The Ariel Helwani Show - Dominick Cruz, Bruce Buffer, Keyshawn Davis in studio, Song Yadong, Youssef Zalal, weekend recap

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Ariel Helwani and the gang react to the busy weekend in combat sports (23:53).Youssef Zalal discusses his big UFC Vegas 102 win over Calvin Kattar, why he believes Kattar and his team were cheating, his road back to the UFC after his failed first stint, Topuria vs. Volkanovski 2 and more (41:13).Bruce Buffer discusses his UFC Hall of Fame reveal, the remarkable road that led him down this path, how much longer he has left before retirement, his brother Michael Buffer and more (01:03:13).Keyshawn Davis joins in-studio to discuss his WBO lightweight title win, the culprit of the racist package left at his hotel room during fight week, harrowing struggles with mental health, Gervonta Davis and more (01:39:25).Song Yadong discusses his UFC Seattle main event against Henry Cejudo, his fast-improving English, the state of the bantamweight division and more (02:43:45).Dominick Cruz discusses the emotional decision behind his UFC retirement, injuries he's suffered throughout his career, what's next for him, surprising messages of support he's received, favorite memories and more (03:12:16).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R, sure. Hope you're doing well. If you're celebrating here in the United States, a happy President's Day to you. If you're celebrating in Canada on this no doubt frigid Monday, a happy Family Day to you. Yes, Family Day. Not in every province. I think it it's Frank would know this When is it again Frank? Family Day? It's the third Monday of February In Alberta British Columbia New Brunswick

Ontario And Saskatoon Nope I screwed that up Not Saskatoon Saskatchewan Saskatoon is in Saskatchew that up. Not Saskatoon. Saskatchewan. Saskatoon is in Saskatchewan. I just combined the two into one.

It's also Louis Real Day in Manitoba and Nova Scotia Heritage Day in Nova Scotia. And finally, it is Islander Day. In? In? In where? In where? In where? Prince Edward Island. I was about to say that.

You beat me to it. Yeah, conspicuous by its absence is Quebec. Quebec and the three territories, which are, of course, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Labrador, I do believe, are the only ones not celebrating anything today. I mean, talk about being party poopers. Every party needs a pooper. That's why we invited you.

Anyway, thank you for joining us. A lot to get into. A lot going on, as always. A very busy weekend in the world of combat sports. And if I'm being 100% honest, I am struggling on this Monday. Why? No I don't have the flu That's been going Around the office

I don't have anything Of that sort Thank goodness But what I do have Is a very sore body Because my friends I don't know if you know this There was a good chance

That I was not going To be sitting here On this Monday And you're asking yourself Why? Why Ariel? What happened? Well let me tell you

What happened My family loves to ski I don't love to ski I know my limitations, I didn't grow up skiing If you grew up in Quebec You either choose skating or skiing I chose skating And so I was a prodigy kid

You know I was playing hockey every week Every weekend I was a hybrid defense Offense type of guy forward And then at around 12-13, I transitioned over to basketball. We all know how that turned out. In any event, my kids and my wife in particular, they love the skiing. And so after saying no multiple times this winter, I finally said yes.

It was my son Walter's birthday on Sunday. Yesterday, happy birthday to Walter, 11 years old. Can't believe it. Love him so very much. And so I said, fine. I will go to Great Barrington in Massachusetts to go skiing with all of you. Two and a half hour drive, took us four hours to get back on Saturday because of the snow and the sleet and the rain. It was a grand old time. What they didn't tell me was there wasn't exactly an in-between hill at this particular ski hill, Butternut something something. I'm sure someone

out there knows about it. And so I go on the bunny slope once and I'm feeling good. Last time I skied, by the way, 2021. All right. It's been a minute. And by the way, that was the first time I skied. I skied like four times in the pandemic and that was it. Never before in my life. And so then they take me on this other hill and I swear to God, I thought I was done. But you know what? Like a trooper, I went back at it. I went back at it. Then we returned on Saturday, and we went once on Saturday, and that's when I thought I had lost all control. There was a moment where I felt closest to God. I started praying to God, and I just let it go. I was trying so hard to stop. I was doing the pizza. You guys know about the pizza? There's the pizza or the french fries. I was doing the pizza to stop. Wasn't working. Sheet of ice flying down. I mean, I was

flying. You guys have no idea. You laugh, but it could have been tragic. And then I finally got to the end. I'm hyperventilating. I felt my soul leave my body for a moment. And I said, I'm done. I'm going to get hot chocolate, extra whipped cream, and then it's just bunny slopes for me for the rest of the day. And it was four or five times. Yeah, there I am. I mean, I was suited and booted. Aura plus 10,000 up there. But then I was, you know what? And I checked my ego at the door. They said, no, you can't do it. We had friends with us. I said, no way. Bunny slopes for me. I made it interesting. I was ducking and jiving the little kids. I was leaving them in my dust That was good enough for me

That was the entertainment I needed It was terrifying And over the past couple weeks Some injuries have hit our family and friends Due to skiing It's a death wish For some reason I didn't fall But I feel so sore

I feel my back is killing My hamstrings are killing My calves are killing My ankles are killing My shins are killing My calves are killing My ankles are killing My shins are killing I don't know if this is just a product of being old And like my body muscles that were being used That aren't used to being

I don't know what it is But I am struggling I am so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep But I'm here So I just want to thank you guys for the good wishes And for sending me all the nice texts And everyone was thinking. I appreciate it.

Yeah, man. Who the fuck is we? No. We were pulling for you. I'm telling you, I was so scared. I was so scared. But we made it. We made it.

And here we are. We had a great birthday yesterday. And that's all that matters. But I think I'm done skiing. I think I'm done skiing I think I'm done I think I'm going to stick to the skating The tubing maybe The sledding

The hot chocolate It really hits in the chalet When you got the boots on And you're thanking your lucky stars That you're alive And that's good enough for me At this age I don't need anything else

It was terrifying And be careful out there Alright Be careful with the ice and all that Be careful Okay Now ice and all that. Be careful, okay? Now, I wasn't the only one who had a very eventful weekend, and we will get to that in a moment.

But first, let me tell you about today's Superstack Monday. Golly, most people are taking off. Most people are at home. I don't know what they're doing on this President's Day, this Family Day, this Family This, this Family That. Not in Quebec, of course. But here, we're on that grind. All my life. Grinding all my life. Sacrifice. Super stacked. Five guests on today's program. Back into the show, the great Dominic Cruz, the former, perhaps greatest, bantamweight champion of all time. He'll

join us to talk about his retirement. He was supposed to be fighting this weekend in his retirement fight, oh my gosh against rob font and unfortunately he had a another injury and he called it quits and who can blame him but he'll be kind enough to join us at about uh 4 15 at 3 45 sonja dong who is headlining this weekend in seattle against henry zahudo he'll join us to talk about that fight i look look forward to that. At about 2.30, Keyshawn Davis, the brand new WBO lightweight champion. What a week for him here in New York. What a fight on Friday at the theater. Sergey Baranchuk.

And by the way, do yourself a favor. Go to uncrowned.com. Chuck Mendenhall wrote an absolute stellar post-fight article. There is no one better than Chuck. The man in the hat. The way he sets the scene. The way he paints the picture. the way he tells the story. He was there.

First eye, firsthand experience. It was tremendous. Go read that and check out our interview. He'll be in studio, by the way, at 2.30 p.m. Eastern time. So I'm looking forward to that chat with a guy who is just 25 years young, 14th pro fight, first title won. He's now in the discussions with the likes of Tank Davis, Andy Cruz. He has a history with him. Vasily Lomachenko, his boy Shakur Stevenson, he'll never fight him, but still 135, glamour division. Looking forward to talking to the pride of Norfolk. Not Norfolk, not Norfic, Norfic.

Anyway, at two o'clock, Bruce Buffer is going to be joining us, the voice of the octagon. 39, no, 29, 39, 29, 29 years yesterday. So that would be February 16th, 1996, UFC 8 in Puerto Rico, the first show outside of the United States, the continental United States.

He debuted. Yesterday was his anniversary. He'll join us to talk about that and a whole lot more. Bruce Buffer, who doesn't love Bruce Buffer? And then prior to that, Yusuf Salah at 140 to talk about his win over Calvin Cater, a big win for him. He's now four in a row, four wins in a row since coming back to the UFC.

His streak of decisions comes to an end, but this was a nice win over a vet, a tough out in Calvin Cater. Shout out to Yusuf Salah. There's the lineup on a Monday. I mean, you talk about super stacked. What do you know about super stacked? That's super stacked right there. Now, I mentioned an eventful weekend for not only myself, but then I wake up on Sunday and I get a text from Pete C. Carroll telling us that he stopped the robbery in usually quiet peaceful crime-free Blanchardstown he stopped the robbery it wasn't Blanchardstown it was in town it was in Dublin Dublin city

that's all the same on uh no Dublin's crazy now that's the one my big takeaway from this is it was like Mad Max in town when I was leaving, man, it was absolutely mental. People would say, I've been saying this to GC as well about Dublin in general. It's gone crazy, but, um, yeah,

we're out on Saturday and funnily enough, I wasn't, I just texting you the day before that saying, geez, I haven't drank in ages. You know, I didn't even mean to, but I ended up doing,

uh, going through January without drinking, destroyed this on the weekend. By the way. Thank you, Frank. Um, I didn't even mean to, but I ended up going through January without drinking. Destroyed this on the weekend, by the way. Thank you, Frank. Totally. So I went out for dinner with Elaine. We get a nice dinner.

She's like, our friends are next door. Let's go and see them. Went in to see them. Thank you for the music again. And end up getting absolutely ossified in there. Like I'm talking about six cocktails on top of the drinks I'm already having. We leave that place. We go to another bar and suddenly I'm like, here, town is closing. It's like half three, four maybe. So we start walking down the road. We're going past, we're on Camden Street. So we're going past two of the most popular nightclubs in the place. Like a little

girl, she didn't see him even of drinking age, kind of falls out in front of us. She stumbles up, she's getting up and next of all, like six people just surround her and push her into this alcove. Now, I'm full of Dutch courage

at the time, so I like, by the time I'm there, they have the handbag out, handbags are getting trot through, so I jumped in, I push him away, I'm like shouting,

can I, yeah, I'm saying fuck off, blah, blah, blah, shouting as loud as I can. Yeah, yeah. Pushed away, Elaine comes around the back, blah, shouting as loud as I can. Yeah, yeah. Push them away. Elaine comes around the back.

She's like calming the girl down because I think the girl was a bit freaked out. Elaine, you're a significant other for those that don't know. You mentioned her like she's a character on the show. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Stay on that. So like 30 minutes we're standing there for. The people who are trying to do this to the girl just stood like 10 yards away from us, giving me like cutthroat signs and shit eventually we get um eventually we got her friends and everything back together and they

took her away but yeah mental experience i'm basically john jones now and any weapons pulled on you any sort of no okay but that's one thing i am kind of like because i was obviously full of sauce when this was happening the net like after i'm texting you was like hours after that when i'm in the dreads of uh of this hangover i'm like jesus man i could have got absolutely sliced up in that situation but uh no weapons being shown but yeah crazy experience and we end up going to a party after that i get home at like five o'clock in the morning i'm like oh man this is we got away one day tonight. Like I feel pretty good about myself. Look on my phone and there's GC calling me a wanker over bus. I'm going to be straight, straight back down there.

And I was like, no, I didn't even, I wasn't even aware at that time that I had busted it again, but there you go. Fucking hell. He's right though. It is a generational runoff. Okay. Okay. Let me, I'll ask you a quick follow-up on that. But first one last question um if you weren't on the sauce would you have stopped

the potential i don't know okay i don't know like i mean i would have done something i would have done something about it i've just never seen that happen i would have never never seen that happen like the crazy thing is right anyone who's from dublin will know like the palace and the camden are beside each other these are two of the busiest nightclubs in the country and this is happening literally in between the two of them and in fairness when we were standing there the bouncers from either door were kind of coming back and forth saying like we can't stay here with you but we can see what's happening even a homeless guy was going to help me barricade the girl away for a little bit until we got our friends but uh crazy man dublin absolutely terrifying at nighttime now though it seriously needs to be policed or something like no police

anywhere busiest spot in dublin crazy man eat your heart out kevin holland john jones we got our own you know cape crusader over here or should i say i was gonna start wearing a cape crusader crack crusader the blanched batman or that or that that Or that that works Okay so it was interesting because I wake up I check the phone And first I see an intense back and forth Between GC and And Pizzi and then we find out About the you know the

Crime stopping You're like a young Fred McGriff out there Some people will get that some people won't Anyway Wasn't it intense back and forth? Oh, it was so intense. It was awkward. It felt like it was all just Pizzi coming at me.

Oh, okay. So let's talk about it. A Tale of Two Weekends. So what was the genesis behind all of this? GC calling out Pizzi for ruining the parlay once again. Accurate? That's what happened. But all I said was Pizzi with a couple extra E's on it.

And then Pizzi took it and ran with it. Said I took the biggest favorite on the card. Said I take the slimiest odds. Said I always take the first pick. Slimiest? What is slimiest? Rarely, rarely being first. And also on this previous card, Pizzi also took a bigger favorite than me. I did not

take the biggest favorite. Just a lot of inaccuracies. You still lost as well. I will own up to that. I called Pizzi out took a bigger favorite than me. I did not take the biggest favorite earlier. Just a lot of inaccuracies. You still lost as well. I will also say, I will own up to that. I called Pizzi out as soon as he lost because he was the first leg to lose. So obviously he blew the parlay there. I didn't see. I was fighting crime. I said, I'm sorry.

You know what? I did the reverse out of you. I was like, man, you know what? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called him so early on that. But the tirade, the tirade Pizzi went on. Yeah. I woke up and I was like hot, right out of bed.

I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet. I'm just like, what is this? Heart starts beating. I'm like, old PC's coming after me. So we had to dig into the research. We brought on Pizzi at the beginning of the year. You know, obviously, Julian Appanian needs to focus on the camp. Pizzi has come in.

Sort of, something like that. And credit to him. He hit the first one. Rick, you know... That first one was Murab Develashvili. Oh, we want to live on the legacy of the sphere card where Pete Stradamus comes in and gets the Murab card. That was

seven months ago, man. Sorry, Cyril Ghosn. Murab and then Cyril Ghosn. Gianna Pena came in as the Cyril Ghosn pitch. Misinformation Murab, and then Cyril Ghosn. Julian Apeña came in as the Cyril Ghosn pitch. Misinformation. Fake news. I'm not.

So when you officially joined in at the beginning of this year, I was giving you credit here, man. I was giving you credit here. You won the Copilove, and then we've been on a rough run lately. We've been on a rough run. This is the run. We came into the year four and three. We're four and eight now.

I mean, we're almost in the red. And yes, I do see this recent one. I do see recent one you cost the adolfo fiero i did the ishmael bond theme that was wrong that was wrong me i didn't want to do this i didn't i you forced me to play my hand here i really didn't want to do this oh i had i have to pull up the texts uh between me and ishmael uh behind the scenes what i I was wishing him good luck. He's like, I'm going to deliver. No pressure, man. It's all good. Before the fight, he saw that you blew the parlay on Rodolfo Vieira. He got all nervous. He got all scared. He was like, I can't fight through this. I was like, no, no, no, man. You got this.

He said you cost him the parlay. My win is null and void. So you once again blew the parlay for us. Hang on, hang on. What's going on? Did you psych him out with this text conversation? No, look at me. Good luck, man. Good luck.

No pressure. Let's read this. Hey, man, good luck tonight. That's you, right? You're the blue? That's me. I'm blue. Ishmael B is obviously the blue.

Thank you. I will deliver for parlay pals. You reply, no pressure man Just hope you have fun And come out okay We will win So then I don't respond As soon as Adolfo Vieira loses

I just saw PZ Blew the Parley for us I don't know if I can fight I'm not in a good mental space This is all his fault No worries man you got this I just wanted to be supportive I just wanted to be supportive. I just wanted to be supportive.

And then he comes back and says, I'm sorry. All of this falls on Pete C. Yeah. And I said, no, it's all good, man. It's all good. I don't want to blame this on anyone. This is okay, but the tirade you went on yesterday morning brought this out of me.

So I've not only busted the parlay I've caused him this fight Your words not mine Your words not mine Wow What is PC's record since joining the pals? It's actually 2-2 But the parlay pals record is 0-4 Wow

And honestly Listen I'm a man to give credit where credit is due Sneaky Frank 4 4-0. Wow. Only man who's greened them all out is big, mysterious Frank. I like that. I've noticed Frank on a good run. I've noticed him on a good run.

I don't dispute this. I've had a poor run. There's no doubt about it. Who'd you have this weekend? I had Rodolfo Vieiera i'm willing i'm willing to i can't believe these guys are losing by the way every single time i'm like i cannot but i feel like it's like my prospect pick of the year all over again and i have to say i have to say the speed with which pizzi responds when i ask him for a pick it's i can't even close my phone down it's just back. Maybe that's the problem, G.C.

Maybe I need to... Listen, I'm willing. I know you took your anger out on me yesterday morning. I'm a peaceful guy. It's all good. I'm not going to... It's all good. We'll put this behind us.

We'll break bread. We'll get back in the win column this week. I'm confident every time. This is the issue. I think maybe when I get the text message, I need to, you know, need to marinate on it a bit. You know what I mean? I still can't believe Rodolfo Vieira lost that fight.

I mean. How much were you raging by the way? When you, when he texted you all this, how much were you raging? Cause I could feel the rage. I think like I was five o'clock in the morning. I was sauced. What I'm telling you at this stage I've had, right. Let me just think about the drinks here. I've had four points of Guinness. I've had six Negr this stage, I've had, right? Let me just think about the drinks here.

I've had four points of Guinness. I've had six Negronis. I've had three Old Fashions. And I've had an espresso martini. Wow. Love an espresso martini. Tremendous. Yeah.

That was the last drink of the night. We went back to that party. And I'll tell you, it was artisan. This woman made me an espresso. Made everybody that was there an espresso martini Is there actual espresso in it Or is it just like a sort of like syrup I don't know actually

There's real espresso in there I didn't know if it was one of those I thought it was just the bean I did think about that for a little bit Was it just the little bean Yeah I love the bean The tirade spanned 5.05 uh blanche standard

to 513 wow standard felt longer looks like you fucked up too mate looking forward to monday jesus you see you picked the biggest fave on the card and fucked it it's just crazy bro gc this is now uh he goes on a couple minutes and then he and then he stews on it for about six minutes and then he hops back in g GC, first pick every week. Disgraceful. Slimiest odds. Just wow. This is what I wake up to.

This is what I wake up to. Why did you pick the bigger figure than me this week? I didn't want to do this. I think I should go first because... All right. Give me a pick whenever you're ready.

The randomizer is random. No, no, no. He's got first pick. I'm cool with it. The probability of success is a lot higher for the first picker. That's just mathematics, my friend. Listen, I don't pick first. Almost ever.

Ever? All right. We'll get back on track. We'll get back on track, guys. I'm confident. Listen, lads. You know, there's a lot going on here. I'm saving lives.

You know, I hope I can get your little picks going well this week. You know, but there's bigger things. Bigger fish to fry out there. There's people to fight in the streets for the safety of the Irish Republic. And that's what I'm going to keep doing, boys. And hopefully I'll make a nice pick along the way for you. Okay? Yeah, we hope so too. The music, every time he gets fired up, it kills me. It kills me. Well done. Well done. No, thank you. Thank you for your service. And on behalf of the good people

of Ireland, thank you for what you did on Saturday, keeping the streets safe. What about Jared Cannoneer? The guy is timeless. He is unbelievable. Looked to be in the best shape of his life. I mean, I don't even understand it. This is a guy who fought as high as heavyweight.

And now here he is at 185, still kicking, two fight losing streak. They were trying to build Robocop's name Off of the killer gorilla And he said, not tonight Not tonight What a finish, the elbows, the ground and pound Look at that blood on the canvas Tremendous stuff from Jared Kananier

He'll join us on tomorrow's program So we'll talk to him about how he continues to do this Won a performance bonus as well Shout out to Yusuf, I mean look at that I mean the elbows just S. I mean, the elbows just sliced through. Kenanir, no smiling here. Just absolutely jacked. Yusuf Salah, the Moroccan devil, like I said, with the win over Calvin Cater, Edmund Shabazian with a nice win as well. Maybe. Shabazian's kind of like, oh, I got a little fluff on my hair. Shabazian is kind of like, he's kind of like Jake Matthews, where it feels like we've been

watching him For 10 years And we always say Maybe he goes on a run now So let's see Maybe he goes on a run Does Ronda Rousey Still manage him?

I don't think so Ishmael Bonfim As we just discussed Lost to Nazeem Sadiqov Andrei Petroshki Looked good And we all remember

That he was this close To being immortalized On the wall But didn't get that song In time He did call out Bo Nickel afterwards Which was fun And we all remember that he was this close to being immortalized on the wall, but didn't get that song in time. He did call out Bo Nickel afterwards, which was fun, and Bo did respond. What else was out there? Jose Delgado with the win.

Angela Hill, speaking of timeless, she continues to fight in the UFC, and she picks up a win over Kaitlyn Souza. Gabrielle Bofim won. He beat Chaos Williams, so shout out to him. What about Walter Walker? What a name and what a guy. And what a story, by the way. Our good friend Guilherme Cruz wrote a great story on how he's cleaned up his life.

Brother of one, Johnny Walker, by the way, for those that don't know. So do check that out. But he could be a potential player in the heavyweight division. He beat Dontel Mays in just, what, 77 seconds via heel hook. Tremendous stuff from Walter. Don't call me Walter. Walker. So those were the results as far as this weekend is concerned.

We'll talk to Yusuf later in the program in about 17 or so minutes. And also on Saturday, Keyshawn with the big win. And also on Saturday, we had the Jack Catterall-Arnold Barbosa fight in England, which was won by Barbosa. Barbosa going the distance with Catterall and not getting the home cooking decision against him. I thought for sure this is going the distance. Oh, Catterall is going to get the nod, even though I don't think he actually won the fight, but I thought for sure this is going the distance Oh, Catterall's going to get the nod Even though I don't think he actually won the fight

But I thought for sure And Barbosa escaped with the win Interim champion Speaking of Dublin We just found out this morning That there is a new chapter In the Conor McGregor civil case After we found out that he was being charged

as far as civilly liable for the incident that happened with that young woman some, what was it, six, seven years ago? And then we were waiting for the 28, 30-day period that we were told that he had a window to appeal. Didn't hear much and I'll be honest, kind of thought that he was not going to appeal. But't hear much, and I'll be honest, kind of thought that he was not going to appeal. But, Pete, see, we have an update on this.

Yeah, and I think, look, you're right in what you're saying, Ariel, because even the judge at the time suggested that they wouldn't have great grounds for an appeal. That was during the damages meeting they had last month, as far as I remember. But what we know now is that he has filed for this appeal. We know that they're back in court on March 6th, but there's a number of things that need to be resolved on March 6th.

If you guys remember, I don't know if we talked about it on the show, but there was an order for the CCTV footage that McGregor had or his team had. There was an order for that to be destroyed. That was made at this meeting about the damages that I referred to earlier. As far as Nikita Hand, the woman that you're referring to, Ariel, who accused Conor McGregor of sexual assault,

as far as her side of our concern, he hasn't complied with one element of the affidavit that would say like this has been destroyed and we will not use this on social media so that needs to be resolved and we also we think on march 6th as well that we'll find out what the grounds for the appeal are so basically the grounds for the appeal would be like what are they saying went wrong here was it something the judge did was an order given to the jury at some point right now that has not been reported so i figure on marchth, we'll find out all

about that, but you're right in what you're saying. I don't think anyone, um, anyone was expecting if to go to appeal based on what was coming out of the courtroom that time, but I guess on March 6th, we'll have more answers. Okay. Well, thank you for that.

And, uh, so this, uh, this story continues. We'll see where it goes from here. Also, I forgot to mention They officially have gotten rid of the New gloves, they're back to the old gloves This fight night Per the broadcast was the first time I guess since May

That a fight night had All of the old gloves So you'll recall June 1st UFC 300 They introduced the quote unquoteunquote new gloves. They were going to come into effect come June 1st at Islam Khachov, Dustin Poirier, fight card, the pay-per-view in Jersey, the gold gloves, all that stuff. A couple months later, oh no, Jon Jones fight, right? November, they announced that they were going back to the old gloves,

but they said for fight nights, they would still use the new gloves, I guess, to produce the old gloves and all this stuff, if you're keeping track of all of this. So the pay-per-views went back to the old, but the fight nights were still using the new, soon-to-be very old, if that makes sense anyway this past weekend officially back to the old slash new current ogs but what's new is old again what's old is new again anyway so now they're back to them i just wanted to note that did you guys catch that did everyone

understand what's happening yeah yeah you made that really clear okay okay um i just wanted to make sure that everyone was excited about that uh back to conor mcgregor he was busy uh this weekend yesterday uh he was in italy uh for a a bkfc press conference and uh two interesting things came out of that number one he said that they're talking to the last emperor fiodyodor Emelianenko. Is this true? Here's what he had to say. Fyodor Emelianenko? Of course.

Stay tuned. We might have something, an announcement with Fyodor Emelianenko. Hey, Fyodor, we're waiting. Some news might be coming with Fyodor Emelianenko. Baranoko Fighting Championship is signing and acquiring the best fighters of all time, past, present, and future. Okay, so there you have it. Fyodor.

Proud to be Fyodor. In BKFC. How old is Fyodor? Let me just check real quick here. I think he's in his mid to late 40s. No, no, like 43 or something. Oh, really? Oh, wow, 48 for Jordan. Damn.

Oh, man. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, no. Pass on that one, Fyodor. Oh, man. I do not want to see that. Fyodor and BKFC is madness. I mean, the one thing about Fyodor. 48.

Oh, yeah, yeah. His, in his prime, man, there was nothing like the way he would just shoot out of a rocket. Going from the sort of docile state that he was in for the walkout, the intro, and then just the absolute power, speed, aggression. It was so much fun. So much fun. But 48 is 48. So let's see. I like how he says, hey, Fedor, like he's like challenging him or something. He's looking for him. him anyway it doesn't look like Conor will fight Fedor but he did say to mark his words he will in fact fight

in BKFC in the not too distant future here's what he had to say for sure if you think I'm up here if you think I'm up here giving these speeches and leading these men into battle and i won't step in there myself think again for sure conor mcgregor will fight in bare knuckle fighting championship mark my words there you have it mark his words uh he will be uh he will be fighting he will be fighting in bare knuckle now he does have two fights left on his UFC deal. Who knows when, how, if those fights get used up, but he seems very invested. He's at a press conference in Italy on a

Sunday afternoon, so he seems very into promoting the brand, and he has a financial stake, so he should be. Let us see. Speaking of old men fighting, did you guys see this clip of Jake Paul talking to Aiden Ross saying that toad cured Mike Tyson of Parkinson's,

which allowed him to fight. But then he went online and said that, you know, everyone misunderstood him. I mean, he said it multiple times. That was a weird one. And what the hell is toad? Is it like literally smoking a toad? What is it? I think it's like the enzymes of aad? Is it like literally smoking a toad? What is it?

I think it's like the enzymes of a toad or something you're smoking Is it? Or do you lick a toad? I know licking the toad was the famous Yeah you lick the toad and it gives you psychedelic effects It's a legit toad It's an actual toad It's a venom that

There we go, secretes a venom Sounds like we're some experts on this field Don't smoke actual toad. Secrets of venom that... Yeah. Yes. There we go. Secrets of venom. Sounds like we're some experts on this field. And, and, and... Don't smoke the toad. Is the toad alive? Yes. Yes. It has psychedelic properties.

It says, while some people will lick the back of the toad itself, others will collect the toxins that are secreted for later use. Was he being sarcastic when he said this? I don't think so, man. It doesn't look like he was. He followed it up with ayahuasca is good for the brain. But then he tweeted that, nah, I wasn't, like, you guys all misunderstood me. Oh, what do you mean?

I think he understood. All right. Now, now. I think the exchange, like the lads are saying, is very genuine. I think it's a genuine interaction he's having with the other guy. Yeah. You know? I'm down to go lick the goats. That's i was i was talking to a friend of mine we were talking about this whole um you know younger generation youtubers and whatnot he's like who's this young kid who gets

all the interviews this guy sucks this guy's awful i'm like young kid who's a young kid getting interviews it's like you know this guy i see him He gets all the big names. I saw him with Issam Akhachov sitting down and it was awful. It was horrible. And I was like, Aiden Ross? Is that who you're talking about? He's like, yeah, yeah, I see this guy. I'm like, yeah, I don't know if I would consider him

an interviewer per se, but this is who the younger generation wants. Aiden Ross, Kai Sinat, Aisho Speed, Druski. These are the heroes. I grew up idolizing Walter Cronkite and Bob Costas and Marv Albert

and Larry King and Howard Stern and this is it. I don't even know where they are in this clip of them talking about the toad

and all that stuff. Don't forget Pauly Shore too. Pauly Shore, legend, absolute legend. Encino Man, tremendous.

But my kids, my kids sit down and watch TV And they watch shorts on TV First of all, this is awful It's like a vertical video It's 60 seconds I don't know, I gotta say, between the

All-Star game yesterday and what I'm Seeing out of this younger generation I'm officially worried Old man yelling at the cloud, huh? No, no, this ain't no old man Me and Jordan have been known to watch a short or two on the television. You? Oh, yeah.

Me and producer on air Jordan have been known to watch a short or two. Why? You know, it just pops up. Catchy title. You click on it. Next thing you know, you're watching a 9x16 on a 16x9. Doesn't make sense. When TikTok went down, my TV actually gave me like a warning they're like

tiktok is being removed i'm like who the hell is using tiktok on the tv uh i didn't realize me this is do you not get lost in that though thing like youtube is the shorts and og is the shorts like i don't even realize you are you are on a different level of misunderstanding all of this i understand ig reels tiktok youtube shorts it's just it's all very well listen there's nothing better than when the uh youtube short is like formatted to a square so then you're watching it on your television and it's like you got this big tv and then you're just working it down to like a nice little square in the middle that's how i love to consume my media it's awful it's absolutely awful uh speaking of media, I did want to mention,

because you guys did a great job of talking about this on Thursday. You did a great job of talking about this on Friday. But when the show ended on Wednesday, there wasn't much of an update on the Sean Strickland, Eric Nixig drama, but then Strickland did his classic video in the car. Here's the thing, you guys. And he responded. Nick Sick was on the show on Tuesday. By now you've seen the clips and all that. We don't have to play it again. And he just basically said like, you know,

we need to have a heart to heart. What does he want out of this? And if he doesn't want what we want, then maybe we should go our separate ways. That sort of thing. That's kind of a very broad summary of it all and then and then strickland gets in the car and and turns on the camera and says you know eric will probably not be in my corner and there are other great people at extreme patrofic be in

my corner but he's still a great friend i love the guy and and all that and then he talks for another three four minutes about god knows what i got a little bored afterwards and and this turned into a whole thing and i think eric took down his instagram but now the instagram is back and and to me my biggest takeaway from all this is of all people the irony that sean strickland would get offended or upset that his coach would publicly just say you know what your heart wasn't into it and if it won't be into it like we think it should be into it maybe we should go our separate ways of all people that guy got offended the guy who who who uses the pre-fight and the post-fight press conference and every other media opportunity to wax poetic on all things that pertain or don't

pertain to him that pertain to his country don't pertain to his country that pertain to everything but mma that guy got offended that his coach was was on a show podcast i was a little offended but fine uh that guy got bothered does no one else see the irony that that guy of all people felt felt some sort of way that his coach went out there and questioned his performance questioned his heart and the next day took action and said you're out what about free speech what about this is what we we tout right free speech no repercussions and and literally 24 hours later there are repercussions for just openly questioning not saying i'm out not saying you're gone not saying I don't want to work with you anymore, just having a conversation.

And by the way, I'm the one that asked them. I just said, listen, I'm hearing something out of you. Is it possible that we might get to this spot? And 24 hours later, he says, nah, he's probably out. So let's see what ends up happening um by the time he fights again but did you guys feel that that was a little bit ironic considering everything that we heard out of this guy a week ago in sydney and what we always hear out of him certainly over the past i don't know two three years it's a little funny no my honest answer is no because i feel like a lot of that is masking exactly this, right? Like the bravado, the over-exaggeration of that is probably masking the sensitivity.

So no, like I kind of expect- It always feels to me like the people who tout free speech are the ones who get the most sensitive and offended over things- So that's why I'm not surprised things that they don't align with. And so in this particular case, it wasn't politics, it wasn't anything like that, but it was just, I don't like that you called me out, so I'm out. Really?

Eric Nixick, let me tell you something, and we've talked about this a million times, he is the ultimate foxhole guy. He is the ultimate foxhole guy. Look at the way he treats his fighters, look at how he backs his fighters, look at how he backs his fighters. Look at how he backed Francis. Look at how he backed everyone that goes in and out of that gym.

And ask the people who show up for a week to train with him. The Tom Aspinalls of the world. And there is no one that I probably think higher of who seems to have the best moral clarity, I think, in this sport than Tom Aspinall. And look at how he speaks of Eric Nixick. And you disagree with that and then you you give him the boot and and he's not asking me to tell you I ultimately I think he's bummed about the whole situation who wouldn't be but he'll be just fine I just thought of all people like if it was some other fighter who isn't in the you know you know in the headlines talking about this that and, and the other. Okay, fine.

But this guy who goes up to journalists and says, don't be such a wuss, don't be such a snowflake, don't be such a pussy, don't be such a this, don't be such a that, and you got your feelings in a certain way that you felt like you needed to respond like that? I don't know. I thought that that was funny.

I didn't expect that. I actually thought, sorry to interrupt. I actually thought he would come out and be like, you know what? He was right. He should have called me out. We'll be better. And that's that. Didn't happen.

What's it, PT? What's that? No, I was just saying, like, I think it's because of the proximity to it that it's so emotional right now, right? Like, this is the time when you know this is he's obviously suffered a loss like it's a you know you know fighters for a very long time the weeks after that are very difficult i think that's the biggest factor and it's just the proximity to the loss but i was talking to some coaches about this after you did the nixic interview and they were kind of saying like when it when a performance is so heavily criticized, like Sean's was, and probably that's a lot to do with who he is as well.

The fact that people are going at him so hard. He's like, the coaches I spoke to were like, the coach also feels a need to come forward and say something because they feel ownership for that performance. I know Sean doesn't see it like that because he's the guy in there fighting, right? But Nixick will be seeing that criticism and that's why it's important for him to have an um an avenue to yourself to come out and speak because coaches get that that backlash too that when they're criticizing the performance of their fighter they feel like it's been targeted at them too i agree and our good friend um andrew feldman had a great tweet on this um which i retweeted last week about you know know, the sacrifice that they make.

Ultimately, it's about the fighter. Ultimately, it's about their career, their life. They're the ones that have to deal with the heat if they lose and climb the ladder and whatnot. But perhaps, perhaps in that moment, 24 hours after he got home from a long trip and Lord knows what he's missing with his family, perhaps we caught him in a vulnerable moment where he just was kind of sharing his feelings and his emotion. And I understand why some people say maybe this is something that should be talked about behind the scenes and who knows what they spoke about. He said he spoke to him in the hotel after the fight and he saw him at the gym. And so who truly knows, but I just found the irony to be rich. That's all. And I have nothing against Sean Strickland if I'm being 100% honest. In fact, there are some things that he says that I'm like,

you know what, Sean Strickland, I think you're actually speaking a little bit of sense here. Nothing against him whatsoever. He doesn't want to come on the show, I believe. Not the opposite. Not the opposite. There's no Sean Strickland ban around these parts. So I have no real Axe to grind With Mr. Strickland The thing is you can't sit up there And talk about everything And blame everyone For everything and Criticize everyone and insult everyone

And then feel some sort of way When your coach openly Talks about the performance Which wasn't a good performance And I think everyone would agree on that Anyway let's move to our first guest of the day. He had a phenomenal win four in a row now since returning to the UFC over a veteran, uh, in, in Calvin Cater this past Saturday, he's the Moroccan devil. He is climbing up those 145 pound rankings. He's Yusuf Salal,

and he's kind enough to join us right now. Let's go to Yusuf and say hello to him once again. Hello, Yusuf. How are you, my friend? What my friend what's up my man how you doing i'm doing great congratulations by the way can i ask you are you familiar with this whole knick six strickland thing and uh how would you feel if your coach did an interview and kind of questioned the performance um you know after after a tough loss would you feel would you feel some sort of way about that i mean i it's kind of it's kind of weird you know i mean i feel like it's not a public thing you know it should it shouldn't be a public thing but obviously if there's some criticism he says in public it is what it is you know it's like

hey this is how i felt about my fighter and stuff like that it's it's normal you know what i mean but you can't just go full blast on me i don't know what happened to be honest i don't even know what he said in apparently they said he said something online or or live in interview or something but yeah i mean like i always had those talks like you know you did this wrong you did this this this this and this and that but i mean he did not show up like that was the same sean strickland that's been fighting for forever. You know what I mean? So that's not a world champion level. You know what I mean? Like you can see Duplessis improved so much and the game plan improved so much.

So I understand both sides, to be honest. Okay, cool. Just curious. By the way, what's the sign behind you here with the names, the whiteboard that you have here? I'm on my coach's office. I'm on my coach's office. Okay. Like all the fighters' names and stuff.

Okay, I was like, is this the hit list? What's going on? Your name's up there, so it didn't actually make sense. Congratulations. No hit lists. Thank you, my man. I appreciate you. Okay, so four in a row. A big win over a very

big name, a veteran, co-main event. You didn't get the finish, and I know you were kind of bummed about that, but veteran, a co-main event. You didn't get the finish, and I know you were kind of bummed about that, but overall, how do you feel about the performance? I feel amazing, man. It's a lot of work that's put into this, not just this career, you know, especially this fight as well, but obviously I put a lot of high standards in myself,

you know what I mean? I want to be a world champion, and I will be a world champion, so it's just, you know, the standards is a lot different, you know what I mean? But want to be a world champion and i will be a world champion so it just you know the standards is a lot different you know i mean but i look at all these world champions they sometimes they just win because of the iq and then they just had to win win that's the most important at the end of the day but obviously i i think differently a little bit so i'm kind of like a little bummed out a little bit especially in that third round i feel like i i let it i let it be too much i let him get too much confidence and stuff like that but it is what it is and this is the growth of this sport and i can't wait to keep growing from this sport so what's your take on that third round

because uh you say that i saw other people say that maybe you were just kind of like riding out the wind you knew you were up two rounds what really happened hey man, man, you talk about, you start getting to the rankings and like all this and comments and all that. That's crazy. I haven't experienced that. I was the first time ever. So I'm like, I kind of experienced it in the downside of more like, oh, he sucks. I'm glad he got kicked out on this and that. He was all hype. Now it's like, oh my God, that was the most boring fight. This, this, this, and that. I'm like, bro, you go, you guys tell me when you watch Floyd, how this, when it comes to like art of the sport, you know what I mean?

If you're so good, why don't you just stop me from moving? Why don't you just stop the angles? Why don't you just hit me? You know what I mean? It's not that hard. Like everybody could do it, you know, but that's kind of, like, the thing I kind of, like, felt a little bit, but I feel like in the third round, I got into too much into the name a little bit, you know what I mean, I started seeing the name, and, like, kind of, like, I know my coach before I walked out was, like, it's just a name, remove the face, you know what

I mean, and in the third round, I kind of, like, felt it a little bit, but but it is what it is this is why i said this is the best fight that ever happened to me and then i can't wait to keep growing and i keep improving and this fight will be the time to grow and keep going from next one so so basically what you're saying in other words like you know now that you're becoming a player in this division you're feeling some of the heat this is a byproduct of your success so technically it's a good thing oh 100 that's why people keep telling me i was like they keep saying it's like bro if you don't got haters you're not doing something right that's right dang god damn i was like all right man i got i got i got definitely some haters not going you know what i mean but we're feeling a lot of that you were

getting a lot of hate on saturday i apparently i don't know i that's what they told me like i posted like a story about my stuff and they're like, Oh my God, you're the most boring fighter. I hope you get caught. I hope this, I hope that I hope this I'm like, okay. I was like, you guys, you guys go fight cater and make him miss that much one. I don't think you, you will ever make him miss that much. Nobody ever done that to him besides me. So I'm like, in the end of the day, man, I'm like, I'm just being me and enjoying life. And I'm just grateful for the opportunity, man. I got to face the number 10. I got to put my name up there and got to put my name in the rankings. And then, yeah, I'm very grateful and blessed to be in that opportunity.

Love it. I absolutely love it. And I saw you talk afterwards. I don't know if it was personal per se, but you were hearing some stuff at the weigh-ins, right? They were saying you were easy work. Did you ever find out who was that was saying that? Because you said in the post-fight press conference, you didn't know if it was his girl, you didn't know if it was his team. Who was saying that to you? Bro, so the funny part is I was at the weigh-ins and I did an interview with Megan. So we couldn't go to the apex because they were like fixing the apex. So they had like the media at the weigh-ins and I was talking to Megan and, uh, she was like talking a little bit and saying, and I see some people they're like hardcore, like

this eyeballing me the whole time. And I'm like, okay, like I'm cutting weight. I'm like, I'm done. I was like, I just want to make weight and get out of here you know what i mean and then i do face off you know cater never said anything so i appreciate cater i never understand that and it's the fan i was like but don't disrespect the uh the like the sport in a little bit i'm like oh light work this is this oh my god this is now like i'm like come on all my coaches said my jiu-jitsu coach my professor said was like hey let's go uc you know that's the nickname they gave me

and then you want to disrespect me like that and i'm like okay cool bro i'm like and cater obviously is a big name in the ufc so he had a lot of seats and the ufc gave him a lot of seats and stuff like that i got declined for extra tickets so it is what it is but hey hey it's part of the sport bro i know this i understand this and it's part of the sport and obviously when i'm down in the line like that and i hope the ufc do the same thing for me you know what i mean so it is what it is i understand the game it's not sometimes it's not fair but it is what it is you were getting a lot of booze there in the post-fight interview hey you're not doing you're not doing something right harris hilton said it haters make you famous hey and what i love the most is for us about that fight was how much running you're gonna do and i'm like this is the greatest one of the greatest mma

coaches in the world the world yep to see him frustrated made my day when did that happen like to go in the third round and tell his fighter they're like hey don't worry about your defense i want you to throw 300 punches and just go that's not bad did he say that to you how much running you are you gonna do yeah bro i the ufc posted that video the real towards the end the last 10 seconds when i ducked that leg kick i mean that that head the body kick right under and he's like how much running i'm like bro you're you such a high level you're the guy that talks about to get hit not to be smart and this and that but you can't teach your fighter how to cut an angle you can't teach

your fighter how to throw a kick you can't teach your fighter how to throw a body shot to stop from moving and stuff like that i'm like all right man i was like you want to talk all this and all i wanted to do man is take a picture with the guy after cater because he was a legend you know what i mean i i got to fight a legend in this sport and i appreciated it so much and i'm like it doesn't matter how frustrated it is or how bad it was it's like it's the game it's a fight game you know i mean i just wanted to take pictures so i'm still mad i didn't get to take a picture did you ask did you get denied i asked my coach asked for us to tell him hey because they wanted me to go do the media and then the espn desk and then they kind of just went on but it is what it is i don't want to i don't want to give too

much to for us man it is what it is let him do his thing and let him focus on his thing. This is my time and this is about me. So you know what I mean? Okay, so afterwards, so yeah, you've won four in a row since returning to the UFC, seven in a row, I believe, overall. We spoke last time you were on the show about your incredible story and your comeback and that continues. You're one of the comeback

fighters of the year. On and on it goes. And you mentioned Ortega, you mentioned Yair afterwards those are big names and I like shooting for the stars realistically you think you get a name like that next I don't know I really don't know how the UFC like does their thing and stuff like that all I know is Yair doesn't I heard the Diego fight is not happening and stuff like that and I was like hey man I would love to get that opportunity to fight him and and like you said it's like this sport is about opportunities you know what i mean i'm not gonna

sit here and then be like oh like yeah i'm of course i'm a dream big and of course i'm gonna have my dreams and of course i'm gonna manifest out there and and i'm the one who's calling out these big names and stuff like that it's like i'm not gonna sit here and be like oh yeah give me this give me that like i want to be a world champion and to do that, like I have to do the unthinkable. I have to do the stuff that people don't do. You know what I mean? So I thought that was an opportunity for you a year and I hope it is an opportunity and I hope they give me that. So it's a, it's February 17th, 2024. You returned to the UFC in March of 2020, sorry, 2025, you returned in March of 2024. And I'm just wondering, if we go back to February 17th of 2024, so exactly a year ago, you had

yet to officially return to the UFC, where were you at in life? Would you have believed any of this? Could you have believed that you were going to come back and win your next four fights, three finishes, fighting guys like Cater? Like where were you at confidence wise, mentally exactly a year ago today? I knew I was going to be in back in the UFC. You know, I, I, I worked so hard and obviously I was sitting on a couple of wins. I was sitting on three MMA wins and a kickboxing and then a boxing. So I knew that, but I didn't know it was going to be this fast. You know what I mean? So that's why I said,

I got to count my blessings and appreciate that because man that the whole story it's like it's like to give a hope to younger kids and then even the mid experienced kids and stuff like that you know what i mean it's like it is possible it is possible to to climb up to the top it is possible to to believe in yourself and dream big and have those dreams you know what i mean i feel like sometimes we get so scared about our dreams a little bit. I'm like, oh man, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can do that. Like all this stuff, you know what I mean?

So I'm like, in a way I was like, I did dream about this big, but I didn't know it was going to be like this. But hey man, we're here. It must feel like you're flying right now, right? It must feel like you're on a different stratosphere, cloud nine, as they say. Hey, it's the best drug and the worst drug in the world. on a different stratosphere, cloud nine, as they say.

It's the best drug and the worst drug in the world. You know what I mean? That's what I tell fighters, man, because the best drug, obviously you're in cloud nine. Like you said, the dopamine is flying through the roof. You're on winds, you're like living life, you know what I mean? But sometimes you get complacent, you know what I mean? And that's the mistake I learned from my first run, you know what i mean but sometimes you get complacent you know what i mean and and that's the the mistake i learned from my first run you know what i mean this is not

this is not it you know i'm i'm not i'm not satisfied and i'm not happy with this performance you know i mean i feel like that was an okay performance you know what i mean so and even my okay performance it's still one of the best against the best so to to tell that to people and have that confidence it's and i can't wait to keep improving that's the biggest thing about me right now man that's i just want to grow as much as i can so uh a lot is going your way uh you've also resurrected your your youtube channel i saw you're putting up some great content i like this i like this i like it the the the video blogs but what i really like most is the cooking videos.

You got the chicken tagine up in there. Look at this. You're in the kitchen doing your thing. Hey, look at that. Let's go. I like it, man. I like it. Are you a big-time cook?

Look at this stuff. It looks fantastic. Oh, bro. I got to get me involved. I think I'm the best chef in the UFC, man. I'm telling you right now. Your boy can get down. Any cuisine you want, I got you.

What's the specialty? What are you making here? This is chicken tagine, right? Yeah, this is the Moroccan tradition. This is like chicken tagine right here. Look at that. What is that thing called, that thing? I see it at the restaurant.

It's fantastic, man, with the olives and all that. My mouth is watering right now just looking at this. What is that thing called, the thing that you put on top with the with the the whole the the triangle thing oh which one the thing that you just put the cover that it's like it looks like a thing oh yeah it's a clay pot it's like basically a clay pot so it makes like cooks it like slow slow heated and like tenderize the meat and stuff like that it's so good it's so is that the specialty i gotta i gotta invite you i gotta yes man welcome to new york i got you for sure is that your specialty is that like if invite you. I got to invite you to stay. I come from New York. I got you, too. For sure. Is that your specialty?

Is that like if I say, okay, Chef Zalal, what's the specialty? What's the thing that you're making? Oh, man, a lot of things. Steaks, burgers. Okay. Those are all my favorite things. Moroccan food, all that stuff, 100%. But not just Moroccan food. You're very versatile.

Oh, yeah, just like my style. That's right. I like that uh man you you versus vogue best uh best chef in uh the featherweight division that could be something don't be a dope youtube uh video yes i feel like he's like one of the greatest human beings on earth i swear to god i like i never met the guy i'm like i'm like i gotta like start like start being like a crazy fan sometimes i gotta like i'm like bro you gotta fight one of these guys in the future you know i mean i feel like that's what i did

with like calvin a little bit i'm like man i gotta i gotta like know who i am you know what i mean i gotta focus on me sometimes you know i'm you know i kind of put that pressure on me sometimes sure i mean these are legends right these are guys that you were probably thinking about and striving for and now you're starting to enter a conversation with them. Bro, think about it. I was like last year, I was sitting back watching him fight like Max. When I was cut out of the UFC, I was watching him against Max. I was watching him against MMA.

I was literally watching this. And I'm like, man, I'm about to go face this guy. You know what I mean? And then it's all experience for me and it's all the growth. That's what I'm this guy. You know what I mean? And then it's all experience for me and it's all the growth. That's what I'm grateful for, you know what I mean? But I got to start not putting so much on them. You know what I mean?

Like, oh, I'm me. I'm the one who's coming into this division and trying to change this division. That's right. By the way, it looks like he'll fight Ilya again. Do you favor him in that or do you think Ilya gets the job done again well I I hope he does good I I just don't think I think Ilya is in a he's in a different level

right now man and his his energy and his pressure is crazy but I heard he's going to 55 I'm I would be excited to see him at 55 but obviously I want him to stay at 45 because I want to fight him at 45 yes how how far away do you think you are from being in that discussion how many more wins you I didn't see him at 55, but obviously I want him to stay at 45 because I want to fight him at 45. Yes. How far away do you think you are from being in that discussion? How many more wins do you need? Two, three? What are you thinking? Three, four?

Errol, I think you know about this sport. It's all about opportunity. You can fight the next fight and go finish the guy and perform. Boom. There's a title shot. A lot of people don't remember. Ilya was like number seven or like number eight when he fought josh emmet or something like that and won a decision

and a flop of the bell and knocked out the guy so it's like kind of like it just depends on the opportunity and how the business plays and and how everything goes you know what i mean so for me it's like hey man if if i need to go dustin poirier and then bela route it is what it is and if i need to go in a diego route it is what it is and if I need to go in a Diego route it is what it is as well so I'm just here and and I'm excited to keep growing and showing out uh you went from the uh the card in Edmonton to the apex you're a high energy guy how do you like being back at the apex when you just fought in front of whatever that was 16 17 18 000 people bro it's weird bro canada i love canada by the way i was like man that was oh my god like i didn't know like i

didn't know i had like a lot of fans you know what i mean but i kind of like made a lot more fans after that like i was like oh okay canada loved me a little bit you know i think they get they love me after the shout out of the oilers too yes yes yes i don't know i don't know nothing about hockey brother i just want to let you know right I don't know nothing about hockey, brother. I just want to let you know right now I have nothing cool about hockey. So when I went in, I was like, I got my first hockey Jersey ever. It was the Oilers. And then like, you know, I'm African, man. I don't want to spend no $300 on no Jersey. You know what I mean?

So I was like, I was like, yeah, I got my first hockey Jersey and then I got to fight in the arena where the hockey team at. And it was, oh, my God. And I can't wait. I hope they put me in a crowd next fight. And that would be amazing, man, because that fans, man, and the energy you get. And, oh, man. I just feel like you really feed off of that because you're so energetic yourself.

You have so much energy that, like, being so much energy that like being in front of fans fighting in front of fans it's just a whole different atmosphere and you thrive in those conditions i guess these are people liking the apex and i kind of get it but for someone like you you need to be in front of a packed arena i 100 man i'm trying to promote myself too you know what i mean i'm like i want i want people to know me i want i want i want to put my country out there. There's no Moroccans in the rankings. There's no Moroccans in MMA showing out like what we're doing. I just want to keep promoting myself and showing these younger kids,

like I said, that you have a chance. It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter where you're at. It's all about opportunities and this light. By the way, prior to you, were there any Moroccans that had ever won in the UFC? Won a fight or rankings? No, won a fight. Well, yeah. The Aizaitar brothers

won two fights, I think, or three fights. Okay, okay. But you've now surpassed them. Hey, man. As long as we represent our country man and i'm to keep going and keep representing the the younger generation and just the country in general you know i mean i feel like mma is involved evolving a lot more now there because they opened up a ufc gym and everything down there so wow my goal is to kind of go there and

like really give out like do seminars and get back to the community are you getting a lot of love a lot of attention back there oh for sure man you always get love and hate no matter what no matter what and like i see what the champions and everybody like deals with you know what i mean and i'm like okay like this is what we sign up for though it is what it is you know what i I mean? It's like if you started a show or you start anything, you got to deal with things that you're always used to. But hey, man, that's not going to change my energy and that's not going to change who I am

because the last time I did that, it cost me my career. So it's never happening again. I love it. Well, keep doing your thing, man. Congratulations on the win. Four in a row since you've returned to the UFC. Big win over a very tough game veteran of the sport. Looking forward to a big year from you.

Thanks so much for the time, as always. Thank you, my man. Hey, and a quick message for us. Stop putting Vaseline on your peoples, bro. Stop putting Vaseline on all your athletes, bro. Fight like a fight. You don't need to cheat, bro. You're so good over here. Use it. You don't need to cheat,

bro. I never felt somebody in my life that's that greasy in my life. You said that afterwards. You said the legs, right? Bro, look at the third round. I hope you guys can put that out there in the highlight. Look at how deep that shot is and look at how he just slid.

Nothing. If we know what we know, he's famous about that with GSP and a lot of guys. So I just want to throw it out there. You're such a good coach. You're such a high level coach. I give you all the respect in the world, but you don't need to cheat, bro. We're in fair and square. This is the part of the sport. You can do steroids. You can do all that stuff. It is what it is, but you don't need to cheat on day off. You're so scared of Al Jermaine. Did you like that? You're scared of my grappling like that? Come on now.

All right. We'll leave it at that. Thank you, Yusuf. Appreciate it. I got you. I got you. I threw a little seasoning for you at the end. Thank you. I appreciate it. Congratulations, my man. Thank you, my man. I appreciate you. There he is. Yusuf Salah, the Moroccan devil. Another

win for him. Four in a row since returning to the UFC. And yes, he did mention that in the Post-Fight Press Conference. And he is referring to UFC 94, George St-Pierre against BJ Penn, that very famous event. And the aftermath was just as infamous. That was quite the time. When was that? I think it was 2009, if my memory serves me correct.

Anyway, our next guest, who we'll go to in a minute. I got it. Frank was yelling at me. Frank, why are you yelling at me in the channel? Okay, I got it. No need to. Don't listen. Please. yelling at me in the uh the channel okay i gotta you no need don't listen please uh our next guest

was there and he's been there for the past 29 years in fact yesterday uh marked his uh 29th anniversary 29 years unbelievable he has become synonymous with all things ufc He is a part of the fabric, the DNA of the UFC. I am afraid to think of a UFC without him. People have come and gone. Owners have come and gone. Fighters have come and gone. Broadcasters have come and gone. But he has been a constant since February 16th, 1996. Yes, UFC 8 in Puerto Rico, the first show outside of the continental United States. He was there back then, relatively unknown. There's the poster. And 29 years later,

Bruce Buffer is still doing his thing and more popular and better than ever. He's kind enough to join us right now to reminisce and celebrate this incredible milestone. There he is. It's time! I'm sure you never heard that before. This is truly the moment

I have been waiting for. Hi, Ariel. Hello, Bruce. How are you? Congratulations on 29 years. I heard about that and I said we had to have you on, So thank you for the time. Great to see you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It's an honor to be on the show and to celebrate my 29th anniversary with you. I got to tell you, Ariel, time flies. That's all

I can say. Time flies. Okay. You see that young man, you see that poster, you hear about the 16th of February, 1996. What are the emotions? What are the thoughts that come through your mind? You know, the emotions are very strong because I'm a fan first and an announcer second. And I wake up every day, every morning with UFC written on my chest and my feet hit the ground. And I'm so humbled and honored by the fact that I get to do what I do being, you know, what they call the voice of the octagon. I always say the show is not about me. It's about the fighters. It's about the fans. And I get to do my role in enhancing those moments for the fighter and the fans as much as I can. And every night I walk out, Ariel, last, the other week was in Australia, in Sydney, Australia, which was amazing. I love Sydney. It's one of my favorite cities in the world, favorite countries in the world. But every night

I walk out, like this coming Saturday, when I step out of Seattle for 29 years, my attitude is it's my very first night. I have to prove to myself, to the powers that be, to the fans, to the fighters, to Dana White, that I deserve to step into this octagon. So I bring every bit of passion, every bit of lung power, every bit of energy, everything I have to enhance that moment for the fighters and the fans. And I'm like a kid in a candy store. I'm having a great time. You still feel that pressure? You still feel that anxiety before? I mean, 29 years, I think you've proven yourself. It's not anxiety. It's more like adrenaline. It's more like a rush. You know, it's just the excitement. It's, you know, I always say,

if you can find out what you're truly passionate about in life and you can monetize it, then you're not going to work. You're living a lifestyle. Now, I do a lot more than just my role as the Octagon announcer in my business world. But this is the base of everything that I work from outside of the management of my legendary brother, Michael Buffer. Let's get ready to rumble fame. And I just take great pride in it. And I maintain that passion. And quite frankly,

Ariel, I'm 67 now, and I've been doing this for 29 years, mentally, physically. I keep myself in shape, ready to go. And I plan on doing this as long as I can, you know, as long as I can do it in the way I like to do it. If I have to walk out and stand center stage and, and stay still and just go like this, that's not going to do it for me. I've got to, I've got to announce the way I want to announce. Otherwise it's time for me to say goodbye and somebody else can step in and do the thing. What do you remember about that night? Like what, what are the, any, any behind the scenes stories? You know, those were the embryonic days of the ufc right the seg era uh just the eighth show who knew what was

going to become of this thing called the ufc but when you take yourself back to that night that weekend in puerto rico what are some of the stories that come to mind well it first came about, you know, in 19, uh, around 1990, I was kickboxing a lot back then. And there was a, uh, uh, famous director named John Milius. I did Red Dawn, Conan the Barbarian. He's a buddy of mine. And he said, you got to come train with me, uh, in Torrance at a dojo. It's jujitsu.

I go, I've trained jujitsu, you know, some jujitsu because we never trained Gracie jujitsu. And I remember that I went to the dojo and out came this young thin kid. I said, hi, my name is Hoyce. Come with me. And he took me into one of his dojo rooms, closed the door, you know, all padded up and everything good, a beautiful, uh, uh, jujitsu dojo. And he said, let's go at it. Right. So we went at it and, uh, he got underneath my punches and took me to the ground. And about, I would say 45 seconds later or whatever, he had me in a side choke and he's choking me out and he goes, tap, tap, tap. And I'll never forget it. He gets up in the, after I tapped, he gets up in the guard, straightens out his gi, he looks at me, he goes, see, isn't it nice not to get hit in the face? Now that was my first meeting with Hoyce. And then three years later, watching UFC one,

he's walking out with his arms on the back of, of his brothers, you know, as he's walking out to the Octagon. And, uh, he, I said to my family and friends watching, I said, see this skinny kid right here, he's going to beat everybody. And lo and behold, he did did so that was my first experience with the UFC and then I went to UFC uh six in Casper Wyoming and I had my brother Michael announce the first one and that was the debut of Tank Abbott and I knew that was my world the moment I saw it and I had my brother announce three of the UFCs and then I had to pull him because of the WCW wrestling he was involved with got so big and we only had a three fight contract. And during that time in UFC six, we were having dinner with Robert Meyerowitz, the owner of SCG. And they said,

Michael, when you go out in the octagon, you need to say, if it's not in the octagon, it's not real. Right? Well, I knew as soon as he said that I was going to get a call from the people I was dealing with at WCW wrestling on a Monday, which they did. They called me on Monday. They said, what are you doing? Having Michael do this rap and so many words that they said, right. And I said, look, I have a contract. He's allowed to do it. He's got a three fight deal. I want him to finish the deal. Michael could not have continued anyway. He was so busy with doing everything else I had him in. And then I thought, this is my world. Let me work my way into this. Right. And it took me a year and a half to convince the UFC to let me become the announcer. And it all culminated in

short story. Sorry, I've been getting along. No problem. Love it. A fighter named Scott, the pit bull for also, do you remember him vaguely? Okay. He fought tank Abbott. He fought a lot. He fought in UFC eight. He was like six, one arms down to his ankles, you know, 340 pounds, the perfect fighter they wanted at that time. Uh, you know, the tank Abbott type. And I sent his tape off to, uh, Meyer with some Meyer said, yeah, let's get them in. So I went down to his manager, but I didn't want to manage fighters. I did this as a ploy on my part because after stopping in New York and asking for the job and calling him up saying, you need me, I have the media contacts you don't have. I'll help you build this brand. I'm a brand builder. I'll do everything I can outside of being the

announcer, but I need to grow with you as the announcer to make that happen. It just all fell on deaf ears. So, um, I brought him down and, uh, then I said, listen, I called up my office. I said, Robert, I'm bringing my tuxedo in my bag. Let me announce the prelims. Let me show you what I got. Right. And so the night before the show, he said, okay, you know what? You can announce the prelims. So that's exactly what I wanted to do. That's the only reason I went down there. And I announced the prelims. I look at it now and it's more like, no, it's a lot different than it was today is today. Um, and I cut my teeth and then I thought, okay, good. They'll call me back. Well, I kept calling. I said, can I announce the next one? They go, no, no, we're, we're, we're good. We're good. And they were using a rich G-man going super nice guy. And, uh, then I got a call. I was in the hospital with my mom. She had a serious operation and it was like a scene from Rocky.

Right. And I got a call on the phone. They said, listen, we're doing UFC eight in, uh, Dothan, Alabama. And, uh, was it eight? Yeah, it was eight. And, um in Dothan, Alabama. And was it 8? Yeah, it was 8. And I think it was Alabama. Pardon me if I forget the city. There's so many things I can't remember at times. Puerto Rico. No, that was by him on Puerto Rico.

That's the one I told you I did. Okay, okay. Oh, this was before. Oh, got it, got it, got it. Got it. Yeah, this is after by him. It was UFC 10. 10.

UFC 10. Got it. And I'm on the phone, and my mother, she's recovering. And I said, listen, I I'll call you back. I'm dealing with a very serious situation right now. And I hung up the phone and my mom looked at me and she said, that's the call you've been waiting for. Right.

I said, yeah, mom, they, they want me to go down and announce it, but I can't leave you. And she looks at me and she gives me the thumbs up, like Talia Shire in the Rocky movie. When she's in bed, she goes, go, you got to go. All of a sudden I hear the Rocky music going off in my head. Dun, dun, da, da, dun, da, da, dun, da, da, dun. And boom, I'm down in Alabama in two days. I announced UFC 10. I think I do a good job. Um, and all of a sudden, no call. They hire somebody else, right? A friend of the producer. And, uh, the guy, when I watched the show, he's a little nervous in the service going back and forth and made a few mispronouncements, but had a good voice and everything. And I thought, well,

okay, I'm still going to keep asking this job. Cause I come from the school of, if you don't ask for the job, you don't get it. Right. And then they called me and they said, listen, we're doing a show called friends. Um, And we're doing the ultimate fighting champion is the title of the episode. And it's with Jon Favreau and Tank Abbott. And they have a voiceover, but they weren't the real announcer. So Warner Brothers sent a runner down to my house to get audio and tape. And they hired me to co-star as myself on Friends. And I thought, okay, this is it.

So I saw Robert Meyerowitz on the set. I said, listen, we got to meet at lunch. I need to talk to you. And I met with him and I just hit him right in the face with it. I said, and I, this is the last time I was going to ask. I said, Robert, I'm co-starring myself on the biggest comedy on TV, which is the biggest publicity you've ever had for the UFC. I'm going to ask you one more time. I feel like a girl waiting to be asked for the prom and nobody's asking me to the prom. Let me be the octagon announcer to grow with you and help you build this brand with whatever I can bring to the table.

I don't want anything for that. I just want to be the announcer and grow with you as a show. The best poker hand I ever played, Ariel. And that's where we made the deal. And it was from that point on that I continue to announce the UFC. Unbelievable. It's inspirational really because uh you weren't told yes right away you kept at it you kept at it you knew in your heart and you

weren't accepting no for an answer which i absolutely love could i ask have you thought of this like in a sliding doors universe what happens if he would have said no we're good what does bruce buffer do in his life this has become your life and i know you have so many other things that you do but a lot of that came as a result of this. And yes, there's the management of your brother, but I don't know if you would have been truly fulfilled just doing that. What do you think would have been your bread and butter had he not said yes?

I've always been a marketer in terms of hawker and a schmocker. I had my first, I created a business in high school selling jewelry. I would make jewelry and sell it out of a box. And in 1974, I'm clearing, you know, $1,000 or more, a few thousand a month, which is a lot of money back then. I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit, right? And my dad, because of my father and all I learned from him and learned on my own. I had my first company when I was 19.

I got into the telemarketing industry, selling things legally, not the Wolf of Wall Street stuff, that kind of thing. And I made a lot of money in the telemarketing industry. And I own telemarketing companies. I own an import-export company. I went up and created a, with a partner, created a nutritional company called Herbal Care and went in direct competition against Herbalife and did well with that. I've always run and been in business. So at a point

when I was 28 years old and I met a man named Michael Buffer when I saw him on TV, because as you know, my brother and I did not grow up together, right? You know that story. Yes, of course. And I was very successful with two companies. I was at a beach house and here in California and live in the lifestyle, two and a half men, you know, minus the alcoholism. I'm having a great time. I'm doing everything, but I wasn't, I went, and it's a joke, but I wasn't, um, passion. I was burned out quite frankly, Ariel. And, and this happens, even though I was making great money and, and successful and everything,

I hadn't found what I truly wanted to do. And then when I would go to the events with Michael and I would see everything I was doing for him and building all of that, I basically decided at one point when I was teeter-tottering in that, I looked at him and I said, Michael, look, I'm going to sell both companies. I'm going to concentrate on managing your career. I want to trademark this phrase, let's get ready to rumble properly and help build the brand, make you richer, more famous than you ever dreamed, make it become part of American culture. And then I got into the world of sports and entertainment. So I would have probably

continued in the world of sports and entertainment had I not made this swing into the octagon, which I continued to build everything I built today from that. Because in life, as I teach, when I teach branding and marketing to entrepreneurs, I just did an appearance in Australia the other week when I was down there for the UFC with a group of about 500 entrepreneurs who were in business and helping enhance them and teaching them more about branding and marketing. I realized that if I got in the UFC, it was my base. I would build my own career and all the things I would build out of that, the same as I had

built for Michael in his career and still continue to do. So I would be in sports and entertainment. Okay. You know, I was watching your first appearance at UFC 8 and obviously, you know, you're younger and you're a little less seasoned and all this stuff, but what I'm fascinated by is just when you felt confident to truly be yourself, because you mentioned, like, you're not the guy who stands in the middle reading off the cue cards. Now, you're unlike anyone in the history of ring announcing. You

move around, you're a part of the show, like I said, a fabric. People are, are, are, are chanting along with you. Those, those scenes like in Brazil, where they're all saying it's time. It's, it's unlike anything, including your brother,

if I'm being a hundred percent honest, but to have the confidence to do that and to kind of own the moment, take some time. Do you remember that turning point for you when you started to finally feel like I could be myself and I could do just a little more that will separate me from everyone? You're so damn good, Ariel. You ask the best questions, God. I've known you from when you started, right? Listen, I say it all the time. I'm a kid in Syracuse University. I read an email to

brucebuffer.tv, I believe it was. And you said, yes, no one listened to that show. And you were one of my very first guests. This is 2001. So that's why I don't want to to make it about myself but that's why i love you and will support you and defend you until the end of time you don't need any defending but you mean a lot to me and i remember when i won my first award you were sitting right next to me 2010 and uh it was so fitting that you were the guy sitting next to me so i love you i i truly do and you've meant so much to me uh and that's why i have such great admiration for you and i love you, Ariel, for all the reasons you mentioned and watching the evolutionary process of your career has been absolutely amazing and kudos to you, my friend. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. What a role model you are. Getting back to your question you asked, let me just preface it by

saying this. I knew the UFC would be the biggest thing in fighting sports. I knew it from the beginning. I knew if I cut my teeth on this and stayed in the Roach Coach motels and travel and paid my dues that it would all culminate to what it would culminate into. But I also, when I got into announcing, I did not want to be considered Frank Sinatra Jr. I did not want to be considered that I was riding the coattails of my brother because actually I'm the one that sews his coattails on in his career. I wanted to be recognized for Bruce Buffer. I want to be recognized for myself. So during the first period of time when I was announcing, of course, I'm cutting my teeth, getting into it, trying to find my space, but being the athletic person I am, the physical person that I am, I've been my whole life. I've been in martial arts. I mean, all I did when I was younger was

surf and train and, you know, go for the achievements I've done to myself in the martial arts world. Um, I knew that there was this tiger inside me that had to come out. Right. And when I'm standing there as the normal announcer does standing there with all respect to all ring announcers, it wasn't fulfilling to me, Ariel. And I told myself if I couldn't create my own style within the first three years of doing this, I was going to quit, you know, cause I just didn't want to, you know, have a, I've seated a show. I wanted to really get into it and enjoy it. And that's when I realized that I needed to move. Okay. It's kind of like in the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Do you remember that film? Yes, of course.

There's a scene where Paul Newman and Robert Redford are shooting, they're target shooting. And, you know, Redford, he just can't hit the side of a wall. And he looks at Newman, he goes, can I move? He goes, yeah, he moves. And all of a sudden he's hitting everything, right? And I realized this is what I needed to do. So I used to like watch the great rock stars, you know, I always enamored of the singers and the way they'd move and Presley and what he'd do. And suddenly I, you know, I, I just realized that when I turned and did like a, a 45 degree angle turn, okay, that just created more emphasis for me to, to emphasize fighting, to get into it. And then one time, one night I was in the red corner, facing the red corner, a little too much of the red corner. And I needed to announce the fighter first in the blue corner. And I'm going introducing.

And all of a sudden I did one of my favorite moves in kickboxing was a spinning back fist, bottom fist, whatever you want to call it. And I would spin around and I went fighting and the audience reacted. Right. And I realized, oh, wow, something's going on here. This is cool. So I just wanted to move. And when I'm announcing, these warriors, men and women both, have been training for eight to ten weeks for this moment of their lives. The audience, which I love, the fans. But when I'm announcing, if you notice, I don't really hear the fans.

I'm looking in the eye of the tiger. I'm looking into the fighter. And I needed to get closer to the fighter to enhance the moment for them and enhance the announcing moment for myself. And everything just built over time. And I would do other events around the world, like, uh, Enoki's Mumbai event in 2003, you know, announcing Fedor and all the fighters that fought in that and the king of the cages I did. And if you remember, I was pretty much announcing all the new MMA events that came out before I became exclusive to the UFC, where I would only do UFCs. And I just thought, you know, let me just find myself. And like everybody, including yourself over time, you hone your tool, you hone your style. And this just became the style. And I'm not trying to be

overly flamboyant. I'll say it again. The show show is not about me i'm just trying to do what i can to enhance that moment but also ariel i'm doing to enhance the moment for myself right to enjoy every night i walk out there to give every bit of ounce of power and it's not show business ariel it's show biz you know it's entertainment if A hundred percent. Um, and there's so many iconic ones, but recently with Alex Pereira and him facing, you know, facing off with, uh, Yuri Prokhaska, the intensity there is unmatched. It's unbelievable. And the way the UFC is shooting them, it's amazing. And you're in the middle of all of that.

Like there's literally four people in the cage. I mean, maybe a cameraman or two, but you get the point. Can you even describe what that feels like to be center stage as these two guys are locking you know eyes they are not moving they are stoic and you're in there and adding so much to that moment and yet they're just not budging it's it's a feeling and it's an intensity that's hard to describe unless you're standing with me i wish sometime i could have like a gopro on my shoulder so you can see what I see. And when you realize the intensity of those two fighters in that given night, they're like two elks in National Geographic that are about to come together. If you remember that great thing that you see in National Geographic.

And this is the feeling I get. These are warriors. This is an intense moment. This is the most primal moment you can find in fighting when they're about to go at it, or times when fighters will walk across the octagon and the commission doesn't even get between them. The referee, with all respect, they're not between us, me. And I find myself getting between them. And again, I'm, I'm not trying to create a show. I'm, I'm trying to like govern that octagon a little bit. So it doesn't get out of

hand as it has a couple of times in the past and past history. And it's just, it, you hit it. It's just intense. I it's hard for me to actually put into words, but I still have to keep my announcing going. I've still got to finish what I'm doing right at that moment. And it just, it just creates these incredible moments that I think live in infamy in, in, uh, in highlight reels. Right. Which again, I don't go in with the purpose of doing that. That's not, that's. Yeah, no, no, no. It all feels very natural. It's not forced at all. It's a Monday. You're doing Seattle on saturday what is the week like for you like what's the prep like and and and how do you go about you know you you say everyone's name correctly uh i love i love one of my favorite things to watch i don't know how you do this

and how you practice but like you have the cards and then you flip them behind you when you're done i don't know how that works so perfectly every time but just the i'm just curious about the whole like week-long process to get to sat Saturday when you start working on Saturday show, getting everything down, everything that you need. Well, the UFC is a very fine, well-oiled machine. So as, uh, I'm sure with John Anik and, and, uh, uh, DC and Joe and Michael Bisbing and Dom and everybody else that works the show, I get audio files or shall I say we all get audiophiles, where they send us audiophiles of the fighters saying their names. And what I do, if you ever look at my fight cards, is the name at the bottom is not written exactly, let's say, like Khabib Nurmagomedov, when I first started announcing him. I write it phonetically, right, and space it apart. I do not rehearse because

there's a rehearser voice, and then there's a real organic voice. And I want to be organic. I want to be in the moment. But what I do do is when I'm writing the cards, my prep time for my cards takes anywhere from two to three hours or more. And I can write them down. I have everything down. And just like in school when I would study, I'm actually absorbing everything on the card. If you notice, I rarely ever read my cards unless I'm reading sponsors and judges names and stuff like that. I have an ability now where I could be standing there and the car could be up here, the car could be down here, and I can just glance at it and make sure that Chuck Waddell's 6'2", before I say it,

if I happen to forget. And I highlight everything on the card. So that's how I prepare the cards. That usually takes me anywhere between by Wednesday of that week, I have the cards done. Because I have to get in the air on Wednesday night for international or Friday, I'll fly in for domestic shows. And the producer will send me the bout sheets, which by Wednesday, I've got the rankings. By Wednesday, I've got the, the rankings. By Wednesday, I've got the sponsors that I need to add to the card. So I, I get all that together the rest of the week for me, aside from all I have to do for my other business ventures that I do during the week. I train, I want to be in shape. I want to be ready to go. I want to be flexible. I want to be totally mindset for the show. I get my rest. And the night before a show where in the younger days,

you know, maybe I go out, party, have a good time, you know, go a little crazy or whatever. I'm very conservative the night before a show. I want to be totally 100% ready to go, ready to be on target, ready to do what I'm hired to do, what I'm paid to do, and what I'm supposed to do, which is do my job and be prepared. So I'm spending that week getting ready, not like a fighter getting ready for a fight, but I'm basically getting ready mentally, physically, and statistically and technically, um, for the show, for everything I need to do. So when I go there, I'm set, I'm, I'm locked in, I'm ready. And so, all right. So you, you mentioned, you know, you want to do this for as

long as, uh, you can be yourself turning 68. I do believe in may, have you given yourself a cap? Like, okay. When I'm, I don't know, X years old, I just want to chill. I don't want to travel as much. Have you allowed yourself to even go there yet? There'll come a time where, for instance, there's like 40 shows a year, whatever it is for UFC, 35, 40, whatever. There's a gentleman named Joe Martinez that fills in for me and does a great job when I'm not doing the shows. I do anywhere from like 25 to 28 shows a year now, give or take.

And there could come a time where maybe it goes down to maybe, you know, a couple of shows a month, whatever. I could see doing less shows maybe in the future a little bit, but I still enjoy what I do. I mean, there's times when maybe I'm hit with a schedule, like going from Saudi Arabia to Sydney, Australia, which as much as I wanted to be in Saudi Arabia for that card and for the fighters, um, and for, um, uh, his excellency, who does a great job with the UFC.

I just realized that was going to be a torturous couple of weeks and I had a lot to take care of. I couldn't be away for two weeks at that time. So the heart, if you ask me what the hardest part of my job is, Ariel, it's the travel. That's the hardest part of my job is, Ariel, it's the travel. That's the hardest part. I mean, if we could invent that Star Trek machine that, you know, they press a button and boom, I'm telepathically, whatever the term is sent, you know, across the, uh, uh, the world, that'd be great, but that's not happening.

So in answer to your question, again, sorry, getting a little long winded. Listen, Michael's 80 years old and he's traveling, still doing boxing. Now, the big thing for me is, is that Michael does one event a night, maybe two, but mostly just one event a night. I'm announcing 12 to 14 fights a night. So as long as, again, I'll say it again, as long as mentally and physically I can do it the way I like to do it, I will do it as long as I can do it. And if that takes me to 80 years old or longer, then so be it.

I got to stay in shape, Ariel. Yeah, no, I mean, you look fantastic. I do wonder if one day you get to that Joe Rogan schedule of just pay-per-views, like it's a big fight, it's Bruce Buffer time. Would you like that? Do you foresee that? Because I also kind of feel like, honestly, if they said we want you at every single show, you would find a way.

I, you, you, you strike me as a workaholic who wants to be everywhere. And so I do wonder how you balance those two feelings. Well, I am. And Dana once said, you'd have to shoot me to keep me out or Dana or John said, shoot me to keep me out of the octagon. Or Dana said I would get out of my deathbed to get into the octagon. Um, no, I, I said, you'd have to shoot me to keep me out of the octagon. Um, I could see a point where, you know, maybe a fight night and a pay-per-view.

Yeah. You know, two shows a month. I could all see at times where maybe, maybe it could go down to just the pay-per-views, but it's all, listen, I work for the UFC. I'm a loyal soldier. Okay. They point, I shoot. So if they say it's cool to do only a pay-per-view when it comes down to that time, if I ever, that's all I want to do, then fine. Otherwise, I could see a fight night and a pay-per-view, at least two shows a month to continue. Definitely.

And it's not just this. Let's see if I got it all. Host of the It's Time podcast, along with the great TJ DeSantis. We see the logo right over there um you're very active on cameo tremendous stuff i'm sure people love that there you go cameo i gotta tell you i get tears in my eyes from the cameos you know i'll do for the birthdays birth of babies all that weddings oh i do i would you believe i do like five or ten

weddings a week and it's it's not a cameo because aside from my cameo page where you can order all the videos, people write me at brucebuffer.com because we don't do weddings on cameo. Because when I do weddings, I get in a tuxedo in front of a green screen and I can put anything behind me in the green screen they want. And we do all the weddings out of my office through brucebuffer.com along with a ton of other videos for personal and for business. But the thank you notes that we get, my partner, Kristen, who I built this business with for the last 27 years, she and I, we do this and it brings tears to our eyes, Ariel. You should see some of the thank you notes we get and how happy it is.

Sure, I got to charge some coin for it. And I believe me, I could charge a lot more. And I don't mean that negativistically. It's just, I try to keep it affordable for everybody. Cause we like making people happy, you know? Oh, I know. It's, it's an amazing, it's an amazing thing. I've seen some of those videos.

Um, people have shared them with me. They've gone viral. Uh, so, so I hope that you keep doing that. Uh, punchers chance bourbon. It's time energy drink. It's time cologne. Am I missing something? keep doing that. Puncher's Chance Bourbon, It's Time Energy Drink, It's Time Cologne. Am I missing something? Look at that. No, thank you.

That's my new iconic coming out. That's the top sellers on Amazon. It's Time Energy is being released all over the country right now. I'm very proud of it because I don't have the crappy taurine in it, which a lot of others do. I'm sorry. I don't mean to say that about others, but I'm trying to keep this as, as good and quality as I can, which my partners out of England and I have, um, very proud of the it's time energy.

Uh, the cologne is it's unreal, Ariel. Have I sent you one yet? Uh, I, I don't believe so. And perhaps that's, what's missing in my life. Perhaps this is the reason why, uh, you know, maybe I need a little spark. I could have used it for Valentine's day, Bruce, if I'm being honest. Yes.

That's the thing. Big seller on Amazon on Valentine's Day. Do me a favor. Have your producer send me an address so I can get you a little pack. Thank you. And I'll get you the energy drink and all that stuff. I appreciate that. And the Puncher's Chance bourbon, you know, I'm proud of it.

That one I have. That one I have, and I've tried it. Yes. I did get you this. Yes, yes. Where's that camera? There you go. Oh, that's my new one, Warrior Spirit.

What's the difference? Well, actually, I have six different types now. I've got a 12-year, 14-year reserve, a single barrel, an Irish whiskey. But the Warrior Spirit is the same juice that's in the original, which has been called the top five best-selling bourbon in America. Wow. Top five best-quality bourbon in America at its price range. It's around $30. Very, very proud about that.

So what we did was we wanted to make a bottle that was around my attitude towards life, which is Warrior Spirit, which is what the Warrior Spirit bottle is you just showed. It's the same juice, but it's in that bottle. There's only 2,000 cases made, which will make it a collector's item. And I'm a big collector of memorabilia. the warrior spirit bottle as you just showed it's the same juice but it's in that bottle there's only 2 000 cases made which will make it a collector's item and i'm a big collector of memorabilia so i wanted to put something out there that had like a very specific collector's uh value to it it's beautiful and um it's it's doing great it's doing great very proud about it and by the way congratulations to your philadelphia eagles uh i heard you tell a great story that you uh you recorded the game.

You were flying home from Sydney, and then the freaking pilot spoiled it for you. Were you annoyed in that moment or happy? Your team wins, but you did everything to avoid the spoilers. Well, I knew that somewhere going through the airport, I could do this all the way through the airport, but somehow it was going to get to me. So I just thought, please don't announce it, don't announce it. So I go, okay, great. But when I got home and I watched it and it was recorded, it was such, if you're a Philadelphia fan, it was such an incredible game with all respect to the Kansas city chiefs. Um, they just demolished them. I mean, they, they totally took them down. It was very, very entertaining,

but I was ready. Yes. Thank you, Bruce. What a great honor that was for me. My favorite team, the Buffalo Bills, asked me to do this video, and then all of a sudden I see the finished product, and then you're involved in it, and you blow me out of the water, of course, when it comes to this sort of thing. But I was like, wow, who would have thought?

Bruce and I hyping up the Bills. We won that game, and I told them afterwards, I think we need to come back for the AFC Championship. They didn't call me. I don't know if they called you, and we all know what happened. So we were the good luck charm as far as I'm concerned going into that Ravens game. That was such a thrill to be a part of that with you. It was a real thrill to be a part of it.

It was actually a real thrill when I realized you were a part of it too. How the great six degrees of separation happen and we come together and knowing that the bills are your team and they're so cool at the bills office, you know, Joshua and all those guys. Um, and there's a little scuttlebutt about, you know, working with them next year, which I'd be very, very proud to do. My brother announces the Eagles games and that's all great. Um, but, uh, no, I would like, you know, me, I was the, I was the voice of the Raiders.

I was coming out of all the Raider games when they went to Allegiant stadium. And I did that for a couple of seasons. And then because I announced them like they're world champions and they weren't winning so much, they want to, you know, I think they want to hold me back until they start winning, uh, you know, more so, but I got to tell you, I love appearing at football games. Being at the Raider game was great. If I ever get a chance to come out at Buffalo, um, bill stadium, that'd be awesome. And when I do believe me, I'm going to be on the phone to you and I hope you're there. That would be amazing. Yeah. I saw you at the F1

with your brother. Anytime you guys pop up, uh, it's always so fun. Yeah. There you guys are over there. It's like, yeah, there's our guy representing us. Um, I've been doing formula once as they started in Vegas. It's only been two years And I did it myself the first year And then Michael and I have never worked together like that At a huge event So that was quite a moment For both of us to be there And it was very cool

That's an amazing event Love you Bruce, you're the man Thank you so much for everything Thank you for your support towards me But more importantly, thank you for everything that you do for the events, like I said Wouldn't be the same without you, I don't want to think Of what the UFC would be without you You add so much, and I just love those

Videos when everyone's going, it's time And they're literally saying everything that you're saying That just shows, no one has that No one has accomplished that You're a part of the fabric, you're a part of the DNA You're a part of what makes the UFC Such a special event, a special production. People go to the events hoping to see the fighters, but hoping to see you as well.

And you know that. It's a beautiful thing. So I hope you get to do it for 120 more years, and then we get to hear those pipes and see those moves, see those hips gyrating, the whole bit, for many more years to come. I'll be tossing that card like a ninja star for many years to come. I promise you, Ariel, and your kind words mean so much to me. I'm humbled by them, and thank you. And thank you to all the great fans out there that support both of us because without the fans, we're nothing.

And I'm all about the fans, and I'm all about the fighters. And it's an honor to be on your show. It's an honor to live this life. Mazel tov to you. Yes. Thank you. 29 years. Let's go.

We'll go for a big 30 next year and then another 70. There you go. Big cheers. No fears forever. My friend and warrior spirit. Like I tell everybody on my podcast, be the best you can be, whether you're first, second, 10th or whatever. If you're the best, you can be your winning and be a role model to your sphere of influence. Cause in this world

in which we live right now, we need role models. We need positive energy. We need positive influence. So God bless everybody. God bless you, Ariel. And thank you so much for having me on the show. Much love, Bruce. Thank you. Thank you. All the best safe travels to Seattle to the one and only Bruce Buffer. What an absolute legend. And a Hall of Famer. That is, I mean, that could have happened 10 years ago. But, you know, they can wait many more years until he calls it a day. Salt of the earth. A true mensch.

An absolute mensch. His brother as well. Love catching up with Bruce. And we need to do it more often, if you ask me. Thank you very much to him for that. In a bit, we're going to be joined by dominic cruz to talk about uh his announcement that he is no longer going to be fighting and prior to that we'll be joined by sonja dong who bruce buffer is going to announce on saturday in seattle main event ufc seattle against one uh henry cejudo on friday of this past week at the theater at Madison Square Garden.

It was the birth, in my opinion, of a superstar. And some might take umbrage with that because some might say he's been here already, won a silver medal in 2021, had a great amateur career and has been well on his way as far as his boxing pedigree and resume is concerned. That was just his 14th pro fight. But he has become a star. You saw him in Norfolk, Virginia back in November. You see him in New York multiple times fighting here in the city. Wins his first belt against Sergey Baranchuk. It was quite the week for him. He wins the fight in dramatic and impressive and emphatic fashion, fourth round TKO. And I feel like he is now going to become one of the faces of boxing, certainly American boxing. He is one of the names that you need to know. He's about to turn 26, just 25 years young,

and he is the new WBO lightweight champion, and he is kind enough to be joining us in studio right here. Now, he's the businessman. He's Keyshawn Davis, and it's an honor to have him in studio after a big win. Hello, Keyshawn. How are you, man? How are you, my man? Nice to meet you. Pleasure. Please have a seat. Thank you so much for coming in. Yes, sir. It's great to have you here.

Now, I have a question right off the bat. Okay. And by the way, congratulations. Big weekend. So much to talk to you about. But I saw you on Wednesday at Empire State Building. You guys got into it. And then I saw you the next day and I was like, wait a second.

Was he wearing a wig on wednesday? What happened to the hair between wednesday and thursday and no one asked you about this? I was like what happened to the hair? The hair was so synonymous with your look. Yeah, and I see there's obviously I saw you fight. There was no hair. What happened? Uh, I cut it man. Well clearly you cut it. Yeah, I cut it like on fight week, we don't usually see a dramatic. There you are on Wednesday, right? Yeah. I think you're Empire State. Is that Empire State?

World Trade. World Trade. Same difference, kind of. And then on Thursday, we see you back, and you look like this. So what happened? I decided to cut it. Yeah, a whole different look, right? Yeah.

I really feel like I took in my name with the suit and all that, the businessman look. I feel like that's the real me right there, honestly. And honestly, I just wanted to, you know, just give y'all a different taste of myself, man, the whole 2025, man. Of course, I'm real heavy into God, first of all. And, you know, I had a dream that I cut my hair. I feel like that was like in my spirit, God telling me like, look, it's time to cut your hair. So this fight week, i just decided to cut it just let it go you had a dream on fight week or prior well prior wow it was probably like honestly

it was probably like two years ago and that dream just stuck with me i was on the plane flying i fell asleep i was dreaming and i just felt like god was like look it's time to cut your hair so it took me two years to actually do it but i did it and and were you always planning to do it midweek no honestly like um my last fight was november 8th when i knocked out gustavo lemos so um i didn't really get a haircut like since that so i'm in camp and i'm just like yo i need a haircut like what i'm gonna do with my hair i don't got no stylists or nothing and i'm like man it's probably just time for me to just cut it off so in camp i really made my mind up like next time i get a haircut i'm like man it's probably just time for me to just cut it off so in camp i really made

my mind up like next time i get a haircut i'm gonna cut my hair off what did that feel like that's like a big thing i mean that's years right yeah i always grew my hair since 2020 so what 2025 with five years yeah so i've been growing my hair since then and i mean when i cut it i felt good about it i felt great i love my fro you know what i'm saying It's just It's how I came into the game It's how I came into the sport And honestly How I grew up Was always with a fro

So it wasn't really Nothing for me Just to cut it off And just go back To my old look Okay And fighting on Friday Did you feel any different

Like not having all that On your head Yes Yeah Honestly yes Because you know When you get your hair Braided and stuff like that

Like into a style It would be tight Yeah And like honestly You can't really sleep At night time Like your head's so tight Honestly, yes, because, you know, we get your hair braided and stuff like that, like it's a style. It would be tight. Yeah. And like, honestly, you can't really sleep at nighttime. Like your head is so tight. Wow. And the style of your hair is, and you can't even lay on your head how you want to.

Yeah. It's different. So honestly, shoot, I slept better without my hair. Okay. So you're not going back to that? No, I don't think so. Okay. Maybe one day.

I don't know. I don't think so. The only thing i was thinking about was we've often seen people cut their hair during fight week when they need to make weight and so that was the only thing that i was thinking about did you feel like you had to do that but i had nothing to do with the weight no i had nothing to do with weight okay all with my religion for sure yeah and you're always i mean i i heard you say that like you went into the or maybe it was in this camp because you fought in november you come back like you you pretty much started camp in shape right yeah you didn't really get big so sure it didn't seem like

that would be an issue like you you were like at like 145 or something to start uh to for camp yeah shoot i was probably yeah probably like 144 okay so you're pretty you're pretty damn lean yeah i was already yeah for sure i was telling bowman like because we our training camps be like super intense so of course I came into training camp In shape So I'm like Bomek Let's not be

Let's keep the intensity But let's not do too much Cause I'm already in shape You know You don't want to over train Right What a freaking week For you though

Like we start over there And it's It's a little bit tense With the With the belt You're touching the belt And then later that day We see the

The tweet Yeah About the bananas And the watermelon Which is just like Mind blowing Yeah I don't know what's up

With these top rank events Here's the tweet from you I mean we had Sandy Ryan get a A paint can Thrown at her Right It's something about

When you come to Manhattan Yeah Some drama And stuff like that Right It's crazy Then you get this Yeah

Then it got intense At the Thursday presser Where you're like In his face Calling him a racist all that stuff yeah and then at the friday weigh-ins he pushes you right there's a lot of shit to handle right yeah i feel like man my past two main events man my fight week's been amazing honestly not just about the fight the fight weeks the build up to the fight they actually been real interesting and you know this one's been different you know because it was like questions are like who did the banana and watermelon you know races gesture who did it and you know him actually pushing me off stage was like a wow we expect him to even do something like that so like this week definitely been like

ups and downs and stuff like that it been it be fun man honestly like when i go back and think about it it's like dang like that's what make boxing boxing like boxing is about not just a fight night but the storyline behind it most of the time the drama behind it and everything that happened leading up to this fight was just natural it wasn't nothing planned out like even the first time we went to the world trade center and um i was getting his face and talking trash i didn't plan that out it just naturally came out of me when i seen him with my belt i'm like oh i see something i like hold on let me grab that i see something i like so he looking at me he laughing and stuff like that it's like he looking like more so humble but i'm the loud one i'm like presenting myself like yeah i'm like this is mine you know so everything would just be so

natural so energetic man and fight night man it just transferred over okay so have you determined who did the the watermelon banana thing do you know who it is honestly at first i really was set on baranchik team just because how the note was written out it wasn't like it was broken english and also at the end of it it said business womanwoman. Yeah. And Berantia had called me that. Right. But when T.O. made that video, he kind of exposed himself. You know, when T.O. made the video, you know, he was eating a banana. This one right here.

Right. He was eating a banana. And then he was already on Twitter, like, saying racist stuff, like, you know, whichever monkey want to catch the banana first, stuff like that on Twitter. So against, well, talking about, you know, other fighters. So when he made the video, man, it kind of just made sense that, man, T.O., you did it, man. And my team came, we was all talking about it. It was like, man, it was T.O. He's just trying to knock you off your pivot at your highest moment right now. He know he don't have nothing going on right now. He's really irrelevant right now. And Keyshawn, you're the guy right now. So he just trying to knock you off your pivot at your highest moment right now. He know he don't have nothing going on right now. He's really irrelevant right now. And Keyshawn, you're the guy right now.

So he just trying to knock you off your moment and actually get some attention from it. And which he did. He got some attention from it. But at the end of the day, you know, people don't take racism well. That's not the good kind of attention that you want. It really kind of hurt him in my opinion. And so why do you think he was trying to, if it is in fact him who did it, why do you think he was trying to mess with you on fight week?

You're not fighting his guy. Honestly, I can't wrap my head around that, man. T.O. do a lot of crazy stuff, a lot of things that's left field that people don't understand. And that's one of them. You know, I haven't called T.O. out. I haven't talked to T.O. or nothing like that with T.O. since last year when I was on his undercard. You know what I'm saying? Last February, actually.

So I don't know why he do stuff like that or did that per se. You know what I'm saying? It's just, I guess that's who he is. He's weird. Okay, so you didn't mention him. And right now you're not even in the same weight class, right? Correct. And so does this change things?

If you do, in fact, think that it's him, you're the champ at 35. He's fighting above you. Are your sights now set on him? Do you need to settle something with him or not really? Well, I'm not. At the end of the day, like you said, I'm a world champion at the end of the day. So world champs don't go chasing. People come chasing after world champs.

And clearly that's what Tio is doing right now. He's chasing after me. If he felt like I was not a threat or he felt like I wasn't making no noise, he would never went out of his way, bought some bananas in the watermill and had them delivered to my room. So clearly he's chasing after me right now. So there's no point of getting out of my lane that I created for myself to go jump at his at 140. Now, if we was in the same weight class, then yes, it would make more sense. But we're not even the same weight class right now.

And I feel like I still want to settle something at 135. That's a bigger name to Tio Fimo Lopez. Yes. And I'll ask you about that in a moment. But you were clearly fired up on Thursday after all this. You got in Sergey's face. You called him a racist and all that. Yeah.

And you were a big favorite going into this fight. But I was wondering, sometimes when someone fights emotionally and is fired up, then you get pushed, if that gets you off your game. How did you allow all that not to get you off your game? Well, the great ones can perform under any circumstances. And I've been telling y'all every single time I fight, I'm going to show y'all how great I am. Because the boxing world and the castles don't really know how great I am. They don't know how good I actually am.

I do. You know, 13, 14, 13, though, with nine knockouts. 13, though, with nine knockouts 13 though with nine knockouts man though i'm a world champion and i handled that guy with ease there was nothing in there that he that could you know knock me off my pivot you understand what i'm saying so um each fight i'm gonna continue to show you how good i actually am how great i'm going to become um i'm gonna definitely mark my name in this sport for sure okay Okay, so you weren't emotional on Friday night? I wasn't emotional, man. All them antics and

stuff like that, like, I'm a guy that comes from, like, mental struggles, for real. I'm a guy that comes from the mental home. I'm a guy that used to harm myself. I'm a guy that used to take medication every single day just to get through the day. Prescriptions that the doctors gave me that Keyshawn, you need this type stuff.

The doctors actually told me I was going to be on that medication for about eight months in that time frame. And I honestly got off it on four months. You know what I'm saying? And I'm a guy that really just went through a lot of tough times mentally. And this was before I even got on the Olympic team and went to the Olympics. This was before everybody knew me. This was before I even got on the Olympic team and went to the Olympics. This was before everybody knew me. This was before anything kicked off and I feel like God, you know,

you lose yourself to find yourself again. So I feel like God put me through that storm before he bring me to the sunshine. So I appreciate you bringing that up and I know you've talked about your background, your history. It's very inspiring to hear you talk about it and so I hope you don't mind if I ask you about it, because I know it's probably a sensitive topic, but perhaps for my audience, they may not be as well-versed. And so

when did this all start, your struggles? Because I know your home life, your parents, it was tough to grow up in that environment. Right, for sure. Well, coming from Norfolk, Virginia, you see and you get into a lot of things honestly and when my mental health actually started to kick off was when my grandma had died honestly i was in the ninth grade um so that's like 13 14 years old something like that and um it was just times like i wake up because we all was living in this under the same roof under my mother's house. My grandmother lived with my mother. So she didn't even have her own spot, for real. She was working in an apartment.

My grandma was working in an apartment complex, cleaning up apartment complexes. Basically like homekeeping. So when she had passed, she was staying in the next room over. And it was like a lot of times I wake up in the morning and I run in there like, grandma. And she not even there no more. You know, like 14 years old, you don't really know how to cope with stuff like that, you know. And we grew up in a house where we didn't talk about things, neither. We just dealt with our things how we knew how to, you know. So that was like number one. And then number two, my big brother, Kelvin Davis, he had left boxing at the time. And at the time, Kelvin was the one that was going to do the Olympics and do and be the guy that I am right now.

He was supposed to be that he was supposed to be the one kicking down the door. And that's my oldest brother. You know what I'm saying? So I'm looking at him like like a father figure for real. You know, so when he left boxing, he left the house as well. And I ain't know how to deal with that neither. I'm like, damn, like, so what about boxing? What about this? What about this? Damn, grandma.

Like, it was just a lot that fell on me in my spirit. I feel like God was telling me, Keisha, either you're going to stop boxing and Keon, your younger brother, going to stop boxing with you or you're going to carry this torch. And of course, I decided to carry it on. But in that moment, I just didn't know how to deal

with my personal life. And so, I've also heard you talk about your parents were fighting a lot in front of you, right? For sure. So did you have a relationship with your dad?

In the beginning, yeah, he was in my life, I would say all the way up up to I was probably like five, six, seven years old. Oh, wow, okay. Something like that. Yeah, they used to fight a lot, but it wasn't like no abuse going on, honestly. It wasn't like my mother was getting abused or my father was getting abused. It was just arguments a lot of times.

My dad was a street guy, honestly. He was deep in the streets for sure so of course that's gonna come with arguments and disagreements you know my mother was a hard-working mother and she that's all she was was a mother that knew how to work hard so um they definitely disagreed on a lot and stuff like that but you know it was never no abuse or nothing like that my father always taught the things that when he wasn't around he always taught like his his sons to always respect people and never to hit no woman always respect people and never to hit no woman he taught us mannerisms and all that type stuff so he definitely installed a lot into us before he left but he just wasn't you know there for a lot of the time do you have any

relationship with him now yeah i got some i got a relationship with him um he came to my last fight gustavo limo's fight he came to my last fight and stuff like that um i talked to him time to time um actually his his mother my my nana calling my nana and my grandfather he's 96 years old um i have great relationships with him like i could facetime her right now and she'll pick up the phone she'd be she 80 something almost 90 years old she'd be texting me and sending me emojis and stuff like that i'm like nana how do you even know how to send emojis like for real but um i'm definitely close like with his parents for sure and a lot of times when i see them i go see him as well uh is that the nana who you gave the flowers to after your last fight right exactly okay yeah so she was there this is it right here you had the this this is in in norfolk right now

this was um was it prior to this was in new jersey okay this was in summer it's crazy because this was actually like this was my toughest fight to date in the in professional boxing that's definitely my toughest fight to date and for her to see that person like in person i can't imagine how she was feeling because she at home she don't be watching the screen like she be you know she be hiding and stuff like that so that fight right there when i was actually i was fighting they want no boxing match we was fighting in there picking each other up slamming each other down he hit me in my back i'm hitting his back i'm hitting him after the bell he hit me after the bit like we was in there just fighting, no respect type of fight. And for her to actually be there and witness that and not have to get walked out, like, my nana tough.

For real. She tough. Would she come back? Or is she, after that one thing, I'm done? Look, she always be like, yeah, I'm coming to the next fight. I'm coming to the next fight. But when time comes, she like, oh, well, da, da, da. So I think she would come back, but it's just going to be on her time.

So going back to your childhood, I've heard you talk about going to the mental hospital, right? How do you go from the kid who's, you know, your brother's out of boxing, you're not sure where to go, to that? A lot of kids feel stressed. But that's a big bridge that you had to cross to get there. And I've heard you tell the story about being in the ambulance for like three, four hours from your hometown to where you were going. And you were looking at the lights the whole time. Like this is intense stuff for a young man. How did that happen?

Shoot, man. How did that happen? So, honestly, my counselor, and I seen her this fight, and I didn't even know she was there. Her name is Miss Terry. She was at the one in New York. Yes. She came down. Yes, I took a picture with her and stuff. Amazing.

I didn't even know she was there. We almost both started crying. It was a touchy moment. But my counselor, she was just she was just like day after day. Because I moved from Norfolk, Virginia, where I'm from, to Alexandria, Virginia, to train alongside Shakur Stevenson. At that time, he was going to the Olympics. So I wanted to be alongside him.

And he invited me out there. We was getting close around that time. So I made that move. So I had to go to school my 12th grade year. So I was trying to do homeschool, end up doing homeschool, end up doing school. And within that move, I honestly was like harming myself before I even moved to Alexandria. So I brought them problems from Norfolk to Alexandria. And shoot, I remember my first day of school in Alexandria, West Potomac High School.

I walked out of school. I just couldn't take it. I was just overwhelmed. I had a lot of anxiety. I was just too overwhelmed. I couldn't take it. I walked out of school. I remember calling my mom like, I can't do this. I just want to go back home. We're just going to figure it out in Norfolk. I just can't. I cannot do it. I'm crying. I'm bawling. I'm lost, for real, 18 years old. So long story short, she get my head back on track. I'm going. I'm bawling. I'm lost for real. 18 years old. So long story short, she get my head back on track. I'm going to school day after day. I'm getting close to Miss Terry, my counselor. And she just talking to me like, Keyshawn, what is wrong with you? Day after day, she asking me.

So one day I just sat in her office and I just started letting it all out, like crying, just telling her what is wrong with me, what I done to myself and all that. So me, at that time, I think I'm making a mistake because she told me, well, you know I got to tell your sister, right? I was like, oh, my gosh, why are you going to tell her that? I don't want her to know that. Only person I know is Keyon, my little brother. So she said, I got to, Keyshawn, you don't mind her. So I'm'm like all right

whatever just tell her so she told my sister my sister had no idea i was going through that and doing that to myself telling my mother um long story short like like a week later miss terry said we're gonna get you evaluated so it was like right after school um i left i probably got out of school like at 2 15 something like that right after school, I just go straight to a hospital where they evaluate you at. And I'm just thinking it's going to be like an in and out process, like an hour evaluation. Like, no, I'm taking my clothes off. I'm checking into the hospital. I'm like, damn, all this for evaluation?

So they're asking me questions about, you know, did you ever harm yourself? What you think about what happened in the past? Like real, real deep questions that I'm in a position. I'm like, man, I might as well just answer it now because I used to lie to people. I might as well just be truthful now. I'm in it now. And I know these people at the end of the day just trying to help me. So I'm answering the questions and stuff.

And when I'm in the hospital, it's been like two hours. They've been evaluating me. I get a phone call on the hospital from my mother. My mother said, Keshon, she crying. So I'm like, hello? She's like, Keshon, I got to tell you something. I kind of just made a gesture like, all right, what now? She said, they're going to have to take you to the mental home.

I said, what? She said, Keshon, Kesh the mental home I said what She said Kishon Kishon Cause I used to get real real mad She said Kishon Kishon Don't get mad Please don't get mad You only gonna be there For about one or two days But they gotta take you there

Just to make sure You don't continue To hurt yourself And you don't do nothing else You don't wanna do this And that third I'm just not accepting it I'm like man

Mom ain't nothing wrong with me I just wanna go home I'm thinking I'm coming not accepting it. I'm like, man, mom, there ain't nothing wrong with me. I just want to go home. I'm thinking I'm coming here and going back home. That wasn't the case. So long story short, in that hospital, I slept overnight, right? I didn't go home from 2 o'clock. I stayed there. I was eating there.

My sister and my brother, Keon, was there with me all day. And the next morning, I woke up. It was probably like 5.45 in the morning. I remember this shit. It was like 5.45 in the morning, for real. And I got woken up by the ambulance and the stretcher in front of my face. And I jumped a little bit. It was like, Keishon, it's time to go. I'm like, damn. But before we even got there before i even got there though my mother had asked me do i want to go to a mental home in alexandria virginia or do i want to go there in hampton virginia basically closer to norfolk so she's thinking

my family can get to me so i'm like of course hampton so the ambulance and the stretcher had to transport me from Alexandria to Hampton, Virginia, which is about a three-hour drive. But what messed me up for real was because I didn't know I had to get transferred over, strapped down with my arms like this, legs together, and they putting straps on me to where I can't even move. Only thing I can move is my head. Sirens going off because I guess it's an emergency transportation. Sirens going off the entire time. So I'm just hearing and seeing the lights of the sirens just going off.

That's the only thing I can just even think about. It's too loud for me to even think. Not only that, I'm thinking about what it's about to be like in this mental home not even knowing that the day prior i went to school thinking i might just come back home you feel me yeah i get transported there man um they telling me take all the strings out my my hoodies and my sweatpants and they give me some slippers, the thong slippers and stuff like that. I'm looking around being real observant. I'm seeing, like, kids in there younger than me sitting down in the classroom.

I'm like, this shit looks weird. It looks different. It almost looks like a kid jail, something like that. But I get there, and I talk to my mother. So I'm like, Ma, how long do I gotta be in here No she didn't even tell me As I'm checking in I asked the people at the front desk

I said So how long y'all think I'm gonna have to be in here They said oh probably about 10 days minimum I said 10 fucking days I said oh hell I started like snapping I started like getting real rambunctious They're like no no you gotta chill You gotta chill They gonna keep you in here longer They keep you in here longer days, I said, oh, hey, I started, like, snapping, I started, like, getting real rambunctious,

they're like, no, no, you gotta chill, you gotta chill, they're gonna keep you in here longer, they keep you in here longer, I'm like, y'all gonna do what, they said, call his mama, I said, ma, what they talking about, you told me I had to be here for, like, one or two days, why I gotta be here for, like, he sure I know, but they told me something different, too, man, I don't know if I hung up on her, I just like, just let the phone drop, I'm just thinking to myself, I'm just getting my mind ready, like, they already say I'm gonna be in here longer if I snap, can't snap, I'm just like, fuck, I'm stuck, I can't, there's nothing I can do, another crazy situation, when I'm in there, I see all the kids moving like slow and shit stuff. Just they were moving real slow. So like they got to be on medication.

So like the first night I slept, like they ain't had me sleep because I'm real observant. I understand stuff without people even telling me. I'm like, oh, I knew that. So the first night I slept, I was tired as fuck. I ain't sleeping in the hospital or on the ride there. I'm tired. So when it's time to go to sleep, there's a guy sitting right outside my door. And I'm like, yo, I ain't asking why he's sitting there. I'm just like, yo, close the door.

I'm trying to go to sleep. It's bright. I can't even go to sleep. He's like, no, I got to watch you while you sleep. I'm like, what did you talk about? He said, nah, because you told us that you wanted to kill yourself and you're harming yourself. I'm like, man, I knew I should have never told y'all that. I'm like, I knew I should have never told y'all that.

Long story short, I tried to go to sleep. I didn't really sleep. So when I'm really getting into a deep sleep, right, I'm sleeping on my side. And I got my arm out like this somehow. I feel somebody doing this to my arm. I wake up and I'm about to hit this person. I'm literally about to hit this person. She was like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my.

I scared her but it's like four in the morning and i'm like what the are you doing she's like i gotta draw blood from you i said why won't you wake me up you just wake me up with a needle what are you what the fuck are you get out my room she left my room she come back i turn i turn on my on my back so she can't even pull that move again now she's trying to pull me like this on my back she's trying to pull me i look at her like you're like like bro leave before i hit you i'm not saying i'm about to hit you leave i leave she's like kishore i gotta take blood from you If you don't do it, we're going to keep you in here longer. They just keep threatening me with that.

I'm cussing this lady out. I ain't going to say it on air. I let her take a little stupid blood, and then I try to go back to sleep. It's probably about 5, 45, 6 o'clock at this point in the morning. I'm about to go back to sleep. Yo, everybody get up. Let's go. Let's go.

Everybody get up. I'm like, fuck fuck i don't get a break in here what i even think is a break wake up i see a line it's a line it's crazy like i remember this like it's yesterday it's a line at this little desk that everybody get their medicine there and all the kids they're kids i'm older than everybody in here i'm 17 the oldest you can be there is 17. So I'm at the cutoff age. It's like eight years old, eight-year-olds, five-year-olds, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds in there. And they just like zombies.

Take your medicine. Open your mouth. Ah, next. Take your medicine. Open your mouth. Ah, next. I'm looking like this shit. Like, This is crazy

Talk to my mama Keyshawn I know I told you You know I'm not gonna let them Cause she have told me this I know I told you I'm not gonna

Let them give you medication But You gotta take their medicine But she not seeing What I'm seeing though these kids look like zombies in here so all right you want me in here looking like a zombie as well that's how that's how i'm thinking at this time not right now but at this time like my you don't even see what they got going on here you just going off what they tell you of course they're gonna make this shit sound good and what bothers me honestly it's like y'all

don't even know me the first thing i want to do is give me medicine it still bothers me to this day because i know it's still happening but each day i took that medicine everybody saw the movie get out right get out when he went in the sunken place and stuff like that. Every day I took that medicine, I feel like I got farther and further away from who Keyshawn was. Seriously. And for me only being on it for four months and feeling like that, imagine these kids and people that have been on it for all their life since they was born. Eight months, a year. So when I really finally got off that medicine, it was like a reset of like,

I don't even know who I am. I don't even know how to talk. I don't even know how to laugh. I don't even know how to smile. Who is Keyshawn? Why, Keyshawn, what are you even doing? You want to box? But yeah, like, how good are you?

Are you even that good, honestly? I didn't know nothing about me who helped me get back to that happy spot because my little brother was honestly he was a baby at that time honestly he ain't who he ain't the man he is was now like he he a real now but back then he was a baby and he looked at me as a big brother like how i looked at my big brother so my big brother installed keshawn davis back into back into me keshawn we come from norfolk bro we do this like this we talk like this like you don't remember that shit like you don't remember how we grew up and what's wrong with you he talking to me like that showing me tough love to remember like also this is how we talk we thought awesome nah bro it's like this and we gonna he's like no bro it's this and that like i'm like damn damn i

did i did i did used to talk like that i did used to act like that i literally had to refine my my entire self bro damn i appreciate you sharing all of that. I'm sure it's not easy. Can I just ask, how long were you there for? I ended up being there for seven days. It's crazy. I got out on Halloween. So each Halloween, I just like have a good little celebration.

How did you get out? Like meaning, what was the process to get you out? Did you have to show them that you were in a good spot? Yeah, definitely. I definitely had to show them I was in a good spot. So basically they gave me a seven-day period. And if they see any like me falling off track or me not cooperating with the group assignments or just any like slight different behavior, they also had to track of how I was going to take that medicine and how I was going to react to it.

If they need to up my dosage, which they did, that's what the seven days was requiring. So everything just was just a clean slate within those seven days.

And how long did you stay on the medication for? For four months. And how did you get off that? I told my mother because she had moved out to Alexandria, which is eventually,

especially after what she seen was going on with me. I told my mother one day, I was like, with us eventually, especially after what she seen was going on with me. I told my mother one day, I was like, honestly, I think I'm all right. I ain't all the way back yet, but I think I ain't going to need this medicine. So she was like, all right, we're going to try it tomorrow without it. And then the next day came, and if I remember correctly, I didn't even think twice about taking it. It wasn't like, I think I should take it.

It was like, I'm off it. Once I said I was ready to move off it, I never looked back to taking that medication again. And your brothers, and you have one sister? I have two sisters, Chantel and Shanice. So five of you. Yes. Did they have any mental health struggles? Oh, to a certain degree, but mine was, I'm the only one that got like this deep.

Okay. For sure. And could I ask, why were you harming yourself? Shoot. I need like a, when people do things like that and take it to that degree, like it was a time, like honestly, got a friend like a real real best friend his name is stacks we call i call him the realist because he real real to me and we the same age so we get along we click you know like i said in norfolk you know people get into um certain things and stuff like that so like he had like a we like in what 11 he in 11th grade i'm in 12 like he had a gun on his dresser

it was like once i walked in the dress in the in the room in norfolk and i just like put it to my head and i was just looking at myself in the mirror like what if i pull this i might just pull it and then i heard footsteps coming towards the door and you know i'm i always i was hiding everything that i was doing so i heard her put and put the gun down, like, because I didn't want niggas to look at me like, Keisha, what the hell wrong with you? You know? I hurry up and put the gun down, and they walk in the room. It was my little brother in the stacks, and he was laughing about something. I'm like, man, what y'all laughing about?

Not knowing, like, I'm really, like, going through it at the time so like when people harm they so for the most part it's a lot of um built up things inside of them that they just don't know how to release so they need to feel something because at that point it's like everything is numb and you've been feeling numb for so long you want to feel something physically they fake laugh I'm gonna physically. They fake laugh. I'm going to say we. We fake laugh. We fake smile. We fake our real emotions because we don't even know what our real emotions are at this point. So the only real emotion we can get is actually doing something to ourselves so we can actually feel something.

It reminds me, there's a UFC fighter named Anthony Smith who had just lost his coach and he fought a month later. His coach died suddenly and he told his opponent in the fight, like, punch me. I want to feel something. I don't feel anything. He's been going through some stuff and that's kind of what you're saying reminds me. Like, you just want to, good or bad, you just want to feel because you're so down. That's a fact. Do you ever, have you ever felt since getting out that you were going down a bad path again, that you were losing yourself?

Honestly, when I was in there and when I got out, first thing when I was in there, I told myself, I ain't doing no crying. I ain't crying in here. You know what I'm saying? Like, it is what it is. And then when I left, when I left the mental home and also when I got off the medication, I always told myself I'm never going back here. If I feel myself ever going back, I'm going to do the things to help me not go back. So, of course, it was times where I'm going through it severely. Shit, this camp, call it spade to spade, this camp, I was going through some real shit this camp, for real.

And normally I would, not normally, but i would start to feel how i used to feel but first of all i have a son so he's my light as well so and i always like i said i remember telling myself i'm never going back to where i came from because i know that feeling again so i follow god at the end of the day. I'm a real strong believer in God. Walked out to gospel music in my last fight and have God body on my shorts and have praise God on my trunks and all that type stuff. I'm a real strong believer. I praise God in the shadows and I praise God in the light. And it's most importantly to praise God when you got all this attention around you

because he ain't going to do nothing but continue to bless you because now you're helping people that are scared to come out and talk about their struggles. I'm a person that thinks about my failures, my success, and where I came from, and I talk about things like that because it's not about me. God using me to touch his people. It's about his people. I'm just an influencer. I'm the influence to help these people overcome what they got going on.

You never know whoever watching this right now, listening to this right now, this probably getting them through their day. I just had a coach this camp that was working with us at B&B, DB3. His name Charlie. He ended up killing himself. That was going That happened This camp

One of our One of our friends One of our coaches One of the guys we We laughing And have fun with He end up killing himself Like you never know

What somebody is going through Everything looks funny Everything looks funny Dandy In boxing In the ring We all smiling Making good money And going back home.

But you don't know what's really going on when somebody go back home. So I just feel like God is using me to touch a lot of people that just need that help. I'm sorry about your coach, man. That is awful. It's all good. It was more so like my guy, A.iffin um coach and um my friend his name alan alan coach but he was around all of us as a team you know what i'm saying so now i appreciate you though for sure and and when you said that this camp was a difficult one is that what you're

referring to or is it other stuff i mean no not really it was really that yes that too but it was not just pertaining to that it was a lot of stuff like family stuff you know that i ain't gonna touch on right now you know i'm saying but people lost like the the bottom line is like people go through fighters go through real shit it's not always just about boxing it's not always about how you gonna knock this guy out like we go through real shit and still i'm in training camp I still have to go train I still have to smile

In front of these cameras Doing my media workouts Like Keyshawn You gotta be your charming self You gotta just be who you are And I'm like man Honestly I don't even feel like Doing that right now

I just feel like Laying back Kicking back And just chilling But this This is the territory That come with it You know what i'm saying

and i said this before i'm gonna say it again the great ones can perform under any circumstances and you can only do that with god what would you say was the turning point for you from being that kid who was maybe you know trying to find himself and get on this good path to now recognizing that you could be a great amateur an an Olympian, and a pro? Because perhaps that kid in the hospital, this couldn't have felt further away, right? And it's not even that long ago now. You're saying 17, you're 25 now.

That's only eight years ago. So what was the turning point to actually get down this path to becoming the legend that you're becoming? Honestly, I never gave up on God. When I was in the mental hall, I was telling, this is real. Everything I was saying is not fiction. fixed this is real i believe it when i was in the mental home i was talking to god and i said honestly god i know everything i'm going through right now you put me through this for a purpose you kicking me down right now you're not gonna be down right now because i know you're gonna build me up later on i'm in a mental home talking

like this at 17 years old, coloring in my coloring book. I know it's just a process. I just got to get through this. This is going to be the hardest time. This is going to be the hardest time. I know I just got to get through it. I actually figured out I like the coloring.

I actually know how really good, and I like to write, still write to this day. So in that mental home moment, I'm knowing it's a greater outcome. But actually when I really started feeling it is when I got onto the Olympic team and I started traveling and stuff. And that's when I started to find my charisma. Because I used to be an introvert. I used to, my teammates used to love me because I used to show my teammates who I really was. And they loved me for that. But like when other people came around, somebody they know come around, I'd just be quiet.

Just like be real quiet. But as I started traveling and seeing certain countries and hearing different stories and knowing like, damn, his story way worse than yours like and look at look at him or look at her and look what they came from and this country don't pay for them to come out here they had to make their own way then if if because that country they don't have great boxes so they probably not great boxes so they didn't did all of that knowing they're not good boxers knowing they about to lose to go back home to nothing in their country their country country is poor, you know.

So it's like, damn. Keep showing me and loosen up a little bit. You not in like a real bad situation. So traveling opened my eyes. Like, damn, I'm actually in a great situation. And I'm going to make my situation even greater. And then I'm going to put my family on. And then I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do that.

But I got to do it like this. And that's when I just started really finding the business, man. Okay. And just curious, like you go onto the Olympic team and you make it to Tokyo and it's an awful scene, right? I mean, it's COVID and all that stuff. And it doesn't quite – it was good. It was actually pretty good. Why was it good?

There were no fans there. I mean, at the end of the day was that was the world we was living in yeah we was watching the nba finals there was no fans there so that was the world we was living in so that ain't throwing me off um and then you gotta realize it was my first olympics ever so i didn't have no expectations for it to be but to be great and then like the olympic village was lit like i done met so much people i don't see car if the town just sitting right there eating i don't walk past yaoming like when in the world was i ever gonna meet yaoming you know what i'm saying like there was a lot of shoot luca

dodges and it's crazy because me and luca got the same exact birthday on the same exact year february 28th 1999 and our birthday is about to come up. Yeah. And I see him in the Olympics. I see him there. I met Damian Lillard. I grew a relationship with Damian Lillard at the Olympics. So, man, the Olympics to me was lit. Probably because it was just my first time.

Okay. Fair enough. My question was it didn't quite pan out the way you wanted it to. Okay. I know you have the Tokyo tattoo on your right or left side. Left. Left side. When you think back on it, clearly, you kind of answered the question.

You think back with good feelings and thoughts. Despite it didn't kind of end up the way you wanted it to, there's no sort of like bad thoughts when you think of the Olympics? Man, no, sir. Man, I love the Olympics. That whole experience was crazy. That whole experience was just like take me back to the Olympics. That was outside of my homecoming, not going to lie.

The Olympics was the best boxing moment I ever had for sure. That two weeks I was in the Olympic Village and seeing all athletes in all different sports, all winning gold medals, silver medals, bronze medals medalists, or just being an Olympian. Everybody just so excited and happy. The energy there is indescribable. Y'all just got to be there to witness it. It's definitely indescribable. And, man, just take me back.

Just take me back for sure. There's a great story there with you and Andy Cruz, right? You know this. I saw you guys at the fight when he fought. You didn't really want to talk to him very much it was sort of like lebron and uh and uh jalen brown yesterday do you see that clip when lebron goes into the locker room and he gives like he daps everyone up and jalen brown he just kind of like walked right by him everyone's wondering what's going on there but you and andy

cruz there's i mean there's there's a history there between you guys are we are we getting closer to that one or do you think it has to happen Like way down the line I think he's just not ready yet What's going on here He says hi to everyone You have no interest in saying You don't even want to give him a high five You just give him a pound

He's a little bro for real At the end of the day He's got a lot of grooming to do in this sport He was a phenomenal amateur And I said this plenty of times. I said, him and Lomachenko was one of the two best amateurs I ever seen. I gave him his flowers for being a great amateur. But when it just comes to the sport of boxing and being a professional,

I'm great at that. You don't think he is? I'm great. I'm a great fighter, period. He a great amateur fighter. See, he had a great amateur style there's different styles he had a great amateur style and he did good at that i had a great professional style that knew how to still fight amateur so it's definitely two different styles of more i'm more pro and more amateur and of course you know when you're from cuba and you can't go professional They don't have professional boxing over there

They can't even leave their country over there Unless it's for work Which he does He was working on their team So when an amateur system knows this And you have one guy that's living in America And you know he can go right off to the sunset And be a professional

And then you got another guy That's an amateur And all he have is amateur, and our fights are always, like, close. You're going to give it to the guy that's going to stay amateur because he's going to promote your events. He's the star. So you're going to keep promoting your star rather than, okay, well, yeah, you good, Keyshawn, but we got to make you lose every time

because at the end of the day, we know you're going to go pro anyways and forget about us amateurs. So I feel like, you know know it's all an amateur system as a system at the end of the day and i honestly feel like you know that's a big part of the reason why they thinking about you know taking boxing at 2028 but is this not one that you want to get back on the on the professional stage eventually like i'm the type of person i don't hold grudges bro like and bro at the end of the day i love god the most my son and then my family and then boxing so i'm not like bro bro i know things is bigger than boxing at the end of the day so it's not like a competitor right no no i'm saying like this is what i'm trying to say when the time is right i will fight this man but i'm not thinking about what happened in the amateur days and like oh i gotta get this

back because on paper he beat me this amount of times when i know he didn't beat me but he beat me this amount of times i'm i gotta get this back man whatever i lost that much time it is it is look what's going on now like let's talk about nowadays and what's going on when the time is right i would love to fight him just to shut everybody up that's why i would love to fight him eddie hearn not not because you know he beat me like i got a beef with him nah i just want to shut everybody up and live up to what I've been saying. I will knock him out when I do fight him in the professional ranks. I'm going to mention this too. I'm a big 135, so I'm not going to be at 35 for too, too much longer.

I'm going to fight him before I move up to 140. Okay. So it's probably in the next couple years, right? Yes, sir. Do you get annoyed when Eddie tries to say that you don't want to fight and all that? No. Eddie Hearns is a great promoter yeah he's just promoting you know and i bet he's telling bro eddie cruz eddie cruz is only bringing up my name like he don't bring up nobody else but me you know so he's he's building his he built he's building his career off me literally and then when he loses to me it's like then what next what you gonna do you ain't even

mentioned nobody else but eddie hirsch is telling him to do all of this for sure. And, you know, Andy Cruz, he got some charisma. So he doing it in a good way, in good fashion. Have you been impressed with him as a pro so far? You don't think his style is translated? Nah, he's still got a lot of amateur stuff. You know, he's still bouncing around the ring. Similar like Baranchik.

You know, he got a lot of amateur things. I feel like he still needs more grooming to do uh i feel like he's not you know we give him too much credit right here talking about him but i feel like he don't have a big american fan base neither you know so that fight in terms of marketing is going to be lopsided right now i feel like he needs to knock some guys out so it could so it could sell better period no i get it you know i'm saying he need to knock some guys out so it can sell better. Period. No, I get it.

You know what I'm saying? He needs to build himself up a little more. The same thing they was telling me when I was 5-0. You know, it's no different. Man, you versus Tank would be something special. And he's fighting, I know, on March 1st. And I don't want to look past Lamont Roach. But I think a lot of people think that he is going to get past him.

How realistic do you think that fight is for you in 2025? I mean, he says this is last year i don't know i don't know if you believe him oh well i don't know man you don't really know what to believe with this guy he meant him and teo is kind of like over the top but um man with tank man he's definitely i feel like he's definitely get past lamont roach but shouts out to lamont roach though i know him for sure he also a great fighter and in my opinion you know this is tank's um best opponent to this date you know but it's it's weird because you know lamont roach is a 130 pounder world champion tank fights at 135 and then he also knocks somebody out at 140 you know what i'm saying? So the last, first of all, the last world champion you fought was in 2017.

The last world champion he fought was in 2017, and that was Jose Pedraza. I just fought Jose Pedraza last year and stopped him in sixth round. But you're 30-something, you know, 28 knockouts or whatever, and the last champion you fought was in 2017 i feel like to the casuals he's been fooling the fans and i feel like at this point they ready for him to fight somebody worthy of him lamont roach he's a good opponent but he's not great for a tank simply off the fact that because he's at 130 and he'd been at 130 his entire career giovante i feel like needs to fight a real 135 pounder and i feel like

the one that's making the most noise right now is quichon the businessman davis so i'm not going to be like everyone else and ask you about your good friend shakur fighting him right but he does want that fight too he was on our show a couple weeks ago he's talking about he wants so how does that work between you two? You're both going for the same guy. I'm going to be real. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not chasing Tank.

I don't care about Tank for real. I'm 13 and 0. A lot of the world know me. And that ain't come from me fighting names. That came from me kicking ass and taking names and taking and taking belts so literally only thing i had to do is keep doing what i'm doing a giovante tank me fighting me me not fighting him is not gonna stop me continuing going to the top real talk so i'm not chasing tank let's put that out there f F Tank, for real. Tank know I want to fight him. His coach

know I want to fight him. The boxing world know I want to fight him. The question is, do Tank have the balls to fight me? So next time one of y'all, somebody interviewing him, ask him that question. Do you have the balls to fight Keyshawn? Do you want to fight Keyshawn? Why don't you want to fight Keyshawn? Why do you want to fight Keyshaore? Ask him those questions. Don't ask me because I will fight anybody, and it ain't about tank. Can I ask you, do you think he wants to fight you or, as you say, have the balls to fight you? Man, like I said, I don't know what this guy want to do. Who would have thought that he would have?

First of all, okay, he want to put out there. He fighting Lamont Roach now. He want to put out there, yo yo i tried to fight lomachenko and he ducked me no dude you ducked lomachenko about three four years ago when lomachenko was an undisputed champion and you ain't want to fight him so he went to go fight tiafimo lopez that beat him that's how that fight happened you supposed to be fight lomachenko tank you've been the face of 135 this this ain't nothing new dude you feel me he waited till lomachenko is out his prime to fight him tank do you got the balls to fight me or not yes or no we don't got i don't have to keep calling

you i don't have to keep calling you out bro shakur i don't i don't meet shakur got his own thing going on i can't talk about shakur right now but when it comes down to me i don't have to keep calling you out bro shakur i don't i don't meet shakur got his own thing going on i can't talk about shakur right now but when it comes down to me i don't have to fight this dude but i just think this dude don't want to fight me that's fair but what about loma i mean he's under the top rank umbrella but we don't really know what his future is is he maybe the strongest possibility next do you think he uh for it's really all up to lomachenko yeah like at this point uh i think he got one more fight and then he definitely retires um you know i'm saying so it's really all up to what he want to do and honestly don't nobody really know what he want to do do you want to be the guy to retire him

yes hell yeah yes like yes i want to fight everybody like you feel me i want to fight all the names you know i'm saying and then go to 140 and fight all the names there you know i'm saying starting with you know you know who i'm talking? And then go to 140 and fight all the names there. You know what I'm saying? Starting with, you know, you know who I'm talking about. But 135, I definitely got unfinished business with a couple of these guys that, you know, that I feel like we can get in the ring at 135 before I even go to 140. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like even Isaac Cruz would be lovely. That's going to be a major event.

You know, of course, a Gervante, that would be a major event. And then, you know, Andy Cruz, as, you know, these years play out, you know, that would be a major event. So I got unfinished business at 135 for sure. You see De La Hoya on Saturday? No, I didn't. I mean, I seen him, like, on social media and stuff. Talking about his guy, Oscar Duarte, saying you couldn't stop him and all that. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

He funny. He funny because, like, the dude, Miguel Medueno, like I said, he was one of my hardest opponents. What's his name, Duarte? Oscar Duarte, yeah. Oscar Duarte. Oscar Duarte, bro, that was a 10-day notice Miguel got. A 10-day notice. Bro, you better stop him.

You ain't do nothing. And I ain't see the fight but that's not impressive that's not impressive at all you know like these guys have when oscar duarte fought ryan garcia didn't oscar have a full training camp getting ready for ryan mcguire had a full training camp getting ready for me bro he got he got a 10 day notice so you know oscar de la joya he just being a promoter but i'm a guy that's just always going to state the facts um but this is what this is now like you're the guy people are going to take shots at you right yeah this is all a byproduct of how good you're doing right you're becoming america needs more people like you

american boxing needs more people like the uk kicking our ass with all these guys, with all these big fights. We need more big fights. All due respect to the theater, but we need you at the big Madison Square Garden. You know what I mean? I agree. I agree.

And honestly- I feel like you could be that guy. Like you said, you have the charisma, you got the fighting style, you got the finishes, you got the story that people can relate to. I'm sure at some point you're going to get tired of telling this story, but I do think it's important for you to share it yeah i feel

like you could be that guy let's be honest tank every time you talk to him it looks like he doesn't want to talk to anyone yeah he would never sit here for an hour to i would love to talk to him but like he just doesn't do that sort of thing and so it's hard to get connected to him we have some people but there's no one really i feel like flying that flag right now yeah terrence is doing his thing but you know how much longer does he have, right? Yeah, for sure. And again, man, I'm just a person that, of course, I believe in God, so I'm going to always tell my story and just say how I feel, you know, authentic.

Like, I'm authentic, you know what I'm saying? I think that's why the people believe in me so much. Just like the MSG. Like, the MSG told Top Rank we need to have Keyshawn Davis back back that's telling me oh we taking it to the arena this time you know you gotta crawl before you walk you know what i'm saying and honestly the promotion was surprised that you know we had that much people in the theater because i never headlined in new york ever so you don't know what to expect they're super surprised that we did that at the Scopes, sold out 10,000 fans.

So I guess DB3, Davis Brothers, we just going to keep surprising these guys, man, whether it is our promotion, whether it is ESPN, whether it's the fighters, the fans, the casuals, the boxers. Man, it don't matter. Davis Brothers is here to take over, honestly. It's not just about me. It's about all three of us for sure.

How are you dealing with all this? It's all very fresh now. Friday just happened happened but it feels like you leveled up is it is it is it tough i mean no like no it's it's supposed to happen it's covered the territory like i'm a world champion now you know what i'm saying this ain't nothing this is not the city man this is the world yeah you know what i'm saying so if they're not calling me out then i ain't making no noise if nobody don't want to fight me Then I don't have a big enough name For us to make some money So we can go fight

At the end of the day That's what these fighters want We want to get paid What we do is tough This is not easy It's not easy to go in training camp Day after day Sparring a lot

12 rounds Then going to fight In front of millions of people That's not easy to do We want to get paid So they looking at me like a dollar this is the next guy this is the next star all these celebrities behind me all these platforms are pushing me because we all believe in the same thing kishan is the new narrative nowadays and that's how it's supposed to be let's go back to my mental home days god put me through all of that hardship, getting my mental ready, breaking myself down so I could be prepared for stuff like this.

And I am. Okay. Just a couple more to let you go. Having your son there on Friday, what was that like? Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

Like, amazing. I ain't gonna lie. It felt like we did it together for sure. He didn't get to come to my last fight because he was just too too young how old is he oh he five months there he is right there what a snap looking at him playing with that belt after the fight and shouts out my boy austin taking that that's got to be surreal right and he just looking at it like he know what it is like he go man it means so much to me now but i know when he get older and see

that picture and see how much i was mentioning him and talking about him and praising him you know and believing in god as well like it's gonna mean even more to him probably would you want him to be a fighter too no not at all i will like if you want to be involved in boxing i would want him to be like a promoter I won't even want him To be a manager bro Cause you know That comes with too much You know

You actually gotta get To know a person It's just a lot for real I don't even have a manager For real You don't Nah Damn

I don't even have a manager Just a promoter Just a promoter And you know I got an advisor And I got a great team Bomek and the team And my brothers

You know But we don't have a manager And then like The crazy thing about it is Like me and my brothers, you know, but we don't have a manager. And then like, the crazy thing about it is like me and my advisor, we don't even have a contract set. Like we've been working

with each other, rocking out with each other for so long. We know each other's families. It's family now with me and my advisor. So like, everything around me

is just organic, for real. When do you want to return in a perfect world? When and where? When, where, and against who? I want to fight three more times this year.

Three more, wow. Like, I went three four rounds my last fight gustavo i went one full round you know what i'm saying um i had a 10 round fight and then last year february i stopped pedraza in six rounds i went five rounds so i haven't even been getting real rounds in honestly this is this full year i got one full fight in you know i'm saying i'm young 25 years old 13 and oh i want to fight three more times this year and i know that we can make it happen and i just feel like you know when we get back to the drawing boards that should be the main topic who when when will next be and then who will next be if it was up to you when is when is when if it was up to me um well, you know, ESPN, you know,

things probably about to change over here on this side of the street. So, man, shoot, late April, early May, and then shoot, let me get one more before, you know, something like July, and then maybe come back You know Probably like October, November Okay I feel like that can be done And who's the one in April?

Who's the opponent? Honestly you wanna know? Yeah Who do you think I'm gonna say? I want you to guess first Look I feel like Loma might be the easiest one Because he's a top rank guy

But we don't know what he want to do, though. Okay, so he's not the guy. And it can't be Tank because he's fighting in March. I want to fight Isaac Cruz. Oh, man, that would be great. Right? I feel like that would sell. I think that would sell.

And I think we'll both make some money off that at the end of the day. I think it makes sense. You know, let's be real. Like, you know, Mexicans and African-an-americans when we fight is always a mega fight yeah i'm saying and uh it's respect to that team over there it's respect over here so i think you know we can make that fight happen he probably gave tank his toughest fight of the last like five years and that was on short notice too remember because romero pulled out he stepped in i remember his game yeah i remember and as a Isaac Cruz was making noise ever since then, knocking guys out.

Had a tremendous fight, his last fight. Yeah. For like two weeks before me. Yeah, yeah. And I called him out on Twitter, and everybody was like backing it. Like, yo, focus on Baranchi. But we would love to see that fight. We would love to.

So I think that's a Las Vegas fight. Okay. And I think, shoot, even after that, depending on how, well, when it go, how I feel like it's going to go, you know, we call it pay-per-view after that fight. Okay. And your boy's fighting this weekend. Shakur, yeah. Yeah, big one for him.

Yeah. Because a lot of people have jumped off the bandwagon, right? I guess so. But this is big. I mean, Schofield probably a little, butting off, I think, maybe a little more than he can chew. But I think, to me, this is how I feel. Of all the fighters on Saturday's card, it's one of the best cards of all time. I feel like the guy, the most interesting story is how is Shakur going to look on Saturday?

I think so, too. I honestly think so. And right behind that is, like, is B-Ball going to get his get back? Sure. And there's a ton. I mean, Joseph Parker's story is incredible. There's a ton of stories. But, like, Shakur is such an enigma right now because of how the last two fights went.

Going to match room, this is his first fight fight with match room there's a lot there on his shoulders right but people got like people gotta like point out like people be people be overlooking the how real shakur is this kid kid austin was calling his name out and saying all type of things on social media shakur like all right you really think you like that i'm gonna give you a shot like who else out here is doing it at the end of the day you know what i'm saying and i feel what you're saying like you need more fighters like me that with charisma and calling guys out and willing to fight and making great fights happen and making great events happen but look what shakur actually just did He just gave a guy that probably wasn't even deserving, a guy that's probably not worthy,

but he's giving another man an opportunity to show what he's got. You know what I'm saying? I feel like that's real, bro, at the end of the day. And I respect that. Shakur could have went so many other directions, but he's like, no. He's the one that's doing his talking. I'm going to shut him up. And on Kid Austin'sin and for him just

stepping up three levels like that that speaks a lot as well so i feel like people really need to tune into this fight right here because these two fighters right here got a lot to prove yeah in that in that one little short span what 36 minutes they got a lot to prove i feel like this fight is bigger than what people is actually giving Their credit for And not me being Biased towards Shakur I just said How Kid Austin coming How Shakur coming

This fight right here Is definitely like I feel like The best fight on that card Love it Last one We were talking about this Before you came in

The stoppage was great The body shot was tremendous The little dance That you did As he was being What is that? What is the dance called? It's called the business bop.

The business bop. Okay. I said it wasn't the Dougie, but they thought that I was going to say the Dougie to you. I'm not that old, but it's called the business bop. Is that your own? Here, this is the stoppage right here. Yeah. Right to the body.

Bam. You freaking hurt him. And you knew it was done at this point, right? Yeah. I knew he wasn't getting up right here. I ain't going to lie. I was waving my arms. Yeah, you were.

People love that dance, man. You did it back in November, too. Yeah, it's funny. I was on live. I was on live. And I was like, man, if I knock Gustavo out, I'm going to hit this dance right here. And I was hitting it. I was hitting it.

So I knocked Gustavo out, and I really hit it. So that joint went viral, it went viral. You feel me? So even after the fight, people like, man, when you knock this guy out, you got to hit the same dance. I'm like, dang, people really like that dance. It's good. It's your thing.

So I guess I got to keep doing it now, man. Well, I hope we get to see it for many more years to come. Many more fights. You're a delight, man. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for sharing your story with us and can't wait to see what you do.

It's really fun. I think you're the future face of American boxing No doubt So keep it up We're going to take a quick break Here's my conversation with Dean Thomas from last week And we'll be back with Song Yedong, don't go anywhere Alright That was my conversation with Dean Thomas from last week

That was a fun one Great stuff from Dean And he had some really strong things to say strong things to say post-Sydney Card. What about Keyshawn Davis? What a superstar he is and will become. The businessman. Loved hearing about his story. How could you not think that it's inspirational? He's been through so much and it feels like he has the world at his fingertips now uh 25 14 pro fights just won his first belt and starting to become in that conversation for uh some really big fights at 135 and 140 pounds so great stuff there from uh kishan i appreciate him coming by and i'm looking forward to potentially three fights in 2025. I love these active fighters.

This is great. Now, in about 30 minutes, we're going to be joined. Roman's kind of chilling back here. We're going to be joined by Dominic Cruz. He'll be our last interview of the day. Tomorrow, we're going to be joined by Jared Cannoneer, George Lockhart Strength and conditioning coach

Nutritionist coach Trainer to the stars And he's in Riyadh with Joseph Parker He's worked with the likes of Conor McGregor And Tyson Fury of course Many many others And maybe one other big guest But we'll leave it at that.

Coming up in a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by Yedong Song, who is headlining the UFC Seattle card that's going down this Saturday. What a Saturday we have ahead of us with UFC Seattle in the evening, and then in the afternoon, the mega card to end all mega cards in Riyadh,

of course, headlined by Arthur Betterbia versus Dimitri Bivol 2, Daniel Dubois against Joseph Parker, Shakur Stevenson going up against Floyd Schofield, Virgil Ortiz against Israel Majermov, Callum Smith against Joshua Boazzi, Hamza Sheraz against Carlos Adamez. I think that's the whole card.

It's an incredible card. We'll talk more about that on Tuesday's episode of Arial Night Day. But without further ado, let us say hello to the man who will be headlining this massive card in Seattle against the Olympian, one Henry Cejudo.

There he is, Yedong Song. Hello, my friend. How are you? Hi, Ariel. how are you? I'm doing well, it's great to talk to you And I understand, this time, no translator I have my translator here Just in case

You don't need it, you're doing fantastic Very, very good Have you been practicing your English? Recently not But i'm still learning okay well being in america being around your teammates hearing everyone at the gym it probably helps right oh yes for sure by the way the the hair no no more blonde what happened What happened? It's too complicated. I don't like it anymore. You had enough? Yeah.

You had enough. No more. Now you want to be serious. Yes. So we haven't seen you since last March, right? Was your last fight. Why were you away for almost a year? It's been a long time. is long story you know you I see offered me to fight a hungry like in September last

year but he got injured and then us USA out offered me to fight in Macau and no one want me fight there. And then USA offered me to fight Umar, you know. Eventually he fought Murad. That's the story. Wow. So you weren't injured? Me? Like it was an injury.

It was just you couldn't find an opponent No, no, no Henry was injured So one year you didn't fight Yeah, I was in camp all the time Wow Was that difficult? Yeah, for me it's very difficult

The man side It's so boring Were you getting frustrated? Yes And so why didn't you getting frustrated? Yes. And so, why didn't you just fight someone else? Why did you

not fight for a year waiting for these names? No, USA don't give me anyone. Ah. I told USA I won't fight anybody. No.

Even Unranked, the opponent is okay. But, no, they don't give me anyone. They want me to wait. They want you to wait. Maybe in my car you fight Henry, maybe January you fight Umar, but eventually I fight Henry this week. Yeah. But were they, is it because

they really wanted you to fight Henry? And they wanted to wait for him to get healthy? I don't know. I don't know. Did you really want to fight Henry?

Yes, I do. Yeah, I do. He's a, he's a legend in the Olympic champ when I was young and two double,

two division UFC champion. Yeah, he's a legend. I want, and the Olympic champ when I was young and two division USA champion. Yeah, he's a legend. I like the fight. Yes, I think this is a tweet from last May. I heard China's your lucky land,

Henry Cejudo. You got your Olympic gold medal in 2008. I'm inviting you to come over this year in August. Let's put a show on for the fans. This will be a real show. Stop calling out font.

That's you. Yes, that's me. And that was in May. That was put a show on for the fans. This will be a real show. Stop calling out Font. That's you. Yes, that's me. And that was in May. That was almost a year ago. Almost a year ago, yeah. Oh my gosh. I wasn't in camp since that. Oh my gosh. How did you not let your body get too tired and beat up if you're

in camp for so long with no break, no fight? Ugh. Ugh. Oh my gosh. for so long with no break, no fight? Sometimes I went to San Francisco or Lake Tahoe, but it's hard for me to keep training with no date.

Yeah. Would you like to be the one to retire Henry Cejudo? Is this what you are hoping for? Yes. I believe I will make him retired off this one. Okay. You're going to beat him up so bad. Yeah.

It's going to be one set beat up. Wait, what is he going to become? One set beat up. Okay, yes. One set beat up. Once you beat him up. And what do you think of Henry? Because some people think he's cringy, he's annoying.

Some people like him. How do you feel about Henry? He's funny. He promotes the fight. He talks a lot of trash yeah but I like him and he's a I respect him he's a legend you know yeah you think he's gonna try to use his wrestling a lot in this fight I think he's gonna try to wrestle a lot in the fight uses rest yeah I i believe he can uh uh try to wrestle me yeah i i don't believe

he he will stand stand fire with me right of course um yeah by the way there was that report that you were fighting umar in december uh what what happened with that one why did they not do that and and he fought for the belt Was there any truth to that story? So, you guys offered me to fight December, but I just recovered my shoulder injury. Like,

I don't have enough time to prepare. Like, almost like, just one, just five weeks. I don't have enough time. I say,

I can fight in January. So USAID said yes. They told me he probably can fight in January, and I'm waiting that. So eventually he told me Umar got injured. They can't fight. He can't fight. And two days later, he and Murab fight

official Northmen. That was interesting. I have no idea what happened. Wow. That is weird. Yeah, he's weird. Were you surprised that Murat beat him? Yes, I was surprised. I believe Umar can win the fight because he can wrestle, he has a hand injury in the first round or second round.

But this is MMA. Anything can happen. And what do you think? Do you think Murab fights Sean O'Malley next? I think next will be Murad versus Peter Peter Yan you know Peter right you are familiar with Peter

and so is Murad I love this guy you think Yan can beat him because the first time they fought it wasn't very close yeah well I think it's hard for Yan he he changed a lot to uh for this one you know because he's lost like he his first time he with his uh marab he's terrible yeah yeah okay so you

think this time closer um i don't know okay we'll find out Maybe next I think it will be Yan with his morale Did you train at Alpha Male for this fight again Yeah 10 months Wow And I saw on your Instagram that

You're a fan of Bruce Lee right Oh Yeah there is A museum In you're a fan of Bruce Lee, right? Oh, yeah. There is a museum in San Francisco. Yes, and you were there. Yeah, I was there. Are you going to go see, because his

cemetery is near Seattle. Are you going to go? Yeah, of course. I will pay my respects. Amazing. Have you ever been? No. Okay. First time. Are you ever been? No. Okay. Are you going to go before the fight or after the

fight? I will see. I will see. I think you should go before the

fight because it will give you inspiration, power. Yeah, sure. That was my plan, but I

don't know whether it's raining or snowing. Yeah. I also saw on your Instagram you met the famous but I don't know the weather now is raining or snowing. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I also saw on your Instagram you met the famous Kabilam. You know Kabilam?

This guy? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, this guy. This guy. This guy. You like this guy? Yeah, I met him at a party, my friend's party.

Wow. He's a nice guy you like him yeah like he it's funny but we don't have any conversation because yeah you saw many people there you saw when alex prayer did it oh yeah yes yes yes yeah yeah when i saw that i was like oh yeah Of course he's doing the Kabilan And I also saw that you were with Zion Clark Unbelievable wrestler You know Zion

We have the photo here This man Oh sorry He trained with us Like two months. What was that like, training with him? Oh, it was way different. He did some crazy things I never faced.

But it was so funny. He inspired us. After class, he speaks. He's a good man. So strong, right? His upper body strength is unbelievable. Yeah, his grip is very strong. Yeah. Did you train with him while you were training for this fight against Henry? No, no, he lived for almost two months. Okay, okay, okay, it's been two months. How do you foresee this fight against Henry going? How do you see it playing out? I don't know I you know I read fights

before fights I have a plan but when I got in the cage I I never follow my plan why

I'm getting crazy why you get crazy yeah I don't know I need to control myself the excitement gets too much yeah yeah yeah I have a lot of power

Yes What about your country woman Zhang Weili She was unbelievable Two weeks ago You saw her? Yeah of course We're proud of her

You know She's amazing She probably gave you Some inspiration too Yes She always Impressed us Yes Inspired us amazing. She probably gave you some inspiration too. Yes, she always impressed us. Well, you're doing great

as well and very happy to see you back and I'm looking forward to this fight. I think it's going to be an amazing fight. Of course. And you're going to be the one to retire Henry Cejudo. Yes, I will. Good luck to you, my friend. Thank you. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Ariel. Thank you. Good to see you. Yes, good Thank you. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Ariel. Thank you. Good to see you.

Yes. Good to see you, too, and good luck. There he is. Yedong Song headlining this event in Seattle on Saturday on ESPN. This is the lineup. Yedong Song against Henry Cejudo. Brendan Allen against Anthony Hernandez. That's a great fight at 185.

Rob Font against John Matsumoto. Tough spot for Rob Font, if I'm being honest. You go from fighting Dominic Cruz. It's tough. To a 16-0. How old is he? How old is John? Let's see.

Let's see. 25. I mean, that is... The guy's 2-0 in the UFC. He came from a legend, Comane. You're right, GC. It is tough. John Silva on the card. Alonzo Mennefield against Julius Walker. Andre Feely, always love watching him. Iwan's on the card. Ricky Simone. Modestus. Bukowskis also on there. Wow.

If you go to the bottom of tapology where it says canceled and fizzled fights, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven. 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 Caitlin Beard against Macy's Chasson it's a Barbosa Yeah that happened last week against Steve Garcia Curtis Blades About rescheduled Dominic Cruz That is tough as well

Yeah this card is taking some hits Also I don't know if anyone reported it but Michael Chiesa versus TBA got canceled as well. Oh, yeah, it never happened, right? Yeah, so he never got booked against anyone. That's a bummer. By the way, your sweatshirt reminds me.

How great was that on Saturday? I mean, that was, I got to tell you something. I got to tell you, the joy that I had watching that game, obviously it didn't work out for Canada, but you know, I'm, I'm can am at this point, so I can go both ways.

Oh, okay. We're can am now. No, no, no, no, no,

no, no, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I mean,

there, there was some, there was some, there were some, there were some, there were some, there were some, flags getting thrown into the,

I was all about Canada. when you guys went up 1-0. That's fine. We, we, we went tonight against Finland. We'll see you on Thursday. The way the NHL got it so right this

weekend and the nba got it so wrong it's one of the rare times where the nhl just kicked the nba's ass 10-7 the nba it wasn't even close for those that don't know nhl scraps its all-star game they come up with this four nations face-off. They're calling it Canada, USA, Finland, Sweden. Over a 10-day period, round-robin. The two best teams meet in the final on Thursday. The first two games in Montreal, Wednesday through Saturday. Saturday was incredible. Finland, Sweden in the afternoon. Canada-US rivalry day, unbelievable.

And then it moves to Boston tonight and then the final on Thursday and and what's been the problem with all-star games the players don't care there's no stakes no one cares it all feels very ho-hum and these dudes first game on Wednesday people are getting hurt there's checks there's there's hits. And then on Saturday, in the first 15 seconds of Canada-US, there are three fights. George St. Pierre is out there introducing the team Canada squad. Look at that. GSP rocking the beautiful pound for pound number one jersey of the tourney. Three fights. The Kachuk brothers are legends right now. Everyone's loving them. Brady and Matthew. Canada's on the ropes. Have to win tonight.

US has already punched its ticket. I actually have good news for you. Tell me. The Canada game already happened today. Did it happen? In Canada 1. Are you serious? 5-3. I thought it was tonight. Nope. Nope Nope nope nope Wait so what

Today during the day USA Sweden tonight So we've advanced You advanced Thursday Boston USA Canada rematch Yo Oh Canada's getting booed out the building

Are you serious right now? I'm dead serious I was actually super excited to go home and watch that Oh you're gonna have to Thanks for spoiling it It's like Bruce Buffer on the plane You're gonna have to get to Highland Are you fucking with me? Did it really happen?

Connor McDavid, Nathan McKinnon. Nathan McKinnon again. President's Day. Yeah, shout out. Most people aren't working. Not us, though. Not us. We're in there. Where were the updates? Empty office. Empty office. Oh my God. Canada, US. That might

be the most watched hockey game in this country since 2010. Woo, can't wait. Gold medal game. Can't wait. Do we put something on the line here? I mean, what a day Thursday's going to be. We've got one championship in the morning, we've got boys in the back in the afternoon,

we've got Canada, USA, I mean, what a day. And let me tell you something, if you guys boo our anthem, I swear to God. It's getting booed. From my couch in my living room. And I may be the biggest supporter of O Canada Especially when it's happening in a Canadian arena Any hockey game I go to I take my hat off and put a hand over my heart for O Canada as well

But come Thursday Boo birds are going to be flying from my couch Yeah you talk about Someone tweeted this like The NHL does everything in its power to not be political And they just backdoored their way in some way somehow into the most politically charged sporting rivalry on the planet right now maybe not on the planet but certainly like all of a sudden with all this stuff going on with the 51st uh state and

trump and the tariffs and all this and you get canada usa on this stage a table setter for next year's Olympics And you You mentioned the NHL All-star game I used to love watching it Didn't watch one second Of it this weekend

I've watched both NBA You mean NBA Yeah Used to love the NBA All-star game Didn't watch a second of it Let me tell you something

Can't wait for Thursday I was enraged Watching yesterday That was The worst All-star game of all time It was rock bottom I don't know

Who thought It was a good idea to have more Kevin Hart airtime than Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson played for eight minutes and I was okay with them changing the format. Draymond Green was mad that the Rising Stars got the play in the Sunday. It's a little bit weird if I'm being honest. Like that should be a privilege.

You should earn that, but fine. It tied into Friday's Rising Stars game, all that. But they kept going to the fucking talking and the kevin hart tnt it's time for a change thank god nbc is taking over and i don't know how they change this i don't know if they will the saturday the saturday sucked too you got wimby who's like as pure of a soul as possible being being like poisoned by Chris Paul, ruining that skills challenge. Three point was fine,

but all of a sudden we're living in an era where everyone's chucking threes and all of a sudden these guys get to the three point challenge. They can't hit a three to make their life. They're getting 14s and 13s. They can't hit threes. They can't even get to the 20s.

And then the dunk contest. We don't know any of these guys. A G leaguer who's played in one game this season in the NBA wins. Yo, put some respect. We don't know any of these guys. A G-leaguer who's played in one game this season in the NBA wins. Yo, put some respect on that. That ain't right. It's not the G-league dunk contest. It's not a G-league dunk contest.

It's the NBA dunk contest. What are we, taking ringers off the street? We're the and one boys. Like, bring them on if we're going to do that. And then you got no one playing. You got immediately afterwards, you got all the stars saying, I might have to join next year you ain't joining we don't believe you john moran we don't believe you yannis we don't believe

you lebron we never believed you and then and then we get to sunday lebron pulls out the night of like what what what was he doing this weekend that he got hurt didn't even change the uni for the didn't change the uni was whack ass shit it was shit. It was whack. It was so whack. And I'm no LeBron hater, but the whole thing was whack. The freaking game sucked. No one cared. They take so many damn breaks. Kevin Hart isn't funny.

He's cracking all these jokes. My kids are watching. They're like, what's a porn director? Like, what the fuck, man? What was that? That was an embarrassment. That was an embarrassment. I didn't watch it, so I missed this porn director thing.

I don't know what this is in reference to old Daytona 500, William Byron plus 17. Nah, that ended before. No excuse. That ended before. Daytona 500? I'm sorry. I guess you weren't watching. What time did it end?

Rain delay didn't end until 945. Yeah. By the way, what day happened at 945? It was the first. I kid you not, 830 was the first tip. They stopped at 905. The next game started at 9.40. You could have been watching Fox the entire time.

Green-white checkered around 9.40, a little overtime. William Byron comes out of the dust. I wish I was watching it. It's a great time, man. All-American race. All-American weekend. A little USA hockey, a little Daytona 500. We'll be good next year.

Don't worry. Next year, it's getting saved. I don't know how they save it. One-on-one. They're going to do one-on-one. And then egos are on the line. I pulled up the 2001 game and showed it to my kids. I was like, look at this.

Look at AI. Look at freaking – look at Kobe. Do you remember that game in Washington when the East came back down 21 points? Is that the Marbury? Marbury and Ray Allen and AI and Allen Houston and Latrell Sprewell. That's never coming back. I was like, look at this. They were like, wow, look at this defense that they're playing. Yeah, they don't care

anymore. They ruined it. It was one of my favorite. People were like, hey, Boomer, you never had a party. I swear to God, I used to have parties. I used to print out things. I used to have all my friends. I used to have all my friends pick the winner. We had a party when Vince Carter, because the Raptors were being shown on a big stage. Wow, this is so cool for Canada. Vince was in it. Tracy was in it. When I was in the fifth grade, 1993, I loved Harold Minor of the Miami Heat. They called him Baby Jordan of USC. I asked my teacher if at lunchtime I could bring in the dunk contest I remember it, it happened in Utah and then he went back to back

In Minnesota And I said can I show this to everyone The dunk contest with Harold Miner I'll never forget, I think it was Dick Stockton of TNT said Miner is finer, that was the call And you know what we did? You guys probably Don't remember this, we wheeled in the TV

On the stand, you remember that? The TV on the stand. You remember that? The TV on the stand? We wheeled it in at lunch. And I was like, guys, this is me in fifth grade telling the kids who knew nothing about basketball in Montreal, you've got to watch this. Look at this guy, baby Jordan, number 32 for the Miami. Back dunking and all this stuff. That's what it meant.

By the way, Mac McClung is as good an NBA player as Harold Miner was. Yeah, come on. You didn't throw a party, Billman. Fuck off. Fuck off. I used to love All-Star Weekend as well. It's garbage. Honestly, I didn't even watch it. I didn't even turn it on for one second. You know what hurts the most?

What hurts the most is my kids are my age, 93 me, and they're into it. And I want them to have that same experience that I had. Did they think All-Star Weekend was whack? They were. Saturday they loved, believe it or not. They loved Saturday because last year they weren't into it.

I was showing it to them, but they didn't care. By the end of Sunday, and they didn't have school today, so we let them stay up. They were like, this is so weird like they're Not playing like they were excited I actually like to know that because if like If the kids were loving it right now then in 20 years They would be looking back and be like you guys didn't know about

The OG's team and the Shaq's team I don't know. The Kevin Hart monologue was sick I know I'm trying to put myself like when Mr. Beast came out with Dame they loved They popped huge for that they loved My kids watched the entire celebrity game. They thought the celebrity game was good. What about Drewski and Kaisenat?

They loved it. That's how into it they all are. They're like, I want to go to this. Is it ever going to come to New York? Is it going to come to Brooklyn? Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah, maybe it was in New York several years ago. Celebrity game is more interesting than the all-star game because they actually play. They actually want to win

Yo, can I get in that celebrity game? Like, what the hell? That'd be sick That's been the dream If you're there, I gotta be assistant coach Mike Foss told me he was gonna get me in this year, Mike Foss Where you at, Mike? We need more tape, we need more tape

Nah, I was cooking Two elbow jumpers isn't gonna cut it I was cooking We need more tape, man We need more tape I just said We could hear Claire, too She was just like, can I finally stop the recording?

Dad, you're two for 14 They had to finally stop the recording? Dad, you're two for 14. Did they have to edit out the misses? No, no, no, no. I said, look, we're taking two and that's it. I only took two shots. That was it. On the 18th try. It was wet. Hey, bottoms though when you did make them. Yeah, it was wet. Wet jumpers, shout out.

Wet. Yeah, it stinks. All-star stinks. I went to bed mad What put me in a good mood Was Adam Sandler's song On the SNL 50 That's what put me in a good mood That was great

I was SNL 50 delivered Yeah the concert was great All Star game Trash I missed it What did you What did you see

I'm a race head man I'm a race head I was watching Daytona 500 I thought you were just about to say Something totally different From 12 noon to 10 p Wearing that flag I'm a racist, man.

Nah, man. I watched the whole rain delay. It was great, man. It was great. What do they do during a rain delay? Bullshit. Talk to the drivers. Sounds like the NBL star game. There's a lot of bullshit there, too. This is the last thing I'll say about NASCAR on this program for the time being, but the amount

that they thank their sponsors is wild. Guy gets into a crash that would kill any normal person, and he's just like, yeah, it's tough, but I do want to thank old Coca-Cola for bringing me out here today, and submarines.com. Can't tell you how much I appreciate them. It's just like, man, you go straight to the sponsors after a crash where you went flying through the air. Well, I missed it. Shout out to the NHL. They're killing it. Montreal was fantastic.

I don't love the booing of the anthem and all that, but I get it. Shout out to the U.S. They've been killing it, and I'm delighted. I can't believe I missed it. I was legit looking forward to coming home and watching that game. You still can. Well, I guess. Maybe I won't tell my kids.

They're not so into hockey, though. Just get till Thursday. Just get till Thursday. Thursday's going to be incredible. Big night at the Hawaii household. Yeah. A little poutine? Man, maybe we get some disco fries.

A little orange julep? Julep, yeah. That'd be sick, too. A little spaghetti from the julep. Yo, if we win, that's... I mean, you guys were talking... My whole timeline Was everyone talking Shit about Canada

If we win That's tough There were some great edits There were some great edits Yeah it will be tough It will be tough I'll wear my Canadian Hockey jersey that I have

I appreciate that Thank you Do you have one? Yeah yeah yeah I got a Gretzky one Oh wow Yeah I bought it for 297

Oh yes I have to dust it off For the Montreal card I remember this one I remember this one By the way Who's the most popular fighter in the UFC right now? Who would you say? Oh man, like active?

It's Alex Perra And who is he hanging out with this weekend? Who is he hanging out with this weekend? We could finally put a nail in the coffin Of this stupid debate Alex Perra getting the rub from Drake From Drizzy There it is is look at

Drake Drake's like yeah Shama He said Shama or no Shama did Drake kind of blow him off I'm not sure yeah there it is Look at him Pereira knows Pereira ain't no Team Kendrick What do you have to say now What do you have to say now I saw him doing the

The businessman bop too Shall we? Wasn't a Dougie I told you it wasn't a Dougie It was the businessman bop You said it was a Dougie I told you it wasn't a Dougie What was the other one?

I said please don't say it It's the Dougie It was Dougie There's another one The rest of you was cranking that soldier boy Yeah Go have your NBA all-star party Oh my god, could you imagine what

was that was that the uh the dougie or the uh the soldier boy that was the businessman bop you boomer uh anyway all right uh let us uh get to our final guest of the day can't wait to talk to this man you know him we found out a couple weeks ago uh that unfortunately he would not be retiring in uh in seattle this weekend we spoke to him when the news came out about the fight man you know him we found out a couple weeks ago uh that unfortunately he would not be retiring in uh in seattle this weekend we spoke to him when the news came out about the fight um and as they say the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry uh but for for dominic cruz unfortunately this is how it ends but what a career hall of famer one of one pioneer trailblazer all those things and more. And

he's kind enough to join us to talk about it all. Here he is. Hello, Dom. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? I'm doing great. Thanks for joining us. Can I be honest with you, Dom? Can I be sincere with you right now? I mean, I would hope you always are. I know. You know what? As I said that, I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that because you say that someone says that that implies that they aren't always sincere. And I'd like to think that I am when I saw your message, when I saw your message, when I saw the, the, the, the Instagram

post, when you announced this news, I got very emotional, Dom. I got, I got very emotional. Um, and, and, uh, and I think I know why but you represent Such a great period in the sport And you've brought us along the Journey for so long and You've been so inspirational And I really Hurt for you I was really hurting for you

I felt I felt I don't want to say I felt your pain because you were going through serious Physical pain there but it really Bummed me out and so I'm just curious a couple of weeks later how are you dealing with how the active portion of your career ends i mean i think the hardest part about the whole thing is that other people are bummed out you know it's a choice it's literally a choice to be happy and the the normal thing would be oh i should look and be sad because that's how it should look for other people to you know that was the first thought like i

shouldn't enjoy my life because i don't enjoy i deserve to because i pulled out of this fight but at the end of the day i've got a lot of practice and injuries unfortunately but also fortunately to where that's always the conversation that comes up first for me it's uh you don't you don't deserve to enjoy your life unless you can go out there and follow through with the goal that you set so i set my goal to get through on this fight and i'll be honest like i was on borrowed time when i booked this fight but because of the state of my body leading into that I was very confident that I could make it and so I booked the fight unfortunately the arm gave out and it had given out before but this time it was different it was kind of a basic position

so it just as you can see on the one on the left my left um it's completely out and the problem was when it sits out like that, the pain is just absolutely excruciating and it wouldn't go back in. So when they went to move it back in, shout out to the PI trainers. They're very good. The first time I did it, they were able to slide it right back in within three minutes. This time they lifted me up by a towel on my shoulder and it just, the muscles locked it into place. And so I had to go to the hospital and that made it a completely different experience it's about a out of place for about an hour 15 to hour 30 minutes just sitting at a socket and you kind of find Jesus in a time like that to be honest it's just excruciating pain and at the end of

the day when your arm starts turning blue i've said this in other interviews and you can see that they're making sure my fingers are still working before they slide it back into place it's like okay is is fighting worth as much as my arm because there's a possibility if i keep this route the arm just stops working you're not able to lift it you're not able to see i can do all this because it's been about 13 days removed and it's back in socket. But because I'm not fighting, that might save my shoulder for the rest of my life. And that's the big picture. It's do you want your shoulder or is the money you're getting paid worth your arm?

And for me, I'm not getting paid big enough dollars that it's worth my arm. Maybe if I was making, you know, a few million, maybe that might change it. I might've gone in there and figured out how to make it work at 50% on one arm and a hundred percent on my other. But with the amount of money I'm getting paid, it wasn't worth the livelihood of my brain and my body. And how did it happen? How did the injury happen? I was grappling. I was doing get up from the bottom drills, half guard.

And I've done it a million times. You post on your elbow and then you turn your hips over to get to a single. And when I posted on the elbow and then pulled through, it just shot out the back. And it was just a basic thing I've done a million times. So that's when the realization of, if you can't make it through the normal grunt, everyday movements in camp, then I would be subsidizing and not showing up as the best version of myself, which, you know, kind of, then I'm fighting for money. And that's not why I started this thing. When I started fighting, it was illegal to fight in every state. And I was essentially paying money to fight just because I enjoy it and I love to compete and I love to be a winner.

And if I'm not setting myself up like that, then, you know, it's just better that I don't do that to the fans, myself, or the sport. Do you need surgery? I'll know this week. I'll find out this way I got the MRI last week in Mexico City and I'm waiting on the results back from them a little bit slower hopefully I got them back today and I'll know but the big thing Ariel is when you have a shoulder injury like mine you don't have to do surgery because I'm able to move it. The problem is at any given time in my life now, and I'll never know when, it could just pop out again. I could be snowboarding. I could be throwing a baseball. I could be hanging out with my family and I decided to lean on my arm and it feels fine. And then I turn the wrong way and it

slides out. When you get a surgery, it closes the gap. It brings the tendons back together depending on how bad the damage is. And then there's less chance of it sliding in and out. So that's what the surgery would be about. And I'm not a hundred percent sure if I'll want that or need that because surgeries, I already got it cut once. It's a very delicate, crappy, crappy, crappy process. So I don't know if i'll do it or not the the reality that you won't fight again how are you dealing with that i mean it's comes and goes right if you're gonna be honest with yourself it's like mourning the loss of somebody when you when you lose the sport when you do it as much as i do, but I'm still so involved in the sport.

I'd like to get back to Mexico City, help those guys out, help Dana with his ideas there. I'll be giving back to the sport the whole time. I pulled out of this fight so that I could still use my shoulder to train, to train athletes, to work, to still move around and do what I want to do and still stay dangerous. It's important for me as a, just a man to be dangerous all the time. So I'll still be very dangerous. And that's the key for me. It's not about retirement and get fat and get lazy. My brain doesn't work that way. It's stay as dangerous as I can. That's the reason I started this sport. Uh, and, you know, essentially paid to do it. It was because I wanted to be dangerous.

And so that'll stay. That won't change. I'll stay active. I'll stay moving. And I'm lifting every day and doing what I need to for physical therapy. So, you know, not competing at the highest level. I gave everything I have to it. So at the end of the day, I can kind of surrender to it, let go, and then receive what comes next.

That feeling that you talked about at the beginning where people are telling you that they're bummed for you, and then you have to sort of say, like, you know, I'm not dead. I'm able to be happy. It's just the end of one chapter. How do you handle that? And did you feel those feelings of guilt like why should you know like i understand how do you deal with that yeah it's a great question ariel i honestly that's the that right there what you're asking me is the the hardest thing it's it's other people's vision of me

and and then you kind of sort through what you think they're thinking about i i'll speak for myself i kind of sort through what you think they're thinking about. I'll speak for myself. I kind of sort through what I believe they're thinking of me. And the longer you go down the road and the more people you go through that, the more I realize it's not them that I'm looking at. It's I'm looking at myself through their eyes and I'm judging myself. It has nothing to do with other people. That's the hardest thing is i'm i feel like i don't deserve i feel like you know i let people down i feel like i said i was going to do something

and i didn't get to follow through and do it but that doesn't it's not a fact that that makes me not worth it that i can't enjoy my, that I can't do all these things. I made that up. And, you know, so the hard part is just noticing that those are thoughts that come up for me and that they're not real. Like most people are just can't believe I did what I did up till this point. Most people, it's always like, I'm thinking people are thinking bad about me. And really, it could easily go the other way. I'm just, I'm thinking bad about myself. And so that's the constant hurdle, Ariel, is when you see other people looking at you, it's not them looking at you and giving their judgments of me.

It's me giving judgments of myself. And I just assume that that's what they're thinking when I look in their eyes. And that doesn't go away until I do my own healing, until I forgive myself. So what's interesting about that is in the aftermath of you sharing this news, you were showered with love and praise. And obviously, I'm not going so in the weeds with all the messages that you're getting. But I didn't see people. I express sadness only because you represent an era. And for me personally, you represent someone as well. And so everyone has their own connection to you,

but I'm wondering why you felt that sort of, that kind of burden and sadness, because I was kind of hoping that all the love that you were receiving, sometimes people only receive this love once they die. You got to see it in real time happen. Everyone tell you how great you are. And so did that help or did it make it worse in a way? Yeah, that's irony of loss is a lot of times we think grieving has to be this sad thing. A lot of times grieving is just joy rewrapped into sorrow because you got to, most of the time when grieving happens happens it's thoughts of

the great things that happen that cause the sadness it's not really the sadness itself so when i think about all these people showering me with love and being grateful for me i'm obviously so grateful it's like amazing uh it's just a matter of realizing that sometimes that'll make you sad because that's that's the things i because that's the things I won't be feeling again. Like those specific feelings, those walking out, giving to the crowd, giving this show, fighting to the death, and then seeing the look in people's eyes in between rounds as you walk to the fence and look through the fence and see that they don't know how you're there. They don't know how you're there they don't know how you're still standing and then getting done and uh seeing you know having the belt wrapped around your waist putting your hands up and then knowing immediately that there's somebody that

they're ready to make me go face to face with to fight again the second i'm done that it's never it never really ends these are things that you know I'll never I won't be feeling again on that stage and so when it gets brought back to me it kind of seems sad it's like you it's like mourning loss but at the end of the day I'm really just it's not loss at all it's not sadness it's actually joy so you know there's a dualism in mourning and it's most of the time what I'm learning when i go through these losses that i feel it's really i'm not mourning at all i'm just so grateful for the happy times i had and i'm rethinking them and that's what this has done it's like i haven't really had a chance to look at my whole career i never did i never went back and looked at my

fights too often i never went back and did those things unless I needed to critique or fix something to get ready for the next opponent. And now going back and saying, hey, Dom, take a second and enjoy what you created. Enjoy what you did over 25 years of time. That's a whole process in itself that I haven't allowed that I'm going through. And then I went through when people showered me with the love that you're talking about can only be grateful for it but the honest truth is when you're a guy like who's done it you know the the guilt comes over when you see all the love it's like man do I do I deserve this I just I really just went in there and fought somebody to the death does it make me that special? So sometimes you go in and out of it. It's all the feelings that you feel all the time at different parts of the day. And one of my favorite things is to get to feel each feeling instead of having to box it up and say, that's how I need to feel

all day. I can feel all of the feelings. I can feel everything and, you know, push through them and just keep moving. And the key is keeping a routine right now. Are you at peace with it ending this way? Yeah. Well, that's the big question, right? Is anybody, let's say you die tomorrow, would you be at peace with it ending that way? There's a piece of you, I'm sure you would say, well, some things, but some things, no. Like my kid would be left behind, whatever, right?

You'd have different things. So for me, I'm at peace because this is what I'm given. Whether I want to be at peace or not, it's up to me. It's my choice. So yes, I'm at peace to surrender to the fact that I didn't get to finish the sport in control. That's what it comes down to, right? I thought I could control when I would stop this thing. And my body said, no, in the universe or God or whatever anybody wants to believe in,

I believe in God, that this happened for me, not to me. So what's the next step? How can I use this? Never waste a good crisis. It's happened to me so many times. I've been through this routine a million times, unfortunately, but also fortunately, it's just the next steps. So, you know, what's interesting about your, um, your position in career, if, if tomorrow, for whatever reason, someone told me I can't do this job anymore, I wouldn't necessarily be sitting over there and watching someone do this job or, uh, producing this show with someone else sitting in this chair. I would probably have to go off and do something else. In your position, you sit cage side and you watch someone do what you were

attempting to do and didn't want to stop doing. And so does that make it easier or does that make it harder? Or do you not even think of it that way? Well, I mean, I'll bring it back to you again. If this is something that you're passionate about and you love with all your heart, do you really think that you would stop just because you weren't sitting in that seat? Honestly, could you really say that to yourself? Well,

no, if someone said you can't sit here anymore, you're done. Yeah. Same thing. So what are you going to do? You're not, this is your passion,

right? Ariel. So you can't sit there. How do you keep giving back to this passion? That's the question I'm in. And when I sit in that seat, that's one of the ways I can do it. First, you fight, then you teach, then you heal. That's the martial arts way, right? So I feel I'm somewhat moving towards the teach and heal portion. And by heal, I mean like learning how to take care of your body,

teaching these athletes how to not maybe have as many injuries as I had because they take care of it. The UFC PIs have every gift on earth to make sure these guys don't have to go through what i went through with injuries they the rehab the prehab the warm-ups everything so maybe those are pieces but that's the question i'd put you into if if if you were to lose your job tomorrow you can't if it's truly your passion you love it as much as you do you can't just stop it overnight it basically is like a drug this thing that i do this isn't just this thing that i can just up and stop so for me it's a gift to get to sit next to sit along cage side and give back to the sport that gave to me the key is giving you know when in doubt focus out so i'm a little bit in doubt i don't know where i'm going what i'm doing exactly uh yeah i do it is a little bit of a morning process so when i'm in that yeah

give back so i find myself giving a lot right now to to shift myself back into perspective which is you know be grateful for what you have what was there a message or two that you received from someone obviously a lot of i i saw the uri faber i was like wow could you imagine 10 years ago faber writing something nice to dominic on his instagram but um personally uh privately publicly what was there something that you received a note on that day that really that really touched you i've gotten a few notes from some big names. You know, one of the ones that stood out to me was T.J. Dillshaw actually reached out to me. Wow. I was shocked. He gave me a recommendation for a shoulder doctor and said he was looking forward to watching me compete.

Sorry that I couldn't. um dj obviously uh favor obviously um danny ricardo from f1 yeah he recently retired and so he kind of shared some of his sentiments of what he was going through and obviously i can relate to that um because you know he's in a very dangerous sport too so certain people you know in the past i've had theo Vaughn reach out to me. That means a lot. Just people who have been through a lot in their life and continue to keep moving forward. Those are the ones that I can resonate with. Not that I can't resonate with everybody.

I can accept them. I'm grateful for all of it. But these are the names that stand out to me as people who really put themselves into the fire on a regular basis in their life. And when they reach out, it shows you that there's some sort of strand of connectivity that we're all on. Otherwise, that wouldn't happen. So that's refreshing. You said that you didn't watch a lot of your fights. When you made that decision, did you pop one in to remember the good days? Did you watch anything?

Man, it's hard. I'm still not quite there yet because I get so worked up about my own performances and just the way that I could be doing better. I think I need a little bit more time before I'll give myself a break to do that. I'm pretty hard on myself. So I'll get to it. But right now, life's good. Like I said, I'll stay.

I'm calling fights March 1st, the weekend. Like the first three weeks of March, I'm calling fights. So I get to get back there, and that'll be cool. I think the hard part is, like I said, just going up to people and them saying, oh, I'm sorry. It's like, man, I'm not sorry. It's just the next stage for me, you know? But when you see that other people are sorry, it makes you think, should I be sorry? Should I be thinking about this?

They think I should, right? I'm just saying that's the humanity. You can't help it. The thought comes up. So the real thing is, when you know you get you hear from certain people that have been through this stuff they're not sorry they just they're excited for you like certain guys are just like i'm pumped for you yeah that's it that's it that's all you get and those are the really like that that really supports me because you know you got

two choices i can be sorry or i can be happy and those it's literally right down the line and i'm doing my best to choose happy right and not not because it's forced but because that's what works that is a great way and i could see um a recently retired athlete say that type of sentiment we would lament the loss but be like no now you get to do x y and z now this starts a whole new chapter. And so I can see someone saying that in that really striking accord. Obviously, we know that you do the great work for the broadcasts as an analyst. You've talked about the PI in Mexico. What do you think will, you know, the broadcasts are once a week and I

know there's prep and whatnot. Like, what do you think you'll get into now? Do you think you'll do something completely outside of the world of fighting? Well, you know what's funny about what you said? I could see somebody who's retired to be thinking that way. And the crazy thing, Ariel, is when I blew my knees out three times in a row, until I got to this thinking, even though I wasn't retired, I didn't heal. So this happens more in places than just retirement. This happens all over my life, my whole life. It's just little pockets of time that this is a framework that works. And that framework is let go and receive, surrender to the process that God or the universe

is giving me. And that was the injuries. When people ever said, you'll never come back. Maybe you should just stop. I couldn't, I was fighting it. I'm going to come back. And the second I could just say, Hey, maybe I'm not supposed to do this. Maybe I'm supposed to retire. Maybe everything's supposed to be done. My body healed. And then I was able to come back and fight because I was young. I'm older now. So could I come back from this and believe that I could compete? Yes. But do I need to at 40 years old with other work that I could be doing, give me back in other ways?

That's where I'm looking at things and seeing what I can do next. The podcast is one thing, Ariel. If you can run a show by yourself this long, you've definitely shown me it can be done by anybody. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's obviously a joke. Yeah, no, no, no, no. You're right.

You're great at what you do. But it's like, come on. This is one thing, and you're seeing a lot of fighters get into it. That's a piece because it becomes a piece of business. But then there's so many other things it's it'll happen naturally but number one for me is giving back to the athletes i think i can just provide a lot as a coach provide a lot as you know just an advocate in the sport and an advocate for the ufc too they've done a lot for the sport in general i know you don't always see

it that way but um that's not true. That's not great. The funny thing is, is that I'm probably the biggest UFC promoter outside of anyone who works for the UFC. I've literally devoted my life to speaking about the UFC in a positive light. Of course, there's certain things that get magnified when I'm critical because there is so few people who dare to be somewhat critical

no different than anyone who works in any type of industry or covering any type of industry general sports talk radio and whatnot but i'm literally sitting here four or five hours a day speaking about the ufc we just had song uh on the show talking about his main event so you you know better than that you know better than that I think the key thing for you is the defense to look at because I said not always I know I know I do get defensive because it's

the first admission in guilt is defense and it's like what are you defending what is there to defend if that's not true in some sort of way it's just the constant oh you hate the UFC if I hate the UFC why the hell am I doing this? I definitely didn't say that. I definitely didn't.

No, no, no, but I'm more kind of like... You do a good job, I think, but I said not always. Do you agree with that? Sure, but that's healthy, right? It could be, right. As a journalist, I think it is to be neutral. I think that's healthy. Right. a journalist i think it is to be neutral i think that's healthy right um and and so

now you know i i thought again this this might this might be viewed as a criticism i was kind of hoping that you would be at the event in seattle and you would get the send-off you would get a moment you know we've seen it now would you not want that gloves in the middle of the cage something like that that's what i wanted to do when i was fighting yeah that was the plan you know they're like do the whole thing but you know i didn't earn that did i yeah you guys you know what i mean man like this is what i'm talking about when you're like hey i mean you need to go out there and earn these things these guys are gonna go put their blood on the canvas they earned that

position they earned that night I know I've done it in the past but not that night I'm there for them I'm happy with what they're doing and it's sad because I'm one of the six people to pull off this cart and that sucks to know that

I'm not again it's another thing I'm just not super ecstatic about. But there's a reason all this happened, right? I'm here. I'm here for it. Let's see what's next. Could I ask, how do you think that Suhudo-Song Yedong fight goes? I'm excited for it. I was excited for my fight, so I didn't really get a time to think about it right,

try to compartmentalize, but now that I've had a little bit of time, I like Song right now. I think that he's looking just really focused and sharp. And then he's got the perfect team to face a Cejudo style, which is

front headlock heavy, wrestling heavy, sprawl, and brawl mean it's a it's the perfect thing and that the difference between henry and me that i think i had so much success i don't know if i lost you no no we got you i don't i think the reason i had success with alpha males is my is the footwork that i use to cut angles to minimize the the shot attempts uh except that i think song is more of a striker first than a grappler so i think his striking is going to be extremely sharp and he has less less to worry about with the takedown because his striking is so sharp i think that that's going to really minimize the amount of grappling that so who though can do poor uh poor rob font uh goes

from fighting a legend right again again that's we're saying the same thing it's like it's hard to to leave somebody anybody hanging when you're a fighter and you know what they go through like he was prepared for that and the dudes he's fought the who's who the division for a long time he deserved a good scrap with me and and i was looking forward to it i was very ready i was in extremely good shape i was peaking when my shoulder came out so again rob font respect to you i'm sorry that i uh did that to you can i just ask you about one thing that henry cejudo said on his podcast the pound Pound for Pound podcast? Dominic Cruz, I don't think he really understood how to train. I don't really understand that he really knew how to really take care of his body because he was injured the majority of his career.

Do you think that's fair? I mean, it's his perspective, right? He's allowed to have whatever interpretation he wants, but where does he prove that? Where does he have some scientist that says, oh, this is where he did it wrong. I mean, I've been hearing, I've been doing things wrong since the beginning of my career. So for him to, you know, critique injuries after his shoulder injuries and after retiring and then coming back, I think he's just looking at a microscope of himself it's not really me that he's talking about he's just explaining himself again he's projecting that's what it is

that's what henry does he's a projector favorite favorite moment in the cage out the cage favorite moment of your career when someone says i want i want to relive dominic Cruz's greatest moment, the apex of his career, quintessential Dom. What comes to mind? Honestly, the interview we did is one. That's why it's pinned on the front because I was really in the middle of figuring something out on that night, Ariel. I was on antidepressants the entire camp before that fight because of just how sad I was.

And two weeks before that fight, I got off the antidepressants the entire camp before that fight because of just how sad I was. And two weeks before that fight, I got off the antidepressants, three weeks, so I could be, you know, do what I needed to do. And thank God my coach was able to recognize the difference. But once I got through that fight and then had the title and felt that it didn't feel any different before I had it, and if anything, it was like, this is it. After everything I anything it was like this is it after everything I just went through this is all I get after everything everybody said that it was impossible and it couldn't be done and that there's no chance and all this stuff like this is I get this and then everything's shut down outside and I can't party there's nothing to do it's just over

uh that's when I realized like I don't need a belt to be happy. And you don't, nobody does. You think that it's going to get, you think everybody thinks the belt and the championship is going to fix everything. It doesn't, it gives you more money and then you can live a more comfortable life. If you're lucky, if you're lucky, by the way, and, um, your, your problems are not fixed. It's up to us. Being happy is a choice, and I realized it literally in that moment when you asked me the question, is this the happiest day of your life?

And it's actually, I don't feel any different than when I got it. In fact, I'm a little disappointed that this is all I get. And so that really hit me hard, and that was a moment that I realized, you know, happiness is a choice. It's not a fact. You got to work for it. I'm actually kind of blown away right now for two reasons. Number one, the fact that you mentioned that blows me away because I almost feel like I talk about that too much because it affected me so much because it's my favorite interaction after a fight ever, but I'm blown away because you just told me two things about that interview, which happened almost 10 years ago that I didn't know about. And I feel like we've talked about the, I didn't know you were on antidepressants up until two weeks before the fight. Well, it's a lot of stuff that I'm going to talk about on my podcast that nobody knows about,

because when you're in competition, these are excuses. These are things that people whine about. And I refuse to allow that. Now that I'm done competing, I'm retired, I can share truths that were my experience. And they can't really be used against me in fight terms. Everything that's said, everything is all is fair in love and war. So I've been very careful while I'm at war with all these people and everything that I say on purpose. And that's going to be the next journey for me is letting people really see who I actually am behind the fighter on the podcast and everything else that I do in my life, because I no longer have to prepare for war every single

day of my life. Now I get to move towards the love and war mixed together. And, you know, when you come from love, everything can show up a lot different and people can know more of me from there but when i'm at war they're only going to see that version and that's a hard version of me to get to know but but could i just ask and i understand you want to save this stuff for the pod you were about to fight for the belt why were you on antidepressants well because i had blown my knee out three times in two and a half years, plus a torn clot off the bone. And I was sad that I couldn't compete.

And I was sad that I couldn't train. I was depressed. I had lost my drug. And that's another thing. So I had to, you know, when you exercise every single day since you're 11 years old, and then all of a sudden you cut that chemical out of your body, you're no longer exercising because you can't. It's a literal chemical makeup change. And it made me really sad.

And it made me really low. Not to mention that my life wasn't working separate from fighting. The only thing that was working in my life was fighting. And then once fighting got taken away, all I saw was everything that wasn't working. It was my relationships. It was my friendships. It was my family friendships. It was, did I have people to support me when I was hurt? No, I was, I felt very alone. I felt very isolated. And it's because I was a miserable person to be around. And so I didn't create an environment that facilitated people to be around me. These are all things that I learned through those process to where now I'm

able to flip all those thought processes back, reframe everything. And now I don't show up the same way. So as I've gone through each injury, I've learned a different piece of myself that needed to get attention. And the biggest part was learning how to create happiness in my life on my own. It wasn't just something you're born with. You're born with the chemical imbalance. Your dad was depressed, so you're depressed. Your mom's got drug problems, so you're depressed. No, happiness is a choice and I had to do the work for it. And thank God for the injuries because they threw me into not having the sport where I got to feel how miserable I was and then focus on those things.

And when I focused on those things, now I have those tools for the rest of my life. And that's the culmination of everything I learned when doing that interview after winning my belt and before it. I was on antidepressants and I was scared to get off of them because I was scared to turn into the crazy person that I was. And then when my coach saw that my training wasn't the same and he got me off of him and said, you're not, something's off. Are you still on? And I said, I was on the tiniest amount, but I was scared to get off. And it was legal. I was able to take all that stuff. So it was just like, he's like, get off, cut it. So at three weeks I cut it off and I started winning rounds. And it was really, thank God for Eric T Fiero. And it's the reason why you got to have that person that you trust because he could see things normal.

If I would have brought in a new coach, they wouldn't have seen that in me. He saw it in my sparring. He said, you haven't won a sparring round the entire camp. Something's off. You just don't seem to give a shit. You don't seem to care. And it was that little sliver of just oh well you know i'll be all right i'll get through it the little sliver of antidepressant

and when he got me off that i started caring and caring about winning caring about losing it was a different version of me something unlocked and that's how i walked into that fight uh you know i got off all that three weeks early and everything was just, I was just sober me and the antidepressants, you know, I recommend them to anybody who needs like floaties. Sometimes you need floaties in life. Sometimes you need something to help you tread water because treading is just too heavy and you start sinking. So I don't bash it. I think there's a, there's a timing for, for antidepressants for everybody in their life. If necessary, everybody's different.

But it really kind of saved my life at that portion. And then fighting brought me back into sobriety, into life, into realizing the joy of life. And then after that, you know, I kept the ball rolling. I've never touched antidepressants again in my life. I'll never need them again. I've learned a lot of different tools from that process as well. And so, yeah, again, nothing's perfect. Everything might look perfect on the outside for a lot of us, the strongest people in the world, but we're all going through hell like anybody else.

And it's just, can you get through it? I also didn't know, by the way, that you came to that realization, and correct me if I'm misunderstanding, in the interview. Did you come to the answer that you gave, happiest moment of my life is when I realized I didn't need the belt to be happy? Did you come to the realization in the interview itself when you felt the belt on your shoulder and you realized, I don't need this to be happy? Yes, and you can see it in my response.

I had to think about it because it's like i was thinking like is this actually the happiest version of my life it's like no it's not it's the belt this is once i won it like i said i was like kind of like this is it i mean don't get i don't want to ruin it for people but it's like no i get it i get it the, I get it. I get it. The amount of work I did to get to that point and the amount of people that told me it wasn't possible and then I did it and then nobody goes, ah, you were right, Dom, it is possible. You don't hear any of that. All you hear is silence. You don't hear anybody say how miserable you look and how bad you look and that you have no chance. All you hear is that.

And then when you win, you don't hear any of the other side which is wow you actually did it wow you're stronger than i thought wow your media doesn't do that nobody does that they just go wow i mean well i guess dom did it ring rust doesn't exist for him no ring rust doesn't exist for anybody it's a choice to believe in ring rust. I'm not just some special person. And that's another example of what I mean. It doesn't stick with people. I did something that people thought was impossible. I got told it every day. And after it's done, they just go, well, okay. So end of the day, it's just, that was, when you asked me that question, it made me realize, like, no, this doesn't make me more happy. It adds to, it's a cherry on top.

But life is really good. What a story. What a career. Happy birthday to your mother, by the way. And hopefully I got that date right. And happy early birthday to you, early March, right? Yeah. Yeah, you didn't get it wrong this time.

Look at you. That was embarrassing that one time. It was incredible because you let me do it for so long. You let me do the whole song, the candle. I was so sure of myself. And then you just... You would expect nothing less from me. Amazing.

Absolutely amazing. You're the man, Dom. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you for coming on. I know you've talked enough about all this, but I really man, Dom. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you for coming on. I know you've, you've talked enough about all of this, but, uh, I really did, did want to speak to you and, and, um, yeah, you've meant so much and, and it was really such a joy to cover your career. It was really such an, I'll never forget those fights, those moments, WC, UFC. And so I

thank you for those memories. I thank you for those fights. I thank you for sacrificing your body for our entertainment. And I know for your own goals and achievements as well. And can't wait to see what you do and can't wait for the podcast to launch. Do we have a date? Do we have a, do we have a time and place? What do we got? I don't have a date launch for launch yet,

but for instance, I'm going to be driving up meeting people and we're going to get this done. Right. It's not going to be some halfway thing. So. All right. It'll be good. And you'll know more about it.

We'll post more about it. But Cruise with me, name of it. Can't wait. Thank you, Dom. Appreciate it. And congratulations again on a Hall of Fame career. Thanks, man. There he is, the great Dominic Cruise.

A true original, a true pioneer, a trailblazer. I love those conversations with Dom because you can get really deep. And by the way, in case you've never seen that interview that we talked about, it was January. It was a Sunday night show in Boston, January 2016, UFC, FS1, Dominic Cruz, TJ Dillashaw. He fights TJ, he beats TJ, and he says this. Final thing, would you say, and you've had big moments in your life, is tonight the greatest moment of Dominic Cruz's life? No. The greatest moment in my life was realizing that I didn't need a belt to be happy.

Wow. I can't imagine how much happier you are now. There you go. Now it's a cherry on top. That's January 17, 2016. I will now forever look at that interview differently. That was almost 10 years ago now. And yeah,

I never really quite looked at the pause as something significant. But now you see the pause. And we've talked about that interview before. I didn't realize that he came to that realization

in the interview. What a time. It was cold in boston that day i remember it was very cold it's a great card it was a it was a sunday night card because it was after i believe it was either second round or conference championship probably not conference championship maybe conference championship. Probably not a conference championship. Maybe a conference championship. Anyway, it was like after a Fox show and they were trying to build up FS1, which had just launched in 2013. Anyway, and the next day was Martin Luther King Day and so no one had work.

Yeah, those Boston cards were great. The year before was the Dennis Seaver Conor McGregor card If you recall Jumped over the cage Got in Aldo's face What a guy that Dominic Cruz Absolute legend

And not going anywhere but We were hoping to get one more fight On Saturday Not going to happen It does appear as though we are getting Another fight from one Misha Tate Another legend Another trailblazer

Another pioneer She tweeted this earlier Or perhaps posted it On Instagram It's official May 3rd Versus Yana Santos I've still got what it takes And if you doubt me

Please stick around. Mark your calendars. All these fighters who we were watching 10, 12, 13 years ago, they're now in the doubt me. Doubt me at your own peril? Risk? Risk, yeah. Yeah. Peril too?

Would peril work? I mean, it's saying if you Yeah, I guess peril works Yeah, good job See, I almost doubted you Beat me if I let you You know what? That's a good point What a day, Frank, what a day

Can't wait to go home to watch that Canada hockey game Yeah, I think they might win Ah, that's gonna be great Do you wanna put some money on that one? That's going to be great viewing. Always love a good chat in studio and always love a stacked Monday and an eclectic show, but it's time to go home.

I'm actually a little bit afraid to go outside because it was so cold. It's very windy out there. It's very windy. I can't imagine if it's windy or colder than those skiing slopes oh you know I'm still you know the greatest gift that this this show has ever given me is that and then I say this show I mean from day one is that you know I relate to the likes of Dom and I relate to all the the mental health stuff because I've talked about it before and I forget about everything. And so I was so sore four hours ago and then I sit here and I

kind of just melt away and I forget about everything. Now, part of me melts away because it's so hot in here. I mean, I'm schvitzing if I'm being honest. Shout out to the heater. I don't want, no, the heater's not even on. Here's not even on. Whatever they've done, please continue to do it. I love it. I love it. Love it. I saw, I saw Keyshawn come in with his toque and his hood on. I was like, oh, this guy's going to be spitzing in a minute.

In any event, it's just nice to let you, you know, you're not, you don't look at your phone. There's only two periods in the day where I'm not looking at my phone. When I'm sleeping and when i'm doing this show otherwise i hate this damn thing i wish i could chuck it when i was on the chairlift with my kids i thought for a moment what if i chucked this thing what happens do you have a chairlift on the bunny slopes uh yeah absolutely yes and it's very important you have to put your your feet up like this and you have to you have to land and now you pizza is that what you called it no pizza french fries that's when you're going down uh you could go on the magic carpet but we've

graduated to the chairlift on the bunny anyway i don't appreciate your jokes it's time to go thank you very much to everyone who joined us today dominic who's bruce buffer kishan davis yadong song yusuf zalal thanks you thanks back on tuesday same time visit me so bad here