzz hit the United States? Not in the part of the United States that I hang out in. I only hear about it. I hear about it from you. I hear about it when I get on to uncrowned. But other than that, you don't hear about a whole lot of people talking about it. When you throw out stuff like the next Mike Tyson, it works in a couple different ways because that will

work on people. Like if you go to somebody. We've seen it with McGregor. I mean, a million times. in the M.M.A., right? Is this guy the next Conor McGregor? Yeah, like, if you go to somebody on the street and you're like, there's this guy fighting in a boxing match tonight, he's an ex- Mike Tyson. People will go, oh, shit, really? Okay. I would like to see that. And they carry certain connotations, you know, where you're going, all right, I'm going to see a quick, violent knockout from a scary individual. And there's going to be sort of an aura there. But that's also a lot to live up to because if they're showing up with that expectation, like when Mike Tyson first burst on the scene, everybody was just like, like, like, you're not going to believe this kid. Like, he's just a bulldog in there and he's wrecking people left and right. But it wasn't, like, he didn't carry that thing where people were like saying he's the next something, you know? And so you have a lot to live up there. You have a certain, like, very narrow kind of expectation that comes with being on the next spike Tyson. But as a selling point, it can work, I think.

Yeah. It's, look, the opponent is like serious. like he's beat jolly zang he's beat joe joyce david adelaide dave allen you know he has beat he has beat guys that are just before that level that are just before that kind of prism of elite you know like they're just like can't quite get in there it's a force feel and hergovich knocks them back he has lost to daniel dubois who we know knocked out anthony joshua he is he i'm very excited by a town but i do have this weird feeling right with all this kind of fury and joshua talk going on and i think It's the Battle of Britain that's happening in America.

But it's almost like the way you and Chuck have been saying to me, like, no, we, like, we haven't been force fed this guy. And that's usually what boxing does. When they have a guy they want to get behind, it's like, look at this, motherfucker. And we're in combat sports, so we see him. I'm like, are they kind of restraining the build of Atama because this fury and Joshua situation is not settled? And they want to, they want to have this idea that if Mosetama Vite Eater Toys and Fury and

Anthony Joshua right now, he would not absolutely bludgeon them, which he would, which I am very confident of. They don't exist in the same world as this kid. It's not going to happen. So I'm like, are they kind of holding back the global promotion of this man to allow these two to have the retirement fight

and then they're going to push him because really holding up this guy is like, here's Mike Tyson, he's from England, don't worry about Fury and Joshua. Yeah, I mean, they gave us a lot. Do you know what I'm saying? It's almost like the restraining the build on him because of this. I think that there's a lot of that going around the heavyweight division and boxing right now just in general.

There's a sense, right? Like there's got to be a changing of the guard soon. The older generation, they have some big stars who are still, the names ring out even if some of the physical ability has declined. And there's a feeling like a lot of people are waiting for that to subside. And then they're going, it's going to be our time to step into it. What they're not taken into account is how long. people can stick around when the sport has become an ATM machine on their front lawn. And they keep saying, this is going to be the last one.

This will be the last one. We're almost done. But as long as that machine is still spitting out money, it's really hard for them to walk away. And so that that can go on. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think it goes on two or three more years. And so you have a lot of people like right now, there's a sense that they're being patient and they're being like, okay, there's a whole crop of us waiting to step up and be those guys once these guys. are gone, but they're really taking their time heading off to the rocking chair. I've noticed that in the critic acclaimed crack notes,

of, is Ben waking up for UFC Shanghai? And then I realized, Ben doesn't need to wake up for UFC Shanghai. It's probably going to be on before he goes to bed, depending on his sleep schedule. What are we looking at for a start time here? I think, like, I'm on the, blog so I should really know. Yeah, you should. I don't know.

This is concerning. 3 a.m. E.T. Oh. Start time. So that's good. That's 1 a.m. your time. Yeah, well, I'm looking at right now.

The main card starts at 6 a.m. Eastern, so that's 4 a.m. here in the one true time zone. Yeah, I'm a no sleep. Roll up a Fadi Boom buddy. Get the TV on. Crack a beer.

Let's go, baby. You know how I prioritize my sleep schedule as a gentleman of a certain age with two children, especially on a weekend, you know, and Pizzi, I know I don't have to tell you this, but why I don't want to be sleep deprived that early on a Saturday morning when Saturday night. Okay. Okay. Oh, no.

Oh, it's the gris, baby. My beloved Montana Grizzlies open their football season with a. night game against Southern Utah. And I don't, I can't be all Southern Utah. The big, you're playing a Thunderbirds of Southern Utah.

When they open with a home game, they've been known to be careful in selecting an opponent for that home game. But it's a, we're looking at I think a 7 p.m. start time. If I'm up at 4 a.m. watching dudes from Shanghai, I'm going to be Dragon

an ass by the time we get and I we can't have that we need everybody in full support here also I'll say this I might have mentioned this before it's tricky when we have a night game here in Missoula montana which I will point out was recently named by us today USA today to be the number one college sports town in America do you agree yes absolutely it's incredible the vibe on game day here is incredible we got the stadium sitting right at the base of the mountain it's beautiful it's a great time you get 25,000 people screaming in that stadium. I love it.

It's a highlight of my Saturdays in the fall. But the Gris fans are used to a 1 p.m. start time. That means that they are going to start their drinking 10 a.m. 11 a.m. get out there to the tailgates, all that kind of stuff. Get tuned up in time. And so when you throw like one night game a year out there at them,

they are not prepared for it. And a lot of people do not do a good job of pacing themselves. Oh, a little bit. I went to a night game either last year or the year. year before and we go to the bar across the street from the stadium and my wife came out of the bathroom and she was like there is a 2 a.m. Women's

room vibe going on in that bathroom. Women are telling each other that they're beautiful. They're talking each other out of text and their exes. Like somebody's throwing up in one of the stalls. And it was 5.30. So everybody got pasted themselves, but that means that sounds magic.

That sounds magic. That means I'm going to catch up on these fights at a reasonable hour with a cup of coffee in the morning. I not waking up for this because I need to be fully locked in and ready to go for game time for the gris. What's the plan? Like you and Chad going? What's it? And is it hard to get tickets because it's $25,000? I'm sure everybody wants to go because it is the biggest college town in the United States America, but you know, everyone wants ticking. You know, it's not that hard to get to, it depends on the game when for the Brawl of the Wild, when they play Montana State at the end of the season.

Oh, you don't have to tell me. You don't. That's a big one. That's, you're going to spend a couple hundred bucks if you're, if you're just buying individual game tickets. for me, my wife is a tenured professor at the University of Montana. They get a faculty discount. She's not a huge football or sports fan. So we end up sitting in the section right over by the marching band. And she loves to watch the marching band. I watch the football game, fill her in on what's going on over there.

But the thing that Chad will always do is you'll talk to Chad Tuesday or Wednesday and be like, you want to go to the game this weekend? Should we find some tickets? Go out there. Hit up the tailgate. And he'd be like, I don't know. I might just stay home and watch this one on TV. But then,

Thursday or Friday, somebody will offer him a ticket or I'll get a text Friday afternoon. And it's just like a screenshot of the seat map and a couple tickets he's found. And he's like, what do you say? Should we get these? And I'm like, welcome in. Of course. Of course I want to go.

Beautiful. Well, best look to the gris. I mean, I'm going to try and watch as long as I can gamble on it. I'm going to try and watch. And I'll be very excited. excited. Are you buying or selling this umma and a mega Madoff, Marab revenge situation that's going on? The hatred between the alleged hatred

that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Madhavs feel from Marab who was said, no, no, no, that's not the, that's not the story there. Um, have you been seeing any of this? Like, are you, are you, are you bought into the idea of somehow these two meeting and maybe, maybe, maybe when a championship's on the line because of course Marab, Piotr Yan's happening again? You know, I don't need, a ton of that to get excited about those fights. Yeah.

I don't need. Because it's, those are interesting fights, you know, and I think Marab seems like he's got something going with everybody right now in the division. And also like, you know, when when Marab, I believe it was Marab, right, who was saying like, hey, I got mad at the Russian fighters to bring in their flag in there. One, because they wouldn't let me bring my flag in there. Two, because of Russia and maybe not being the best neighbor in the region lately. and you're like, legit, that is legit, bro.

But also, you know, look how many people Marab has run up on and slapped in the stands. You don't need to do a whole lot to get Marab willing to get mad at you and come over and fight you. He will fight you if you are a fan saying the wrong things to him. So it doesn't take that much. And those are all interesting matchups that you could see play out in the future. Like right now, you know, the three of them like Norma Gometov, Marab, Peter Yan, that's just a triad there where you could just mix and match and make fights for like the next two years and they'd all be interesting.

I agree. I mean, I was sorry, in the main event, it's not great. It's not, it's going to be a long morning for me, I think. I think morning. This reminds me, though, like these kind of events, do you remember Renzo Furtita back when, when the Fertita still were big owners in the UFC, he would every once in a while come on and say something where you were like, oh, you kind of gave up the game a little bit. The businessman and you was just talking a little too frankly,

and you kind of told us exactly what you guys are saying behind closed doors. And when they started doing some of these events in different places, and they were doing them like fight night quality events, not numbered events, and they were doing them at weird times to be prime time for those locations. And people were going, what the hell? How do you expect your fans to keep following this stuff if you're making them wake up at 3 a.m. to watch? And he said, the fights that we do in Shanghai are for Shanghai.

the fights that we do over here are for there. And you kind of went, oh, wait a minute, you're running like a regional product here. You don't even expect us or care if we watch it. And that was a little bit of loomingating. That's kind of how this one feels, right? Because the UFC is like, we have a separate operation going on.

We got Road to the UFC. We got like that kind of stuff going on over here. That was on today. Road to UFC was on today. And that's when I'm reminded that it exists. And that's when I go, I need to go back and, and changed because I've got it in my head.

The tiers of UFC programming is numbered event, fight night event and like on location outside of Las Vegas and then fight night event in the meta apex. Road to UFC is down there somewhere and you just forget about it. Contender series is way above. It's above the ultimate fighter too. Like every once in a while like somebody will just mention like, hey, did you know the ultimate fighter has been on for the past six weeks or something?

I'm like, no, no, I did not know that. a foreigner said to me last year or something, they're like, oh, I'm on the ultimate fighter and I was like, okay. And they're like, isn't that cool? And I was like, no. Or you'll hear sometimes now we're like, you'll, you'll see somebody on a UFC undercard and they'll be like, he was an ultimate fighter winner. And I go, oh shit, no kidding. That used to be a big deal. We used to have a show that was the ultimate

fighter finale. You used to come out with that cut glass trophy. Sometimes you got a car or like a motorcycle that they didn't want you to ride or something like that. And now it's, just sort of like a footnote on somebody's Wikipedia. You got to scroll down on the Wikipedia page to find the exhibition fights listed on their record to even know that they were on the ultimate fighter. Oh my God. Well, look, I mean, we're all wearing football hats.

We have our fancy football starting soon. Andy has said she's going to be involved. That's a contract as far as she has to show up. Oscar Losef, very quiet around the fancy football situation. I did not see an email from Oscar Losef. Jordan's in. I'm in. You're in.

Chook's in. And Oscar, come on. You know what I mean? You know. And who else in there? Drake Riggs is in? She ain't Al Shaddy's in, right? We're getting a formidable back hair, actually.

You know, uh, not everybody was enthusiastic about my email, inviting them to the fantasy football league. That's fine. I'm out here extending the hand of friendship. Uh, man, I can't wait. When are we doing the draft? See, that's, uh, I did not select a draft time yet because I was like, we need be considerate of our people in far-flung time zones. especially I was like a Pizzi and Oscar are going to get in

and I want to make sure that we don't select a draft time that's going to be like four in the morning for them so we have some time to figure that out. Okay, okay, okay, perfect. Well, we're just about to go because I have to go asleep to get up to do the Lloyd blog. Do you have any super chats, Andy? Yeah.

Oh, I love that. I love that guitar. Petsy and Ben, this is from K-bomb 1432. Thank you. Psy and Ben, do you guys play fantasy football? If so, who is your fantasy MVP for 2026? P.S. The Crack is the best. Keep up the great work, fellas.

Thanks, Kbaum, 1432. I played fantasy football on behalf of the team once. I was playing against all football podcasts, all NFL podcasts against actual athletes in the NFL, and I came third out of 10. Wow. And I was like, you know, yeah, I got fucked with injuries. I'm not going to let you. I should have won the whole fucking thing.

I'm still a bit upset. said about it. Who's my MVP? Honestly, quarterback. Give me like Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen, the guys who run them in as well throw them. You know what I mean? I want a dual threat quarterback who scores a lot of shit. That is what my number one pick would be, especially on later in the drafts and all the big guns go. Like if someone's got Derek, you see, I'm like, I don't know who's hot shit this draft. I haven't really got myself in, but I'd be like a Derek Henry kind of guy. You know what I mean? Just a guy who just keeps fucking going. Keeps on going. That's what I mean. Yeah, I mean, I

I mean, I historically have been terrible at fantasy football. I've never won a league or even really come close. Because especially when it comes to the draft, I don't really know how to do it. I put it together as if I'm putting together like a video game football team or I'm like, well, first off, I want a star quarterback or something. And it's not really how you're supposed to do it, I guess. For me, though, I was looking at like, okay, what do people say you're supposed to do? And then what do I know about the players that I actually feel like when I'm, watching games. You're hearing that guy's name all the time and it feels like no one could stop him.

And so I'm like, give me a Jackson Smith in Jigba. Give me a poop. Oh yeah. You know, give me some guys like that. I had Christian McCaffrey. Run them in, catch them. I mean, Capri's knee. I mean, that's the thing is I had Christian McCaffrey. Uh, because I was like, man, I remember watching last year when he was destroying everybody. Let me get him this year. And then he was just plagued with injuries. And I felt responsible. I felt like maybe I did that to him a little bit. Um, um, So we'll see, but I, I'm excited, excited to retool my strategy and my thinking this year. Are you getting liquored up for this draft? You look at liquor at?

You don't, I mean, you don't have to try too hard to talk me into it. If it's something that we're doing, if we're on Zoom or something we're doing. I'm going to get a load of light bears and just keep plowing them as we're going through the room. Oh, I don't know. Actually, I'll see how the situation is here. But anyway, is that all the super chats we have, honey? Oh. Rest in peace.

Harold V, the king of Norway. Rest in peace to him. Is that... Did he die recently or is that like from 300 years ago? Oh, no. Here we go. It's a story. CNN headline, Harold V, the Sailing King who epitomized a modern Norwegian royalty, dies.

Oh, well. Dead at 89. RIP. At least he got to see the team go so far in the World Cup. He got to see Erling Holland, you know, beautiful, beautiful things. things. It's crazy. I kind of respect how, especially like the Scandinavian countries when you're over there, they're like, yeah, we got some, we got some royalty still, but we don't make a big deal of it. They do not make a big deal. I appreciate that. I was when I was in Copenhagen,

went to like one of the museums and you're just like, and they go, hey, you can walk in here. Do you want to see the king's throne? It's right in here. This is his house. You're in his house right now. Come on. Come on. Come see his throne. And I was just like, shit, there it is. Okay. I told you that like when we were at the ballet there in Tivoli Gardens, the King and Queen just came in and sat there. We all had to stand up for a second, but there was no security, nothing. Just like, okay, not, weren't even dressed up. They were just like, all right, looking forward to whatever it is we saw, forget the name of it. Respect.

Yeah. Anyway, that's all we've got for you guys, I think. Oh, sorry, excuse me. Brett 1,09-K. Dylan is a huge uncrown fan. Went on the Hellwani show and went on the, crack in the same week. Oh. I see what he did there. I see what he did.

Yeah. Fair play. Fair play. That's not bad. We're not laughing. Um, Ozzy Strike. Pety, can you please ask, it's kind of gone Tony Ferguson with the font here. Can you please ask our resident Co-Maniac to share with us his favorite horror movie. Thanks heaps. Okay. So this, this is, this is this a behind a paywall inside?

Yeah, well, the co-main event we have for our, our Patreon subscriber. Patreon.com.com.com. We have a movie club. And we'll, we put it up for a vote. We'll watch a movie. We'll discuss it. And we normally don't do horror movies. I'm not a huge horror movie guy. Chad. It wouldn't be either. Chad is terrified and hates horror movies. But then we ended up watching Green Room or a film that I'd never heard of before about like a punk rock band who finds himself in a horror situation. And I hated it. I hated that the movie was made. I hated that they did it to me, that they forced me. to sit through it. I have a lot of thoughts that I intend to share. The question I have with horror movies is the things that happen inside my brain when I watch a horror movie are the same things happening in the brains of people who love horror movies? Because I know people who that's the favorite genre of movies, horror. Is the same chemicals being released in their brain or are they different chemicals? Or is it that it is the same chemicals and they just

like it. And I don't like it. But I do like some. I will say, probably my favorite one, the one where I was like, that's an amazing movie and also scared the hell out of me, but in a way I had to respect was hereditary. That was one where I went to bed at night

as like a 40 year old man, grown man at the time, and I went to bed at night and I was saying to myself, it's just a movie, it's just a movie. I was scared. That movie was scary. I bet Andy I produce are a little scared.

Yeah, she gives off that vibe. there it is what's your favorite Andy oh you're on here she's just the conjuring she's talking here she's giving the conjuring as one of them oh okay nightmare in ellen street yeah obsession i have not seen like i heard about that nightmare on elm street i used to love those when i was a kid and my parents would be like no you can't watch them you get nightmares and you wake us up in the middle of the night and i'd be like no no no i won't this time i won't oh that's promise and then i remember I remember letting me watch one of them and then I was laying in bed that night being like

you gotta just tough it out man you can't get up and tell them you got nightmares they said this is gonna happen you gotta prove them wrong you gotta just like sit here and like but I used to love those I read like novelizations of Nightmare and Elm Street back when I didn't realize

I didn't know what a novelization was I was like well yeah these are great movies it makes sense that it was a novel first and that they adapted the novel for the screen but the thing that I got mad at When I went to see The Odyssey, one of the previews before The Odyssey was for The Other Mommy. Have you seen the preview for The Other Mommy? It's an assault on the census.

And where they showed this preview, I was like, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter. You can't my friend, he got really mad. My friend, the New York Times writer Dan Brooks, shout out to at Danger Brooks on Twitter. He made the analogy where he was like, you're showing me that preview before I go watch a movie of a completely different. genre and this preview is freaking me out, it's like if I went to like a Mexican restaurant and a dude pops up from under the table and throws sushi in my mouth. I got it. I didn't sign up for that experience. Don't do that to me. Oh my God. I did you know what like I Elaine um loves scary movies too. But I don't. I'm with you. Okay. I'm with you on this. I love the

shining. The film is shining because it's so freaky. You know, it's freaky. It's not like, one of them jumpy ones. Perf from when to run to the stairs and you see all the fucking weird shit. And I'm watching that and it'll still freak me out, you know what I mean?

And as I'm watching it, I'm looking gross and her, Elaine will start laughing at my fear. I'd be like, ha ha ha ha, ha, look at you. Look at you. Did you think that was scary?

Oh my God. And I'm like, this takes me out of it. You know what I mean? When this kind of shit happened. So basically I've taken horror movies off the menu now. It's because I'm not going to get laughed at. You know what I mean?

I'm not going to get laughed at my way. very serious man but yeah yeah the shining would be mine um oh shit we've got loads of it um woke dog oh i believe what are your thoughts on ousman i've seen paul's online that have him was a favorite against to pouria i think we're about to witness a big fraud check coming on in my opinion he loses to sal kill in under two rounds sal kill's a beast though he could be up in that fucking he probably is already based on why he did the gamorat um yeah you could be right because we talked about this last week. You never know until you know.

I think he's like I fully believe that he is an elite 155. I don't see a fraud check. Like he's just so well rounded. But I won't be like 100% guarantee because patchy mix. That is all I need to say about that. Well, yeah, you do need to see them in the USC context before you know how they match up. But also the thing that makes me think that you're not dealing with a fraud is that camp, don't produce too many frauds.

If you were, if you were a fraud in that camp, you are killed as a small child. They, if you make it out of there, if you survive training with those guys, then you must be pretty good and pretty tough. Otherwise, they essentially would have hurled you off a cliff from a great height. So you got to be pretty good.

Gonna set up better myself. We find anything else, Andy? Oh, shit, we are getting hit with the supertelling. Is the 11 millimeter? is the 11 millimeter bow proches or nickel. It's Kevin Holland. Well, and see, that's the thing is that the way you know it's not Precious or Nickel is that they haven't had a chance to have a ton of fights

because they're not making that much per fight. And Kevin Holland's whole thing has been that he, like the way he got in, remember like Dana White's story about him, which Dana White told it as if it was like a great story. And I was like, I don't think this reflects well on you guys and how you do business was that basically Kevin Holland showed up in the contender series, was talking a lot during his fight. and Dana was like, I don't like him.

I don't like this guy. He's a big mouth. He talks all, he talks way too much. And then when they had somebody else fall out of a fight, he was like, call that big mouth guy, see if he'll take it. And he did. And that's been Kevin Holland's M.O.

Like, while he's in the USC is he will, he is the guy who will take whatever fight you got. He will show up and he won't win them all because you can't win them all if you're doing that. But he will show up. He will fight a ton. He will get bonuses.

He has like a bonus friendly fighting style. But that's the way he's doing. He's doing a volume. business and that's the only way you can have like come off one of those contender series contracts because a big part of making a lot of money coming off the contender series is one of the first things you've got to do is fight enough to get off that contract and get on to a better contract. And I think a lot of the money was like the short notice votes as you said.

That's how you get a big bump in pay is the willingness to pick up the phone of a Tuesday afternoon and be like, yeah, I can be there and fight Saturday night. Not many motherfuckers going to weigh in to fight Tony Ferguson. and then actually fight Hamzachima. That's the kind of deal. You know what I mean? That is where the money is coming from here. Do we have anything else, Andy?

Well, what the f. Life lessons, combat sports, I guess. Do you see a realistic way for pay for mixed martial artists in the U.S. to get better? Antitrust cases, political reform, unions, something else. Actually, I'm going to say no at the moment. Actually, ever since the first antitrust lawsuit kind of went the way it did, when we had, look, I mean, I know a lot of people are very,

happy with the checks they got. Don't get me wrong. But the whole idea of that first kind of, that first one was we, like, we're not going to, we're not going to be bought out of this. And granted, they might have got a good deal and some people are happy with it. I always just felt like the bigger changes came if they kept pushing. Now, there is still the other side of this class action lawsuit with the 2007 onwards part, the Cajun Johnson side, which could get that, I believe, we'll have to get John Nash on to ask him again. But honestly, right now, I feel like it's more of a monopoly than ever. And it's like spread into the regional scenes.

And it's like, I don't see a quick fix to this. Do you, Ben? A quick fix, no. I would say the key to how do you get a significantly better pay, not just, hey, the UFC is making more money from Paramount.

So they're going to turn around and say, oh, we're going to give them a little more. But in order to see like something like a fair, you know, 50, 50 distribution of revenue like you see in other sports. the key to that is collective bargaining. You have to get some kind of collective bargaining situation going.

And there's a couple different ways to do that. But, you know, the antitrust case, I think you still got another one going. So that's probably your best hope for doing it. Legislatively, I don't think there's any hope, especially right now, the way the American government is right now, the UFC has a lot of friends over there. And it is just generally a very business friendly and not so much worker friendly government. right now. That could change, but not anytime soon, probably. The antitrust cases are your best hope, and that's the way it's happened in other sports. Like, if you look at the timeline of how,

you know, antitrust lawsuits essentially is what got the NFL collective bargaining, but it wasn't a quick process. It was like 10 years between filing those cases and having a NFL players association that has to negotiate with the NFL in order for them to get an antitrust exemption. So, it's kind of a situation of the people who plant the trees will never be around long enough to sit under the shade of them and that's just the way it works. But like if they're ever going to get

there, some kind of collective bargaining is the only route. Hey man. I think, oh my God. Jerake O the Ball Star. Okay, I love this question. Ben, where's your go-to spot for watching the gris? Okay, okay, Jureak. I'm interested, no.

Now, I want you to paint it. What does it look like? What do the chairs look, et cetera? So it depends what kind of a time you're trying to have. That's the thing. What kind of a party do you want to be having when you watch the Gris game? Because for one thing, I love going to the games. Like when they're at home, there's no experience.

Like, they've got a great stadium. It's just so beautiful. It feels so good to be out there. They limit your beers? Well, you're talking college football. So you got a beer garden that's like technically right outside the stadium. You can't buy beer when you're actually. in there. So you got to go in there with a plan. You got to show up to the tailgate in time.

No one's saying Pizzi that a fella couldn't take a little plastic bottle of fireball, stick it in his sock, walk in there with it. That's been known to happen. You know, I've heard rumors that something like that can happen. But you got to go, you hit up the tailgate. If I'm going to the game, my strategy is going to be, all right, I'm going to leave the house. I'm going to go to the press box, which is the bar right across the footbridge, right across the river from the stadium. It's going to have a real game day atmosphere. The press box knows what they're doing because they're like, hey, look, it gets super crowded in here on game days. So not only are we going to have the bar inside, we're going to set up a little temporary bar under a little tent out in the parking

lot, make sure that you can get a beer real quick, no waiting. You can stand out there on the parking lot if the weather's nice, drink yourself a beer. And then you're going to walk over to Landau's tailgate. You'll know it because it has the great big Montana. until I die flag flying above it and you can hear the 90s rap from blocks away. You're going to go over to Landau's tailgate. He's going to put a cold Miller light in your hand as soon as he sees you. He's going to dab you up and you're going to have a great time. And then you're going to go into the game and then you're going to come back out at

half time. Have yourself another Miller light. Okay. Before you go back in there. That's if you're trying to have the full game day experience. Now, if the gris are away or if I'm just feeling like I can't deal with the crowds, I can't do. I don't want to go.

I'm not, I don't have tickets to the game. I'm, I'm, I'm not going to go do the game day scene down there at the stadium. Then I go to my local, the town and country lounge, the T and C, if you nasty, right up here, right up the street, going to be pretty muted atmosphere. The bartenders know me. They start pouring the drink when they see me walk in the door. They'll, if I want to watch something on TV, they're obviously going to have the gris game, but if I want to watch something different, they'll just give me the remote and, and let me go crazy.

That's how I get to watch soccer games over there when I want to. It just give you the remote and let you do it. That's a dream. That is a dream. That's where you'll find. When the gris are away, and if I don't have my kids and I'm not like having to watch it at home while I'm like making people sandwiches and shit, you can find me up at the TNC. That is always Googling the places as you are mentioning. The TNC is a trailer.

It is a double wide trailer in the parking lot of a grocery store. and it is the most perfect place on Earth. I didn't Google that one. Yeah. It sounds fantastic. Can, do you have time for me just to tell you why I will never be given the remote control in my local pub? Is it because of the time where they, they tricked you? Yes.

Okay, I've already told you. It's a great story, though. Other people haven't heard it. Basically, it was like, it was a fight. I can't remember. I think it may have been a Kay Taylor fight and they didn't have the channel. It was like a pay-per-view and the barman's going, I'm not, like, the place is fucking heaving. And everyone's like, pay for the fucking fight.

And he's like, I'm not paying for the fight. It's going to be over in. minutes anyway get just get your drinks and fuck off my friend graham merrigan text me and says tell him to put on uh channel eight six two or whatever was and i was like put on eight six two your man puts on eight six two and it was the free view of the porn channels all over that guy's a legend for pulling that one off on you man that is incredible he must have just been like sitting back and just being like it's not going to get any better than this he said getting the message like five minutes later after I took all the abuse from everybody

with me just going, fuck you, man. He was like, that was the most beautiful moment to hear that you were in your pub when you fucking That's where, uh, you know, preparation meets opportunity. Something beautiful can happen. We don't have any superchats left, right? Do we, Andy?

Oh, whoa. I mean, we, we got a volcano, like a flurry. I don't know what to call it. An avalanche of Super Chats there. We love you, crackheads. We'll be back next week. Chook Man Hall, she'll be back as well. He's enjoyed.

a bit of galvading this week. Ben, you enjoy the Gris game. Andy, you enjoy whatever horror film you're going to watch tonight. Oscar Losef, you keep enjoying that beautiful face of yours, and we will see you next week. Maw!