The Ariel Helwani Show - Ian Machado Garry, Ciryl Gane, Eric Bischoff, Dakota Ditcheva, Ariel responds to Froch, what's wrong with PFL?

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Ariel Helwani and The Boys In The Back reflect on Dakota Ditcheva's $1 million win over Taila Santos and debate where she ranks among the best fighters in the world, whether or not PFL's system is working, whether Ditcheva is the new face of the promotion and more (19:06).Dakota Ditcheva looks back on her brutal knockout of Taila Santos, her future in PFL, where she ranks among the greatest female fighters in the world, whether she'll jump back into tournament again in 2025 and more (46:56).Eric Bischoff discusses his latest project with MLW, how WWE's Bloodline storyline compares to the NWO, why there's no hope for AEW, the business of wrestling and more (01:13:58).Ciryl Gane previews his UFC 310 rematch against Alexander Volkov and discusses his inactive 2024, Jon Jones' win over Stipe Miocic, who stands a better chance against Jones between Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall, whether the Jones loss haunts him and more (02:06:40).Ian Machado Garry previews his UFC 310 co-main event against Shavkat Rakhmonov and goes scorched earth on Colby Covington, Kamaru Usman and much, much more (02:34:55).Ariel Helwani responds to Carl Froch over the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson saga and reveals how Froch responded to his offer (03:24:36) .

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Area Hawani Show! The Area Hawani Show is back in your life. On this Monday, December 2nd, 2024 I was about to say back in your life I was about to say it and then I called the audible I was like this And then I went like this And then I called the audible

Very reminiscent of last night at Orchard Park Josh Allen throwing it to Amari Cooper and then he's like this And then he's like this And he's about to watch a touchdown but he's like oh wait oh, wait, maybe I need the ball back, and then I'll score a touchdown. You know what I'm saying, boys? You know what I'm saying?

I do. How about those five-time AFC East champs? Like the great Booker T once said, I'm in a great mood on this Monday afternoon, my friends, because I've had a tremendous, what is it, five-day stretch since we last said goodbye on Wednesday afternoon. We had a bit of a hiatus. It was Thanksgiving here in the United States and a very festive time, a time to be thankful, a time to be grateful, a time to be reflective. And there's a lot of exciting things going on, not only in our universe, but in the combat sports world as well. And it has been a very busy time since we said goodbye.

In fact, when I said goodbye to you all on Wednesday, I went home feeling good. You know, it was Thanksgiving Eve. Everything was getting into place. My wife was slaving away in the kitchen, just working, you know, until God knows knows when 3, 4 a.m. You know Really putting in that time Clocking in the hours I'm sitting back

With my favorite eggnog I like a spicy eggnog A dirty eggnog You know what I mean? With some southern comfort in it? Yeah You know yourself Sitting back

Watching Nick's Mavericks On a Wednesday evening I thought it was going to be a pretty easy dub for the orange and blue in fact that was not the case and mid game all of a sudden I'm sitting next to

my two boys it's me Oliver Walter Oliver says to Walter can you move your feet because it was one of those classic scenarios Frank where it's like one sitting this way and the other one has his feet pointing towards the kid, like, you know, lying this way. I got you, yeah. Hot dog style.

Yeah. And he says, Walter says, no, I'm not going to move. And then zero to 100, Oliver gives him the loudest slap on his calf. Those fighting words. Yeah. And then he turns around and he freaking throws a Leon Edwards-esque leg kick. I jump in, cat-like reflexes, 42, still young and agile, mobile.

And he nails me right in the middle finger, this finger right here. And can you see what happened there, Frank? Can you see what happened? All of a sudden, my finger balloons. My finger was a balloon. Blue, pulsating. It wouldn't go away.

It was hurting so much that it was like coming up my throat. I was feeling it. Like I thought I was going to throw up. Did you? No. I couldn't go to sleep. It was an awful sleep. Anyway, look at it.

See that? Yes. You see that? We're having to clip was an awful sleep. Anyway, look at it. See that? Yes. You see that? We're having to clip this off. Look at that. Look at it. It looks pretty bad, man. The nail's about to fall off. I know it's in a bad spot here, but that's it. That's the thing right there. Extend your thumb out a little bit too. So there we go. All right.

Look at it. Thumbs up to the chat. Thumbs up to the chat. Look at it. I'm in pain. It's getting better. Thanks for asking. So we were a bit on the injured reserve. Couldn't play in our football game on Thursday, although it did get rained out. So all's well that ends well.

How was your Thanksgiving, Frank? Everything good? I was bedridden the entire time. Yeah, just trying to get over, I think, gout. No, it was a cold. That's a nice giving if I've ever heard one. Yeah. Jeez, Frank, you know what? Kudos to you. You didn't mention it on the chat.

I mean, you were a little quiet. I actually was also in urgent care on Thursday morning. Serious? Confirmed strep. Yeah. No way. True soldiers wait till we're done and then we get to work. Yeah, we fight our battles and then we talk about them. Yeah. Yeah. No way. The true soldiers wait till we're done and then we get to work. Yeah, we fight our battles and then we talk about them.

Yeah. Nice rainy Thanksgiving morning by myself in the urgent. Why didn't you tell us? You know, I didn't want to worry you guys. In fact. I actually didn't want to worry you because I was at work all week with Strep. Stuff. Yeah, that is.

Didn't want to. By the way, Strep is the worst. Kudos to you. Yeah, it hurt. I've had, Strep to me, worse than COVID Oh, way worse Are you kidding me? It's like you're swallowing razor blades

How do you feel now? Oh, I feel great They got me on the anti-B's That's what I was telling everyone I was like, yeah, I spent Thanksgiving with my auntie And they're like, oh yeah, I'm like auntie B I'm oxycyllin Wow

You know, correct me if I'm wrong There was one time where I felt like you were about to tell us You were like, tough morning And I was like, had the run go in the rain No, you asked me if I ran And I there was one time where I felt like you were about to tell us you were like, tough morning, and I was like, had the run go in the rain. No, you asked me if I ran, and I just didn't answer. You didn't answer. I was like, no, I didn't run because I went to the urgent care. You didn't write urgent care.

No, I didn't answer at all. That's what I would have said. Oh, got it. Yeah, okay. I love how we've gone from, Frank, you were sick, to, well, you know, I was actually sick. Yeah, okay. Well, I did wear my turkey hat into the urgent care. Everyone got a big kick out of it.

Okay. Nurses loved it. Wow, I had no idea. It sounds very sad, you know. Thanksgiving, away from the family, raining, in the urgent care, strep, all that. But it actually wasn't that bad. Yeah, that is a bit of a depressing scene. No, it sounds worse than it was.

It was all right. It was all right. By the way, shout out to all of us. I never mentioned the finger. Frank never mentioned the sickness. Frank never mentioned the sickness. You never mentioned the sickness. Anyone else have anything they want to bring up? Jordan has been sniffling a little bit and blinking like a lot.

How's Rick? I mean, Rick is going. I mean, this is a viral infection spread. In fact, it was Rick coming to work sick that got us all. No, not true. That was the one. I did not have straps. They asked Connor, have you been around any kids? And he's like, not true. That was the one. I did not have strep. They asked Connor, have you been around any kids?

And he's like, no, but my coworker has. That'll do it. I've had strep before. Significantly worse than Connor's, like debilitating death level. Or mine was the same, and I'm just that strong. I'm just that much of a trooper. You're built different. Yeah, exactly.

That's what they said. I'm awful. But I did not have strep. I will not take responsibility as patient zero. Also, I don't talk about this. No, he doesn't. Bring it up because everybody's a whiner. Rick is one of those old school guys that if he acknowledges the sickness, then it's a real thing.

I've never seen anyone more offended than Rick when you're like, are you sick? I've never been sick in my entire life. You spit in his face. He's less are you sick? I've never been sick in my entire life. You spit in his face. He's, he's, he's less offended. Yeah.

Um, I've never been sick. PT, you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Absolutely nothing to report here. It was away on holiday.

Came home. Didn't really do anything on Thanksgiving. Just watched that sweet NFL. I hope you had a, a lovely, lovely time. I can't remember any of these messages coming through. Sorry,

lads. I must've been packing or something. No, no, we've got, we've got, we've got, there's multiple threads. You know, there's the

OG thread, there's the new thread. Packing, where are you going? You went to Denmark. Oh, wow. You look a lot like a Dane, do you know

that? Yeah. That's what people say. Christian Eriksson. I mean, everywhere I was going, I was like, that could be GC's

family right there. Yeah, 23andMe trying to push The Irish heritage on me But I actually think It is Danish I mean I love Good Danish too That's true

Well Glad that everyone's back In good form In full form Thursday we had Thanksgiving Lovely time Bit rainy here We had the Misfits card

Our good friend Wade Plem Showing up Very very unexpected He seems to be back In the good graces the Misfits card. Our good friend Wade Plem showing up. Very, very unexpected. He seems to be back in the good graces of Misfits and is going to fight for them in January. So, the best of luck to Wade. We got to get him on the program to talk about how this all went down because it's, I don't know, it's like Bret Hart, Vince McMahon 2.0 or 3.0. Anyway, Friday was nice as well well Black Friday I hope everyone got their

Their shopping in I spent some time watching The Knicks beat the Hornets And then I went to Moana too With the family Thanks for telling me guys That now when you go to the movie theater You can actually recline

You got the sound in the seats That's how long it's been They didn't have recliners These chairs These chairs were something You're only 10't have recliners These chairs were something You're only 10 years behind at this point These chairs were unbelievable That's been a new thing

Moana 2 was great My daughter in case you're wondering Said greatest movie she's ever seen in her life Highest opening weekend in animated film history Felt like a stretch Greatest ever felt like a stretch Did you go to sleep Ariel? I think you would have slept in a nice chair like that for too long i reckon solid 25 to 30 nice um tried to

play it off my guy yeah did you wake up having not even a clue what was going on if you ask me right now what happened in that movie no idea you can't say it's a stretch also claire has what six years of experience so like she hasn't been uh eight eight now eight years um but i know but i tried to play it off I tried to say to them Like oh man that was great And they were like We looked over And you were sleeping

For half the thing Because you were Taking it all in I was thinking about it I was pondering Just the animation It was great stuff It's an intellectual movie

For sure I thought so I saw an intellectual film Over the weekend as well Red One The new The other Dwayne The Rock Johnson movie

Oh yeah Oh yeah It wasn't great Animated Nah No It's like a Secret Service Santa movie No joke I watched my favorite the other Dwayne The Rock Johnson movie. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It wasn't great. Animated? No. No. It's like a Secret Service Santa movie.

No joke. I watched my favorite Christmas movie as well. Eyes wide shut. Oh, it's tremendous. It's a tremendous flick. Anyway, more great viewing for me on Saturday. Force with the big win over Ipswich. Just killing it right now.

Setting up the big showdown on Wednesday against Struggling Man City. We had the boxing, which we will get into. Don't worry. Sonny Edwards, Galalia Fai. The Orange. Beating the U. Tremendous. And of course, Survivor Series. More on that. And then Sunday, at the Knicks game

with the boys, and then home to watch the bills clinch five in a row i mean that's a good stretch for me guys i don't know if it's ever been a better stretch for me than this i'm happy for you yeah thank you it's exciting uh it feels like discovering movies going to sports games it's uh it's all happening life is good now uh what are we talking about on today's program well back into the show the show, we'll be joined by Ian Machado. Gary, you may have heard that he has a massive fight this weekend. It's the last pay-per-view fight week of the year. How the hell did we end up here? I feel like Edwards-Covington, which was December of 2023, the last pay-per-view fight week of 2023 was, I feel like that was at least like, I don't know, or at most four months ago.

I can't believe it's been 12 months. I mean, I know we say this all the time, but time is a flying, my friends. Appreciate it all. And so we'll talk to Ian about the decision to fight Shafkat. Remember, he was supposed to fight December 14th against Joaquin Buckley. Next paper or the next show, final show of the year, final fight of the year final fight of the year Bilal gets hurt Shafqat what's an opponent he comes in and we're getting it co-main event on Saturday main event of course is Pantoja Asakura prior to that we're going to be joined by Cyril Ghan who we haven't seen in quite some time haven't talked to him in about a year and a half he'll be fighting Alexander Volkov in a rematch of a fight that he won back in 2021 Where does Gan fit into everything going on

The heavyweight division looks much different Since he last fought And so I'm looking forward to talk to The French prince himself Bon Gamin Cyril Gan At 3 o'clock At 2.15

We're going to be joined by Eazy-E I'm back. And better than ever, I'm back. That's Eric Bischoff's song. We will talk to the creator of the new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new world order. He has a busy week coming up. He's going to be on NXT on Tuesday. Then he's going to be doing an MLW show

One shot on Thursday Truth be told we booked Him just to plug the MLW Thing and then all of a Sudden I see he shows up On NXT to promote that He'll be showing up in Person on tomorrow's

Episode so I guess Fortuitous for us and at 145 we're going to be Joined by the newest PFL millionaire, the pride of Manchester, the pride of Bulgaria, the one and only Dakota Deceva. We're going to talk more about her in a moment. She was the big story, in my opinion, as far as MMA is concerned.

But first, we told you on Wednesday, newest member to the family, Averon, and everyone loved the head-to-head between GC and Rick. We will get the rematch on Wednesday's program. Stay tuned for that. A lot of fighting words behind the scenes in the control room, but now it's time to welcome another member to the family, and I'm so happy to say hello and to welcome officially to the familia, the great people at NordVPN. Let me tell you something. My favorite sponsors are the ones that I actually use, that I have on my computer right now, that I have on my phone, that I use day in and day out.

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All right. Now on to the business at hand. Black Friday. Friday. Riyadh, very much. All right, now on to the business at hand. Black Friday, Friday, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a marathon card, 16 fights, I think it was. The story, without a doubt, the biggest fight, the most talked about fight, was the fight that would determine the winner in the PFL women's flyweight tournament, division you will but it would also in my opinion if it went a certain way determine who the true face of pfl is and we got the answer the women the the winner excuse me of the tournament dakota dicheva the face of the pfl dakota dicheva it is her

unquestionably another master class another one-sided beatdown, and this time against her toughest test, Tyler Santos, former UFC title contender. Tyler Santos, who has been there, who has fought some of the best, including Valentina Shevchenko, everyone thought, all right, this is where Dakota gets figured out.

This is where she gets exposed. This is where she falters. Not only did she not do any of that she shined it was beautiful the the finishing sequence shots to the body using the elbows which they were allowing for the finale incredible and then once again she always tops it off with a very impressive celly before the fight tyler Tyler Santos putting on the lipstick or maybe it was lip chap, who knows, but insinuating that Dakota is just a pretty face, that she's a Barbie, that she's, you know, there it is right there. Remember that face off?

That was after the semis. And Dakota looks off to the camera and then there she is after the win. Now watch me whip. Watch me nae nae. I don't know why I'm saying that song, but you get the feeling. She's vibing. She's feeling good. She dismantles Tyla. She's a million dollars richer in addition to her purse. She's the winner of the 125-pound tournament, and she's also the face of PFL, and I don't think that that is a hot take. And afterwards, everyone's like, holy crap, she is legit.

And there were two questions that I saw, you know, dominating the conversation on social media. Number one, when can she go to the UFC? And it's a question that I'm not posing, but I'm just reciting. And the other one is, is she top 10? Is she top five? Is she even top three? Let me bring in the guys and let me ask Pizzi first things first. Number one, do you disagree with my statement?

Dakota is the face of PFL. I think she's certainly one of them. And that's one of the things that you need to give PFL credit for here. Like a long, it wasn't a long time ago when we were seeing them move into Europe and we're kind of going, well, what are they going to do here now we have doom bay dakota paul hughes um you know locknane obviously was uh he was before all of this but it's done an amazing job of creating these commodities within their empire so to speak i think dakota is certainly there she's an amazing talent it was brilliant to watch what she did you can actually see just the years

of work she's put in with her striking when she's fighting it just looks like it's on a completely different level she's a great personality as well, really bubbly, you've mentioned these the celebrations I think she's fantastic, she's popping up in places that you don't see other athletes pop up into

like having big features on bbc and stuff like that i think they've done an amazing job with her and and she's been great for them so absolutely buzzing for that i'd say she is you could easily say she's top 10 in the world of flyweight okay that was the follow-up that was the follow-up oh no no sorry flyweight forget flyweight i'm talking about top 10 pound for pound i'm talking top 10 pound for pound right now yeah i mean she's made a compelling argument for sure like i was looking up names earlier in the ufc's flyweight division um who would i be most excited to see her for you i was looking at the

likes of man on firo and people like this so i think absolutely he could absolutely put her in there of course the the the issue is the test the pfl can bring to the table. I find that this is a situation we find with the PFL quite often, where you get to a certain level, and now the onus is on them to find intriguing challenges. We've talked about it a lot with Francis Ngannou. I feel like they're in a situation like that now with Dakota. But I think it's been a very, very mutually beneficial situation for both Dakota and the PFL, her

tenure under that banner. This is a larger conversation, but it is interesting that you mentioned Dakota, you mentioned Paul Hughes, you mentioned Cedric Dumbay, you mentioned, um, Brendan Loughnane, who I know suffered a defeat. You can throw Francis, the, the, the thing that all these people have in common, none of them are

American and it, and it just goes to show once again, like they really should be leaning into more European events. The thing that all these people have in common None of them are American And it just goes to show once again They really should be leaning into more European events To me it's very clear that they have something going there Especially when you consider what they have In Bellator With Alexa Wussman or Maga Madoff Etc, etc

But if you're wondering According to uncrowned.com Which you guys partake in these top 10 Women's rankings Valentina 1, Zhang Weili 2, Chris Cyborg 3 Kayla Harrison 4, Alexa Grasso 5 Juliana Pena, Manon 7 Larissa Pacheco 8

Tatiana Suarez 9 Seika Izawa 10 She's right in the middle there Like Her versus Alexa Grasso You can't tell me Alexa's gonna to run right through her, right? She's not rolling right through her. We saw her in a bad situation with Tyler very, very early on there.

Tyler Santos is class on the ground. She got her down briefly, but she was right back up. That's a huge deal. You know, that is a, like Tyler's a really, really great grappler. And for Dakota to just bounce back up like that, that's, that's huge. You know, many people would have thought as soon as this fight hits the ground oh it's over not at all she was only getting going so um i think that was a huge feather in her cap there too and just on that ariel i think we need to commend dan hardy for what he's done uh getting

these names across here like he's been pivotal in a lot of the talent acquisition particularly for pfl europe so i think as we said when he signed he would be worth his weight in gold and i think people like dakota are a proof of that what do you think what do you think rick gc rick what do you think am i am i over hyping this right now face the pfl top 10 and we'll get to the ufc stuff in a moment yeah which is part of the problem for PFL the moment someone starts doing well they're like well when can they leave but as far as those two items are concerned agree disagree yeah you can count me in the camp of somebody who needed to see this performance to really know where Dakota was at I needed to see her against somebody who I thought

was a credible top 10 15 opponent and I considered Ty Los Santos one of the best flyweights in the world. And so this performance to me tells me where she's at. And I loved what we saw, not just from the level of opponent, but how she dealt with somebody who is trying to grapple her, how she dealt with somebody who wasn't just wilting under the pressure of her strikes. And then eventually she was able to accumulate the damage and pile it on. And the body shots are just absolutely incredible. I was extremely impressed. I am ready to put her in conversations around the best in the world at flyweight and start

talking about where she ranks in that order. But I needed to see this one. I was somebody who I was not impressed with the level of competition she had faced previously. This, to me, was a real benchmark and a table setter for that order. But I needed to see this one. I was somebody who I was not impressed with the level of competition she had faced previously. This to me was a real benchmark and a table setter for that conversation. And by the way, GC, talk about flyweight only for a moment. Shevchenko, Grasso, I mean, this is the best time ever for women's flyweight in the sport. And in large part because of the UFC's division, which is far and ahead better than anyone else. But her presence adds to that discussion as well. It's Valentina Grasso-Mannone, Erin Blanchfield, Macy Barber, Natalia Silva.

That's the top five. Rose, Kaitlyn, formerly known as Chukagian. Like, she's right. She's top five there. She's top five pound for pound in the world, if you ask me, right now. Yeah, I mean, you just mentioned two of the top five Valentina Shevchenko and Erin Blanchfield Those are the other two women that Tyler Santos has lost to

In recent years, and neither of them finished Tyler Santos First one to ever finish her, so I mean yeah Sign me up for Dakota DeCheva Versus Manon Fierro I mean that would be incredible to watch The striking in that one The only place that I will disagree with you is I don't think she's the face of PFL just yet. I think Francis

Ngannou and Cedric Dumbé would garner more attention and more excitement on a wide spectrum. And when they do fight, they are more the face of the PFL. But yeah, I mean, she is on the rise to superstardom for sure. Okay. So that is actually a great point and I'll concede it. I guess the reason I think this is twofold. Number one, do people associate Francis with the PFL or is he more the standalone entity who is the former UFC heavyweight champion who fought Tyson Fury, who fought AJ and, you know, who has this two fight deal in this PFL Africa thing. I guess what I'm wondering is his full identity is in PFL. Next up Cedric Dube, glory, kickboxer, all the stuff in France, her full identity is PFL. We were introduced to her via the PFL. No one knew who she was prior to the PFL and we've only known her in the PFL. And so I guess you're a hundred percent right.

I guess the reason my head goes there is because I think of Francis and Cedric as so much more than just the PFL. Yeah, those are fair arguments. I really don't have a rebuttal to that. That's a great point by you that we've only known Dakota as a PFL fighter, whereas the resumes behind Cedric Dume

and Francis Ngannou are deep. Yeah, and I will say... Go ahead, go ahead. Just to that point, having been over there and seeing Cedric Dume and Francis Ngannou are deep. Yeah, and I will say... Go ahead, go ahead. Just to that point, like, having been over there and seeing Cedric in France and saw, like, you know, people packing out an 18,000-seater arena for him, like, that allows a whole new country to understand what PFL is.

To simply say say like, you know, Oh, well he's a product of glory and so many other things. And then not like, you know, that, that kind of takes away from his argument with PFL. I wouldn't agree with that because of,

because of the reverberations that had for the brand when he went to the country, like this is a country that when, when I was interviewing a GM, the, so ahead of Bellator being the first major promotion to come there, all the talk was like, it's not really going to be real until the UFC come. That attitude has been completely shattered by Cedric Dumbay and what he's done in France. I mean, these are the biggest events they put on now.

And, you know, for a long time it was Ireland and we saw people like Peter Quealy rise to prominence. But this is a completely different level. This guy a national icon social media followings it's hard for me not to not to think that he has been one of the major building blocks particularly in Europe for that brand there because he's must see TV fair enough um I will say part of the issue and this is something that they'll have to keep on combating and and it's not exclusive to PFL. Strikeforce dealt with it. Elite XC dealt with it. Bellator, the previous generation or't wait to see if she could go back to back with the tournament. Oh, can't wait to see what super fight they can line up for her from, you know, someone who's coming over from Bellator or something like that or who they can sign to fight her. The first thing you see is can't wait to see her fight Valentina. Can't wait to see her fight Alexa Grasso.

Can't wait to see her fight Mano Firo. Can't wait to see her in the UFC. That's a problem if you're the PFL, that people are like, this is great. Can't wait to see her move on. That's a huge issue. And one of the big outstanding questions is what happens now? My understanding is she isn't a free agent, but PFL has to do everything in their power not to let her leave and will we eventually just go down the same path as kayla where she's around for a few years and then there's nothing else and then it ends in a bit of divorce i don't know what do they have to offer money yeah that's it think about kayla though i don't think yes i understand you're you're exactly right in terms of what we are hearing right in terms of

as soon as this is over it's like i can't wait to see her against the ufc's best naturally like we think she's good and we want to see her tested in that way but from a promotional perspective from a from a build perspective what happened with kayla is kind of how it should go and what you would kind of hope for dakota unlike Kayla, she's not, you know, now having had this whole full Olympic run, this whole judo career now transitioning to MMA time is short. There's limited opponents with Dakota. I think the absence of her amongst those UFC names might actually serve, right.

Might actually start to create this desire that it did with Kayla, that we do have to look to Kayla and go, the reason we wanted her to come over to the UFC was because we do have to look to kayla and go the reason we wanted her to come over to the ufc was because we had not been able to have that and to to have dakota winning maybe she wins next year's tournament maybe she's in it maybe she's not i'm not sure maybe she'll be a super fight series uh fighter uh by that point but i think that desire can build there's still opportunity for that to be built up and i i don't think it has to be next step has to be ufc or we don't think it has to be next step has to

be ufc or we don't want to see like i think the absence of having her amongst those names will actually build some desire and some demand and then maybe there's an opportunity there later um like it did with kayla i feel like this is this is a very sort of like clear-headed take i i yes i saw none of that i saw none of that everyone is saw none of that. Everybody wants the instant gratification. But truly, like, let's say in a best-case scenario, tomorrow she's a free agent. She jumps over to the UFC. She loses two fights in a row. What happens then?

She's washed. She's a bum. She never was. Like, careers are long. It's not just this, like, what's the next fight thing. And we have to be thinking about it. And I'm sure she's thinking about it in that way. She can make a lot of money competing in that pfl tournament it looks like she's peerless in that regard and and as was kayla harrison until we had a larissa pacheco come along

and show that there actually are people outside the ufc who can reach the level in some of these weight classes maybe there will be somebody who rises to the challenge and is able to compete with her i think it's just like we we always want to fast track everybody to the UFC. Like, I just don't. I'm not. This is one of those cases where I'm like, I'm okay with her entering another tournament. I mean, if I'm Don Davis and Peter Murray and the brass there, we are doing everything in our power to make her feel welcome, to make her happy. You want to be in the tournament next year?

Great. You don't want to be in the tournament next year? Great. How long can we lock you up for? She's 26 years young. I noted this on Twitter and we talked about it on the show. Her video blog before the season is they need to figure out a way to keep her A interested be motivated she's still young enough to where i think a few more of these seasons and These types of purses will i think be enough but it's it's going back to the you know the the thing That that that gc just said a lot of people are like well why should she stay ultimately if you're 26 years old

And you can You know Rack up a million dollars In addition to your purse Till you're 30 Or till you're 28 Or till you're 29 That's enough

Like to me What are you going to do She ain't getting a million dollars To fight in the UFC As good as she is As popular as she may be Kind of backing She may have in the UK

She's never getting that It's very rare I mean there's There's probably As far as women in the UFC who are making a million in a fight at this juncture, I don't know if there's more than two. I don't even know if there's one, if I'm being honest, without knowing all the details. And so that's the main motivation. But you ask me right now, like, who do you want to see her fight in 2025? And there's no one that really comes to mind.

I mean, of course, you could say, oh, maybe a Liz Karmouche fight or a rematch against Tyler. But other than that, there's— And what do those do, honestly? I mean, Liz is 40 at this point, and, I mean, she basically just walked through Tyler Santos. So, yeah, I guess if the object is money, which, you know, this is a job for her as it should be, then, you know, PFL is going to be able to pair, and she's essentially going to be able to just put on highlight real performances she's nine and oh and she's finished all of her opponents so far so yeah it's the end of the year build some more highlights build some more hype around you and get paid a million dollars when you win the tournament

i know we've kind of created this system where everybody no matter how far along they are in their career has to be in the ufc now it be contender series or tough, or just these, like, because of the nature of the roster and the calendar, these outright signings, it seems like just everybody just rushed them into the UFC. Get some seasoning. Like there's no, there's no issue going through another tournament. Think about like a Brendan Loughnane who's been in the finals, how many years in a row, just competing for that championship. There's just something that she can get. I think, at the level of the PFL that she's at right now

and at the age she's at where it doesn't have to be the next step. And she's like the perfect candidate for the PFL to say, this is our person. We're going to keep her in the tournaments like Kayla Harrison was before her. But even she has age more on her side

than Kayla did and just make her the product and continue. And I also think it's not out of the question that a 115 or a 125 or from the UFC can shake loose where you could find some interesting kind of competition to line up against her or have somebody emerge like a Larissa Pacheco did for a Kayla Harrison. I love Dakota in the PFL. I think that is a good place for her and could be. I'm not in any rush to see her in the UFC, but I understand why after that performance, everybody wants to see her against that level of competition. No doubt.

What can, what can PFL do to combat this? Because what Ariel's point is, is like a reoccurring team. Yeah. Like it's, it's, it's a constant thing where people climb to the top of this ladder. Like you mentioned Brendan and you know, I honestly think like it should be i know brendan came up short in the final obviously as well um but i think he was great in terms of showing people particularly in this part of the world that this is a viable option he spoke up you know about the money he was making he went on and he did the business with him won the tournament all that kind of stuff but

you know as much as brendan was certainly competing in these tournaments and i know he's a he's a he's further on his career than dakota was there is no doubt that the miles you're putting on the clock through these tournaments are not to be sniffed at and when you take the financial element away the gain right if you if you have a million like dakota does now it's taking the a big carrot to be dangled away from you. Right? Like, I feel like to Ariel's point, this is a reoccurring team of people who in the tournaments.

And I think the PFL as tough as that is, because this is the highest echelon of the sport, as far as they're concerned, they need to find a compelling thing to do with these champions. Afterwards, we saw this, what is it? Dubai fight series or whatever it is now like these championship things maybe there is something they can do there to make it interesting i know when brendan was certainly interested in that kind of thing when when saudi got involved in situations like that i feel like because this is such a recurring team pfl need to think of a way to combat it because i think after doing a season like this the idea of going straight back

into one isn't the most appealing especially for the person who's won that million dollar yeah that's in five months now um kind of a good problem to have because you have some bellator fighters who are complaining that they can't get fights in here some are saying it's too many fights um that being said what did you guys think coming off that point? Like Friday, it again felt like there weren't a ton of people there. It felt like it went on forever. Did it feel like a big deal? Did this feel like the culmination of a season? Did it feel, I don't know, I felt like some of the ones in New York on New Year's Eve

felt a little bit bigger. It just, something felt like it was missing. I don't know. Did you guys, GCc you were there locked in the whole time you were watching did this feel like the best of the best no because i i'm not sure if it is the best of the best in the world when i mean at least in bel in i was gonna say they're the number two promotion that's kind of to the point of like this reoccurring issue of what's next for these pfl champions and everyone always says the ufc like when you are the number two promotion like yes you climb to the top of the ladder now there's

another ladder to climb that being the ufc i mean this it just kind of felt like a another card um i mean it's cool that they do the million dollar checks and everything like that but again like with pfl is as constant as it is the pacing is is usually pretty rough we did get some finishes in this one you know it wasn't all decisions and everything like that, but it didn't feel like other than Dakota DeCheva that there was any star born, that there was any like memorable performances that you're going to be able to hang your hat on moving forward, that you're going to be able to build these guys off of. It just feels like, you know, a lot of guys that next season is going to roll around. It's like, oh oh yeah he won in he won

in 2024 yeah i guess i remember that um it was just i don't know it's just an issue that that pfl just seems to always have of like they can't build stars and when we get to these culmination points it it almost feels like a letdown i talked about this when when the brands were merging and i talked about it again when they announced that super card uh featuring francis you have broadcast by keeping it this way that the championship is not a premium product the product that we care about and the one we want you to pay for is the one that's headlined by francis and ganu this one is not and you are broadcasting that when you have these things separate and when you tear them out the same way the ufc says this pay-per-view is the one we really want you to watch it's the john jones and uh it's the john

jones and steepen may outrich fight versus the fight night that happened the day the week before by tearing these things out you are you are indicating your level of commitment to it you are you are broadcasting your level of interest and they have decided that the championship is not the premium product the premium product is that super fight card thing that they do with the Francis and Ghanos of the world. And so I don't think anybody's inclined to, nor do I think that they think of it that way. I think their business model has shifted to the point where I don't think they think that the championship is the one we need to get people to watch. And it is those pay-per-view products. So it's almost by design. I don't think they've made a misstep here if their goals are being fulfilled and the money that they are generating around this is not necessarily in how many eyeballs they have on it.

They're not going to get rid of the season. Clearly, they're behind it with the regional leagues building up to the Champions League, building up to this and all that. They're trying to do the soccer model. I don't think it will ever work um it it it can serve a purpose it can get you to a certain place but ultimately that's not what the fight game is the fight game is about rivalries the fight game is about personalities the fight game is about stories the fight game is about this guy versus this guy i i've said this before but the most lucrative feud in UFC history,

one can argue, is Conor McGregor versus Nathan Diaz. And I put it one step above Khabib Nurmagomedov versus Conor McGregor because there were two of them. That was not for a belt. That was for nothing. That was for bragging rights. That was a turf war. Khabib versus Conor, no one really cared. Titles, no titles. That was personal. If you do it as, oh, this guy advanced and he went through this system and he went through this, that doesn't get people hooked. No one cares. We watch every Saturday, every Sunday, every Monday, every Tuesday. We watch sporting events with millionaires. We watch boxing where everyone's making a million dollars, the top dogs. We watch UFC fights where the top guys are making a lot of money. The hook

that this is for a million dollars does nothing. It is not unique to sports. And so it might be unique to MMA. It might be unique to the secondary or third league in the world, but that's not enough to get people to be like, yo, you want to come over? There's a million dollars on the line. No one cares. Million dollars. Mr. Beast is throwing out a million dollars on every video that he has to people.

Like it's not enough to get us invested. We need to be invested in characters, in stories, in rivalries. And it's a problem when you sit here and you'd be like, what is the greatest rivalry in PFL history? What is the greatest story in PFL history? Who's the biggest star in PFL history? Who's the biggest personality that they built from the ground up in PFL history? They've been around a long time now, long enough. I think it's seven or so years since taking over WSOF. The fact that those don't come off the top of the dome are a problem. I could talk to you about the best fight in Bellator history. Once they got rid of

the tournament and all that, we could talk about Chandler and Alvarez. We could talk about some of the names that they built up as well. This is a problem. And I think once they recognize that, and I don't think it's happening anytime soon, It will continue to handcuff them. It will continue to be an issue for them. The fight game is not built on regular season standings, playoffs. That's not fighting. That's the NFL. That's the NBA. And when you try to equate that model to the fight game, it does not work.

It will never work. I will say this, and you can use me on What's that thing? Freezing cold takes It will never work Will there be some level of success? Absolutely But they will never overtake UFC in this regard They will never ever come close

If they stick to this model It is unequivocal This is the easiest hot take of all time They will never come close They will never sniff Because you will get hamstrung by it because you'll try to build up this guy versus this guy, and this guy will falter and lose,

or he'll be banged up or whatever, and it just won't work out. That's not how you sell tickets. That's not how you sell pay-per-views. That's not how you sell stories. And it gets frustrating to watch because I feel like they don't quite get it. And I think they're all great people, Peter Murray and Don Davis,

but I don't know if they're fight people, and they're trying to shoehorn sports, regular sports, stick and ball sports to the fight game, and it's just a whole different beast. It's predicated on a faulty concept, which is that we want meritocracy. We don't want meritocracy. That's not the fight game. We do not want the best of the best to always fight the best. There are times where we go, actually, I want to see the third best fight the best, or actually the most significant fight is the 10th best versus the 11th best. Those are the two people that I want to see the most. It is based on desire. It is based on demand. It is not based on

only meritocracy. Now, certainly there's some meritocracy involved in like, I think this person is great and I think this person is great and that's why I want to see them fight. But it is not solely based on that. And the playoff and tournament model is based entirely on that. And that's not necessarily what we want. I mean, we see this all the time. Like, do you want to see Khalil Roundtree fight Alex Pereira or do you want to see Magomed? We know what the answer is. There is an answer.

And it's not always merit, merit, meritocratic. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I get what you're saying. But it is based on desire. Can we at least agree on this one? Can we at least agree on this one? The talk that she, going back to Dakota, the talk that she is, I don't know, like overhyped or not legit.

Like, have we moved past that? Is that no longer a thing? Eating Tyler Santos, to me, quiets all of that, period. Like, I don't think there's an argument to be made after that. I was impressed. I was blown away. Was there any other performance that blew you guys away?

That you're going home and you're telling your friends about? You're sitting around the Black Friday table and you're like... That Friday table That's kind of the point Like the empa got knocked out in 58 seconds And like it was a huge moment And like I can barely even remember the guy's name Dovlet Turkmenistan I believe is where he was from

Like it's just like Like is that what you want for your champions? Like it's hard to remember Well it's tough when people that you've spent time Building up, look people are Going to lose all the time but you you Build them up to fight someone that you Haven't invested time in because they've

Just been a part of the tournament and Now all of a sudden you're left with you Know what I mean yeah but the I also I Also feel like with the with the Championships they should just do the Six fights like just put on the six Fights that all the prelims and the men Of championships the 16

didn't do for you no 16 is too much tamor kisriev is he is he a much talked about guy now after what he did to to brendan lochnane i mean i'm sure there's going to be some twitter account being like these guys are noobs and they don't know what the fuck they're talking about i know everyone knows he's a good fighter but you've just made a whole point about that that's not really what makes people tune in we know this guy is great look at his record tell me something beyond that he's a great fighter tell me anything about him he has a lovely beard and a long floppy hair yeah okay that's that's and that was pretty one-sided against a guy who was looking good in brendan lockney all these guys that won are fantastic fighters there's no argument there can i just ask another

sorry sorry pt one more time i don't get to make this point i'm gonna lose me too go ahead go ahead here's the here's the here's the biggest indicator no no no let me say something pt here go go eric go eric okay here's the biggest problem with the tournament structure patchy mixes on the sidelines yeah he's the guy i want to see fighting four times some of these guys are fighting four times i don't want to see them one time. That's the biggest problem. Now you get it. You get a confluence of things where it's like

you get Dakota. I do want to see her fighting all the time. That works in your favor, but there are situations where it doesn't. Pete C, all yours. Thank you, mate. No, that was a good point of fairness here. The issue like with overhaul in the tournament

thing is the reason why these fighters are coming to the pfl is to compete for that million dollars and all right like you know if we're thinking logically here well break it down into smaller amounts and give it out like that it's not the same for these people like a million dollars is is a real real marketing tool for them to get fighters over so what do you do if you're the pfl like how do you revamp this in a way that it's still that appealing to fighters to the point where, like Paul Hughes, they'll turn down the UFC to come to your promotion because they think they'll win that million? Well, let's keep that conversation

going and speak to the woman that we have been talking about for the past 30 or so minutes. She, in my opinion, is the new face of the PFL. She was the big winner on Friday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She is the 125-pound women's tournament winner. She is a million-dollar winner. She won the PFL Europe tournament, and now the big shebang, if you will. She is the pride of Manchester and Bulgaria. She is the one and only Dakota Ditcheva there she is hello Dakota how are you in the same spot I do believe that you were searching for the best car insurance like six seven months ago is that not accurate yeah do you know what that's actually right isn't that yeah you're on your balcony right from the video blog yeah look at you now I know I'm not

doing that today though looking at your car insurance I'm not bothered I'll just let that renew itself yes that's what it's like to be a millionaire um congratulations on the incredible win and we'll talk all about it but I'm just wondering here we are some three days later has what you have accomplished not just on Friday but over the past few months sunken in does this all feel very real at 26 years of age yeah no like i don't think it'll ever really sink in but i hope it doesn't i hope i just you know feel the same that's what i want if i'm being honest so what was it like over there because this was the one this was the one that everyone said okay now we're gonna find out if she's legit now we're gonna find out if she can hang with the big dogs at 125 were you feeling that pressure on route to friday tyler santos former ufc title contender what were the nerves

like yeah do you know what i really wasn't this is like the mentally the strongest i've ever been um and to be honest like the the main pressure the main pressure for me was fighting santos i wasn't thinking about the million and I wasn't really thinking about the world title people always said to me you know um just treat it like any other fight like don't overthink the money don't overthink the title and I wasn't even thinking about that I was going in there to beat her and that's what I wanted to do prove to everyone and myself that I'm uh I'm up there and so um as you were preparing for the fight as you were envisioning it as you were kind of deliberating, dreaming about it, was that how you expected it to go?

Did you think it would be that one-sided, you looking so dominant? No, I expected it to give a little bit more if I'm being honest, you know, because I really do rate her. I respect her as the fighter. Obviously, people thought she would against Shevchenko,

so I knew who I was up against. I did expect her to bring a little bit more, but I mean, I'm not too surprised either that I got the stoppage because I know what I'm like and that's kind of what I set my mind out to do was kind of run through the tournament the same way I'd done the the first three so it was like I wanted to finish the tournament with four stoppages and that's what happened yes and the stoppage was phenomenal first of all uh nice to see you use some elbows did you know before the announcement did they tell you guys before that that was going to be allowed? Because they only told the public like a week or so ago. Yeah, we knew partway through the camp, not straight away, but partway through the camp. Yeah, we were told that they were going to let us use elbows.

And what was that like for you? Were you happy about this? yeah I was really happy um obviously I used to fight with elbows before I transitioned to MMA because I did a Muay Thai so it was something that I was kind of familiar with using that I had to take away out of my game so it was nice to be able to throw them I was a little bit rusty but it was nice to kind of put them back in the mix again slice through her with the elbows and then went to the body um clinical I mean dare I sayabolical, how you just attack the body like that. And it's just, I just feel like there's something about body shots, especially in MMA, that hit different, pardon the pun, because I feel like we don't see it utilized as much. And you utilize it so well with punches, with knees. I mean, just look at this here. It is

amazing to see you go to work. Why you think that is why do you think that particular plan of attack isn't used as much in mma and in particular for whatever reason it feels like women's mma yeah i don't know maybe it's underrated a little bit i think um sometimes it's risky to throw to the body because you get counted over the top so a lot of people kind of don't go for it um even front kicks like i use a lot of front kicks to the stomach as well. But they get caught all the time. So I don't know. It's just how confident you are with throwing them shots.

And I feel like I drill it all the time. It's just second nature to me. Sometimes when I watch myself fight, I just feel like it's kind of just me hitting pads. It's weird. I'm going through the same motions. It's kind of just something that I drill all the time and work all the time that it's just second nature when I get in there The fights are so easy for you that it feels like you're just

hitting pads out there? That's absurd No, I mean sometimes it feels like I'm in that flow state of when I'm hitting pads I mean that's the way I took it it's that easy that they're just like a big pad like someone's holding pads and you're just teeing off on them.

The fights have been impressive, the finishes have been impressive, and as we've talked about, the celebrations have been supremely impressive, and this one was a callback to your face-off I believe after the semis where she took out the, I don't know if it was lipstick, was it lipstick or was it like lip balm?

Lip balm, yeah. Okay, and so you planned this, right, because you were searching for it and someone threw it to you and you hit her back with it. I had it ready. Yeah. I only decided I was going to do that during the fight week. And it was funny because I talked to my brother about doing it and we, and we come up with the idea during fight week.

And then the day before my fight, or it might've even been the morning of the fight. I was like with my mom and a few friends and family that had come over to watch me. And my mom teamed up with this lip balm and she was like, I've got an the fight. I was like with my mom and a few friends and family that had come over to watch me and my mom teamed up with this lip balm and she was like, I've got an idea. And I was like, no way, great minds think alike. So she got me the lip balm,

but I already had the idea in my head anyway. Fantastic. What does that moment feel like? The one that we just watched and your brother picking you up and you spoke so nicely about him in the cage and on social media as well, just to have that moment and then your mom's in the cage and on on social media as well just to have that moment and then your mom's in the cage with you this culmination how do you

describe that oh it's hard to describe like this is just something i've not even just this last year like for years and years and years this is like a moment i've dreamt of for so long and to be able to finally live that moment and then know now that it's going to change like my family's life for a long time is it's crazy i don't think that'll ever sink in but um it's been a long time coming for sure um and and it's great to see the whole family there and you get the check and you get all that there also seem to be a quite you know like a solid amount of i don't know if they were friends of yours family members but people definitely supporting you. And obviously Brendan representing Manchester as well.

Did you know all those people that they kept showing in the crowd? Yeah, I think they started filming my crowd. I think mine and a few of Brendan's fans were all sat together, but they were like the loudest people. So they kept putting the cameras on them. But yeah, I had a lot of people come over from Manchester to watch me.

So family and friends. Yeah. So that was really nice. I spent the whole week with them actually so very different i've been in the states fighting all year and i haven't had any home crowd just my mom my brother and my dad come over so um so finally like have a little bit of manchester come with me was was special as well especially for that night by the way just curious what kind of feedback did you get from them because um i do believe in uh re-ed you can't drink and i know that uh the the uk fans enjoy having a pint or two did they feel like that was uh tough for them to watch without drinking i haven't really asked them to be honest but i think the whole week was a little bit funny like that like when we went out we went out for a tea meal the night before and we were all on like pepsi water and like a little bit of juice and it was it was very strange because normally it's more of a party for people when they go and watch MMA right so it was very different but they

all still enjoyed it anyway so yeah but it's very strange it's very strange okay so I want to ask you your opinion on some things that we were just debating before you came on. Number one, do you consider yourself the face of the PFL? I'd say the women, yeah, probably would, yeah. Okay. my my uh retort to that obviously tremendous answers and hard to argue against them um i feel like you were introduced to us via the pfl and came up through their whole system we've known them via other means as well francis ufc cedric kickboxing etc but to me you're a true blue pfl at least right now and so that's why i associate you most with the organization yeah i think you're right there i've come up literally from the very

beginning especially from the pfl europe that launched the first year it launched i was the one that was kind of headlining the show so i feel like everyone's watched me grow through that and then grow through this tournament so i feel like it was it's been a journey that everyone's been on with me if that makes sense it's not like i've kind of come over from somewhere else it's like they've seen me grow up through through pfl so i feel like that's probably why um people say i'm the face of it because i'm kind of everywhere you see me like through each stage i'm always kind of there so that's probably why by the way when you were fighting outside of the pfl a few years ago i'm not sure if i asked you this so apologies if i if i have who found you who was the one that

offered you the pfl deal how did that all come about yeah i was fighting on different shows and it was um pfl decided to launch in europe for the europe season and then my manager at the time um approached me and said oh i've got pfl here and it was it's the show that brendan's on so it was because brendan had time with them out the ufc that i kind of knew what it was um And they were like, oh, the launch in Europe is going to do like a $100,000 tournament. So they'd love to get you involved. And that's kind of how it started for me. But I think I wouldn't have known what that promotion was unless Brendan was in it. Wow. And had you guys talked to the UFC yet, contender series or anything like that? Or were you too new?

I had at the time talked about going into the usc yeah i had actually spoke about that um but we were just kind of wondering whether i was like ready for it yet whether i needed to go into it yet and then when pfl come that their kind of offer was much better for me i felt like i could grow a little bit with them do this tournament get a bit more experience and then then I was still so young. I'm only 26 now as well. So I've still got plenty of time in this sport. Yes, you do. Okay. Next question. Are you top five flyweight in the world right now?

Are you asking me? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Are you top five? I definitely am. Top five pound for pound? Oh, pound for pound. Who else is in it? Okay. Okay. I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you right here. Pound for pound Oh Pound for pound Who else is in it? Okay okay

I'll give it to you I'll give it to you right here Okay so Chris Cyborg I'm not Everyone has a different list But Cyborg Zhang Weili

Valentina Shevchenko Manon Fioro Alexa Grasso A lot of flyweights in there But Kayla Harrison of course Aaron Blanchfield rose namajunas larissa pacheco i think you can make oh i know i'm not a strong case i think your top 10 pound

for pound to me the argument is are you top five pound for pound i would probably say top 10 top 10 i'll list like that i feel like i've got a lot more to prove a lot more years in the sport to kind of prove myself a little bit then fighters have been along for a long i've been around for a long time so i'll say top 10 the amazing thing is though you are in the conversation this is not like a crazy thing to bring up you are there you are amongst all these giants 100 and especially now i've beat a name like santos it's like you know she she's never been stopped she's never been stopped Shevchenko didn't stop her people thought she beat her and now what can people really say you know Blanchfield went five rounds with her um there's been plenty of fighters that have had to go five rounds with her and I've just got in there and made it look like another

camp on the list as people always comment on my stuff so i feel like i'm definitely i'm in the conversation now i'm not saying i'm up there at the top but you definitely have to take me serious for sure um are you feeling like you're getting the respect afterwards like are people no longer saying that about you and your opponents after this fight are you reading that this is the quietest people have been on my post for sure so i feel like they've realized a little bit. That must feel good. Yeah, no, it does feel good, you know, and it feels good myself. You know, it's proven to myself as well.

It's given me a lot of confidence. A name like Santos, someone I've watched in the UFC before, I've just got in there and beat it like that. So it's given me a lot of confidence. It shows, you know, the work that I'm doing with my team is working and we're on the right path okay so now here is uh is is a bit of the uncomfortable part of the conversation because this is not me trying to wedge this into the convo but it is something that you see immediately after and and i'm sure you know what i'm talking about immediately after the fight it's when do we

see her in the ufc when do we see her against valentina when do we see her against Valentina? When do we see her against Alexa? When do we see her against Mano? That is literally seconds later. Yeah, cool. Can't wait to see her fight in the UFC. You see this as well, right? There's no denying it, yes? Yeah, no, and I told you it would not end there.

No one would be satisfied. The next thing is now, oh yeah, but she won't stand this long against Mano or she won't stand against Sheff Trenkle or would she beat her? I was expecting it. So actually, if I'm being honest, and you are, I mean, this is about you. I don't necessarily see that.

I don't see like, oh, she can hang with them. I'm sure there's people who are saying that here and there. But the majority of the sentiment seems to be, I can't wait to see her there. When is she? People are asking me to see her there. When is she... People are asking me about your contract situation. When is she free? All this stuff. That's what I'm seeing. More excitement about seeing you hang with these other legends,

if you will. Answer the question whichever way you want. People are dying to know, what is your contract situation with the PFL? Are you locked up long term when can you look at these options yeah no i am locked up with pfl i will definitely be fighting for pfl next year um especially now i've just won this title that lots of you and again i've got to

defend it and i'm not kind of planning on uh abandoning that belt just yet i'm only 26 as well like i've got so much more to give to PFL and um hopefully we'll come up with a few good things next year I don't know what the situation is with whether you'll see me fighting the tournament again or we'll have some big fights I don't know we'll see but I'm definitely with PFL what is your preference do you want to go through the whole ringer of the tournament all over again I would do because I really enjoyed it um Fighting regularly like that, I feel like I've got stronger and stronger throughout the year. But I've just beat the top girl that PFL have. The only other person would be Liz Karmush, right? So I'm not really interested in going down. I need to go up. I want better competition and I want to fight better people. And I feel like as well, fighting a big super fight would benefit me more. I feel like, would people want to see me back in the tournament fighting the same girls again?

I'm not really too sure everyone would be entertained by that. So I think maybe a big fight next year would be better. But I'm happy to do the tournament again because I really enjoyed it. But economically, would it be better in the tournament for you? I don't know. We'll see. The upside, I mean, and maybe you have a tremendous deal, but the upside feels greater, but perhaps they can change that for you. Super fight-wise, who is on that list?

Is there anyone in the PFL slash Bellator or outside of the UFC that you would like to fight in 2025? Yeah, I mean, Liz Tavish is probably the only big name. She's the Bellator champion, so I think that's the only one right now that would make sense. But I'm not sure if that... Santos beat her as well, so... I don't know what makes sense for me right now. I need to sit down with pfl and

kind of have a talk and see what they're going to come up with 125 to me is is the most interesting weight class in women's mma right now regardless of organization i'm just curious do you have any interest in in ever testing the waters at 35 not saying you should but as as you pointed out a couple times you are quite young eventually would you like to go there? Possibly, yeah, eventually. I'd definitely go up. I wouldn't go down. There'd be no 115 for me.

But yeah, I reckon maybe one day I would. I'm sure my coach would be happy for me to do that as well. Yes. But 125 is like my perfect weight. That's the only thing. It's like I don't have a tough cut, and it's not too heavy for me, if that makes sense. So 135 in the future could be a possibility. You were pushing the Manchester card very much.

It sounded to me like a stern warning to the bosses. I'm not fighting again unless the next one is in Manchester. Correct me if I misread that. How confident? Was I right about that? Yeah, no you are, I really think they should go to Manchester, there's a lot of talent coming into PFL Europe as well

a lot of Manchester fighters as well so with Brendan he's done with the tournaments now I think but if they were to get him a Manchester card I reckon he would come back for one more so I've been in the States as well. I feel like I don't want to forget home.

I think that's what a lot of fighters do as well. They obviously get enough to a promotion and then the UK fans don't follow us because we don't come home enough. That's probably where we lose the fans in the UK because we don't give them enough. So, I feel like it's only right that we do go to Manchester and try and get some good names on there and give them a good show.

I think I don't want to forget them and just keep fighting in the States. I want to be able to go back home and still put on a show for the fans. I think that's important as a Manchester girl. So we'll see. I mean, I feel like there's enough. And what a time, by the way, for Manchester fighting, right? You, Tom Aspinall, Brendan doing great things over the past year. UK MMA on fire.

And it must be, I mean, a huge honor and very exciting for you to be a part of it. When you said that and in the conversations afterwards, was the sentiment that, yes, they are going to try to make this happen for you in 2025? Did you get any sense? Yeah, no, I have had a little bit that they're going to try and do a manchester card i have had you know a few people say that but whether it happens i don't know i need to be on their case all the time to make sure i keep pushing it and so just curious how do you battle the emotions because on the one hand uh you're killing it you're smashing it you just won this million dollars you just won the the tournament, PFL Europe, and then

the global and you're the face and everyone's talking about you. On the other hand, the Sunday over 40 dad soccer team that I play on is doing better than Man City. And so I'm just wondering, how do you balance the emotions of Man City turning into shite. By the way, playing the mighty Tricky Trees on Wednesday. I don't know if you know this. As we roll into Etihad to, I think, give you, I think, your seventh straight defeat or something crazy like that. What are the emotions? I mean, I see you're wearing the blue over there. But it is pretty sad to see what has become of this once proud club.

Is it not? I think my heart is a little bit broken. But I'm heading back to Manchester And I'm taking the winning spirit When we play United next week We're going to be back on top So you won't be there for the big Forest showdown on Wednesday No I won't

Did you happen to catch that I'm glad we did this interview now and not after Trust me I'm very happy about it Did you happen to catch that We're only a point behind you guys Did you happen to catch that we're only a point behind you guys? Did you happen to catch that? One point. Yeah.

I was thinking about it because I knew I was going to come on here and you were going to say something to the aerial. Yes, yes. It is unbelievable. I know it for now.

I know it. There are some people saying that you're going to stomp us on Wednesday. I would say otherwise. Did you see that they were saying to Pep yesterday that he's going

to get sacked today? Did you see the Liverpool fans chanting this to him? Did you see Pep's reaction? I did, I did, yes. Very nice. What he should have held up was 1-1-5 for all the infractions that are going to be levied on.

I'm just joking. It's going to be great in the National League next season for them as they get relegated. Anyway, I had to bring that up. I'm sorry. It's going too well for you. I know you did. I was waiting for it.

I was waiting for it. This is what they call taking the piss, right? Is this what they say? Yeah. Yeah. It's very English of you. Yes. Yes.

So life is good. And if you come back, it would be April, right? That would probably be the next time. Or is there any chance you pop up on any of these other super cards champion series cards that they're doing i'm not going to dubai next in january i won't be on that one but um i'm not sure if they're going to do like a champ v champ again they normally do that like february time in saudi so i'm not sure but otherwise yeah if the tournament runs again my first one will be in april and we'll be locked in for another eight months.

Would February be possible for you or not too soon? Oh, I would do that. Yeah, I'm happy to get straight back into camp. Yeah. Gosh. Oh, my gosh. I mean, no real injuries there on Friday, right? No, nothing.

I've been really lucky all season. I've not come out with anything super bad. So I think my body just needs a rest, to be honest. But I'd still be happy to go and what about your brother uh any any plans for him to fight no no plans for him to fight you know what he's just such a good coach i don't think i would want him to fight because i need him honestly like he's so he's so good he just i can't even explain like everything you see in that cage is like my brother's brain i was literally saying this to him the other day like we're going to get some

videos out and post on instagram and stuff but everything you see in that cage that i do is like everything we've drilled day in day out like the work that me and att do honestly if you could see us in the gym it's just literally like a photocopy of me in the cage. Wow. Like, we have, honestly, the best team, and they're just getting better and better. So, no, no fighting for my brother, because I need him. How old is he, by the way? He's older than you, right? Yeah, two years. He's 28.

Wow. 28. Unbelievable. And does he coach anyone else? No, he holds, like, pads for a lot of the fighters in att because they all love to work with him so he does that but um he coaches back home at my mum's gym but he doesn't like coach any fighters for their camps or anything like that he just uh holds a lot of pads for the different ones in att and and when you were young were you guys super close or did you fight a lot

we used to fight as kids yeah we used to fight all the time over the stupidest things and then when we got to like the ages like 14 we were just like best friends even the little brother the three of us are like super tight really tight and now and now look at you on the on the biggest of stages winning with him um you you did mention that you know he's not going to fight because he has to be by your side you also said in the uh in the cage he doesn't have a girlfriend he doesn't have much of a personal life. Can you at least let him have that? Can you let him have some type of fun?

Yeah, no, he can have that, but he's going to have to find someone over here, because I need him over here in America. He was fuming when I said that. He was like, I'm never going to get a girlfriend now. Everyone's going to think I'm a wet wife. Or you just put him on blast to let the world know that he's available.

That's what I said. Now everyone's going to be hitting you know that he's available that's what i said now everyone's going to be hitting you up he's had a few followers from it so he'll thank me he'll thank me later i hope all right uh best thing before we let you go best thing to come from friday like someone reaching out to you something that was said to you backstage of the million things literally that have come from this win. What do you remember most? Perhaps your grandmother, did she watch? She did, yeah. She FaceTimed us straight away. My uncle actually had a surprise party.

It was his birthday on Friday. And they were trying to get him out to this meal that they were saying they were going. And he didn't want to go because he wanted to watch me fight. But he finally turned up and they put it on the big screen. She was watching it. And she was super happy. She was like,

give me the money. Amazing. Love it. Well, congratulations. Enjoy it all. Enjoy the holidays. I would,

I would wish you good luck on Wednesday, but I wouldn't mean it. So I'd be lying. I hope we smash them. That would be tremendous. Otherwise though, lovely to have you so very happy for you. Well done. And looking forward to a big 2025 for you. That would be tremendous. Otherwise, though, lovely to have you. So very happy for you. Well done.

And looking forward to a big 2025 for you. Thank you, Ariel. Thank you so much. All right. There she is. The newest millionaire coming from the PFL, coming from Manchester, coming from Bulgaria, representing Bulgaria as well. That's where the name comes from.

We had a whole chat about that. Dakota Ditcheva. She is an unbelievable fighter. And, you know, she mentioned that maybe people wouldn't be into her running it back per se in the tournament. I would disagree if only because she is 14 and 0 and every single one of her fights ends via stoppage. only once has she gone to the third round. Um, rarely, I believe it's just twice, including Friday, has she gone to the second round and everything else has been the first round. And so when you have a fighter like that who delivers, I think people will want to watch her fight. I think people would be interested.

So congratulations to her and to all the big winners from this past Friday. Commiserations to our pal, Brendan Loughnane, fought valiantly, but his opponent, Abbas saw in his own right, the undefeated Timur Kizriev improving to 18 and oh great stuff from dakota and we will be talking to our next guest in a matter of moments his name is eric bishop the legend i've i've talked to him once before and that was on the uh aria hawani basketball show believe it or not we talked about the deal with uh the nwo and dennis rodman and carl malone you may recall all that from way back when i think some 25 years ago

here's the deal as it pertains to eric bischoff uh he will be appearing at Major League Wrestling's Eric Bischoff's One Shot. MLW presents Eric Bischoff's One Shot this Thursday, December 5th at 9pm Eastern from the Melrose Ballroom in New York City. That's Queens country. That's New York Rick country right

there. You know the Melrose Ballroom, Mr. Rick? Okay, he's busy. Anyway, every MLW event streams live for free on their YouTube channel. That's youtube.com slash MLW. He is serving as the executive producer for OneShot, taking over total creative control of the event. It's expected to be a sellout marking a full year of sellouts for MLW. They're on a roll right now. That's 12 sellouts in a row. And you got names like Matt Riddle, Trevor Lee, Paul Walter Hauser, Mystico, Minoru Suzuki, our friend Filthy Tom, Ultimo Guerrero, those and many more appearing on Thursday. Now, interestingly enough, that's not the only show that Eric will be appearing on this week. We will talk about that and a whole lot more with our guests at this time. The Hall of Famer, the living legend, the often imitated, never duplicated, the inimitable, the one and only Eazy-E, Eric Bischoff.

There he is, my guy. Hello, Eric. How are you? I'm doing great. Coming to you from the Billings Logan International Airport in Billings, Montana. My God, thank you for doing this. I know it's not ideal. Usually, I see you in the familiar sort of wooden cave setup, you and Conrad Thompson. So I hope this isn't an inconvenience. I did watch your post-Survivor Series show, and you talked about the limo coming to get you and Conrad Thompson. So I hope this isn't an inconvenience. I did watch your post-Survivor Series show, and you talked about the limo coming to get you and that your neighbors would not be too familiar with a limo coming to your house and being in the neighborhood. Did that happen this morning to take you to the airport?

No, they sent a Suburban. I was really hoping for a big stretch, gaudy looking, you know, something like a 1988 Cadillac limo, something just gaudy looking, but now they sent a nice suburban. Okay. Well, that should do. You know what's crazy about this, Eric? And thank you so much for coming on. And also, if I may, thank you for some kind words that you've said about myself and what we're doing here on social media. It really does mean a lot and somewhat surreal, if I'm being honest.

When we booked this through MLW, it was great. I was very excited to have you on. And then all of a sudden, I'm on social media and I see you pop up on NXT. And I believe you're on your way to NXT in Orlando tomorrow. I had no idea. So somewhat fortuitous for us. And so before we do get to the MLW deal, could I ask, how did the whole NXT appearance come about? Really, both phone calls came in just about the same time. It was ironic. And it was just a simple call. You know, I think WWE's got, there's another project I'll be working on on Wednesday for the network or Peacock.

So I think because I'm going to be there anyway in Orlando working on that. And oh, by the way, there's a live show on Tuesday. Hey, let's just get them in here and make them a part of the NXT show. So I think that's the reason it came together. Efficiency more than anything and a good opportunity. You know, I've never been a part of NXT. so this is a first for me and for the audience uh is that a one shot as well or a potential for more appearances dude you should know by now i'm i'm unemployable right like people don't mind bringing me in for a night but you watch you won't see me in for six months like a little bit

a little bit of me goes a long way. Why is that? Oh, I'm just kidding. But seriously, though, I think I'm a little bit outside the demo, just a bit. And yeah, there's some name value there. People still remember the Monday Night Wars and the legacy that that created. And it has some value. But realistically, it's limited. And if I get an opportunity to do things like this, you know, a couple being a regular on TV as far as wrestling is concerned. Does that itch ever come up?

Do you ever say to your wife, like, ah, you know, it would be nice to be on the road and travel 52 weeks and all that stuff? I'd rather chew off my leg. No. No, look, part of it is obviously, you know, I've just gotten older and I've gotten very comfortable. I love where I live. I live in a beautiful, beautiful part of it is obviously, you know, I've just gotten older and I've gotten very comfortable. I love where I live.

I live in a beautiful, beautiful part of the United States. It's been my dream my whole life to live here. And now I am. So it's tough for me to leave. I don't enjoy it. And travel has just gotten so much more difficult for everybody. And between those two things, yeah, I'm good. Now, every couple of times a year, I don't mind traveling.

But 52 weeks a year like i said i'd rather chew up my life uh regarding nxt there was a moment where i think some fans thought that uh whatever triple h and and sean michaels had built was getting killed and now it feels like they've made a total comeback where it's uh it's actually a a valued sort of part of the programming for the week for wwe and it doesn't feel like something that is being killed off. Do you share that sentiment? Is it something that you keep up with and enjoy? I don't keep up with it.

And I see a lot. I watch it much like I watch wrestling in general, more for the business of the wrestling business than for the wrestling matches of the wrestling business. Meaning I'm really curious to see how NXT develops as a legitimate training ground factory, if you will, for future talent. And what I'm seeing, you know,

I've been hearing that theory for so long, going all the way back to when I first got to WCW and guys like Ole Anderson and Rick Flair and others Dusty Rhodes would be lamenting the fact that that I'm sorry lady just trying to bring me some more coffee uh lamenting the fact that there's no way for talent to learn because it would be everything had become so television driven that there's no way for them to get the experience well NXT has provided that both in terms of a sophisticated training facility and also giving talent the opportunity

to learn their craft in front of a live television audience. Because there's only so much you can learn in a training facility, no matter how hard you work and how good the instructors are, your teachers are, your coaches, whatever it may be. There's only so much you can learn until you actually get out in front of people and start applying what you've learned and learning how to control and pace the audience's reaction to what you're doing.

And to see NXT reach the level that it has and be able to provide that foundation for guys like, oh, I don't know, Ron Breaker. Let's just talk about that guy for a second. I think it's reaching all of its goals from my perspective. They seem to be taking one step further in that regard, and it's instituting this WWID program. Do you like this idea? Do you think this will be effective?

I love the idea. I'm very interested in the independent side of things. I think there's not only a great opportunity business-wise. I think there's a great opportunity for young talent to really, I mean, think about it. When it comes to the NFL, we all know where NFL players come from, right? They come from college. We all know where college players come from they come from high school we all know where the high school players come from you know they come from the bantam leagues or whatever midget football organizations exist for five-year-olds and up but where do professional wrestlers come from there's not a sophisticated kind of development

ground outside of wwe or tna or aw right there's the independent scene but it's not a sophisticated kind of development ground outside of WWE or TNA or AEW. There's the independent scene, but it's not very sophisticated. It's not very organized. It's not very structured. So you don't get quite as much out of it as you possibly could. But I think what WWE is doing, I'm not familiar with their business model or what they're attempting to do. But from the outside looking in, I think they're making a really good move, and I think it'll benefit everybody. Okay, so that's the NXT story.

The big one, of course, is MLW One Shot on Thursday here in New York in Queens. You can get tickets, eventbrite.com, Melrose Ballroom. You can watch it on YouTube. I do believe this is your introduction to the MLW world. How did this all come about for you? Very spontaneously. It occurred on a phone call with Paul Walterhauser, and it was fun. It's everything that I enjoy. I love the spontaneity of things. I love things to feel organic, as organic as possible. And that's how this all came together. Court and I have spoken probably two, three, four times over the last couple of years. And there's always

been a conflict either on my end or their end in terms of scheduling. This time, the scheduling was, I was wide open. It came up in a kind of a spontaneous, fun way. And it just sounds like a great time. How do you feel they fit into that ecosystem with the TNAs, the AEWs, the New Japans, the WWEs, of course, where does MLW, in your opinion, fit into all of that? Hard for me to say. I don't know enough about MLW, to be honest, to give much of an opinion on that. Although I do know that it's a good product. I've watched it on YouTube. I'm very familiar with it. The production values are great. The talent involved is strong.

Court's got WWE storytelling experience, writing experience. There's some really talented people associated with the product. So I think it has all the potential in the world. And let's be honest, WWE in particular, but also AEW have proven

that from a television perspective, wrestling works. It's still one of the most affordable forms of content that a television network or a cable outlet could purchase from a licensing perspective. Relatively speaking, it's inexpensive and relatively speaking, it over delivers based on that expense. So mathematically, it's still very viable. And MLW is in a strong position to take advantage of that. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Are you not making a dime off of this appearance? Well, technically, no. But that's because when Court and I first started talking, we started negotiating for the money. And I know this is going to sound no, but that's because when Court and I first started talking, we started negotiating for the money.

And I know this is going to sound goofy, but I'm really doing this for the fun. Court and everybody on his team made this feel like a good time. So I just suggested that rather than negotiate my fees, they just donate whatever it's going to be to turn up the towers. Respect. Much respect for that. So it's being billed as Eric Bischoff's one shot. Is this a one night only for you? More than likely. Again, going back to the travel

thing. Anything can happen. I'm a spontaneous person. I've learned, and I've known this all my life, but it's become even more profound to me as I've gotten older, maybe wiser, is I love to work hard, but I love to work hard having fun. Meaning, I've learned that no matter how hard you work, if you don't enjoy your work, it's short term and if you love your work but you don't really work hard at it same thing i want to have a great time working hard and if that opportunity provides itself then you know all

bets are off i can see myself doing something that i wouldn't have expected but right now i'm about as comfortable as a human being could be and blessed. So I'm good. But we'll see. You never know. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but next year you will be celebrating your 70th birthday, correct? Correct. I'm about six months away.

Yes. So that's something to be very proud of, and I hope you feel the same. Did you ever think 69 and a half, 2024, December, you're making appearances on WWE television, on a big indie show. You're still in demand. You still have it. People still want to be in business with you, still want to see you and work with you. Did you ever think that would be the case? No, no. I mean, when I got the job at WCW, I was praying that I just hold on to that gig for two years so I could get caught up on my bills and buy a new car. So look how that turned out. everything I've experienced. And still at this point in my life, to be able to have an opportunity

to go out and perform in front of people means a lot to me. I enjoy the hell out of it. I'm not going to lie. I really enjoy it. And I miss that. So to get these opportunities, whether it's once a year, twice a year, whatever, I'm just nothing but grateful for for it i'm blessed that i know it when you're not doing your show 83 weeks 83 weeks.com your your youtube stuff or these these sort of one shots how does eric bischoff spend his days what do you do on a on a regular monday in montana you know well it's wyoming but uh wyoming excuse me yeah well but i travel in and out of montana um you know i've i've got three or four other projects that I'm developing. And when I say that, sometimes I'll jump into a project just to learn about it.

And sometimes I'll jump into a project because I really think I can develop it and take it to a commercial level. But I'm involved in something right now that I, and I, and I don't want to be, I don't want to be this way, but I can't talk about it too much yet because I'm still developing it, but I'm jumping into a project now that it's in the world of finance and it's absolutely fascinating to me. Uh, and we'll talk more about it later, but it's, it's really consuming almost all of my time right now and my focus doing the research. It's about a fraud. I've said too much.

Okay. You'll be hearing more about it. But I do that. I've got a couple of television projects that people have reached out to me to help them develop. And I do that just, again, to kind of and and get a rush that way but uh that's about it man i keep myself busy i got a new grandson so my wife and i travel a lot spend time with him congrats um like i said i watched your your post show on saturday after survivor series which i enjoyed very much always enjoy your content and and i want to push back on one thing if i may

uh you said towards the end that the bloodline has surpassed nwo as the greatest faction in in wrestling history and and no i said i said greatest storyline storyline there's a difference okay fair enough and i'd love to ask about that my apologies i want to get it right uh and i do believe i got this part right you said that it's been about like two years since they've surpassed it right and that part kind of blew me away two years i mean it's a four-year story if we want to count like Roman's return at SummerSlam in 2020

as the beginning of it all with Paul Heyman. And not because I want you to give yourself the old Barry Horowitz, but I found that to be very surprising. And so could we expand on that? Why do you think it's the best storyline in wrestling history surpassing the NWO? Well, let me first kind of talk about the distinction i think no storyline no faction in my opinion will have the impact

that the nwo storyline had just and that has a lot to do with timing the state of the business at the time the evolution of the business just the time, the evolution of the business. Timing was perfect for the NWO. And it's still one of the top-selling merchandise items in the WWE catalog. So there's that. I think the quality of the Bloodline storyline, however, just in terms of its discipline the arc that it's created the benefits that have resulted from it in terms of talent i mean just look at you know we've kind of already forgotten a little bit but look at sammy zane look at that storyline did for sammy look what it's done for so many people that it's elevated from literally out of nowhere or kind of mid-card kind of mid

roster status into superstars the amount of money that's been generated from that storyline i just don't think you can look at it as a piece of business and think of anything that's even close in terms of the bloodline storyline from a storyline point of view from an impact point of view i don't think Bud Light will ever come close to the NWO. But they're two different things. And so could I ask the distinction there, because gate and ticket sales and all that stuff, higher than ever, maybe the ratings aren't what they were in the 90s. But isn't that the greatest sort of indicator of what kind of impact a story is having? It's one.

I don't think there's any one indicator that trumps all others. But certainly that's a big one, right? How much money did it generate? But I think with the NWO, NWO will certainly not generate the amount of money that the Bloodline storyline has. It just won't um but i think when i talk about the impact of the derivatives of factions look at the number of factions that have tried to recreate the nwo story there's a lot including in wwe that was a horrible disaster there's been so many It's just left a cultural mark on professional wrestling in a way that. And now you start to bring in new faces and it starts to get splintered off. That's a dangerous game, right? Would you not say that once you dilute it, it starts to muddy the waters a little bit? It can. Don't we know for sure? It certainly can. But again, that's where, you know,

when I said, when I described the bloodline a few moments ago as being disciplined, that's kind of what I mean. Everybody involved in that story knows very well. And all they have to do is think back to the NWO and how that became so diluted because it lacked discipline. You can learn from that experience if you're smart and they are smart and they're learning from it. And it's how you manage the growth and expansion. It's not whether you should or you shouldn't. You almost have to, to keep the storyline alive. It's required, whatever it is.

If it's a drama series and it's been going on for years and years and years, you're adding new characters to keep it fresh. You have to do that. But if you do it in a deliberate, structured and disciplined way, it can be the gift that keeps on giving. And that's what it's been for four years. When I think of discipline and the secret sauce, I feel like it's all Paul Heyman. If Heyman's not there, it's a big problem. Do you feel like he's the one that, as long as he's around and part of this and sort of pulling the strings, they'll be okay? I have a lot of confidence in Paul Heyman. I think he's an amazing,

amazing producer and creator. And I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I don't think there's any limitation to what Paul's capable of, creatively speaking. Based on what you saw on saturday any concern that it will get diluted that there are too many different twists and turns or do you feel

like they're still on the correct path very much on a correct path i'm not worried about it at all again they've demonstrated for four years now discipline and nuance i'm not worried about it if you had the pencil what's the main event of WrestleMania 41? Based on where we're at right now. Oh, God. I hate when people ask me these questions. Why? Because I have to sit down and think about it for about an hour.

Really? I feel like there's only a few different possibilities. Yeah, but I think about things differently. Okay. When I'm asked a question like that, I kind of reverse engineer things and look for something that nobody expected as opposed to the obvious. Wow. Next time we talk, I'll have an answer for you. We just have to talk before WrestleMania. That's fair.

I guess part of me was trying to figure out how the mind of the genius works. Well, I just gave you a little bit of a glimpse. What does everybody expect WrestleMania to be? What do most people expect WrestleMania to be? I would look for something different. Okay. Could I ask, you know, your battles on social media are very entertaining at times. Do they ever get tiresome for you?

I mean, sometimes it's AW and their fans and Tony and then it's Meltzer. You're out there, you know, in the trenches like swinging haymakers. Does it ever get tiresome for Eric Bischoff? I get bored because people that I'm usually arguing with are pretty stupid. It's not fun arguing with stupid people. I prefer to argue and get into kind of a back and forth with somebody that actually challenges me on an intellectual level or is just intellectually curious by nature. And you don't get a lot of that in social media. You get some pretty stupid people for the most

part. As far as Dave Meltzer goes, I just, you know, that's just, that's, you know, I just got to do that every day. He did well Partially because he makes it so easy. He's low-hanging fruit. So if I'm in a bad mood, like I'm really pissed off, I'll just fire off a couple of rounds at Meltzer because he makes it so easy. Have you ever had a good relationship with him? Did you ever talk? I know the stories of Vince and him. Full disclosure, we used to work together.

I've always had a fine relationship with him. Did you guys ever get along? I tolerated him for a few minutes, so to speak. We had a guy working with me by the name of Zane Bresloff. And Zane was friends with Dave Meltzer. And Zane worked for me. And he talked me into, hey, at least try, you know, talk to Dave. And I thought, you know what?

Maybe if I give him access and he won't have to guess or make shit up as much as he does. So I gave him access and had some conversations with him and he kept creating, you know, making things up and lying and distorting and, you know, lying by omission and all the things that Dave has been doing now since 1987. So I just said, ah, heck with it. It's not worth my time. What about your,

your take on the current state of all elite wrestling? What do you think? How are they doing right now? They're horrible. Come on. It's just, I mean, I've,

I've given up, you know, I used to get really frustrated with them because I, I actually hate seeing people screw up good opportunities. I know what that feels like. And I know how hard good opportunities are to come by. So when you see somebody just shooting themselves in the foot day after day, week after week in every possible way, it's frustrating for me.

And I would vent that frustration. Now it's just like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, it's just, it is what it is. There's no hope for them. Nothing's going to turn that company around. There's no light bulb going to go off in anybody's head. And all of a sudden realize, oh, this is how we actually get people to watch TV. They have no idea what they're doing and they're too stubborn to learn. There's no chance for a story to turn like the way NWO turned WCW around. There's no chance of any of that. Not there. Why not? Because there's no chance of any of that not there why

not because there's nobody there that knows how to tell the story there's nobody no there's nobody there that knows what a story actually is it's like i use this analogy sometimes because it's easy to understand boy meets girl boy gets girl boy loses girl boy gets girl. Boyd loses girl. Boyd gets girl back. That's a story. It's not very compelling. Nobody cares. But if Shakespeare gets a hold of it, it's kind of like a version of Romeo and Juliet. So, yeah, you'll hear the fan be saying, oh, there's great stories. There's stories.

Dave Meltzer says the problem with AEW is there's so many stories, people can't keep up with them. I kid you not he said that and people take him seriously and send him money every month what the hell there's the stories if there are any are so bad that only the lowest form of wrestling intellect on the planet finds enjoyment in it now you you will find some people and i think this is cool if you just like the physical presentation guys flying all over the place and doing all kinds of athletically amazing stuff and you don't care about story you don't care about characters that's your that's your jam aw is your jam and if that's what you like more power to you, man. I'm glad you found it. It's just not viable for the masses. It's as Tony calls them for the sickos. First of

all, why would you want to call your family sickos? Because the majority of them prefer not to be called that. Just a hint, Tony, just a hint. But Tony's vision for that company i guess is to provide content for that percentage of the audience that only cares about high risk high altitude fast-paced action and not about story and not about characters do you tune into any of? Does any of it pique your interest? Occasionally, if I know, for example, that I'm going to have to cover it for any specific reason, either on my podcast or Wise Choices, my YouTube show, but I can't. I honestly, and I'm not saying this to take shots at them, but I just cannot watch it. I feel dumber by the minute as I watch that show. To boil it down, last thing on them, could I just ask, you know, Tony's father, Shad Khan, is the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He is not the GM of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

I know Tony has a role in the front office, but ultimately, as far as AEW is concerned, he acts as the GM, right? He's the one making the decisions. He's hiring, firing, booking, all that stuff and more. Do you think that is ultimately the problem? As long as he is the head booker, they will never be able to turn things around. 100%. 100%. And I used to hope, you know, like a year or two ago, I would convince myself that, hey, you know, Tony's a smart guy. He's got great resources. He's got people around him. He'll find the right person to take over that job.

But it's become more and more apparent that Tony really wants to be, he wanted to be held up there with Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon and probably Eric Bischoff back in the 90s. He wanted that recognition and validation. And as long as that's what's driving Tony validation for being the booker, as opposed to validation for being the guy smart enough to find a good booker, it'll never change. It'll never change. I know too many people that work there. I hear too much stuff. It is never,

ever going to change as long as Tony Khan's in charge. Last question. And we'll let you go. Just curious, January 6th, WWE debuts Raw on Netflix here in the United States. Worldwide, outside of the US, everything's going on Netflix, right? The PLEs, Raw, SmackDown, it's gigantic. I think 80% of the world gets it all on Netflix. What do you think ends up being the ceiling then? We were talking about the 90s, right?

10 million or so people at one point are watching on Monday night. Do you think we ever get back? We just saw the numbers for Jake Paul, Mike Tyson. How big of a game changer, in your opinion, do you think Netflix will be for the business? It's going to be a massive game changer. I have no idea how to predict it. This has never been, there's nothing to compare this to other than the Jake Paul Tyson fight, which by the way, about two days before that fight, I was asked to predict how many people

would purchase it. And I think it was a Mayweather fight that had held the record at about 5 million. So I said, Oh, it'll probably do a little bit better than that because you know, Jake Paul, YouTube guy, my Tyson legend. So I'm going to say 7 million, I think I said, maybe 6. It came in at 60, so I'm not predicting anything other than it's going to be massive. Looking forward to your return to WWE television tomorrow, Who Would Have Thunk, on NXT, on CW, and then, of course, MLW on Thursday. So again, tickets available right now at the Melrose ballroom event, bright.com. And then you can watch it on the MLW YouTube channel,

massive honor to have you on, especially as you're in transit. I know it's not fun to do these sorts of things while you're at the airport. So appreciate you very much and keep up all the great work. And our good friend, aunt Evans, who I know helps you out behind the scenes,

also helping us out says, hello, he is the best. And, uh, I appreciate all the work he does here. So thank you so much, Eric,

really appreciate it. Thank you very much, Aaronriane thank you and my sherpa guidesman through the valleys and the mountains of youtube thank you so much safe travels eric see ya there he is the great eric bischoff the legend himself uh stopping by from the airport in in billings montana anyone uh Anyone ever been to the state of Montana? No, sir. Wow. What is going on? Is there like a solar eclipse happening behind us here? Thunder roll.

Sunsetting. I've been to Montana. Have you? Yeah. You know, never been, never been to the state. I've always wanted to go to that part of the United States, Wyoming, Montana. It's tough. No?

Not good? That wasn't live. That was Frank. I actually- No, Montana. Stuff. No? Not good? That wasn't live. That was Frank. No, I know, but I felt like that was his sentiment. I really do enjoy it. Is it nice? Oh, it's incredible. Natural beauty.

Missoula? That's where Ben Folks lives. I was going to say, let's get a Sean O'Malley headlined fight night there. Yeah. I would love to do it. I don't know if they have an arena big enough. They got colleges. Oh, that's true. Oh, yeah. Boise State. Yeah. I would love to do it. I don't know if they have an arena big enough. They got colleges. Oh, that's true.

Oh, yeah. Boise State. No. Idaho. Damn it. You're right. Why did I say that? Same kind of-

Wyoming, Idaho, Montana. These are all just one big state. Yeah. Yeah. One dirt road. One dirt road. All right. So once again, it is Eric Bischoff's one shot,

and that is with Major League Wrestling. If you're in the New York area, Thursday, December 5th at 9 p.m. Eastern from the Melrose Ballroom in Queens. Rick, you going? I could be convinced. By the way, have you been to, I was asking you, but I think you were setting him up. Have I been to what? The Melrose

Ballroom. I don't think so. But I could be convinced to go to this. I like me some live stuff like this. Well, we can hook it up. Eric Bischoff serving as executive producer for this event, taking over total creative control and some familiar

names to us like Matt Riddle and Tom Lawler will be on the card as well they're on a nice little run here and if you're not in the area you can watch at youtube.com slash mlw support your indie wrestling uh i think the freakazoids are going to be mad but i i he i didn't say it he said it the freakazoids are going to be mad they're a thousand percent you know what's crazy about the freakazoids i see this pop up they're like anytime something's pro like in in in the last what two months since we've been back almost how much wrestling have we talked about on this show not not very much at all like five percent if that even one percent and then

it's like uh helwani like i don't know how I got branded with this brush. I mean, I know how. Why? Because I called them freakazoids? I mean, that's not a great start if we're going to lay out the cards. I mean, it's crazy. I've tried to get AEW guys on the show. I get the stiff arm. I mean, if I'm being honest, I get the stiff arm from everyone.

There's a reason why you don't see that many wrestling guests on the program. If you want to be. Break the fourth wall. Let's be honest, please. If you want to, like Sonny Edwards was saying, if you want me to be perfectly honest, I think I'm the biggest heel in the business right now. No one wants to do business. We can't get WWE guests. We can't get TNA guests.

We can't get, uh, AW guests. I guess we can only get MLW guess. Filthy Tom and Eric Bischoff. There's no allegiances here. We're lone wolves. We're on no one's payroll. I don't know if you can do lone wolves. It would be like lone wolf because there's only one.

Yeah, that's true. That doesn't make any sense. You could have a bunch of separate wolves. We get branded with this brush like we're on the payroll. One team or another. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, we ain't getting shit. Meanwhile, I see everyone else popping up on every other show. We don't get anything.

Hi, Cool Cabana. No, I'm just kidding. Tell them. Do you get the reference? I do. We don't get shit. Where's the respect Hey by the way

Name me Name me Another Mainstream outlet Covering Pro wrestling As seriously as we are Here at Uncrowned

Slash Yahoo Sports Name me one ESPN Dip their toe in and out Good work Great people Dip their toe in and out Here

Consistent Recaps Breakdowns Rankings Good bad ugly Pen shamrock One day we'll get a respect in the business Who the fuck is we?

Yeah that's right Who the fuck is we? Tired of this I'm tired of the disrespect We've only been good to the business We've only been good Shown respect Proper respect

Bow down to those who came before us. Proper interviews. Research. Not fanboy interviews. No marking out. Right or wrong? Shoot interviews. In character, out of

character. Sit downs. Right or wrong? Frank, right or wrong? Right. Gosh. This might character sit downs right or wrong frank right or wrong right gosh this might be my favorite like post-interview uh this is all that we ah i didn't know anything about this i've had enough people are asking where are the wrestling interviews yeah trust me yeah this is you want to know under the word wrestle oh you didn't know you better ask. Now you're just doing... I did see some people in the chat

complaining about the wrestling content. Wrestling content? We've had one fucking interview. This is an MMA. They were dying. They were champing at the bit for the... This is an MMA talk. This isn't the MMA hour.

But it's not there. This is the WWE hour. They couldn't do it. This is the boxing hour. We should just call another show called... Can we get Eric Bischoff saying, But it's not there. This is the WWE hour. This is the boxing hour. We should just call another show. Can we get Eric Bischoff saying I don't like arguing with stupid people? Yeah, that's right.

That was one of my favorite things. Put that on the board. I clipped it immediately to use on social media. Oh my God. Put that on the board. Did you guys watch Survivor Series? Only the main event. When you texted us that it was on, I was like, yeah, I'll flip it on.

Oh, you guys listened to me. Yeah. I was sitting in front of my TV. I got a Peacock subscription. I saw the CM Punk walkout with everybody booing him on X. Like, WWE posted it to X, and then I flipped it on. I was like, oh, I got to see this. And by the way, still to come, I got a bone to pick or two with the Cobra.

All right. Don't think I forgot about the Cobra. Legend. All right. He's coming up. Just to show in respect. Yeah. Don't think I forgot about the Cobra. Legend. All right. He's coming up. Just to show in respect. Yeah. Don't think I forgot about the Cobra.

The YouTuber himself, Carl Frotch. Don't think I forgot about him. We'll stick with the wrestling for now. Survivor Series was solid. Some people didn't like that I said that, you know, the story of the bloodline hasn't been convoluted or this and that. I mean, I'm talking four plus years here. Kind of hard to keep it 1000% on point all

the time with all the hours of programming. Of course, it's taking some twists and some turns, but overall, I think they've done a phenomenal job. I think Eric Bischoff saying it's the best storyline and it's better than the NWO and it's been that for over two years, I think is fascinating. I thought it was solid. And I really think the secret sauce is Paul. You see his reemergence on Saturday in the hug with Punk. And then he says, I'm not going to forget about that favor. They keep dropping hints and hints and nuggets and hints and hints. And it just all seems to connect one point after the next,

one moment after the next. It keeps you sticking around. And I don't know what they're going to do come WrestleMania, but we're now fully on that road. Once you get past Survivor Series and you're on to Royal Rumble, now you start talking about, all right, who's going to be the main event for WrestleMania? Of course, WrestleMania being two nights now.

I think they're in a good spot. I would say, I think personally, no disrespect to the women, love women's wrestling, respect them tremendously. I think it would be best if there was one War Games match. And so if the story for this particular year was Bloodline, it was right there, five versus five. These are the two changes I would make.

There needs to be just one War Games match. If the hottest angle are the women, then that's the main event. That's the War Games main event. That's it. Just one. Women. This particular year was obvious.

It was Bloodline. That's it. Starting the night with War Games and ending the night with War Games, which is the two rings touching each other, cage, all that stuff, the pods, it becomes too much. I think even with Elimination Chamber, it should be just one. Pick one. It doesn't have to be both. Royal Rumble is different for me. That's fun. I dig it. But for war games,

it can drag a little bit. I also don't like, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but the match only officially starts once the last person is in the ring. So then you're asking yourself like, well, what the hell is the point of everything else? I did have that thought myself because I don't, I've never seen a war games before. I don't think. It's legendary. Can anything happen? Can somebody be like eliminated from that beginning or no? No.

Oh, so then that is kind of sick. So what's the point? Yeah. Agreed. be like eliminated from that beginning or no no oh so then that is kind of so what's the point yeah agreed so so to me it should be like okay so it starts with the two people and then people enter right what if you beat the team obviously it probably doesn't happen while their best guy is still in the pod you know what i mean oh the plan of attack is they're going to try to win this match before roman Reigns comes in. And thus he's left with his hands in his pocket and then he's mad at his teammates because they didn't get the job done

and they weren't able to survive until he got there. If you're telling everyone that this thing doesn't start until everyone is in the ring, well, what's the point of watching the first 20 minutes? It's just a bunch of spots. I thought that after, I didn't realize that until Roman Reigns came out and then they were like, okay, now we can start the match. I thought they could have been eliminated before that because that's the only way it made sense to me. But now I'm realizing, I realized after it started that that was foolish.

Yeah. My part. And then the other thing is like, I feel like we've graduated from the toilet seat and the garbage and all that stuff. The garbage can and the sticks and the, you know what I mean? I thought that was cool. Why is there a toilet seat underneath the ring? The chairs were good. Chairs, yeah.

When he threw the chairs, I love that. When one of the Usos jumped off the top onto the guy on the table. I mean, incredible stuff. The toilet seat kind of threw me off. Like, I was thinking about the germs. Who the guy on the table I mean incredible stuff The toilet seat Kind of threw me off Like I was thinking About the germs Who's sitting on This toilet seat

Oh you think it was A toilet seat That was in the arena And they just pulled it off You think it was used Why is it under the ring Why would there be A toilet seat under the ring

You never know man Why wouldn't there be Yeah why wouldn't there be It's WWE Why are there cages Outside of the cage Do you remember The N64

Like wrestling Oh it was great NWO versus Yes WCW or whatever it was called and like you would go under the ring for a prop and you didn't know which one it would be you'd get like a chair or you know stick i love that i love that it's random props under the ring that's that's the best part all right it was fun i enjoyed that it was a good crowd people were into it vancouver

uh fun show i'm curious to see where they go from here with the storyline. It was an early show, I think. I didn't ask, but I was surprised it started so early not to go head-to-head with college football. Did you watch college football on Saturday, Mr. GC? I sure did, yeah. How about them Orange? How about them Orange? That was a big win against Miami. Yeah. Probably knocked him out of the playoff. Yeah. Watch the dogs? I did not catch that one. What day was that on?

Friday. Friday game? Yeah. Black Friday. Eight overtimes. First time I've ever seen them play not on a Saturday. Wait, wait, wait. Eight overtimes?

Eight overtimes. You're shitting me. They were down 14 with like three minutes to go. Scored twice. Forced OT. Eight overtimes. Got the win. UTEP?

UTEP. Who'd they play? Georgia Tech. So what are they now? 10-2 SEC Championship against Texas this Saturday. Yeah. Rematch. Revenge game for Frank right here.

Why is that? Oh, he went there? No. He likes Texas, but we already beat him earlier. I don't know if we're going to do it again Wait, so why is this a revenge game? Because we have to take it back Because we already won once this year Oh, okay

And is this going to coincide with 3-10? No, 4 o'clock start for us Championship Perfect Perfect What a weekend for you What a day for you It's going to be a great day on Saturday

I can't wait Did you guys happen to see our boy Wade Plem show up On Thursday? I saw a couple Sure did A couple clips on Twitter But I really didn't understand what was going on. Well, you know, he had this issue with Mams Taylor at Misfits, and he was one of their presenters.

I've said it. He is the one that I think took influencer boxing to the next level. He covered it. He gave it credibility. He treated it like a real sport if you will of course it's real sports but like he covered it in a real professional way and then i guess there was some sort of issue between them and they parted ways and and he went to work on other broadcasts and whatnot and there he was reappearing in Qatar of all places at the Supercard that they had on Thursday. There he is

coming out in the mask. Big Wade. Former football player, I do believe. Big actually though. I've met him in person. He's like 6'4". He's doing the thing, the point, the this and that. And not only

is he back, I guess, on Misfits. He's got security over there. He's fighting. He's fighting against some gentleman named, I think, H.S. Tiki-Taki? That can't be the real name. I think that's actually right. Funny enough.

Come on, tell us about him, GC. Tell us about him. I didn't even know this was happening. I think they were just calling him H.S. Tiki-Taki. I see him. I see him right here. Isn't he T're telling me The guy's name is HS Tiki Taki HS I see him I see him right here It's a Tiki Taki

HS Tiki Taki exclusive Wanted to be in the UK Blast ITV Oh damn You were just calling him HS TikTok or HS Tiki Taki Well

What is going on I'm delighted to see Way back with Misfits doing this sort of thing I did feel If I can offer Just a bit of Constructive criticism

Wait before you Criticize the actual broadcast part No yeah Did you see the Did you see the tweet That he put out doing this sort of thing. I did feel if I can offer just a bit of constructive criticism. Wait, before you criticize the actual broadcast part, did you see the tweet that he put out? Oh, he did a brilliant one. Did you talk to him or Wade? No, Wade. He did a brilliant one.

He was supposed to do the stream, and then he put out a tweet like, oh, I'm undergoing some internet issues with a text message chain from his provider showing like, ah, service is down, and he's like,

I don't know if I'll be able to get it up in time, guys. I'm trying. And then he just shows up at the event. It was brilliant. The whole setup was tremendous. Very pro wrestling. It was very pro wrestling. And that was the criticism.

I felt like the stuff in the ring, and I know this is coming from me, Mr. Pro Wrestling fan, didn't need the pro wrestling coat of paint. We know about the issue with him and Mams. We know about the issue with him and Mams. We know about the issue with him and KSI. We've seen it play out on social media. Didn't need all of that, in my opinion. It almost felt like they overbooked it. I like that specifically in the world of misfits.

I'm okay with that. And this is coming from a place of love. I'm delighted. I'm curious to see how he fights. I know he's trained. He's doing it. God bless him. He a place of love. I'm delighted. I'm curious to see how he fights. I know he's trained. He's doing it. God bless him. He's making the walk.

That's incredible. More power to him. We'll be rooting him on and I can't wait to see how it all plays out and wish him the absolute best. But I was like, man,

you had the story right there. You have the story that people dream of. You were fighting with the promoter. You were fighting with the top star, the CEO.

It was right there for you I'm not giving this a 2 out of 10 But I just felt like It was right there What would you have done then? Say it Lay it out for me, how do we do it? How do we book it?

Are you putting me on the spot like I put Eric on the spot? No, no, no Tell me This is the Stone Cold storyline This is the Stone Cold storyline You know this is the Athlete versus the boss And now he's coming back What do we do here

It's exactly that Ben Davis in the ring Qatar How we feeling God bless Ben What a moment That was like the Paul Buentella moment He had fun with it, though.

He had fun with it. It looks like Tiki Taki's fought before. I'm getting pretty deep on this. Yeah, no, no. He's top 50 pound for pound, no doubt. Misfits pound for pound? No, just influencers seen. Wow, really?

All right. I didn't know you were deep on the pound for pound influence. Top 50. Look at you. I don't even know if there are 50 influencers. Salt poppy, number one. So KSI's doing a thing And then he comes out and he crashes the interview

Not like an announced thing like that He jumps over the guardrail And he walks into the ring So this is less pro wrestling you're saying? Yeah yeah yeah And he says you know who I am But you don't know why I'm here

Where oh where Is billionaire Ted No no I'm here. Where, oh, where is billionaire Ted? No, no, I'm kidding. That would be Scott Hall. But, you know, he comes in. He'd be like, yo, why did you guys get rid of me? Why did you guys get rid of me? Well, guess what? I have cut a deal behind your back with the DAZN executives.

They love me. I'm on MVP. I have signed a deal to fight on your next card. KSI's like, you ain't fighting on my card. Screw you. Mams, is he fighting? I was trying to reach you, JJ. I was trying to reach you, but he has apparently signed a deal.

Get the fuck out of here. No, you're not. You're not fighting on my card. You're a turncoat. You're an MVP guy. You're a Jake Paul guy. Nope. I'm right here.

I signed a deal, I'm fighting on your card, give me your baddest guy, give me your toughest guy, give me the, give me the scariest man in the division, I want Ryan Bader, I'm cooking here, am I not cooking, and then they're like, all right, fine, we'll be, this, this plays out a little bit, and then the next show, they're like, all right, fine. It's HS Tiki Taki. And now it's him versus the whole promotion. As opposed to, do you get what I'm saying? He forced his way in.

He signed a deal behind their back. He signed a deal with Shai Segev, the CEO of DAZN, to fight. And he is going to be a cancer in the organization and he is going to bring the organization down is that not money? does that not print money? I have signed a deal and I have asked to fight and I'm going to go on MVP's broadcast and I'm going to talk shit about you guys

it's kind of a work all this but that to me feels like legit this felt like the difference between a pro wrestling angle And playing pro wrestling Is in the details The devil as they say is in the details Could I not be a booker?

He's selling it pretty well here He went on his YouTube channel afterward I'm fighting KSI's biggest prospect on Misfits In my first ever boxing match That's good stuff 177k views not bad No no no Listen this is a huge story This is all out of love

I mean, here we are talking about it on a busy Monday I know, I'm learning I don't know ball about HST I gotta learn I didn't want to say it, but I'm glad you did I'm just saying, if he came out and said Come on, I signed a deal behind your back And I'm going to pee in your yard I'm going to fight on your show

You guys didn't want me here You tried to cut me out You said have fun on Kingpin Oh guess what I'm back I killed that promotion And I'm going to kill yours I'm kidding

You know more about this world than I do The best part is Ben getting in the middle of another scrap He's in the middle of every single he's unbelievable he's really unbelievable white suit looked great on him he's he's he's mr omnipresent he went from dirty boxing to qatar to where else was he i don't know but he's racking up the frequent flyer miles hardest working man in the biz that's what they said i. I say it out of love. I am delighted. And I think it's going to be on the January 18th card. I love it. Oh, the Darren Till card?

Oh, I'm there. If Wade's fighting, I'm there. People's main. 100%. What's the line? HST. I don't know. I got to get Vegas' take on HST.

Tiki-taki. All right. Fine. In a matter of moments, we are going to be joined. Are we going to be joined by him or not? In a few. Have we located him? We're efforting the technical issue.

He's definitely located. Okay. All right. Technical issues need to be efforted, though. Oh, interesting. UFC 310 is coming up this weekend in Las Vegas. Final pay-per-view of the year. It's at the T-Mobile Arena, and it's headlined by Alexandre Pantoja

versus Kai Sikora for the men's flyweight title. We have Ian Machado-Gary versus Shafkat Rachmanov in the co-main event. Five rounds, yeah? It was five rounds, yeah. Shout out to Ian taking five rounds. I mean, I know he was going to fight Joaquin Buckley, but still impressive

and then the third fight from the top is a rematch of a fight that happened back in 2021 it was at the apex it was uh June of 2021 I think it was the the Dan Hooker was that the Dan Hooker card or am I crazy? No, it wasn't. It was Alexander Volkov against Cyril Gann and on that night, Bon Gamay won. He improved to 8-0. He defeated Alexander Volkov, Cyril Gann did, and that was the fight that got him the Derek Lewis fight, you'll recall, the interim title fight in Houston. And he won that fight, became interim champion, and then it was Francis. We know what happened then.

Comes back, beats Taitui Vassa in September of 2022. That was in France, the first show in Paris. Massive fight against Jon Jones. We know what happened there. And then came back and fought in September of 2023, so about a year and a half or so ago. I can't stop looking at the thing here with the clouds and everything.

It's mesmerizing. He fought Sergei Spivak. Yes, nature is something else. It's looking gnarly out there. It looks like it's about to storm pretty heavy. Yeah, what's going on? I don't know. I'm not outside.

A storm. What are they calling for? Clouds. Massive clouds. Is it supposed to be a storm? I don't think it's like a scary storm Zero percent chance of the precip Yeah

No chance of rain coming But lots of clouds Yeah actually mostly cloudy It's always cloudy Shout out So anyway we haven't seen them in a year and a half We were supposed to see them fight in October obviously In Abu Dhabi.

That fight got postponed due to an injury suffered by one Alexander Volkov. And now here he is coming back on this huge end-of-the-year card. And we talked about this at the end of last Wednesday's show. It's maybe a card that is missing the superstar main event, but it certainly has from top to bottom. How many fights total? 14 fights. Golly. 14 fights. And I would argue every single one of them has an interesting element to them. Kennedy and Zetsuku against Lucas Breski in the Curtain Jerker at heavyweight. Kennedy looking good in his last fight. Clay Guida, the legend against Chase Hooper.

What's the age difference in that one? 42 years, 11 months, and four weeks, one day for Clay Guida. 25 years, 17-year difference between Clay Guida and Chase Hooper. That's remarkable. Chase Hooper, a minus 770 favorite against the plus 500 dog, the carpenter, Clay Guida, the legend. Michael Chiesa against Max Griffin at 170 pounds. Important fight for Chiesa.

That's on the prelims as well. Cody Durden against Joshua Vann. Just looking if, ah, Chiesa, a slight dog in that one too, plus 130. Chris Weidman, we spoke to him last week, plus, sorry, minus 105 for him. Chris Weidman was supposed to fight in Madison Square Garden, issue with Eric Anders, getting sick, food poisoning. So they run it back, this time at 195 pounds. What a debut for Brian Battle on the program last week. Everyone loving him. He was as entertaining as I expected. He'll go up against Randy Brown in a very important 170-pound fight. Mofsar Evloev

against Aljamain Sterling, Vicente Luque against Temba Gorimbo, Dominic Reyes against Anthony Smith, Nate Landwehr against Duhu Choi, Bryce Mitchell against Kron Gracie, and then the other three fights that I mentioned. That's a tremendous card. One of the big stories, one of the biggest names on the card is the pride of France,

Bon Gamin, a.k.a. the French Prince. He's back! Is he really here? Cyril Gann, is he there? My old friend. Ah, ça va, mon ami. Il y a longtemps, longtemps on n'a pas parlé. Ça fait longtemps, ça fait longtemps, ça fait longtemps.

Content de t'entendre. Oui, enchanté. Merci beaucoup. It's great to see you, my friend. I was in Paris, you know, I was in Paris for a month in the summer at the Jeux Olympiques I was there

I was working there yes I was looking for you I was I was telling people everywhere I know Cyril Gann I'm friends they didn't believe me

they didn't believe me they didn't believe me look at you I saw you when you came out I think it was at the judo you came out with the

stick you were bouncing the stick on the thing i was like there's my guy's serial gun this part it was uh yes it was in boxing boxing that's right boxing yes yes yes yeah yeah yeah it was a great moment yeah did you enjoy it yeah for real it was really quick uh but it was really good. A big honor, right? A big honor to get that. I'm so happy about that because you see, I'm from MMA. MMA just legalized in France. MMA is not a sport of Olympic Games, but it's just a time. Yeah. Did you go to any events as a fan?

Did you take it in at all? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The biggest event I did was the judo, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The biggest event I did was the judo, the final of judo, the final team. Yes,

it was amazing. The atmosphere, I have to say, your city did an amazing job. They were incredible hosts. Yeah, it was beautiful. I will say one complaint.

It's the longest I've ever spent in Paris. I hadn't been there in 22 years. Le café, it sucks. It sucks in Paris. I hadn't been there in 22 years. Le café, it sucks. It sucks in Paris. Le café est très bon.

No. That's why when I... C'est pas très bon. It sucks. Le café est très, très bon. Me, for... Because you prefer the café from... America. America.

This is a joke. I'm not telling you. You like the cafe? You like the coffee in France? Yes, I love the coffee. I love the coffee. No taste? Not too much.

No. It wasn't strong for me. I like it strong. Yeah, so you can find this. Of course. I should have asked you beforehand. Okay, next time. Next time, next time.

We're going to take a coffee together. Can I ask you, Cyril, I was saying we haven't seen you since September of last year, and we thought we were going to see you in October, but then the fight got pushed. How come one year away? Why didn't you fight for almost more than a year now? Yeah, I'm okay uh with this i'm uh i'm feel comfortable like i remember when i started my career i did one years uh without fighting because every time it was uh reported and uh so no i'm okay with that and uh like that

you can you can take your time to improve yourself in the gym. So no, I'm okay with that Just maybe we can talk about the morning Yes, but but expected that no I was okay with that. I take my time in the gym with my guide. Oh It was really great. So what did you do this past year? Training training training because when we finished the fight in September of the last year, we were ready to have a fight really quick like December. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible for December. UFC looking for me to book me for March, at first in February after that March and after that I pray it was not possible unfortunately it's like that you see in the heavyweight division is not easy to book the guy on the top right and after that I did I did

my movie during two months and we continue to training during the movie and after that we're looking for September unfortunately like you say it was not possible for September we're looking for October now December so it's really quick it's really it's really easy to to jump for months months months months and to have a big year. Was it frustrating for you when you think maybe you'll fight April, when you think you'll fight September? Is this frustrating when you're trying to get excited and ready? No, because nothing was programmed.

When you have a fight, it's programmed, it's booked already. And every time it's reported, like when I started Makaya, it was exactly that. Every month, the fight was reported. Yeah.

And at this moment, yeah, that's not easy. But no, for this year, it was okay. Okay. And what about this one? It was supposed to be in October, right? That one was programmed, right?

That one was scheduled, and that one got pushed back. Did you feel frustrated then? No. No? No, no, no. This is the game. This is the game, exactly. What about fighting in Paris?

Would you have preferred to return in Paris? Or you kind of been there, done that. You did it already. No big deal. No big deal. But, uh,

it's always a pleasure to fighting, uh, from to my fan, uh, in France. And, uh, it's easier.

You have no jet lag. So yeah, it's always better. But, uh, October was a really great card, really high level with some belts. So this is a plus also. Yeah.

I mentioned you beat Alexander in June of 2021. And so what is the motivation now? Because you already beat him and, you know, you got that win, you were undefeated at the time. To do it again, do you feel the same type of motivation or is it tough to get excited about a test that you already completed? No, I don't. So, at first, when the UFC proposed me this fight, I was a little bit, oh, why?

But this fight makes sense. Like, I'm number one, he's number two, and this really makes sense. And behind me, you have a little trouble, so I know this fight looks like a semifinal to go to the belt, so it makes sense. This fight makes sense. Could I ask, what is your take?

Obviously, the heavyweight division has been very much in the news lately because John just fought a couple weeks ago here in New York. Did you watch that fight against Stipe? Yes. What did you think of his performance? It was a

great fight. Every time, John Jones knows what he needs to do to win the fight. And he's really experimented, so he did it one more time. It was a great fight from Stipe also. Oh yeah, okay, because Stipe has, I think some people said he didn't show up or he was too old. You thought it was a great fight from him too. 100% Stipe is not the same Stipe that five years ago, six years ago. That's completely normal.

Like Jon Jones. But Jon Jones and Stipe for sure are still really dangerous for the division. Were you expecting Jon to look that good against him? What did you say? Were you expecting him to look that good against Stipe? What did you say? I'm not sure. Did you think he would look that good against Stipe?

Would you make a big difference against Stipe? John Jordan is the GOAT. Je pense que le mieux est Stipe. Jean-June est le goût. C'était parfaitement normal d'avoir ce genre de résultat. Oui, Stipe est un beau combattant. Il a fait très bien pendant sa carrière. Et c'est l'un des meilleurs du division, c'est sûr. well during his career and he's one of the better of the the best of the division for sure and he proved it but uh yeah i know john jones is uh he's a real god in there he's really smart during the fight and you know what you must do do you think he will fight tom next is I don't know, I don't know.

Do you want him to? Tom? Do you want John? Because, you know, if you're the heavyweight champions, I believe you fight the heavyweight contenders, not fight 205 contender or super fight this. So since Tom is interim champion, I believe the belt unified. Yeah.

I understand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This makes sense. But, uh, John Jones now, he have not nothing to prove, uh, uh, and he can choose, he can choose for, for the, for the, for the, the legacy you see now he's in a really great posture and uh i think it uh

is uh how you say that um he's a real businessman yeah and you know how how you find the big the big person you see yes so if the fight is going to happen with Alex Pereira, he's going to win a lot of money. And if the UFC wants to do the fight against Tom, I think he's going to ask a lot of money too. Yes. He's a businessman.

Who do you think has a better chance of beating him, Alex or Tom? Or maybe neither? This is a great question. Every time you see for the fight against Tipe, everything was possible because Tipe is a really great fighter, really well-rounded. But he proved it another time. He's so dangerous. He's capable of changing. He's capable of changing, yeah. He can do everything he wants. Even if you have a guy really good on his striking, the wrestling he can manage this

so maybe maybe I'm gonna maybe I'm gonna say bum because he more well-rounded but when you have a guy like Alex Pereira

he's so dangerous on his striking so everything is possible that's too hard to to have the good answer when we last spoke when you were on the show in September of last year, after the Sergei Spivak fight,

I was asking you about Tom and you weren't that interested in fighting him. Have you changed your opinion on him now? After two fights, he fought against Sergei Pavlovich and then Curtis Blades. Are you more impressed with him since those two fights? No, I was already...

At the first time, he was already a really great opponent and he was already a big test for me. And today, he's still a big test because he proved it another time. He's on a really good race. I don't remember exactly, maybe four victories or something like that. So, he's still really dangerous and improved on his last fight against Pavlovich. Every people

talking about Pavlovich like he's the next one and he won. So, this means something. Is this a fight that you're interested in in 2025 now? You versus Tom? Yes, of course. Of course, because he's

just behind me. Every time I'm looking for the guy behind me because I want to be the best. Because there's a chance maybe if John fights Alex and Tom wants to fight that maybe they do you versus Tom next year.

You know what I mean? Yeah. If John fights Herrera and then Tom doesn't want to wait around or something or is, you know, wanting to stay busy, then I would think if all goes well for you on Saturday, it would be you versus Tom, right? That's the fight. You're the only one that he hasn't fought in the top five other than John, of course.

Yeah, completely possible. Completely possible. Unfortunately, we're looking for this fight during this year. But it was not possible because Tom looking for the best for him and looking for above him. That's completely normal. But yeah, if this happening, I will be really happy with the team. So you were trying to fight him this year?

This year? The next year? No, you said unfortunately this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. March. Yeah, yeah, of course, for March. Oh, and what happened? But it was not possible because he said I refuse him in September. But the UFC didn't propose me any contract with him. And like I say, I'm looking for the best for me and every time he's in front of me. And this is exactly what he do now. Just looking for the best for me and every time he's uh front of me and uh this is exactly what

you do now just looking for front of him so but uh i didn't ask him like on the social media but you've seen new uh this is the fight uh what we're looking for okay this would be a big fight oh yeah for sure we're talking about this fight this fight a long time ago. When you just won the UFC, people already love this fight. Where should this fight happen? Would you, obviously in France it would be big, what about in England? Would you be okay with that or no? For the fans, I'm going to say France. But I know the fans from England are really wonderful also because I did already an event, I don't remember which one. I think it was at Spinaligan.

Oh yeah, yeah. I think it was this one. And it was a beautiful crowd. So yeah, but I prefer, of course, to talk to my people. Of course. Did you ever expect, I see now, the growth of MMA in France. It's unbelievable.

The Netflix show, Le Cage. La Cage. La Cage, ah. I was in it. No, that's the day. I was in the movie. You saw it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw it. Yeah, I'm a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah yeah I saw I saw yeah I'm a big deal yeah and and Aries doing big things over there

and and the media I see La Sueur and all these other outlets I see the explosion of of

fandom did you think that it would get this popular this fast I did not expect this like that, no. But now we are in and

I can understand. I can understand because we had already a lot of fighters in this sport and after the legacy this doesn't make sense. But fast like that, no, I did not expect this.

What about for your life? I saw you were in Monaco, and all these people were coming at you and wanting to take pictures with you, and obviously the Olympics, here you are, all these people coming after your superstar, Saint-Croix-Habre. How was your life? No, that Saint-Croix-Habre, yes, if you want, yeah, yeah, yeah. How was your life? No, that's Khoi Ab, yes, if you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a great moment.

It was a great moment to be there because it's a privilege, you see. The experience is unique. It was during the film. It was during the F1

yeah and it was a beautiful moment yeah do you like it or sometimes do

you wish that you can go on the street and no one knows you

no I prefer this yeah I prefer to be to to can walk

on the street and nobody recognize me but because

because because I test already everything of the this kind of, you see, when you are famous. Yeah, that's cool.

But sometimes you prefer to be more peace, you see. That's really better. Man, I saw some pictures recently. You were doing modeling. Very impressive stuff, Cyril. These photos, you know what I'm talking about. These pictures. I mean, I didn't know.

I didn't know you were so, I mean, look at this. Look at this guy here. C'est un croyable office magazine. I didn't know you had this in you. No, it was a collaboration with a partner. And the partner did the collaboration with the American

magazine and he was an American photographer and yeah the result is good you like this yes

I like that it was really quick it was during a few hours like it's a funny moment yeah okay

can I ask you a serious question now Cyril a serious question and we'll let you go in a few minutes tell me if I'm wrong I feel like it's a funny moment yeah okay can i ask you a serious question now surreal serious question and we'll let you go in a few minutes tell me if i'm wrong i feel like there's a part of you um that almost uh do you know what the word dread do you know dread like you you don't you don't want to do these interviews maybe maybe because you're tired of people always asking you about the john jones fight you want to move on from the john jones ah enough of this already is there any part of you that gets yeah i didn't ask about it here there's no need for me to to bring it up all over again are you tired of thinking or people asking you about it and asking you to dissect it and your

feelings and all that was not about to talk about Jones I'm okay I'm comfortable with this I accept this experience and and today honestly I think this experience helped me to to grow up so no I'm really comfortable with this it's just because I just want to really grow up and for that you must be really focused on yourself and this is exactly what we did this year like we're training training all the year and improve improve and everybody know everybody know who is Cyril again so why I'm gonna talk to and I don't like to do some trash talk or to call someone or to do something like that. So let me go to the gym. Let me focus on my career, on my family, on the rethink of the life.

Yeah. Do you feel like you can move on from it, though? Like when you're older and if you never fight him again, you will be at peace with maybe that just being an off night for you. Maybe not, you know, being something that defines you, your character, your legacy, you know, who you are as a person. But just a bad night at the office, as they say. Do you think you can get through the fight with John Ross? John, it was just a bad night. No, this is very important to remember of this fight, the experience of this fight.

For me, I don't want to forget this experience. Why is it important to remember it? Because some people might say, I want to forget it. No, it was really hard, but I learned a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Not too much during the fight because we did just three minutes, you see. But we learned. Can I ask, what did you learn that you have now used in your training, in your life? We learn during the fight. We learn all the tactics and the skills and everything like that, of course.

But we learn a lot around the fight. You see, after the fight, we learn about the people, the world. We learn... How do you say... What do I say? we learn I comment to the excuse me there on myself you see

yeah I was really focused on the what I want what what is good for me

what is not good for me like you see and after that you can do the choice like this is not good for me like you see and uh after that you can do the choice like this is not good for me i don't need that like there's some too much interview too much uh i don't need that but let's focus on the true name this is good for me let's focus on the family friend you see and and now you feel like you're in a good place, like you're at peace and you're happy and you're comfortable.

I'm in the perfect situation. Like, I'm really comfortable. I'm really focused on my career, on my family. And this is the most important for me. Like, I'm really happy like that. Really. And this makes you into a dangerous fighter. Always. Always. Always. and this makes you into a dangerous fighter always always

always when I started I was already a dangerous fighter so today of course I continue to be a dangerous fighter

that means on Saturday we see the return of the French Prince exactly yes there's a lot of French fighters that have come since but there's only one there's only one French Prince. Exactly. Yes. There's a lot of French fighters that have come since,

but there's only one. There's only one French Prince. There's only one original. Original. Authentic. And let's be honest, some of the guys, the footballers,

not doing so well, les Français. So you have to bring cry back to les Bleus. You understand? You have to bring la fierite. Well,

this is like that. Sometimes you're good, sometimes you're not good, but Norris, on the paper, the French team are one of the best for sure

of the world. In basket, unbelievable. Yes, in basket too. When you see what Wemby can do, that's unbelievable. You watch him? A little bit, not too much. When you see what Wemby can do.

You watch him? A little bit, not too much. I saw they played against Canada in the Olympics. I was there. I'm from Canada. It was incredible. The atmosphere. Were you there?

I was not there, but I saw. I watched the... In my life, I've never heard an arena so loud. The Aqua Arena, I've never heard an arena so loud. The Aqua Arena, I've never heard... I think the players, the Canadian players, got scared when they came in there and they were finished from the beginning.

I've never... They have great players. They never showed up because the crowd was so loud. They were singing, chanting the whole time. I've never experienced that. I was scared.

I was scared. You see? The crowd of friends, the fans of friends are really wonderful. Special. Special people. You're a special guy. You see, the crowd of friends, the fans of friends are really wonderful. Special. Special people. You're a special guy.

Thank you, Cyril. Thank you so much. Good luck to you on Saturday. Avec grand plaisir. And let's not do it once a year, you know? We should talk more often. After? Yeah, let's do this.

Let's do this. And if you want to come to my country I'm going to show you the good place to drink some coffee ok merci merci a Fernand aussi

et bon courage à l'équipe en samedi merci beaucoup thank you very much my friend alright there he is bon gamin

Cyril Gant the French prince I mean what about Helwani just going back and forth with the French there that's awesome man did you guys not

understand half the interview I mean I felt like I wasani just going back and forth with the French there? That's awesome, man. Did you guys not understand half the interview? I felt like I was back in Paris in the summertime. I'm sorry. I thought you were mumbling. No, I was killing it. I mean, we were vibing out there. I mean, that's how you... Listen, it's rare that I get to speak to someone in their mother tongue, Frank.

You understand? It's true. What a guy. How could you not love him? That would be a big fight, him versus Tom, I have to say. I have to say I would love to see it. There's all kinds of wires over here. Big fight for him looking forward to his return. Feels like it's been so long since we saw him. Look at the tail of the tape there.

Look at that. 6'7 versus 6'4. 81-inch reach versus 80. Very rare that Volkov doesn't have the longer reach. Six knockouts versus 24. Volkov, Drago. Three subs versus four. 12 and two versus 38 and 10. How old is Alexander Volkov? He's got to be his late ths at this point, right? Alexander Volkov How old is this guy? 36, yeah

October 24th, just celebrated his birthday 1988 Alexander Volkov 38 and 10 When was his debut? 2009 He's been around Four fight winning streak for Alexander Volkov Dare I say, quietly putting together a four-fight winning streak.

Last loss, Tom Asimov. What the hell is going on outside? It's like every shade, every light. What is going on? The background keeps changing. No, no, no. But this is intense. Look at this.

Pavlovich beat him up in Riyadh. That was the fight. Who was talking about that recently? Oh, John was talking about it, that Pavlovich got whooped by him. Tai Tuivasa, submission win in September, 293 in Australia. Alexander Romanov,

and then Jairzino Rosenstreich There it is Volkov 5-1 Since his loss to Big Tom Well sorry 5-1 since the loss to Gann The only loss

Was to Big Tom I'm excited about this one And I do want to let you know that we'll have a watch party on Saturday and a post show on Saturday right here on your home for combatsportsuncrowned.com. No biases, no wrestling guests,

just good old-fashioned mixed martial arts talk. There it is. Watch party on Saturday, guys. Last one of the year. No, I stand corrected. Not the Last one of the year No I stand corrected Not the last one of the year Second to last

December 21st The penultimate watch party Unless something pops up Maybe you guys will do An MLW watch party On Thursday What do you say? Yeah man

No doubt Will we ever do A wrestling watch party? Absolutely I don't I don't I mean uncrowned mind I don't know if I could do it

You don't think I think actually people would enjoy your takes. You could just be like, look how fake it is, like people do at home. You know, I'm not really into this stuff. They like, people know that it's fake, right? No one wants that. By the way, you guys like my, my merch, which you can get right now. I like how Mysterious is so much longer than. Yeah, it is quite long.

I was thinking when we did this, this you can get by the way at arielhawani.com. Cyber Monday sale? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Tons of deals ariel new york rick gc and mysterious should it have said he'll want because the three of you have your nickname and mine's just ariel i love it what do you guys think did i screw that up no there's no such thing as screw-ups uncrowned what are you talking about all right fair enough um all right so we've been talking about it 310 sneaky good we'll be talking about it all week long uh the people's main event i don't think there's much of a debate on this one co-main event five rounds initially we thought we were getting balal muhammad versus shafqat rahmanov as the main event for the welterweight title then we find out balal's out then there's like a a week two week stretch where it's like all right is shavkat going to stay on the card what's going

on is he gonna have to go back home he's already in florida and then we find out literally seconds after paul tyson comes and goes that he's staying on the card co-main event the fight that we had been asking for the fight that had been bandied about for several months now, the two teammates or former teammates, I should say, going toe-to-toe, Shafkat Rahmanov against Ian Machado-Gary, who was supposed to headline the last show of the year and fight in the last fight of 2024 against Joaquin Buckley a week later in Tampa. He comes around and says, I'll fight a week earlier against the boogeyman 18-0, the pride of Kazakhstan And the co-main event of the last pay-per-view of the year Did you get all of that?

Anyway, here he is, joining us The great Ian Machado Gary, the undefeated Hello, sir Beautiful, beautiful setting you're in How are you? I'm doing great It's beautiful, right? Yes

That is Las Vegas? Is that LV as they say? Yes Yes, Las Vegas, Nevada We went for a beautiful Tropical outlook It looks beautiful, right? I love it, you're looking great

By the way, happy belated birthday I believe just a few weeks ago, right? 27 years young Unbelievable, and look at you now You know, I was thinking about it It was exactly one year ago That you were supposed to fight on this year-end show, right? The Vicente card.

And, you know, we all know what happened. You got sick and whatnot. Any of those thoughts creep back in as you're in the same city, same, you know, kind of a similar circumstance, although you're much further along in the career? No. Last time I fought in Vegas was against MVP. We had gone through that whole mentality of, oh, we got to go back there in that time. Now we're here, we're excited, we're ready to go,

we're ready to shock the world, Ariel. Okay, so there's so many different kind of stories that led to this point right here. First, let me ask you this. You versus Joaquin Buckley, that was the original matchup for you, December 14th. How did we land there? How did we land there? Why did we land there?

So I had many conversations back to back with the UFC through me, through my agents, through multiple contacts with the matchmakers. Initially, the goal was to line up a fight with Colby Covington. Again, it's no secret that he's been running. And then they went down the line and they looked let's look at kamara uzman kamara uzman's words were literally the words i heard from the ufc or kamara uzman's nothing to do with you as in he's just running as well um again obviously you'd have captain balal match the other guys are injured in regards to Leon and JDM not going to fight

the end of the year. And it was in that situation then again of like, right, there's no one above me. I'm frustrated. I'm irritated. I want to fight guys that are going to get me a step closer to that world title shot,

not defending my, my number. I mean, I want to, I want to progress up the rankings. And, and we spoke about that last time about MVP, about how that mentality had switched. And it's irritating

because there's meant to be six of the baddest men on the planet in front of me. But they're not, really. They're very sensitive and they're very selective of who they fight and it's disappointing. So Joaquin Buckley said yes and you know Ariel, I'm a gamer. All I want to

do is fight and test myself and go out there and prove how good I am against whoever it is. So I said yes. And that was how we landed to Joaquin Buckley. When you landed on Joaquin Buckley last show of the year, was there a part of you like, all right, fine, I'll do it. But was that spark, that fire that you potentially have now, which we'll get to now, but was it kind of missing? Was it like, all right, I'll fight, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind. This isn't doing it for me. Yes, a little bit, because as I've said, all I've done in my career is win.

I'm 8-0 in the UFC, 15-0 in general. I'm a former world champion in a different organization. I've come in here and I've done everything that I've needed to do to progress in my career and fight guys up the rankings that get me one step closer to a world title opportunity. I don't believe me going out there and running through Joaquin Buckley does the same as me going out there and running through Kobe or Usman or Shavkat or any of those guys. There's a different level. So for me, I want to fight. I different level so for me I want to fight I want to be active I want to do that more than anything so I'm always willing to fight regardless of who it is but I had no interest in fighting Joaquin Buckley but I would do it because it's what I

love to do when you found out that Bilal got hurt and uh was going to be out and there's Shavkat trying to remain on the card and it seemed like he wanted an interim title fight and maybe Usman was was uh in the talks and whatnot Usman was never in the talks Usman is running Usman was never in the talks he was he was mentioned about it but that man was never taking a fight with me or Shafqat let's be real about that that's a fact I can tell you now did you you call the UFC? Did you raise your hand? How did that go about which ultimately led to you getting

this fight? Ariel, I want to let you know what happened prior to that event. Please, please tell us everything. Because this matters. Right? When I found out there was no one above me available, I said to the UFC, I said, listen, you know what would satisfy me? I know there's

no one above me to fight. I know Kobe's running. I know Usman's running. And you guys have told me you're the guys I'm competing at the end of the year due to injuries and illnesses and stuff like that. So I know you guys don't have a backup for December 7th. Let me be the backup. Let me prepare for either Bilal or Shavka. I'll be there. I'll weigh in. I'll be ready to fight in case anything happens. And that will make sure that you've got a security, a safety net. They turned around and said, no, we don't need that.

We're not going to do that. I said, all right. So when Bilal pulled out because of injury, I said, I'll wait for the UFC to call me. I'm not running to them. They can come to me. They know I want this, they know I'm ready that was all that mattered to me

but I had said it prior to Bilal being pulled out prior to Bilal being injured that I was willing to do that, because that mentally would help me trigger that excitement, okay I have the potential to go to Las Vegas, be the backup for a world title

fight and potentially win a world title if one of the guys seems fit not to compete, misses weight, anything that we've seen in MMA on multiple occasions, I can be there and take an opportunity that will be gifted to me by God. I'm still here, Ariel. So by some way, shape or form, God has gifted me what I wanted, except it's who I think would have won the match And this essentially in my mind Is a world title fight Could I just ask Why do you think they said no to you being the backup

Makes total sense And it seems to be a thing now right There's always a backup So why do you think they said no to that I think so obviously They were in talks trying to figure out they needed a main event for the end of the year and I'm a big enough name to be able to put bums in seats in in Florida and bring interest to a to a card that that matters to them so I think they wanted

to kind of hold me for that but realistically what whatever they had in mind doesn't matter i'm here now and i'm ready to go and this is what matters this weekend matters to me most so so once they were um you know coming to the conclusion that chef cut was going to remain on the card did they call you ultimately and say hey you want in i was in phuket thailand where the time difference is crazy i think it was five o'clock in the morning my manager rang me i was passed out unconscious so he rings my wife's phone to see if she'll answer my wife hears it's on the bedside table she answers hey is everything okay i can't hear voices outside on the balconyside table. She answers, hey, is everything okay? I start hearing voices outside on the balcony. I'm like, what is that? Leilig wakes me up. Ian, Ian,

come outside, come outside. Lloyd's on the phone. So I answer the phone. I say, what's up, Lloyd? He goes, hey, Ian, how are you? I said, all right, Joaquin's out. They want me to step in December 7th for Shavka. He goes, not quite. He goes, Joaquin's not out. He's like, but they do want you to step in December 7th.

I said, let's do it. I'm in. This is what I wanted in the first place. Let's not beat around the bush. Let's go get it. Let's go shock the world. Go out there and be a guy that's never been beaten. Prove to the world how good I am against the scariest man in the division. That was it.

No, no negotiation, no back and forth, no nothing. You said I'm in. It's not my job to negotiate. That's my manager's job. It's my job to say, yes, let's do it. Put on a show, go, you said I'm in. It's not my job to negotiate. That's my manager's job. It's my job to say, yes, let's do it.

Put on a show, go out there, I'm in. It's his job to go and argue that. It's my job to say yes. Ultimately, though, you're happy with how it all turned out. I'm over the moon. Love it. I could sit here and say, oh, I wish I wanted more time to prepare. But the truth is, i work best with speed

when you give me the smallest amount of time to work for an opponent i'm going to go out there and do what's natural and do what's free to me just go out there and have fun and be me shavkat's phenomenal i respect him i respect everything that he brings to this this matchup but i know i'm well capable of going out there and putting him in the dirt i know i'm well capable of going out there finishing and beat him up and doing it beautifully so for me i get to go out here on december 7th at uc 310 make a statement to myself and the rest of the mma community that i am one of the greatest fighters this sport has ever seen and i'm going to prove it by doing it against a guy that many think is the boogeyman.

Was there any talk of this being for an interim title? No, there wasn't. And that was one of the things that when I asked questions about the fight, is it going to be three rounds? Is it going to be five rounds? Is it going to be for an interim world title? Because it was scheduled to be for a world title. He turned around and said, they shut that down pretty quickly like for me

i it doesn't matter that it's not for an interim title would it be cool yes absolutely but the truth is me or shavka aren't the world champions right now. It's Bilal Muhammad and he's not fit to compete. So it's fair and logical that the winner of this fight is deemed the number one contender. Goes out there later on in 2025 and fights for that title and earns the right to be called

the world champion. Because if we get a belt wrapped around us, what does it mean? You're the fake world champion. You're the second best guy in the division right now because the champion is still there. For me, it's not important.

What's important is going out here and beating Shavka in a beautiful fashion, proving how dangerous I am, proving how amazingly talented I am, and then having a long camp to prepare to get that belt wrapped around my waist and prove that this division is well and truly mine. And anyone who wants to try to come take that belt off, he's going to have a very, very, very tough time. And so now here's the question I'm dying to ask you.

When all these dominoes fell and you were then booked to fight Shavkat and Joaquin was left without a dance partner. Oh, don't. I know where you're going. I'm seething. and you were then booked to fight Shavkat and Joaquin was left without a dance partner. Oh, don't. I know where you're going. I'm seething. And you found out that it was in fact going to be Colby stepping in on the same day.

What was your reaction? Well, Ariel, what, how do you think I feel? Because I've been screaming and shouting about fighting that man from the rafters. This man's made videos about me, my wife, my kids, talked to him about all

this shit. And here's this man avoiding me like the plague. And then the second I book in against the scariest man in the division, he's like, oh, I'll fight in Florida. It just proves, it just shows that he's a

coward, that he wants nothing to do with me. And the truth is, I know I've already beaten him. I know I've already mentally beaten him. He's weak. He's an absolute coward. And I believe he's going to go out there and get steamed by Joaquin Buckley. You think Buckley beats him?

Easy. I think Buckley statues him. But you know what I'd love, Ariel? You know what I would love? I would love this. Here's my ideal scenario. I go out there December 7th, and I take out Shavkat early.

I come out of there unscathed, uninjured. I get on the mic, and I sit there, and I say, hey, I could wait until next year when Bilal Muhammad's back. Or Dana Hunter, UFC. I could walk my ass all the way down to Florida, and I could beat the bollocks way down to Florida. And I could beat the bollocks out of Kobe Covington for 25 minutes. And I

can prove how good I am next week. Because that man talks a lot, but he's not willing to back it up. That would be my deal. I would love to beat Shavkat and the following week, fight as the main event in Tampa and bury Kobe Covington and leave him dead and done in that octagon, never to be seen again.

At this point, though, and I completely understand where you're coming from, if all goes according to plan for you on Saturday and that books your ticket to Bilal, you can make the case then that he is so far behind you, that ship will have sailed and you may never get your hands on him. Is that a reality that you're coming to terms with? Absolutely. I mean, I was coming to terms with it the first time he was avoiding me by saying he had a broken foot six and a half months later when it takes two months to heal. So I understand the type of person Kobe Covington is. He is someone who is trying to stay relevant by calling out the people that are generating traction. Myself, Shavkat, Bilal Muhammad. He's, even Charles at one point, he was saying he wanted to fight Charles.

Do you know what I mean? These are all to keep relevancy to his name because his stock is plummeting so low because no one cares about him anymore. So for me, i want that fight just because of how much trash he taught but i'm well aware that when i beat chavkat saturday night it's me being booked against belal muhammad for the world title later on in 2025 i'm about to win that world title. And Kobe Covington is far, far, far in the rearview mirror. Why do you think Usman, you said he wanted nothing to do with you. Why do you think that's the case?

Former champion coming off a strong performance. Because Usman has a big chest and little balls. That's what was said to you? He looks good. No, he's just not. That's what I'm saying. He's got a big chest. He looks good.

He plays the part. But where it matters between the legs, he's just not that's what I'm saying he's got a big chest he looks good he plays the part but where it matters between the legs he's a little man that's my outlook on it he's worried again him and Kobe they're older they've been through

the division they've fought these guys now they're getting to the end of their careers they want to choose the better stylistic matches I guarantee

I guarantee this they are going to try, Usman is going to try to push for a fight with Jack de la Maddalena because he's seen how easy Gilbert Burns is able to take him down.

So for me, if I was in Usman's shoes, why would I want to fight the guy who's long, rangy, difficult to deal with when I could fight a guy who I've watched two people back-to-back

be able to take him down quite easily? I guarantee Usman's going to try push for the jdm fight because he's weak-minded i have to say in uh at this juncture we have talked uh quite a bit throughout your career i don't know if i've ever seen you this fired up and especially before a fight it gets me big fights big opportunities excite me in life. This is what I live for. I'm a young kid who dreamt of being here. I'm a young kid who dreamt of being here, who wanted to see my face on billboards, who

wanted to put on shows against the scariest people in the world. I've said to you before how my ideal scenario is I fight, I beat Chavka, I win the world title, I go up to middleweight and I fight Kamzat. I win that belt too. I'm not afraid of any man. I know how talented I am. I know the gifts God gave me. I want to go out there and prove it against what people believe to be the best people in the world.

That's what I'm here for. That's the competitor in me. This fight on Saturday Night Era, I promise you the world is going to see an Ima Shadoukari they've never seen before. I'm going to prove to the world and myself that I'm better than I ever believed I could be. This fight is going to show the world how talented I am, and I cannot wait till everyone just is

silent. So obviously, we know you guys trained a little bit together in the past, and then once this fight came up and was booked, footage, a little bit of footage, past and then once this fight um came up and was booked footage a little bit of footage a taste if you will of you guys working together a little spar if you will out on the mats in florida here's the footage courtesy of your of your twitter is this why you're so confident because you've you know you've had the opportunity to train with him

you felt him you understand the puzzle that is Shavkat is that why you are so confident heading into Saturday it's genuinely it's nothing to do with Shavkat and it's everything to do with me when I fought MVP I was very vocal and very honest about how I felt ahead of that fight I wasn't. I had zero interest to fight him. His style was not like the rest of the division. It's a very specific style that it's really only him that have it in MMA. So I had to switch my mentality of going, let's focus on the best version of Ima Shadow Gary

we can get. Let's go out there and prove how good you are in whatever area you want to focus on to be the best version of you. Shavkat is phenomenally talented. I have nothing but respect for the man and everything he's done in his career up until this point and everything that he said. He's a very similar outlook to me on the division.

He's disappointed with the rest of the division and i know how talented i am i know that i can beat every single person that weighs in at 170 on this planet so it's my job to go out there and prove it and some people might call me nuts some people might call me crazy he's people might call me crazy. He's 18 and 0. He's finished. Everyone, he's fought. I'm 15 and 0. All I've ever done in my life is win, and people might call me crazy,

but crazy is just seeing things earlier than everyone else. I love that. I did see Shafkat say that some of the training sessions that you guys had back in the day, you saw this tweet. This is a tweet that has been passed around. It looks like Ian forgot what happened during those training sessions. I guys had back in the day. You saw this tweet. This is a tweet that has been passed around. Looks like Ian forgot what happened during those training sessions. I don't mind reminding him. Training is training. What are we doing in training? We're trying to

evolve and grow. We are trying to be better. We are trying to do things that put us in scenarios where we need to learn. So if Shavkat believes that the training that we had in the past is going to be the same on Saturday night when he steps into the octagon with me, then Shavkat, I'm speaking to you directly. You're going to be severely mistaken. And if I was you, I would change that mentality very quickly. Gosh, I can't wait for this. The champ, by the way, Bilal, picking you to win. Have you seen this tweet? I have seen the tweet and he knows what he's talking about. We haven't talked since he beat Leon and I know we have to go in a moment. Were you surprised at what he did to Leon?

Yes. Yeah, I was. I thought he did it. He had a very very very intelligent performance. He never let Leon gather any momentum and I think the best part about it was how he very clearly broke Leon. You see him between the stool

in the fourth and fifth round, how he told his little puppet master, Dave Lavelle, to shut the fuck up. He mentally upset him and broke him. And Bilal spoke prior to about saying Leon is weak. And I think Bilal exploited that. That if you put Leon in the cooker, he mentally drains himself and I think

Bilal had a phenomenal performance against someone who's very technically clean and he went out there and he did what he needed to do to get the belt wrapped around his waist but I promise you now if he fights me he's got to do a hell of a lot more than that because I am not going to stop

He is not going to break my spirit He's not going to break my mentality I will absolutely dominate him With control, distance, speed Aggression, violence Fuck maybe I might out wrestle him Shout out to your YouTube channel The video blog that you put out

The quality of that thing that you put out When all of this went down Whomever shot it, edited it, shout out to them. The scene that you were in in Thailand was breathtaking, really, really well done. And so I want to give them a shout out. Also, Curtis Pike. Is that the guy? I mean, it's really. Curtis Pike.

He is my full-time videographer, filmmaker, whatever you want to call him, head of creative. He is my full-time videographer, filmmaker, whatever you want to call him, head of creative. He is phenomenal. He has a very great eye for beauty. He doesn't just film. He makes it beautiful. He captures the emotion in the film as well. So he deserves a shout out. My entire team are phenomenal.

You know, Ariel, the biggest thing that I can sit there and say about my team is they don't blow smoke up my ass. They are not yet men. They sit there and they help me push boundaries in myself personally and physically, mentally. And when we get an opportunity to shift everything on a dime and we get that call, my team doesn't go, oh, that's a big task. Fighting Shavcott a week earlier, fighting this guy. They're like, let's do it. This is what you asked for. This is what you said you wanted. God is giving

you what you wanted. Go do it. Let's do it. Everyone's just like, right. Let's get our passports. Let's go. I've got to give a lot of love to my team. You're rocking the new merch. done you like it it's nice i like that i like that belt uh a nod to to the the emerald isle uh very very nice um and and i do wonder though how you feel in conclusion how do you feel knowing that all's well and good for you now you're a future champion you're killing it but eventually it is inevitable that your son is going to be infinitely more famous and popular

than you are because that kid is a superstar what happened i mean that kid is unbelievable he's you know it's just look at this it's phenomenal pointing to the ground i mean he's a he's a star. He performs when the red light comes on. I don't know what he's like when it's off, but he's amazing. Well done. He's exactly like his dad. He's the exact same.

This is the thing. There is no difference to me and him on the camera and off the camera. We're the same. When I see people talk about Leo like like that and i see those videos and i see the love people have around the world from it just shows that what me and my wife are doing as parents is right it shows that you know i i i'm very very hell-bent on hi baby do you want to say hi oh the legend say hi come here oh my god this is a big ah look at this guy hello wow can you say hi ariel hello he said you're a superstar can you say superstar can you say the future yeah oh my. He said that you're awesome. When you grow up, do you want to be a fighter?

Yeah? Yeah. Oh, you're going to be dangerous? What's your favorite fighting move? Tractors. I really like tractors. I love it. You show him if one, two, three, shooter.

Yeah. Go. Oh, look at this guy. He's such a breath afresh there. It makes me happy because I see how happy and joyful he is with everything that he does. And it shows that the

dedication that he sees when I'm on the map, how hard I push myself. I'm still here. Look at him. That's amazing, man. What a blessing. It shows that I'm doing the right things as a father. So I'm having success in life. Go to mommy. Thank you.

Run. Run. Go to mommy. Love you. It shows that I'm doing the right things as a father, as an athlete, as a person. Oh my God, you really want to say hi to Ariel? Yeah. How old were you?

It took you some 20 years to get on the show. He gets it at what, two? Two. He's such an awesome human. We went to the PI earlier on and my face is on the side of the PI and he's like, oh, bye-bye. It's two.

And it was just such a cool moment because I'm still young in my life. I'm 27 years in my life. I'm 27 years old and I wanted to have a child early in life because I think of when I'm, when I'm 45, he's going to be 20. Yeah. And I'm still possibly going to be able to fight at that point.

And he's going to be in the UFC if he wants to at 17, 18, because he's going to have me and all of my connections and everything that I've done in my life, just ready and available. So anything that that kid wants to do, I will support him 100%. He is such a joy and it just makes me feel happy that I can be here in such a beautiful home in the middle of Las Vegas, share it with him, and enjoy everything that this life has gifted me with. I'm very, very grateful.

Your shirt says future champion, but when you have all of that, you're already a champion, my man. You should know that. Last, last quick thing. Official prediction. What are we going with? I think he's going to come out strong. I think he's going to come out strong I think he's going to be aggressive I think the first two rounds

You're going to see a lot of him Trying to figure out my puzzle And then I believe Third and fourth I'm going to start to dominate. I think by the fourth round, I think Shavakat's going to be gassed and he's not going to have anything to do. I'll find the way to finish him.

Man, I was looking forward to this so very much going into this 30 minutes ago. Even more so now, infinitely more so now. Well done, Ian. Thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Good luck this week. Good luck as you. Thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Good luck this week. Good luck as you cut that weight in on Saturday as well. Can't wait and always very much appreciate the time.

And great to have your son on for the first time. That was lovely. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. If you ever want him on, you know, he'll say yes. I love it. He goes to the camera like his daddy. I love it.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it for your love all through the years. Ariel, you're going to be shocked too. Because trust me, I'm ready. Can't wait. Good luck, Ian. All the best to you. There he is.

Thank you. All the best. Ian Machado Gary. Golly. I hope they give him pay-per-view points after that. Sold the shit out of that. That was incredible. The fire.

The passion. Oh, my gosh. And there you have it right there. 18-0 against 15-0 Rare in its own right To get those types of undefeated records Going toe-to-toe Eight knockouts versus seven

Ten subs of course That sticks out Versus the one Six foot one Versus six foot three So Ian's Got the advantage there But then on the reach

It's 77 inches For the nomad Shafkat Rahmanov And then the reach it's 77 inches for the nomad Shafkat Rachmanov and then the reach for Ian 74 inches I can tell you that Shafkat Rachmanov will be joining us on the program tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that of course we had him as he was in limbo but now he's in Vegas now he's got the fight and now we are ready to roll and uh golly, I know that they don't usually give pay-per-view points in non-title fights, but he did an absolute phenomenal job selling that fight. Come on, guys.

How great was that? That's a different side of Ian. That's, you know, he could be fired up and he's got the gift of gab and all that stuff. But I felt something different there. In particular, talking about colby and usman and the whole thing put it all in one big pot and you get that that's the finished product i can't wait he's talked a big game now he's got to back it up no doubt about it he is saying things that are very very pointed there he has talked a massive game the most about this fight is he knows

something that we don't know and shavakad knows something that we don't know and Shavkat knows something that we don't know is how did that go in training right how when they were actually in the training room together when they were sparring how did that go to speak that confidently you have to know something that I don't know and so I'm fascinated to see if he's putting it on or if he really knows how this is going to go and and has something in mind After training with Shavkat I mean Sold the fight on Saturday Went after Usman Went after Covington

Sprinkled in some Buckley In there as well Like yeah He was on fire man That was good stuff God what I may have just read this Who is the favorite

Going into that fight Is Shavkat Ian fight Yeah Shavkat Only growing He's like minus 360 now Wow only growing Yeah

Open at like minus 245 It's just getting bigger i mean you see 18 and 0 18 finishes and you know the and gary isn't the public's favorite fighter uh and i think a lot of people want to see him get beat so there's another reason man i can't wait i can't wait it's a great card man dude it's a great card you say sneaky i think it's just an outright great card yeah you're. These end of the year cards often are great and miss the big dog at the top, but it's everyone's shot to get one last pay-per-view in. Crazy depth on this card.

Crazy. It might not be the best card, but it might be the deepest. Is that fair? It might be the deepest of the year. It's deep. Not of all time, obviously. It's deep. Yeah.

Very, very, very, very much looking forward to it. There's a few more might be the deepest of the year. Not of all time, obviously. It's deep. Yeah. Very, very, very, very much looking forward to it. There's a few more items that we have to get to. We've been talking so much. There's so much talking going on, especially at the beginning of the show. Mostly my fault. Everyone stop chatting shit. That's right. Okay, so let's get into it. I was watching the DAZN. By the way, I was watching

the DAZN broadcast on Saturday. Sonny Edwards versus Galalia Fai. More on that in a moment. I was watching the DAZN, by the way, I was watching the DAZN broadcast on Saturday, Sonny Edwards versus Galalia Fai, more on that in a moment. And, you know, I'm sitting back, I'm waiting to see, maybe they'll plug, you know, my new show with Adi Oladipo, Ariel and Ade, which you can catch every Tuesday at 5 p.m. Eastern, 10 in the UK, 2 in the West. I thought maybe I'd get one of those reads Like, check out the Zone's New show with Ariel

Like I see on the other broadcasts Didn't get much of that But what I did get was an interview With one Leon Edwards Leon Edwards Sitting ringside, saying somewhat surprisingly That it was his first boxing event That he ever attended live

He was there, because it was in Birmingham, the Matchroom card. And I was just a little bit surprised. I mean, I know that maybe not the biggest events roll through Birmingham, but I thought maybe he'd have gone to another one in the past. In any event, he reveals in the interview, which was conducted by Jamie Ward of Matchroom, who does a fine job, a great job, dare I say, that he is slated to return to action on March 22nd on the O2 card in London, the Fight Night card, which won't be happening in the middle of the night, which is tremendous news for all the locals. So all of a sudden, I'm like oh wow, I tweet this out. And then by the way, I noticed all the aggregator sites tweeting it out and just crediting DAZN. No freaking chance

they're watching Sonny Edwards versus Galalia Fi. I mean, no chance. I mean, a little hat tip would be nice. Nevertheless, he did not reveal who he will be fighting. And this leads to some discussion. And initially I was like, all right, you know, is it going to be JDM? Is it going to be, I don't know, another Usman fight? Is it going to be a younger guy, Sean Brady? I know Sean's been asking for this fight. And then I started to see a lot of people say Jorge Masvidal. And I know he's, you know, getting ready for a return. And I know he recently signed with Dominance MMA

And you know that's a great ticket To get back into the UFC And I know there's been some rumblings about a return to Miami Do you guys have any interest In finally seeing this This score settled Between Leon and Jorge Which of course first kicked off

In London all those years ago, March of 2019, three-piece Minnesota, all that stuff. So much has happened since then. Are you buying or selling Leon versus Jorge? It's the so much has happened since then that you just pointed to. I'm in on the storyline. I think you can drum it back up. You'll be able to sell one hell of a promo. It has lost too much steam for me to be that interested. Too long ago. So you're selling? Yeah.

I mean, Masvidal's recent performances in the cage doesn't really excite me for it. Okay. Brady? More interesting. Yeah. Okay. So who is it? Because I feel like you're not.

I don't know. You tell me, man. Who is it? Oh, no, no, no. There is. I mean, I don't think there is anyone at the moment. I reached out. I even, for the record, reached out to the team just to confirm.

I mean, I was watching him. He said it. I saw the words coming out of his mouth. But just to, you know, maybe make sure if he didn't misspeak or anything like that. Loser of Shavakati and Gary? Too soon? I'm down for any of those. Three and a half months.

Three and a half months? Yeah. Too soon? I'm down for any Three and a half months To me the Jorge Masvidal one has no upside From Jorge's From the other side perspective If Jorge wins that fight Now what? What does that do? Now he's back He just beat the former champ

Colby if he beats Buckley Do you want to see that again? Is it maybe Buckley if he beats Colby? I think all these make sense for Leon. That's the thing with Leon. He's in a good position where he hasn't really fought a lot of these guys. There's a new crop now that he can fight that I'd be interested in. Well, I guess my point is, I don't know if there's a ton.

Well, because let's just assume that JDM is fighting in Australia. That would be February 12th the only guy Who's in that top six Range is uh Sean Brady great great Fight let's do it I'm down with that Headline for a fight night In London the return of Leon

Big test for uh Brady Coming off a big time performance I mean he's ranked Fourth sounds good to me man You're into it. All right. I'm there. No pushback, no nothing. Any interest?

Can I interest you in Gilbert Burns? I think I'd rather see Brady. I'd rather see Brady just because I want to see Brady potentially take that next step. Can I interest you in Wonderboy Thompson? No. All right. So, I mean, I feel like we've settled on Sean Brady. Yeah, I feel like Leon is settled on Sean Brady. Yeah. I feel like

Leon is trying to push back towards the belt. I don't know if Wonderboy Thompson is the step to take. I think taking out an up-and-comer in Brady is the better step. I mean, we're going to see some activity here at 170 in the next two weeks, but to me, I know Brady wants it. I know they've been asking for it. I'm with it i would like to see it and and i also love the idea of leon fighting on that card and i love the idea of him headlining um i don't know what the the public will say i don't know what the ticket buyers would say i i i think do you think the masvidal fight has some like universal juice like appeal i i don't but maybe i'm missing something maybe i think it does

you do i i don't have any interest in it i'm wondering how many people even remember that storyline at this point oh i mean here's the thing i wasn't even thinking of it and then when i posed the question on on my social media i got a lot of masvidals and i was like, oh, yeah. Okay. It would feel to me almost like UFC 272, the one where it was Colby versus Jorge back in March of 2022. Like a little bit past its. Yeah, past its expiration date. And that'll have been three years ago at that point. Yeah.

Like I love the storyline. I just don't know if I love the fight itself. Yeah, I was into it a few years ago. Now it has. Leon's coming off of a championship fight, like having just had the belt. that point yeah like i love the storyline i just don't know if i love the fight itself yeah i was into it a few years ago now it has leon's coming off of a championship fight like having just had the belt and and jorge has just not had success in the octagon as of late i love the idea of brady getting it um i think that's a really interesting especially considering the fact brady's style will then lead to some questions Like how much has Leon improved Or you know there's a

Similar-ish style to Bilal Right? Bit of a grinder Take you down All that stuff Sign me up I really do feel like beating Brady gets you right back In the title picture whereas Jorge I'm not sure Gets you back to the belt

Yeah you do wonder what the path is Because there's a bit of a tournament happening right now, right? With Bilal Champ, Shavkat versus Ian. We presume that winner gets the title shot. If Buckley beats Colby, he's right there. If Colby beats Buckley, I'm sure he's going to be calling for it. Yep. Deserved or not.

Even more a reason that Leon needs to get a win that's significant as opposed to... But as you know, sometimes it's just the win that matters. It's just the spectacular win. People don't say like, oh, like, you know, Masvidal is a household name. People will be like, oh, Masvidal win if he knocks him out cold or something like that.

If Leon, I mean, if Bilal is still the champ though, I feel like Leon's still behind the line. It would still be Shavkat or Ian. It would still be Buckley. He'd be behind those guys. I don't think even the most spectacular, spectacular wins gets him right back in there with Bilal. Bilal dismantled him.

Like it was as one-sided as one-sided gets. I don't think that is enough. I actually don't think that anything is enough. Like, unless Ian versus Shavkat is a total, total stinker, the winner of that fight is next. For sure. For sure. I think it's without question.

Faire accompli. Yep. Yep. This is the title eliminator. And so later in the night, and we'll see how that all plays out. Later in the night, I'm watching the Sonny Edwards versus Galalia 5 fight. And we talked about it last week.

We talked about the promo and the bloodline and the family history. And Adi did a great job on our show of breaking it all down. And by the way, I tweeted the face-off, which went on and on. And the eyes were intense and all that. And then I looked back at the tweet, and it had something crazy, like something insane, like 7 million views or something like that on Twitter, on X. And so the thing went viral. Now, part of the reason why it went viral is because, you know, they're 112 pounds and standing next to Eddie Hearn, the discrepancy there is quite stark.

And so I think people were commenting on that, but there are two incredible fighters with an incredible backstory. And this was a family story that had been playing out for over a decade in the UK fight scene. And so I'm watching the fight and I actually was, I was telling my kids about it. I was telling my boys about the backstory and it was an afternoon card because it was happening in the UK. And then

all of a sudden the fight happens and they were picking their winner and all that stuff. It's very fun to do this with them. And Galal is just beating the brakes off of him. Like it is very one-sided. He is throwing everything at Sonny Edwards and not stopping and not breaking a sweat and just, it's an onslaught. And then between the second and third round, and we've had some legendary moments

when it comes to in between rounds corner speaking to fighters um we've had you know the the ultimate pep talks the ultimate you know goosebumps obviously dave lavelle and and leon edwards probably the most famous one of all time is teddy atlas and and tim brad We're firemen, we're firemen. That's an unbelievable moment. In between the second and third round, and this is fascinating to me on so many levels, a moment is caught on camera live

between Sonny and his brother, who's his head trainer. His brother, actually, he might not have been talking to his brother, but his brother was there. So might not have been talking to his brother, but his brother was there. So I apologize if I'm getting on, but I do think it was his brother that he was speaking to in that moment. And initially when I heard it, I'm like, did I hear what I thought I heard? And then credit to the broadcast, Mike Costello, the play-by-play man, he confirms it. And so this is the moment that went viral afterwards where sonny edwards is

telling his corner if i can be honest with you i don't want to be here right now take a look i mean that is that gives me stupid. Listen, stop fucking feeling sorry for yourself right now. Stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself because you've had one bad fucking round. I mean, that gives me chills because that is the fight game right there. And people don't understand it. And I'm not going to sit here and be like, I know what it's like to be there in the second round where you're facing a guy who is dominating you because I haven't. But I feel like I've been around fighters and have the appreciation and love for the game to understand how significant that moment is. That is a rare thing.

It's not something that we've never seen before, but to see a guy like Sonny Edwards, who if you are unfamiliar with him, a fighter's fighter, one of the best in the world, rose up the ranks, became champion, world champion, ended up fighting Bam Rodriguez last year around this time in Arizona, one of the best powerful pound fighters in the world. You saw him on the show a couple of weeks ago and Bam stopped him and some have said that he wasn't the same since.

To see him respond to, hey, do you have it in you to move? And he's like, do you want me to be real with you? I don't even want to be here. And gives you the look of someone who's at the library at 11 p.m. on a cold Tuesday night, and there's an exam tomorrow that they don't want to study for, and they just want to go home and essentially say, que sera, sera. I would never, ever, ever call Sonny Edwards a quitter. I honestly would never call the vast majority of fighters who stepped through the ropes quitters. Um, I don't think he quit. I just think he didn't have it in him anymore. And he has, you know, he has said since that he told his team before the fight, this is my last fight, win, lose, or draw. And he has said since that after his last fight, which he won post-BAM, he was crying because he felt like he didn't have it anymore. That he felt like his body was breaking on him, that he's just 28, but he's poured so much into the first portion of his career, the first six or so years, that he was just done. He tried to make the Olympic team.

It didn't work out. He goes to pro ranks, fights over 20 times against the best of the best, was seeking the biggest and best fights, got them, and had a wonderful career, a career that most people would dream of. But to hear that rare moment of honesty between coach and trainer, between a fighter who built this up, and this wasn't just any ordinary fight. This was a personal bloodline fight. That gave me chills. And unfortunately for him afterwards, uh, it, you know, there were some rare flashes,

some moments of, okay, is he going to be able to turn this around? Does he have something left in him? But in the end, he couldn't quite turn it around and the referee stepped in. And it wasn't like if you watch the stoppage in a vacuum, you're like, is it that intense? But it's the accumulation. He wasn't there. And I tweeted right before the sixth and final round, it was starting to feel uncomfortable. Because you can't get that sequence, that conversation out of your mind, and you know that the fight is one thing to not feel like playing basketball or any other sport. I mean, I would argue that if you feel that way for any sport, you shouldn't do it because

you could get hurt playing baseball. You could get hurt playing football. You can get hurt playing hockey or basketball or any other sport. But this is fighting. You're getting punched. I can't imagine feeling that way and getting beat up by someone who you have this 10-year feud with. And so in the end, the ref steps in and afterwards, Sonny is speaking to the aforementioned Jamie Ward and announces his retirement. If I'm perfectly, perfectly honest, win, lose, or draw, my team know this, win, lose, or draw is retiring tonight.

I don't have the same energy that I had for the sport, for the process. I'll be perfectly real. I mean, I put so much in the first six, seven years of my career that I just needed a break. I needed a break really before this fight, but you know i i always want to compete at the best and whilst i was the number one and i wanted to be in the involved in the biggest fights the biggest events but um i knew i knew i said the whole way that it was going to be hard tonight but sonny edwards from 12 months ago would have got longer than six rounds man um credit to him much credit to him uh he's young

he's getting into the manager game now the managerial side of things uh he's gotten into commentary uh and and as eddie hearn said afterwards uh he'll be around the fight game for a very long time and there are some people say oh he'll be back in one or two years and lord knows we've seen you know people walk away and then return, especially 28 year olds. But think about where he must have been in that moment to walk away. And I don't think that he was trying to take away any type of shine from Galal Yafai, but naturally that ends up being the story. And you feel for Galal because, you know, his performance led to that.

This wasn't a freak thing. He didn't slip. He didn't twist an ankle. He didn't, you know, bang his head on route to the ring or something like that. Like it was Galal who performed masterfully. And so you kind of hate the fact that some of this takes away the shine from a young man who just picked up the biggest win of his career and the biggest win since he won Olympic gold in 2021. However, I don't think that was Sonny's intention. It was very nice afterwards, very nice scenes between the two of them hugging, respect, love, but naturally a fighter of his stature and how much he means to the UK scene, just retiring and having this moment in the ring, this truly rare moment of honesty in the midst of a fight becomes the headline. And so I found that to be riveting

theater. The relationship between fighter and himself, the relationship between fighter and coach, fighter and manager, fighter and promoter, all of this is so fascinating. And to hear a fighter who probably knows he's being mic'd up. In fact, at the Post Fight Press Conference, he talked about not wanting a mic on him in between rounds and saying like, now you know why I was fighting it. To see that is absolutely riveting stuff. And so we do wish him the best.

I'm a fan of his. I've liked his style. I like his swag. He's always training in different NBA jerseys. And I think that he'll have a long and successful career outside of fighting. And if he comes back, that will be an interesting story in its own right. And it appears as though Matchroom have a potential new star on their hands in Galalia Fai.

So let's see where he goes from here, and let's see how this all plays out. Now, we'll talk more about that particular story. I can assure you of that on tomorrow's episode of Ariel and Ade. That's on DAZN, on the DAZN Boxing YouTube channel at 5 p.m. Eastern, 10 in the UK, and 2 p.m. on the West Coast. You can get that on the DAZN Boxing YouTube channel, and you can also get that on the DAZN app.

Myself, Ariel Helwani, and Ade Oladipo. Ariel and Ade, get it? Oh, that makes more sense. Talking all things boxing. And perhaps by tomorrow, we will also find out more on that February 22nd card that everyone's talking about. Everyone's talking about this February 22nd card. We were debating some rumors last week. Maybe we get the finalized card tomorrow because it already seems like some of the fights that were being reported, i.e. Boots Ennis versus Virgil Ortiz Jr. Not going to happen. Yesterday, we saw the promo for Usyk Fury 2-drop. Everyone's talking about that. Everyone loves that. One of their better ones,

and these are all masterful, and it's gotten to the point where we're so spoiled that we're debating which is the best, but it's a great time for boxing promos. The re-ad season ones and the non-re-ad season ones, like the Bloodline one that I was talking about. It's a great, great time for all that. Now, in conclusion, I save the best for last.

I save the best for last. It has been a while. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking as I was sitting here on Wednesday. I'm doing the show, minding my own business. All is good in our world. And all of a sudden, I see people in the chat saying, you've pissed off the Cobra. The Cobra is coming for your head. You've upset the Cobra. Now, being the boxing aficionado that I am, I knew right away,

oh, the Cobra, Carl Froch,otch frotch on fighting youtube channel that i've talked glowingly about to others i pissed him off what did i say what did he say and so i'm quickly searching and uh i'm unable to watch it because we're live and we don't take breaks but i get a bit of a breakdown from you know the guys on the chat from the guys back there and i have a quick response but i didn't actually get to listen to what he had to say about me until afterwards and so i did listen and i wanted to properly respond because i think he deserves that kind of respect uh he made a video talking about the state of boxing and asking the question, why is boxing becoming a joke? He made this video

ethering myself, Nikisa Badarian of Most Valuable Promotions, and the great Gareth A. Davies of the Daily Telegraph and TalkSport. I'm not going to fight their battles, so to speak, and I'm not of most valuable promotions and the great gareth a davies of the daily telegraph and talk sport i'm not going to fight their battles so to speak and i'm not really looking for a fight pardon the pun uh but i will respond to what he said about me because part of me was like wow carl froch is talking about me he knows who i am now i think he's playing it off like he doesn't know who I am and has never heard of me, but we obviously know that isn't the case. I don't know if he's upset that I now host a show on DAZN and work for DAZN and am in the ring, you know, interviewing fighters like Mike Tyson and Shushu Carrington and Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano and Jake Paul on Netflix. I don't know why he's so upset about this, but he did offer some type of insight into it on his YouTube video asking why boxing has become such a joke. And so I want to play that for you and then I will respond. And if I'm being honest, I might interrupt the video and respond in real time.

I don't know. We'll play it by ear. We'll kind of just, you know, let it flow. Without further ado, here's what the great Carl Froch, who once sold out 80,000 seats at Wembley Stadium

against George Groves. Here's what Carl Froch had to say about me. So before I go, I want to talk about some so-called boxing journalists. Ariel Helwani. Yes.

Talking shit. He was talking shit on his show last week. Absolute nonsense. Really exposing his knowledge, his limited knowledge for the professional boxing world. Okay, pause it right there. I've never called myself a boxing journalist, perhaps a combat sports journalist.

I don't like to shoehorn myself into one particular thing, even though he's trying to, he'll call me an MMA journalist in a matter of moments. You've never heard me say that. You'll never hear me say that. I don't cover the beat necessarily like a great Keith Idek does.

And I haven't been doing it for 20 plus years, like a Thomas Hauser or even a George Plimpton, if you will, or the great Tom Gervaisi. I would never call myself that, but I do host a show on DAZN and host a combat sports show where we talk about boxing, and we have characters like Katie Taylor and Bam Rodriguez and Boots Ennis and Todd DeBuff on the program.

And so I think combat sports journalist is more appropriate. Nevertheless, I digress. And then you have, oh, Frotch begging for it you have tony bell these are the ones see now see now finally how long is this how long has it gone 20 minutes you finally got into the realm of real fights that i want to see him fight okay can i tell you something right now tony bell you at a and i i like tony a lot one side of his mouth says this is lot. One side of his mouth says, this is a sham. Other side of his mouth took a payday to fly from the UK to Texas to sit there for one minute of camera time. Okay, so let's pause right there.

This is from my show with Ade. And I'm talking about the fact that a lot of these legendary older boxers who are no longer fighting, who are retired, constantly talk about the Jake Paul fights, profit off of the Jake Paul fights, whether it's commentary gigs or work on their YouTube channel or what Tony did, which I'm not trying to blast him for it, but no one's paying you to show up in, not Houston, in Dallas, Texas, all the way from the UK. No gambling partner or outlet or app or anything like that is paying you to do this, to crash a press conference at any other show but this one because of the eyeballs on it. And so you say it's bad for the sport. If it's bad for the sport, if you're ashamed of it and all this stuff, then ignore it.

Then don't add fuel to the fire. Don't connect yourself to it in any way, shape, or form. And so all I'm talking about is, for lack of a better word, the hypocrisy of one side of your mouth saying this is a sham, and on the other side of your mouth profiting off of it. I hate the fact that Tony is a part of all this because I actually really like him and am somewhat of a colleague of his at DAZN. I was just speaking about, you know, that juxtaposition, if you will. And so that's why he's coming up here on the show with Ade. I just kind of mentioned Carl In passing But I think his ego can't stand the fact That a pencil neck geek like myself Is sitting here talking about him And so he's using my name to get some views off his YouTube channel

And it's done quite well If I compare the views on this video To his other recent ones In any event, we continue The betting company that paid him Ain't paying him to crash any other press conference So you have to at least acknowledge That you are all trying to take from him. Now, the other thing is, he was in...

Him being good for boxing, I mean... And boxers, and boxers. And the other thing is... Yeah, what's your point there, Addy? Much love, Tony. Much love. He was sitting there. I was doing the press conference. Not a soul knew who he was. Point is, Tony Bellewis does nothing, tony belly that is true does nothing or carl

frotch to do nothing in america you you acknowledge that yes okay come on call frotch so that's ariel this is where he gets absolute bollocks about the cobra looking for a payday and people saying who's carl frotch if i fought jake paul in america it'd be massive because everyone would think fucking hell jake paul's about to get ironed out by the Cobra. Okay, pause right there, please. Based on what? It would be massive because Jake Paul is fighting. Based on what? I would love to know based on what metrics. Carl Froch's career was 33 and 2. Legend, Hall of Famer, super middleweight champ, super six, all that stuff and more. 33 and 2. Can you do that math for me frank what's 33 plus 2 that is 35 do you know how many of his 35 fights happened in the united states uh zero

no better than zero four four out of his 35 this this legend who is saying if i fought jake paul it would be massive. Based on what? His last two fights that happened in the United States were in Atlantic City. In 2011, he fought in the finals of the Super Six tournament against Andre Ward, who was, you know, one of the faces of American boxing at the time, and still one of the most popular American boxers of all time, or at least of the last, you know, 20 or so years. He fights him in Atlantic City at the Boardwalk Hall. Prior to that, he fought in America against Glenn Johnson as part of the Super Six tournament, also at the Boardwalk Hall. His other two fights in America were against Jermaine Taylor, big win for him at Foxwoods

Resort. And then his debut in America was against the legend Henry Porras at the Avalon in Los Angeles. Not exactly, you know, the LA Coliseum or the Forum or the Crypto.com Arena, formerly known as the Staples Center. Four times. arena formerly known as the staple center four times so the idea that this great american star is going to come over and grace us with his presence i know i understand it may come across as a shot it's not a shot i'm just looking at the facts if you were such a big star in america and

people were chomping at the bit to watch you fight. You would have fought here more often. You were a big star in the UK, and there's nothing wrong with that. One can argue that boxing is more popular in the UK over the past decade or so. By the way, the last time you fought was a decade or so in 2014, over a decade now, May of 2014, the fight against Groves at Wembley Stadium. There's fighters like, say, Daniel Dubois, who will sell a hell of a lot more in the UK right now than here in the United States. Nothing wrong with that. Play to your strengths. Now, there are fighters who supersede all that, Fury, AJ, a select few, no matter where they fight, they're selling a ton of tickets.

If he thinks it's an insult that I don't put him in that category of the type of fighter that sells out, what? What are we talking? American Airlines arena? Is he doing bigger business than Nate Diaz versus Jake Paul? Is he doing bigger business than the arena in Phoenix? Lord knows what its name is, because they keep changing it every year, where he fought Anderson Silva, is it bigger business than the Cleveland arena, the Q, where he fought Tyron, or the Tampa arena, where he was supposed to fight Tommy Fury? I don't think so. Is it comparable? Sure. But like this idea that, oh my God, it's going to, you know, be big box office. No, it's big box office like at this point people are interested in the journey of jake paul no one is sitting around in america on first take

on espn radio on fs1 being like you know who he should fight carl froch the cobra that's the one he's the guy that's going to shut him up i mean could you be that is it possible to be that big of an egomaniac to think that you're the guy that the world is clamoring to shut him up. I mean, could you be that, is it possible to be that big of an egomaniac to think that you're the guy that the world is clamoring to see him fight? Is it a fight that I would watch that I would cover that I would happily dissect and debate? Absolutely. But this notion that you're exposing me for saying that my limited knowledge of boxing, this boxing journalist, you're exposing me because i don't bow down to you or kiss your ass that i'm not this sycophant who's telling you that you're

the greatest of all time that you sold out 80 000 tickets is laughable is is beyond laughable we continue and it'd be equally as big if not bigger because everybody in britain would be like fuck me frost is gonna iron out jake paul this is gonna It'd be huge. Okay, that's an interesting point. Him fighting in the UK is obviously a big deal. He's the pride of Nottingham. We love Nottingham. Him fighting in Nottingham is a big deal. Him fighting in the UK is a big deal. 100%. I wasn't talking about Jake Paul going to

the UK, obviously. Yeah, sure. I mean, every person who's trying to fight him, if they say, come to my home country, it's a big deal. Yeah, because you're the star here. The conversation wasn't about you. It was about him. It was about the biggest fight for him next. It's about the fight that we want to see. We're talking about the journey of Jake Paul. No one's talking about the journey of Carl Froch because you've been there, done that. You stopped your journey. You're done. You don't have anything to fight for anymore. You retired

and fair play. It was a hall of fame career. There's nothing else to do, but no one's saying we are now curious to see if 10 years later, he still got it. And we want to see him shut up, Jake Paul. This is ludicrous. You're just inserting yourself in there. As you try to make yourself out to be bigger than it all, you are inserting yourself in there. And then you do the classic move, the classic move that people love to play when they try to say, I'm bigger than it all here it comes watch closely it's about to hit you there's limited knowledge for professional boxing keeps repeating the same thing mma commentator or junior mma journalist it should stick to fucking mma i'm

dipping my toe in mma but i've never tried to talk about any mma fighters and be disrespectful to him because i don't know enough about them pause it right there first of all again showing his limited knowledge because he comes from a sport where you only use one weapon over here my friend we talk about different things we'll talk about the olympics for the canadian broadcasting corporation we'll do uh bird watching stories for hbo we'll do uh sit downs on pro wrestling for bt sport we'll do boxing for the zone we'll talk about anything we want here on this program. You want to put me in a box because in your mind, people could only do one thing.

And by the way, I'm looking, I see you talking about Ilya Teporia not that long ago. No one's telling you to go back to boxing. That's not how we roll here. So this idea that I can't weigh in while claiming to be disrespectful is complete hogwash. All I'm doing is looking at the facts. You say you're a big deal in America. You fought four times in America and not exactly at the biggest venues. And you weren't exactly the A side. The Super Six wasn't just about Carl Froch. It was about the Super Six.

And the finals certainly wasn't about him. And the other two events, all right, the Jermaine Taylor fight at Foxwoods, you went over to fight an American here at Foxwoods. So come on with this. How much more knowledge do I have to hit you with? Do me a favor. Go to jerrypark.com right now. Go to jerrypark.com, the website that I launched back in 2007 when I started this journey, and type in boxing, and see if I wasn't talking about guys back then. See if I wasn't breaking down fights back then, talking about boxing. After a while, did I sort of decide, all right, I'm going to stick to one sport.

But this idea that you have to stick to MMA or you have to stick to one thing. No, that's how you want to live your life. That's the kind of stuff that you subscribe to. That's the limited capabilities that you possess. I have much greater desires and aspirations. I want to do more. I don't think that,

and by the way, Howard Cosell did Monday Night Football, Monday Night Baseball, and boxing. Would I ever compare myself to him? No. But the point is, you could do more than one thing.

You could do more than one thing. So this idea, like stick to MMA. Why? Because you said so? Fuck no. I'll talk about it, boxing on my DAZN show,

with my name on it, or this show, or the website, that that I told Yahoo that I want to launch and not just be about MMA, but also be about the sweet science. So if I cared so little about it, would I be doing that as well? And I don't even contribute to any of that stuff. Wanted to hire Keith, wanted to hire Darshan. We continue. Keep your mouth shut because you don't know about the cobra's career yeah i do you have to do your research and look into it but you're making

yourself sound fucking stupid i don't know where the fuck you've come from but you don't know anything about boxing i think stick to mma journalism no your boxing knowledge is obviously flawed and limited you haven't got a fucking clue you you're just talking bollocks about professional fighters that you should have some respect for he has no idea pause right there he keeps saying the same thing you see that he's not offering any facts any rebuttal he's not offering anything of substance stay in your lane you're talking bollocks you have no clue uh you're an mma journalist literally offering nothing and then i'm looking at the comments on this thing and it's like you showed him cobra you showed him and i was like uh am i missing something here like our you know i

love these uk fans i love the good people of nottingham but like what am i missing because he's offering literally nothing no retort whatsoever stick to mma stick to this, the Cobra, you know, nothing, you don't know anything. You talk bollocks, blah, blah, like nothing. It's like, that's what I was thinking. It sounded like, it sounded like, you know, like 10 year olds fighting on the playground. And then I was like, could it really, I mean, good for him. Fair play. You got all this positivity on your page.

No, one's pushing back. No one's saying like, hey, Bubba, like give us some sort of like, okay, why do you feel this way about him? Why do you feel like he can't talk about boxing? He can't opine. Does he maybe have a small point that maybe this is about Jake and not you? And then I was like, these are all real people, right? Like there's no way that these are like, these are are like like bots or anything like that right like you don't you can't do that right because like i think the the ratio sounds good but then but then i see on twitter oh carl the cobra actually pays for coverage he doesn't do that

right i see this tweet from boxinging Kingdom. Great site. Ariel and Jake Paul's manager, Nikita Badarian, have been hammered by one of Carl Froch's greatest outbursts ever. Do you agree or disagree with Froch? Hashtag ad. Now, I like some of the other pages that do this similar thing with the hashtag ad, but that's not the only one, but I'm going to spare them on this particular day. Paying for coverage, paying for tweets. What's up with that? So I'm like, all right, so where does that end?

Where does that end? So much positivity. Maybe it all makes sense. Anyway, we continue. and stay out of professional boxing because it's just pathetic what you're saying everything you're saying about jake paul and fighting fighters like me or belly well we're looking for a pay that i've already said on numerous occasions this is it i'll fight for charity yeah that closes that one you know fuck all about boxing mate go on piss off ah go told me. You told me, Cobra.

There it is. There's the rub, the charity line. And so when he tweeted this nice little edited video of me and about me and Nikisa and Gareth, he put in that little part there about the charity. That's where they get you. Everyone goes that route. And so my response was, all right, which charity? And when you're talking charity, are you going to make $0 off of this? Zero dollars, not a penny, not a single cent, not, what do they say?

Not a pound. What is the type of currency they say? What do they say? A quid, not a quid, nothing like that, right? Zero dollars. You will make, and you're saying charity and with one hand tied behind your back. You said that, right? No no fucking way you're not going to make a cent and so i asked them which charity no response and i asked is it going to be 100 of all earnings sponsorship everything zero all to charity no response that's where they get you i can assure you it's not all going to charity. Come on, get it. Yeah, we're doing this all for charity. And speaking of no response, how I wanted to have this play out was I wanted to have Carl Frotch on the show. Let's talk it out. And as you remember me saying last week, I said I would happily fly him in to have him in studio face-to-face. We talk it out

because people like to say, oh, you know, ariel you only like to talk behind the microphone which is insanity i host a show sitting behind a microphone i'm out and about as much as i possibly can and have been and i've told you countless stories you maybe knew about people who've had issues with me and i've gone straight to them to try to sort them out seroni balal ben askren mano-a-mano. I'm not trying to fight any of these people. I know they could kick my ass. This notion that having a disagreement or a debate with a fighter means that I think that I could beat them

shows your limited knowledge of society and our place in it. I know they could kill me. I'm aware. That's not what this is about. This is a different type of debate. And so I invited him to come in, no response. And then I found someone who knows him and I asked, hey, would you like to come on the show via Zoom? And I said that you could even

profit off of it if that's what you're worried about, the views, and we could simulcast this. We could simulcast it on your YouTube channel live. So if your fans want to watch it on your channel and you get all the views, we could do that. We'll set it up. It'll air live on your channel, and it will air live on my channel. So it's equal. Equal playing field. The response that I got, you guys know what the response was?

I'm going to guess that it was a no. Was there a no thank you? The response was... Should have had it ready. Yeah, a little bit. The response was, thanks, mate. He can come on my show, no problem.

My terms, not his. We're all good, thanks, mate. Okay. And so then my retort was, all right, I said we could simulcast it, so it's technically both of our shows. So then I said, I'll come on his show if we could simulcast it on mine. And the reason for that is, not because I'm afraid to have a debate with Carl Frotch,

I'm literally saying you can either fly in and join us in studio, we can have it on this show and simulcast it on yours, is because you see there, there's edits. So I'm going to go on his show and he's going to edit it up. I want it live. That's how we do it around here. We do live. So we can't hide. We fumble. We screw things up. It's all live in front of you. We don't hide behind it. And so I just want to do it live, which is essentially the same offer. And what happens? No response from there. So I guess I'll take that as a no. I'll take that as a no in person, on the show, on his show, live, all those things are a no. lover of boxing and covering boxing and telling truth and doing things the right way, covering the sport the right way. Meanwhile, he's the type of guy, he's the type of commentator, like, like, former athlete turned YouTuber who,

who takes great joy in talking about the negative because they know that the negative leads to clicks and views. That's what he does. Because if you look at his YouTube channel right now, leading up to Edwards versus Yafai, not a single mention of that fight, not a single video on that fight. The only thing he did was a post fight phenomenal job great stuff great insight great chats would love to see more of that he was there at the fight maybe he went because i said hey where's the coverage i noted where's the coverage because he says i'm not a i'm not a boxing journalist meanwhile we've talked about boots ennis we've talked about bam we've talked about Queensberry going to DAZN

And Eddie Hearn And we had George Kambosis on with Ade And have a show with Ade on DAZN And we had Katie Taylor And we had Nikisa on And on and on and on it goes Meanwhile, you look prior to Saturday night The previous video

Five of the last six were about Jake Paul. Five of his last six videos were about Jake Paul. The one that wasn't was about the George Groves fight. Hanging on to the glory days. Why is boxing becoming a joke? Myself, Gareth, Nikisa, George Groves. Payday, I'll fight Jake Paul for charity, Paul Tyson reaction, Carl Froch and Joe Egan, preview, Tyson Paul, this fight is a disgrace, Carl Froch on Mike Tyson, and then it's his other favorite, and those are the five out of the six, then it's an Anthony Joshua one, and then it's a Fury Usyk, we get a nice little Jack Catterall interview in there And then it's more on Joshua

And then it's Firing back at Eddie Hearn You know reaction to Better be a Bivel and stuff like that But where's you know Where's the It's more AJ This guy saying that I don't cover boxing

Where's Bam Rodriguez Where's Naoya Inoue Where are those guys Where's that chat Where are those breakdowns They've fought in the last few months Where's Boots Ennis Where's all that stuff

Where's Keyshawn Davis Where's all that None of it None of it there And so he can claim to be above it all But again, just as I was saying about the payday With the gambling, profiting off of it Realizing that this clicks

So instead of being, I'm going to be above this And I'm not going to talk about it No, what I'm going to do is I'm going to say everyone's a joke And everyone's a fraud And everyone doesn't know what they're talking about But I do, but I do because I'm the Cobra and I sold out 80,000 at Wembley Stadium, but I'm going to talk about it on and

on and on. He secretly wants this to continue. He wants this to be a thing so it could build up his YouTube channel. It's the same old story. Everyone does it. They claim to be above it, but they talk about it. They don't talk about the actual DNA of the sport, the fabric of the sport. They do nothing to actually promote the sport that they care to love so much about. They feed off of the negativity surrounding the sport. And then these hot topics that click. Now say what you will about us. We talk about it all, but I'd like to think that we talk about everything. We talk about the up and comers. We talk about the mid-tier players the mid carters the the the future champions the champions we talk about it all and that i'm not even talking about mma here because of course that's a thing whether you want to say it or not and if you don't want to say it that's a bold-faced

lie i'd say we do a pretty darn good job of doing it on this program and i'm just talking about the last two months having zhi leizhang in studio, having Sky Nicholson in studio. And I'm talking about all the other people that have joined us over the past three years since I left. Fighters from top rank, from Queensbury, from Matchroom. We'll talk a little bit about the Misfits stuff. We'll talk a little bit about the Misfits stuff. We'll talk a little bit about the MVP stuff. We'll have Oscar on. We'll have Haney on.

We'll have Ryan Garcia on. Just last week it was Ryan. Was it not? Yeah, it was last week. We'll have Tank on. We'll have all these people on. From PBC all the way down. In fact, I was complaining before about the wrestling stuff.

The boxing guys love us because we talk so much about them, because there are people who should be talking about them, but just focus on this stuff while claiming to be above it all. So spare me, my friend, spare me, all right? You wanna try to discredit me?

You feel, I don't know, threatened. You feel bothered that the quote unquote MMA guy who's talked about wanting to work at HBO Boxing in 2003 as an intern solely because of his love of boxing, who talked about going to our Toro Gatti fights in Montreal, who talked about Otis Grant and Howard Grant back in the day in the 90s in Montreal, who talked about the Lemieux's of the world

and the Davey Hilton's of the world in the Montreal fight scene. That's what I grew up with. The Casino de Montreal shows, spare me this nonsense. You don't know shit about me. I guarantee you, I know a lot more about you than you know about me

and where I came from and what I know. So you want to try to discredit me and tell your real or fake audience that I know shit because I'm saying that you don't sell an extra ticket here in America. You may sell out the camping.com arena, but you ain't selling out on your name alone. And that's the point that you're missing. And no one's clamoring for it. They may be clamoring for it on TalkSport so you can sell out, you know, the Nottingham Arena or the Co-op Live, but that's not what we're talking about, mate. We're not talking about that. And so I'm sorry if that hurt your feelings. I'm sorry if that made you feel a little bit funny,

but I'm sure you'll have a retort and I'm sure you'll keep talking about Jake Paul and I'm sure you'll keep saying that you're above it and I'm sure you'll have another breakdown and another one and another one and another one because this is the type of guy that you are. This is the type of commentator that you are. You like to shoot. You like to be the outlaw and tell it like it is. That's not helping anyone, if you ask me. And so if it bothers you that I'm on DAZN or that we have this combat sports entity being powered by Yahoo, combat sports, not just mma if that bothers you if that makes you feel some sort of way with a real fucking window behind me sorry as my kids would say you ain't the main character anymore bub you're an npc you know what i'm saying gc you know what i'm saying right

oh yeah do you know what npc stands stands for That's what my kids would say That is what the youngins would say They would say Bro thinks he's the main character If I could boil this whole thing down To one sentence it's Bro thinks he's the main character I'm not

And you ain't Certainly not you He's an NPC I do want to know what NPC stands for Well offline and you ain't. Certainly not you. Love it. He's an NPC. I do want to know what NPC stands for. Well, offline. Alright. And that's all I have to say about that.

Is that enough? Are we good here? We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode. Joining us on the program unless things have changed. Let me see. I don't think anything has changed. Who the hell knows? There's a million messages here. We will have Shafqat on. We will have Pyryan on tomorrow as well, coming off the big win over Pyreon over Pyreon over

I thought you guys would be like Is everything alright? I was just trying to expose my limited knowledge of mixed martial arts Pyreon over Figgy? Figgy, Figgy, Figgy, can't you see? Oh, that's what you were hoping we were going to jump in?

Yeah, just something. Give me something. We got to figure out something about this place right here. The sun goes down. No, no, no, no, no. It might be the only building in New York that actually turns off the lights. Well, it could be a government building where they... Oh, there's someone walking.

Oh, that's good. Well, now There's someone walking What did you say earlier Watch me whip and watch me nae nae You've been kind of going off the cuff You immediately regretted it You're like I don't know why Watch me whip, whip, watch me nae nae You think You think Big Carl was around

In 1980 When When Sugar Ray Leonard beat Roberto Duran You think he knows a thing or two about no-mas? He ain't know a thing or two about no-mas. Come on, man. Cobra's about to iron out Jake Paul.

Hey, Frank. You think the Cobra knows about the pride of Canada, George Chiavallo. I didn't just print these up. I didn't just print these up, Bubba. No. Fighting Muhammad Ali, formerly known as Cassius Clay. Frank.

Was Chiavallo the A-side in that? He was absolutely not the A-side. Frank, what do you think he knows about Sugar Ray Robinson fighting the raging bull Jake LaMotta the St. Valentine's Day massacre? What do you think he knows? Would someone who doesn't have an appreciation for the sweet science

say, you know what, I want these photos in the new studio? Oh yeah, they're just photos. No, it's a freaking ode to the sweet science. When you're right, you're right. Frank, do you think he knows about the rumbling, the jungle? What's that one? Ali Boumaier.

Do you think he knows about Big George Foreman and what Ali did to him in front of hundreds of thousands in Zaire? I do think the Cobra knows about this one. Yeah, it's possible he knows about it. Yeah. I mean, most people know about it. Oh, oh, do you think he knows about Art Jimerson, the one-handed legend who fought at UFC 1, representing the sweet science?

You just got to be clear. He wasn't actually one-handed. He had one glove on his hand. I just want to make sure for the people out there we know. Because then he won't have a point. Oh, oh sorry oh excuse me oh i didn't know do you think he knows about norman mailer oh leroy neiman does he know about him certainly doesn't ali frazier the thriller man, the saga of our lifetime. I think you've ironed out this point. You're supposed to

laugh. And it, you know, the last thing I want is nodding him on nodding him crime. But, and I don't think this, I mean, this is a friendly debate. By the way, the offer still stands. Would love to have him on. Dual interview. Simulcast it. Let's do debate. By the way, the offer still stands. We'd love to have him on. Dual interview. Simulcast it. Let's do it.

Great show today, Frank. That's usually. Yeah. You've got to stop clapping. Otherwise, nobody can hear it. What about our good friends over at NordVPN? I mean, these people. These people, what they've done for us.

What they've done for me. I was going to tell Cyril about my experience with NordVPN in France, but I wasn't sure if it was going to come across the way I wanted it to. Can I break the fourth wall? Please, break the fifth. We used to do the watch party over at our previous studios, Vox Media Studios. Great place. And there was a networking thing where we couldn't actually access ESPN from inside of Vox. And if it wasn't for Nord, we wouldn't have been able to do those watch parties. Why did you say this? I was waxing poetic about them earlier. Because it was your moment to shine.

This is mine. Nord actually just sent me a check to do my own little ad read for them. Well, you know, when we win, when I win, we all win. It's rising tights raise all ships. That's the one notorious Frank Sinatra. By the way, do you think he knows about the war hat? Carl Frosch probably thinks that that's a Dustin Poirier hat right there. Is it not?

I should stop now. Should we stop now? No. In any event, all is fair in love and war. Peace and love, peace and love. Is it not? I should stop now. Should we stop now? Nah. In any event, all is fair in love and war. Peace and love, peace and love. If you send me any letters, by the way, postmarked December 3rd, I'm not responding to them, okay? I'm not going to respond to them.

I'm not signing any autographs. Peace and love, peace and love. Did you get the reference, Frank? Did you get the reference? Yes. That is Paul McCartney. Oh, so close. Find out tomorrow if Frank gets it

right. For now, though, thanks to all our guests. Nailed it. Eric Bischoff, Ima Shadigari, Cyril Ghan, and

to go to the gym. Back on Tuesday same time. Peace. I'm out of here.