The Ariel Helwani Show - Ilia Topuria announces UFC 317 Fight, Ian Machado Garry's plans, UFC Des Moines, more | The Craic

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

The Craic is back! Petesy Carroll is joined by the usual suspects, Chuck Mindenhall and Ben Fowlkes, to break down all the latest headlines.They kick things off by discussing Ilia Topuria, who’s set to fight at UFC 317 on June 28 — but who’s his opponent? The lads weigh in on who they think would make for Topuria’s most exciting matchup (03:58). One of those opponents is Islam Makhachev, but does Makhachev want to fight Ilia, or move up to welterweight to face the winner of Jack Della Maddalena vs. Belal Muhammad? The trio explore what the lightweight champion‘s options are (07:52). Staying with the welterweight division, the conversation shifts to Ian Machado Garry’s recent decision win over Carlos Prates. The chaps discuss Garry’s bold push for a title shot and break down the current pecking order for a crack at the 170-pound title (11:42). Meanwhile, over in the PFL, Dakota Ditcheva is making waves — not in the cage, but online. Her recent social media posts suggest growing frustration. The crew unpacks the situation and what it might mean for the promotion’s image (20:35).Next, the focus turns to UFC Des Moines, where Ben Fowlkes shares insights from his recent conversation with Reinier de Ridder, ahead of his bout with Bo Nickal. Can RDR derail the hype train? Plus, the team spotlights other intriguing matchups on the card (35:02).Switching gears, the lads react to the headline-grabbing Times Square boxing card, featuring Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero — a spectacle as strange as it is compelling (49:02). To wrap things up, they react to the trailer for The Smashing Machine — the highly anticipated Mark Kerr biopic starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Could this be one of the best MMA films ever made (54:35)? 

I'm PZ Carroll. This is the crack. We had some technical issues, but we are back, baby. You can hear this beautiful voice crack heads. I'm electrified. I'm electrified to be live. I was talking away there. The two lads were looking at me like what are you saying? PZ they can hear me now live it in the flesh. We got to puria news today

He said he's fighting international fight week. Who's he gonna fight? We don't know in Gary Street fight plan Do we buy it or is he completely delusional Dakota Ditchiver? She's not too happy Patrice ever saw him for the PFL She's like he better not get paid before I get paid. But who's she gonna fight? Taylor Santos just got tested off for steroids. I don't know what's gonna happen there. We have the Des Moines card this weekend. Chuck Mendenhall, that's right.

Chuck Mendenhall, he's heading into Times Square after this. He's going in to see the boxing. People are saying there's gonna be fences all over the place. I don't know what's gonna happen. Is Roy Garcia back? I don't know. Des Moines, bad folks, he, he talked to Rene Dorita, Chuck Mendenhall, he talked to Bo Nicol, I talked to Mason Jones. We can talk all about that. Smash Machine,

what do we think? Do we like it? Do we not like it? It's all ahead of us guys. In the next hour, we're about to blow your minds with some mixed martial arts conversation. And of course, we've got the boys back, Chuck Mendenhall and Ben Foulkes who have referenced already. Ben Foulkes, happy birthday to your dog, Carl. He's absolutely beautiful. Did you enjoy the celebrations? He got on the trampoline.

He rolled around a little bit. He ate a bone. He enjoyed the celebrations. I gotta say, your energy is very high right now. Yeah. You're in it. You're up here right now. I'm not saying that it's a problem. I love it. I wonder about

if you have the cardio to keep this up. That's a hard face. I feel like we're really charging out of the gates right now. Like you're kind of like heavyweight MMA right now. And that a lot of juice for the first two minutes. And then if you get into that third round, heavyweight MMA right now and this card right later on you're heading in. I'm gonna try it out, man. It's very scant on details and I'm not sure what to expect. And I normally would not go to Times Square. You try to avoid it like the plague, man,

but that's where it is. And we're gonna go check it out and hopefully we survive, you know? Yeah, it's gonna be very interesting. I've been watching the updates all day about like, oh, are these fences gonna be here? Are these fences gonna be here throughout the thing? Like it seems like there are about 350 seats around the ring and then the rest will just

be in the tall building surroundings. I'm looking forward to hear about your experience there. We'll talk about that later on, of course. But today, boys, Ilya Toporya confirmed in an interview with, I believe it was Telle Madrid that he will be fighting at International Fight Week. the the Tell me then, is he the most vital part to get done here? Is it him or is it Islam that people want to see here? Do you think Ilya is the most important part of this jigsaw to have him in place for International Fight Week?

I think Ilya definitely moves the needle for you. He gets a lot of attention. He is a real burgeoning star for the UFC at a time when they really need stars. They really need him to become everything that he possibly can be. But you need Makachev for this one, because if you take Ilya Tupouria out of the featherweight division, you know, he relinquished that title. The division has already moved on with amazing speed and he goes to lightweight.

And if he just fights some lightweight, that's not a main event. You know, as much as I like Ilya Toporya, love seeing him fight, think he has all the stuff you look for and a potential star. He's got to fight for the title here. If you mess that part up, if you just have it, Ilya Toporya versus a lightweight contender in a fight to determine whether he gets to fight for the title. That's not enough for me, not for the international fight week, the juice you want on something like that. You need to have that one be a real headliner and you have it right

there. It's very clear what you should do. You should do Toporia versus Islam Makachev. It feels like champion versus champion. It feels like a really big deal. It also feels like a dangerous fight for Ilya Toporia in a way none of the existing featherweight fights would have been. He goes up there. I think a lot of people are going to think he's going to lose this one. His reach is exceeding his grasp kind of. And so you create that interest by having a fight for the title and you don't have that interest if he fights absolutely anybody else in a non-title fight. I think you said it Ben, like for International Fight Week especially you have this expectation that the UFC is going to

have something like a rabbit to pull out the hat. It's almost like the UFC 300 thing you kind of wait for what is that going to be. The other title fight that they have that's booked right like is a it's Kaikara France right that's challenging for Pia Pantogena. I mean that by then then you have like another flyweight fight that's kind of signed to this card and It's almost like when you look at that you say well, what is the biggest what what could what could satisfy all curiosities? There would be that fight. It would have to be Islam because Ilia's movement towards that is all geared towards that. I just I don't like when I think about Charles Olivera for instance

It doesn't strike me as much, you know,, for instance, it doesn't strike me as much. You know, it's like it just doesn't strike me as worthy of that spot in that sense. He definitely is like the A side, but it's strange, like in terms of, you know, Islam, I think that anybody just wants there to be doubt ahead of that fight for there to be speculation both ways for people to be like, I don't know who wins this fight. To me, that's part of the storyline is like you get two of the best pound-for-pound fighters going at it you're not sure what's gonna happen I feel fairly confident and I don't mean to dismiss Charles but he is you know he's been around the game a long time

there's a lot of tape on him I think I think Ilja where he's at would be a bad he would be a bad matchup for Charles so I think that the the intrigue and the level the magnitude it's only there for Islam right now. Yeah it's also like Ben kind of touching this earlier, the size disadvantage Ilya is gonna have is massive in this division. Charles is a huge dude, Islam's an even bigger dude. If you risk this this kind of, oh well we'll put him in with Charles and that will whet everyone's appetite for his eventual title shot with Islam Makar Shef, it could go tits up immediately.

So that's what I read. That's what I think it's too much of a risk to do. And I ran a view buying like I know you spoke to Bilal today in an interview, an article that's going to come out later next week ahead of his fight. Do you believe that, Ben, like this situation with Islam where he's watching that fight? Like, does Bilal seem aware of that situation? Like is, is that what we are in fact waiting for at this stage? He's definitely aware of the situation. He can't not be aware.

When I asked him about it, you got the sense that he's been asked about it in every single interview, you know, like how could he not? Cause it is an awkward kind of situation where the, at least general thinking on it is that Islam is sitting over there waiting to see what happens in Bilal's title fight. Because if he loses, then a move up in welterweight becomes way more possible for Islam. If Bilal

is a champion, then they know they don't want to fight each other. And Bilal's response is I told those guys there's no need to wait. You don't need to wait and see on this one because I'm going to win. And it's not going to wait. You don't need to wait and see on this one because I'm going to win. And it's, it's not going to be an issue. So, you know, make your decisions as if I have already won because I'm going to. Wow. And I, honestly, I think that if I'm Islam, Mahachif, and I care at all about making

legal tender to put into my bank account and later exchange for goods and services. I'm staying home, it lightweight and I'm fighting Ilya Toporya. You're going to make a ton of money that way. You're going to make more money that way than you would going up to welterweight to face new champion Jack Delamont Elena. Like Islam versus Ilya is a huge fight and to do it on International Fight Week while you're champion, getting points on the pay-per-view, that is how you stack some of that paper. Now I know obviously Islam, he might have different priorities in life, but if you're a prize fighter, I gotta assume the prize is kind of important to you. That's the biggest fight you can do right now. So I don't see why you would entertain the possibility of

doing anything else. I mean, it would be almost like a buzzkill. You know, if, if Jack battle, if he goes in there and wins, it would be a buzzkill. So I just, I think that it would be one of those things that you're the UFC right now has caught no problem where they can't get the fights that they want. You know, who knows what happens with John Jones and Aspen all, but obviously The UFC right now is caught in a problem where they can't get the fights that they want, you know? Who knows what happens with John Jones and Aspen Hall, but obviously that is like a big

talking point. And then you would have this other fight that would be similar in magnitude only because of the, especially within like really diehard fans because of the pound for pound discussions and everything like that. If you're not able to get it and you get guys now bouncing and going to fight other guys All of it will seem like a buzzkill once you get to the fights I'm sure they'll they'll be fine, but like it's going to seem like a buzzkill in the matchmaking, you know, it just wouldn't be Top theater, you know

I I don't I don't know what I don't really know if the holdup and why that they're you know Why they can't just name it is tied to this or what is that like eight days away if it's tied to this Okay, but I then you're really rooting for balala in the situation, right? Like that's that becomes the situation He's the biggest fan favorite ever at this point because we want to watch Islam Crazy I said that I'm like maybe this is is like, maybe this is like a, you know, a little bit of a conspiracy to get rooting interest to Bilal finally. All right. Well, let's put these esoteric stakes together. And like if he's able to win, that means we get the fight we want, you know.

It's very elaborate. Speaking of welterweight, in Gary had his main event with Carlos Pratchett's last weekend. He won the fight. I thought he was absolutely brilliant for three rounds. Got caught at the end of the fourth. Probably still won that round. And then round five, crazy scenes as Pratchett is trying to find the coffin nails to put in his casket and just can't find him.

Gary just constantly moving. Never afraid to back himself. Mr. Gary, Mr. Machado Gary comes out afterwards and says his next fight is going to be against Bilal. He'll become the champion. Then he'll fight Islam. Then he'll fight Shafqa and he'll give Shafqa that rematch. Interesting situation, right? Because he is the backup fighter for this fight we just mentioned between Bilal Muhammad and Jack de la Madalena. But Chuck, do you think that if he is not needed next week and Bilal Mohammed and Jack Dylan Madalena fight, where do you put him in terms of contendership

at that point? Like, do you think the fact that they're putting him in this slot means that he's probably next or do you think Brady and Shavkat are just simply too, too far ahead of him in the meritocracy scales? I think it's just circumstantial. They're saying like listen, we have a main event coming up and he's willing to do this and It makes some sense, right? But it once the once it plays out I don't think that Ian Gary would have I don't think he would have like the case To like leapfrog say Sean Brady, right? Like Woody in your mind I I'm not sure that I would make that case his willingness to do this is really what's admirable. It's actually the distinction

sure that I would make that case. His willingness to do this is really what's admirable. It's actually the distinction, like for a guy who's been searching for his own identity in this game, it's kind of like that's what's coming to the fore is that he is willing to do. You just named like a, you know, a murderous row of guys he wants to face. Nobody wants to face all those guys in succession, especially having already faced Shavkat, you know, and then went in there against Carlos Proches. I give him, I give him like a lotkat, you know, and then went in there against Carlos Pratches. I give him, I give him like a lot of, you know, admiration for that because I think that that's a very ambitious plan. But if everything goes off according to like as it's supposed to, I'd be really surprised if he leapfrogs and actually gets that fight next. Yeah, I think you're right too that like you gotta give them the attaboy points for just

being willing to continue doing it this far to step up against Shavkat to step up here against Carlos Prochez and to demand to be given an opportunity to step up next weekend after just going five hard rounds. And so you admire that and especially you admire it in contrast with the rest of the division where we see a lot of these other guys where once they get into any kind of position where they could plausibly make a claim that they deserve to fight for the title, people tend to get real protective of those spots. And you turn around to some of those guys and say like, all right, you know, how about you versus this guy to really determine

a number one contender? And they're just like, Nope, I'm only fighting for a title next. I think I've already done enough to get there and they don't want to risk those spots. And so to see a guy really aggressively campaign to keep risking that and to keep risking it and kind of tough situations, it does make him stand out a lot. And you're right. So much of it ends up being circumstantial in a lot of these title fights. You'd like to think that it's always number one versus number two, but the UFC has a strict

calendar they're trying to keep to. And so a lot of times it's champion versus whoever picks up the phone and says yes for this date that we already have circled. And that's it. When you think about real quick, fellas, we gave Ilya a lot of you know, we talked about Ilya a lot just the toughness of the two guys he had to beat to be in a situation right? Holloway and Volkanovski. Now if Ian Gary actually upheld this plan, you know what I mean? Goes against these guys, would that be that would supplant the craziest you know run that we've ever seen, wouldn't it?

When you were mentioning these names, and you think about where they're at, Shavkat, all the, you know, Balal, these guys who haven't lost, if he's able to go through those, obviously that's a big if, but if he were able to actually do that, that would be the craziest run in UFC history.

Yeah, that would be crazy, man. And do you know what's interesting about it? Like we haven't seen him, right? So he's talking about this Bilal fight and Bilal is in this unique position in this division where he's a bit of a, he's like a nightmare match for everyone because like, there just isn't that many like wrestling dominated fighters at welterweight. Like there used to be a lot more grapplers.

He's kind of having a lot of success in that area. We haven't seen any Gary fight a guy like that yet. You know, even a guy like Brady who aims to take the fight down, uses immense top pressure. Um, obviously to be a huge range advantage there for Gary in that, in the striking realm of that fight. But it can be very interesting to see those kinds of fights from four down the road.

Um, Chuck, do you think that affects the optics of things, the way that fight finished? I saw a lot of people losing their shit online And you know like oh he nearly lost so therefore in my eyes. It is not a win, you know these kind of guys I mean It wouldn't it all it did really was bring people out of their seats in a fight that otherwise Was just going one direction because the first three and what three and a half rounds were fairly master class. I mean he was Doing he was keeping himself out of harm's way and just kind of controlling everything in that fight piecing him up on the feet

Mixing in the takedowns. I think he had like 20 takedown attempts. He got like four of them I mean he was doing kind of everything he needed he wanted to do In that fight, um, and then at the end which is kind of crazy because we talked so much about um, And then at the end which is kind of crazy because we talked so much about Prochess well, he'll fade he's a smoker all this he won't be able to do that It was kind of a it was a it was a kind of a reverse Right of what you would expect in a fight like this where Carlos comes on strong But I think it showed in the end just how tough of a dude he was beating You know what I mean? Like he was beating Carlos Prochess who was

You know basically holstered for so much of that fight. And when he finally came to life, he didn't have enough time to do it. I thought it was greatly entertaining. And I didn't think Ian really lost anything in that. It just kind of showed me in the end how dangerous it was on three weeks notice to go into that situation.

And you know, if that happens earlier in the fight, maybe it doesn't go his way, but it didn't. So he got through it. So I still give him, I think that that's one of the, you know, that's one of the the best if not the best wins of his career absolutely and just before we move on that's where is the contenders right take JDM take Balala out of it obviously but Brady Shavkat Gary one two three I'll probably going I'm probably going Brady Sh going I'm probably going Brady

Shotcock Gary at this stage in terms of Brady. Leon. Leon or what? Usman. Who else is up there? Well, Brady's just be Leon. Usman is fighting Joaquin Buckley next month. No, I I think you're right. I think you're right. I don't know. I

don't know how you put Brady ahead of Shotcock at this point because that's nobody be shop cut, you know, and especially if Bilal stays the champion, we already saw below kind of dismantle Brady and not saying that, you know, you can't ever earn a rematch if the, you know, the guy you lost to is the champion, but you might have to do a little bit more than the guy who hasn't been beaten by anybody. And as long as shop cut gets healthy, I think if you look at who would be a real risk to a Bilal right now, just stylistically, I think it's Shavkat.

I think that's a tough matchup for everybody in the division basically, but a really interesting and a difficult matchup for Bilal. And this is the danger though, of being a guy like Shavkat where you get injured and you're out for even just a little while. How quickly people forget about you. Yeah. They just start to replace you. Yeah.

Going into that in Gary fight, we were all saying like Shavkat is the guy. Shavkat is the guy to beat. Uh, you know, until we saw in Gary give him at points a little bit tougher of a time than we expected, I think we were all saying like Shavkat might just be the heir apparent at welterweight. Rather than just the clear next contender, he might be the clear next champion. And then we saw, you know, we got brought back down to earth a little bit, you know, who knows exactly how injured he was going into that Ian Gary fight, taking the time off probably and to heal up is probably the right move for him at this point. But it is dangerous that you stay out, you know, six to nine months while other people,

especially in Gary are staying real, real busy fighting a bunch of fights, doing a bunch of interviews, getting themselves in the headlines a whole lot more often. And nine months later, people could be like, Oh yeah, Shavkat. I remember him. He just disappears when he's like gone, isn't he's like, you don't hear from him at all. He's refreshing, isn't it? He could use like a cooking show, you know, like like like Volkonovsky has. He could use some kind of some kind of thing where he's just out there. Like I would watch that.

Thinking about just like once a week, a 15 minute thing on like Instagram live where he chops wood, you know Really good. Oh, it's soothing. Who would you choose right now? Brady fights shot? I've got that's kind of the You know, like which way would you lean? I'd probably that's a toughie I'm not styles. I'm not picking anybody over shot cut. Yeah, I think I'm in that camp still too. I I'm not picking anybody over Shavkat right now. I think I'm in that camp still too. I can be swayed. I just said he is the next in line for the title. I mean, I could easily be swayed into Brady in that one.

Who is this Shavkat guy anyway? You know what I mean? That's moving from the welterweight division, which has taken up a lot of our time here today. They're not even fighting until next week. It's absolutely ridiculous that we're giving them so much time. Dakota Dechava We're going to have a lot of our time here today. They're not even fighting until next week. It's absolutely ridiculous that we're giving them so much time. Dakota Decheva looks like one of

the big stars in the PFL looks like she could be a huge star in general. She's coming off that Floyd Wade tournament win. had a bit of a heel turn there yesterday from Dakota. Uh she uh so first of all, I thought this Dakota Decheva is a

Manchester City fan. Pat thought this Dakota is a Manchester City fan. Patrice Ever is a Manchester United legend. Uh Patrice Ever signs for the PFL and I see her uh putting this up in our stories and sorry, we we don't have these graphics. So just you're

going to have to deal with my interpretation. This is honor Jordan's fault uh on vacation once again. That's his 26th vacation since we began this here. Absolutely ridiculous. I do love the guy, but I mean, come on Jordan. Thanks so much to Andy, New York Rick for saving the day again. Oscar Lose is here with us as well. Anyway, to my point, Dakota shares out this image of Patrice Everett, Manchester United legend and show. Just meet a week in social media. Here's another one. He describes what he sees on

Instagram. The other one pertains to an MMA fighting post. Tyler Santos has been suspended for six months for failing a drug test. She obviously puts this on her story and then the caption above this reads laughing face,

sad face, laughing face. Need more than a bit of juice to be Barbie. Hon, think harder and smarter parentheses next time. L O L L L L. So what we've got here is throwing in hon like she's a waitress at a diner. I know. I'll offer some coffee. Just having insult to injury with the one there. I think you don't want to have their hon.

All right. I'm going to lose my mind here. I think. You don't know. It really isn't bad. Is it? It is not, especially because if you're PFL, it's like we've all been sitting around saying like, what you need are stars like kind of homegrown stars, people who come like on their way up through your organization that we start to care about and we really become invested in because it's better and frankly cheaper than doing the version where you have to buy stars

usually past their expiration date from the UFC after they've reached the end of a contract. And we know their name by then, but they don't have that many miles left on the tires and you've got to really pay upfront to go get those guys. Whereas here you're getting somebody where we don't know what the ceiling is yet. They seem to be still improving and still moving forward. And so the thing you want is to be able to build on that, is to keep that momentum going, give that person fights. The other big problem you have as the PFL right now is that you kind of been put in a bad light with all these disgruntled fighters you had, especially after the purchase of Bellator where you absorbed that roster, but then you

had a lot of those fighters really angry at you, basically saying, you're not honoring the terms of their contract. Give me a fighter, let me go. You have to let a bunch of them go in the end. And you have a lot of just like you end, you ended 2024 with a lot of bad looks publicly. And so the last thing you need is to have one of the few stars that you have that's actually seeming like somebody who could fulfill that role that you need. Again, being mad at you very publicly for not being able to give her fights. It just does not make you look like a succeeding, thriving organization.

It's just like you're combining two of your biggest problems into one big problem right now. And it also just seems like an unforced error. She wants to fight, find her somebody to fight. What's the holdup? It's a horrible look. Especially at a time, over the last year or two it's been harder for the UFC's particularly to draw interest to the female ranks.

A lot of these fights are being relegated to co-mains or even big fights that ended up on prelims. And you see this burgeoning potential star, I actually probably already is a star who we had at Uncrowned named the breakthrough fighter of the year of 2024. And I thought, you know, truly one of the transcendent because like Cedric Doumbé, we've got this magic moment thing happening for him in France, but this is somebody who might have

what it takes to be kind of transcendent in the game. And I think her being 26 years old and, you know, having the lineage she does with her mom and everything that's going on with her, um, just her personality and everything like that. Like you plug that into a big picture and that's a star and to see her, what is it going to be six months at the end of May, not have a fight and to start getting upset and also pointing out like, Hey, you know, I might just be fighting the winner of this whole flyweight tournament that's going on at the end of

the year is really absurd. You know what I mean? It's, I used to get so mad when they, the UFC would come on and be like, all right, we figured out our tough coaches for the coming season. And they would say like, here's the two people in here. Oh, so you're putting, it's like, you're putting two people on the shelf that you want to see fighting for at least six months, you know, beyond whatever, whenever they're going to come back.

That's what this feels like. And it's a hell of a business model to say like, we got, we built the star. Now we're going to, she's going to be a dangling carrot for the winner of this tournament all the way at the end of the year. If that's really the case, that's the biggest buzzkill that you could do with her. Right. And not only is she going to be the dangling carrot, she's going to be mad about it publicly. I know. And so yeah, and you're totally right. That was how the tough thing always

used to field me. That was why I was really encouraged when I saw that they made the transition for this most recent one to be like, Daniel Cormier and Cheryl Sonnen. We're like, great, two guys where they're already retired. You're not taking them out of action. You're not taking them out of the rotation in order to do this. They also are two guys who actually care about coaching. Cause that was the other thing with the tough stuff where you take somebody champion versus challenger, they're going to coach on this thing and they're not that interested in coaching. They're, they're really at the peak of their careers right now. They're very focused on their own careers. They're going to have their coaches kind of coach. And it's like, especially once you've

seen 12 seasons of tough, you don't need to see anymore. It's the same thing. So you're just like, I'm going to watch it was only 12. I'm saying 12 is when you can stop that strike. And you know, it's just like, I'm going to watch them yell at each other a little bit. I'm going to watch them break some doors, but you know what? I'm going to and you know, it's just like I'm gonna watch them yell at each other a little bit I'm gonna watch them break some doors, but you know what? I'm gonna see the highlights by the time they actually get around to the fight anyway, so I don't need it Yeah, and you're just like like we were just kind of talking about with Shavkat when you have somebody there. They're hot They've made their case really we we know about them. We care about them We want to see them in another fight and if they go away for six months

You're gonna lose a lot of that because you look at the schedule, like, you know, the USC schedule, the PFL schedule, there's just so much happening. We live several lifetimes every six months in this sport. So by the time you get around to giving her another fight, you got to then turn and remind us who she is and why we cared in the first place. And especially if she's going to be mad at you the whole time, it's just going to be like other fighters who are thinking about signing with the PFL or her thinking about where they want their careers to go. They see that as well. And it just, nothing about it is good for, how do you build?

That's the one piece that would be coveted by the UFC, right? Like they, they, this is the one person, if they were looking at a fighter on the PFL roster, like we'd love to have her, you know? And yet you can't like carve out a fight for this person. It's like, this is a time when John Jones, for instance, and it's very difficult to get him back into the cage, you know, to sign this deal with Tom Aspinall.

You've got Islam, and I, you know, I know he fought fairly recently, but like like you don't know what's happening with him like there's this guy she's publicly talking to Mike Bond about out in Florida basically saying I'm ready to fight like you have your biggest star ready to fight like what's the problem doesn't make sense it feels like just an inevitable countdown to like why don't you gonna sign for DOC you know when is our contract up this is you as you said like this is this is the one thing right if you're if you're like a starting promotion say you're a GFL and you could be like you know you

can have one athlete here that you can launch this thing with like she hasn't fought in the UFC etc like she's your own thing like promoters be rubbing their hands together for an opportunity to promote this girl and they they just have no Like there is no compelling matchup at this stage. There is no one they can get they've just banned Santos and I assume they had something up their sleeve. I'm not a warm body at this stage I know I I assume though through this whole time. I'm like they probably have a plan for Dakota We just haven't heard it yet, but to hear her say like now I haven't heard anything from them in fact, I keep bugging my agent and, uh, he has no news either.

I mean, it's just, that's mind boggling. Well, I mean, I will say the one thing I will say in PFL's defense in this is that, oh, this would be the only one that you can actually say, go ahead. The thing that they, the, the obstacle they face that any promoter, not the UFC faces is that these days the UFC has and keeps so many fighters under contract. They have such a huge roster at this point that when you're looking around for somebody you can get, it's not, it's not like it was in, you know, 2008 or something where there are a lot of people floating around the US,

you'll sign you to a three fight deal with whether you're resigned or not. There are people available. You can go and get somebody and there are not that many people available. Like I'm sure that their fear is, Hey, we go get somebody who is just a warm body and that's it. And we booked that fight and people go, what the hell? You got a star. Why are you wasting her time, uh, putting her in a fight against somebody

nobody knows and even worse, what if she slips on a banana peel and loses that fight and then you squandered it? And so I'm sure they probably feel like they're in a no-win situation here until they can take the time to finally figure out who they're going to have her fight, but like that, that is a legitimate thing that everybody is facing is that the UFC just keeps so many fighters now. They're not cycling in and out as often as they used to. It's just crazy though with MMA math on it, right?

Like just with Santos, her going through Santos was a big deal in the sense that everybody remembers Santos versus Valentina. And when you put those things together, it only activates your imagination. Like let's bring that partition down. What happens if she's in that fold? You know? Yeah. It's just, there's a whole roster of flow weights over the UFC.

You know, like just like, please, like it's, um, look, I'm worried about PFL from being honest, like, uh, that fight that they had an event last night, Phil Davis gets a win in the main event. And I just, it's like it didn't happen. Like honestly, like there's an Irish guy fighting on that card, Karl Murray lost, he was fighting there, shoe face. But like I woke up this morning and if you didn't go

looking for it, you wouldn't know it was on. Ben, did you want? I watched a little bit of it on TV in a chicken joint in the basement of a chicken joint last night. And looked up just in time to see some of it going on. And I was just kind of like, Oh yeah. Uh, but you're, I mean, like, Oh yeah, Oh yeah. That's on. You got Phil Davis out there and you just kind of like Phil Davis still, you know, like I like Phil Davis and everything, but you're also

just kind of like, all right, you know, like that's, that's a tough way to try to be gaining ground on the UFC at this point. I wonder if Phil Davis still has a book club. The last time I talked to him was like eight or 10 years ago. He was, he had like some book club. He was running down in San Diego and I was like, you run a book club? Like, so they would meet at each other's houses and discuss just like you would in a book club. I was like, that's, doesn't that seem like the craziest thing? And I haven't really thought of it.

I haven't really thought of them much since then, but you wonder what, what, do you remember what kind of stuff are we, are we like, are we going like self-help or are we going? No, no, no. It was fiction. It was like novels, but it was like, it's that kind of stuff that I'm trying to think of an example, man, cause I don't read that lowbrow shit. But it's like it was like, you know, the stuff

you'd find in an airport, you know, like one of the one of the popular rags. You know what I mean? That kind of OK. Yeah. Yeah. Like a fiction like like a charting fiction. Yeah. That type of thing wasn't it wasn't it. Wasn't Robert Bly or whoever you're reading recently. I was like you GC is in a book club and I've never heard of any of the books like he brings up sometimes what book he's in They've almost be like new books, right? Like it's all like current events I don't think I've read it like a new book in a very long time

More power to them lads. Yeah, nothing book related fight things I always just think about Ben Davis at every media day just sitting there with a book in his hand reading like I just I'm so above this bullshit. You're like, oh When he used to fight Bellator over here in London, he used to just come out Joe those media days every every fighter sitting around and Ben would just have his book there just sit down Look, he wouldn't be looking for any come over. He asked him what he's reading. He just like yes. Yeah be looking for any come over. He asked him when he's reading, he just be like, yeah, yeah. Just be in my room.

You know, my, uh, my daughter who's in fourth grade, they make them take a field trip every year to see a basketball game at University of Montana basketball game. And I asked her once how it went and she was really mad

because she was like when I got there and I shuffle all the kids into the stands to watch this college basketball game, but the other people are paying money to go see. And she looked over and saw one of the girls in her class had brought a book and she was like, nobody told me we were allowed to bring a book. Sounds like a winner. Um, so yeah, PFL not looking great. Um,

Ben your article with RDR is up, right? He's got this big fight with Bo Nicol. I was reading there, it gave me a bit more pep in my step in terms of this fight. I can remember we were talking about it during the week on the aerial show and Rick was kind of saying, this is the sternus test he's had by a distance, but you can still see from the lines that he's a very heavy favorite, that's Bo Niggle. What did you learn from that conversation with RDR and did it inspire any hope in you that he can upset the apple cart here in Des Moines? You know, I appreciate RDR's forthrightness because he has that kind of, you know, I don't

know if you think that it's just like the Dutch communication style where it's just, it's pretty direct, man. Like, he's going to tell you exactly what he's thinking. He's not going to dress it up too much. And even that times where it's going to be like a little bit self-deprecating like where I was asking him about his comments that he had made after the fight was first booked. And he said, Hey, let's go out there and have ourselves a grappling match.

Nobody wants to see the two of us getting to a kickboxing match. Come on. Like let's, let's, let's, let's be honest. And when I asked him, I thought he was just like, you know, I work on my striking game, but I'm not going to be Israel Adesanya. And I understand that. So like, let's, we both are really good grapplers. Let's go do that together. And, and asking him about, you know, that aspect of Bo Nichols

career, his path through the UFC. You could argue the last fight against Paul Craig was at least them gradually stepping him up in competition to somebody we'd heard of somebody who we've seen, especially, uh, off his back when he gets taken down, be able to surprise some people with his submission skills. So it seemed like, okay, we're kind of testing him out a little bit here. Some of those early fights, they were, it was just the UFC clearly trying to be in the bo nicle business. We're going and we're finding people that we know he's going

to beat up and we hope he looks good doing it. And he's out there as like a 20 to one favorite. And this one where he's merely a three to one favorite over RDR seems like way more competitive. And when I asked Doritera about that, he was just like, honestly, because of how Taylor made his fights have been for him to this point, I was surprised this one came together. When the UFC approached me about this fight, I was like, yeah, sure, I'd fight that guy. But I didn't know if his team was going to agree to it because I felt like they're clearly doing a thing with him. And they're not really doing a thing with me. You know, they're giving me tough fights and finding out, let's see where this guy lands with him.

They're trying to chart a little bit of a course. And I will be interested to see how it goes because, you know, you've seen this before where a guy who's a really good submission grappler and knows what he is and is not trying to win fights just with like striking or anything, knows where he wants to be the problem they face when they go up against really good wrestlers is that you don't necessarily get to decide when and how and where the fight hits the ground. Like that's the thing you're kind of conceding to the other guy in a lot of those situations is that you might have the better chance to actually finish a fight when it gets to the floor, but that might not be the case if you can't say, hey, we're going to the floor now.

And when the other guy can always threaten and just stay alive, stay on top of you and stay out of trouble. And so I was kind of asking Dorritter as politely as I could, like, what are you going to do about that? He's like, I don't know. I think I take him down like, wow, he's not the only one who has takedowns. I think I can go in there and take him down. So that's the aspect I will be interested to see. Because I do think this fight hits the floor. It's just who decides when and like where we end up when it hits the floor. It's crazy because, you know, Bo Nicol is so used to kind of almost dictating where everything takes place, right?

Like he's so used to dictating how he wants to fight. Um, that would be a truly interesting wrinkle. I do. I think that it's a fascinating fight and it is a big escalation, I think from a guy like Paul Craig who kind of, who did last, by the way, to see the scorecards at least against Bo nickel. People blamed Bo nickel for that more than they gave Paul. That's true. But you know, like in silver lining's business, Ben, we don't, we don't, uh, we don't argue, That's true. But you know, like in Silver Linings business, Ben, we don't, we don't, we don't argue.

But I think that it has a fascinating element. And I was talking to Bo Nicol about this and he's got guys like, you know, Carter Sorochi and like Johnny Eblen and he's, I think he's almost in the Ben Askren way of thinking, which is my one discipline is so good that I'm not gonna do a ton. I mean, I think he trains MMA, but I think he's like, I know I can override most of what you're going to try to do just doing what I do well. And it's an interesting fight in all those levels, but like fighting in Iowa, like it doesn't just seem like this is perfect.

You know, I was writing about this. I was like, if you're gonna have Bo Nicol, you know, have his next in a co-main event, and Iowa makes sense. And I think that he looks at it like a little bit of a showcase for himself because he wants to then headline the Bryce Jordan Center in Happy Valley. He wants to have like this, it's like a 17,000 seat. And I guess he told me that he's been in talks about it

and doing that, and I was like, well, if that's really the case, it kind of points to what you're talking about Ben that the UFC is kind of tailoring a little bit of his career like putting him in the situations where you know it kind of shines a certain light on Bo Nicol, but It'll be very interesting because we saw like I did that big piece on Peyton Talbot in a fight that he was something like a minus 800 and he loses and it wasn Talbot in a fight that he was something like a minus 800 and he loses and it wasn't close in that fight. Sometimes, you know, the odds makers are just going off

of what they kind of understand about a guy, but then he'll meet his match in a fight like this. So I think there's some fascination in that to be found there. Well, you know, what I was thinking, when that Paul Craig fight for Bo Nicol and I worked on a story this week that should come out later today Where I was talking to Demi and Maya because Dorit or specifically mentioned him as like there's a guy who kind of showed you How you can be a submissions first kind of guy a grappling first guy and make it work for MMA But Demi Maya is also a guy who had to learn how to do that and went went on some wrong paths Before he figured it out.

And that's what I thought when I saw Bo Nicol fight against Paul Craig where, and when you see some of these fights, you know how sometimes a guy, especially who's a grappler, he has to learn some striking to make it an MMA. He comes from an all grappling background and they say, you got to learn to box, kickbox, some stuff like this just to have a career in this thing. And so he learns it. He's a good athlete. He picks it up pretty quickly. The next thing you know, he talks himself into thinking he's good at it. Right. And instead of talking yourself into thinking, you know, what you needed to be was proficient at it so that you didn't have a glaring weakness in that

area and that you needed to use it to be the thing that gets you to where you want to be. You need to think of it as like scaffolding, you know, a transition from how you have to start the round standing up to where you want to be. And that took Deme Maio a while. You know, he, he for at some point thought he was a boxer and his team had after he lost that fight to Chris Weidman had to come in and be like, no, you are not. And he talked about how he had to really go back into his training and be like, look, I don't ever need to be doing just boxing rounds, like just standing there with big gloves on, boxing people in the gym. I need to be, if I'm boxing with boxers,

I need to be throwing two punches and clinching and looking for where I could get a takedown from here because that's where my path to victory is going to be. And so that's what I kind of wondered about watching, uh, bone nickel recently, where you're just like, you're rounding out the game, but don't forget where the strengths are. Like it's not going to be enough to be a decent strike or nobody. And first of all, nobody wants to watch that.

I can already, I was right about that. We want to see you do the thing that you're elite at rather than the thing that you are getting better at. And so, you know, that's a misstep a lot of those guys make earlier in their careers. And that's where I'm curious in this fight because, you know, Bo Nicol, for all his wrestling experience and the sort of crafted path he's had so far in the UFC, he's facing a guy who has three times as many fights as he does and so the experience there could become a factor We deal with a lot of delusion in this game too, man Like you know, you were talking you were talking about this and I'm sitting there thinking you remember like when Ronda Rousey knocks out

Betcha Cahaya and now she's on the cover of ring magazine and thinks she's gonna stand with everybody Mayweather I'm like we live in delusion a lot of times, and I think these fighters are not immune to it as well. I think that they get in their heads that they can box. We've seen a lot of wrestlers do that over the course of time. Well, you have to, right? Like if you're going to go in there and lock yourself in a cage with somebody else who's trained to hurt you, you got to have some delusion to talk yourself

into thinking you're going to win all the time. I remember Greg Jackson telling me once, fighters have to be optimists. And that line between optimists and delusional is kind of blurry at times. Yeah. I had a coach once say to me that he gets worried when his fighters are too intelligent. He's like, cause he's like, they're going to start realizing like, I'm going to damage my brain here. Like, you know, this is, this is a, in the long term, this absolutely makes zero sense for me to do. And he's always like, those guys, they get into their own head. Like you want to go to just be recklessly pursuing this completely

delusional, I am the greatest fighter in the world, even if they aren't, that is the ideal mindset. Absolutely. Aaron Elkins is one of those intellects who's like, man, I can't do it. I can't. Obviously. You have solved me on that fight. Actually, I'm far more interested in that one than I am San Hagan and Figaro from being honest.

That's still a great fight. Absolutely. Um, just to, there's a great kind of story there with Bo and RDR and what, what could potentially be obviously it's Jeremy Stevens return. Um, that this is a very interesting fight for me because Mason Jones is fighting. I'm a guy I've covered for a very long time from the UK, from Wales. Interesting thing about Mason, this is the second stint in the UFC. He's a fucking monstrous lightweight.

If you remember Jeremy Stevens, he was fighting at 145 when he was in the UFC the last time I think. And now he's coming in against this Welsh monster, a guy who was in a very different part of his career than Jeremy is. Jeremy, I think it's a very tough matchup for him. He obviously had that massive fight with Eddie Alvers, a Welsh Fargo for BKFC. But interesting thing about Mason is,

he became the cage warriors champion in 2020, I believe it was, in the pandemic. And Paddy Pimlet was just coming back then. So he's on the bounce back, Paddy it was in the pandemic. And Paddy Pimblitt was just coming back then. So he's on the bounce back, Paddy, from the hand injury. Remember we talked about before, like he was thinking about retiring everything, it was that bad. At that stage, I think 99% of hardcore MMA fans

would have said Mason Jones would destroy Paddy Pimblitt if they fought each other. And then they both debut in 2021 in the UFC. Jones debuts against Mike Davis. When Mike Davis was Mike Davis, he loses a decision there. He has a fight where Alan Patrick beats the breaks off Alan Patrick, but it's declared a no contest because he pokes him in the eye in the second round. Third fight was with a debuting short notice, David Onama, who is obviously class now, like he is ranked featherweight, causing all types of problems. Then he fights Ludovic Klein in London, the same night that

Paddy Pimla fought Jordan Levitt. Paddy becomes a superstar basically that night and Mason Jones cuts ties with the UFC, had to go back to Cage Warriors, fight four times, build himself back to this moment. And now here he is going again against Jeremy Stevens, which you'd have to say is a very favorable spot for him to be in, but it's just unbelievable. And I know we talked about this before. We definitely have how it's crazy how things can change, right? Like Paddy Pimlet was like looked at as like a kind of a gimmick fighter at one point. Now we're kind of like, when's he going to fight for the title?

He's knocking on the door. Mason Jones on the other hand, everyone's like, this guy is going to destroy the UFC when he gets in there. He's going to be in the title mix, blah, blah, blah. Four fights out the door. It's, it's absolutely crazy. Um, that's wild. That is wild.

It's weird shit man. Go ahead, Ben. Look at the betting odds on this one. I think, depending on where you get the odds from, I think Mason Jones is the biggest favorite on the card against Jeremy Stevens, which kind of reminds you, I think again about that thing Dean Thomas said about, like, you don't care, they'll bring you in,

they'll get you knocked out, whatever. The same thing that Matt Riddle said to me when he was comparing MMA and pro wrestling, where he was like, in MMA, they will come get you knocked out in your hometown and here comes Jeremy Stevens coming back home to Des Moines in a fight in which he is like a five to one underdog. Right.

You know, they're not exactly trying to like set up a situation where Jeremy Stevens gets carried off on the shoulders of happy Iowans, I know and it's funny you mentioned Dean Thomas 18 years ago is when Stevens made his debut UFC 71 Against Dean Thomas like, you know if for the UFC, that's crazy 18 years dude. He's been doing this thing Just to get just to get carried out, you know on like a gurney at the end of a fight. And I mean, I will say if he does win, if he does shock the world and just pull off the upset, he probably is getting carried out on the shoulders.

That's true. A bunch of Iowans who grew up in nylon singlets are picking them up and we're carrying them straight to golden corral and we're partying. Yeah. So there is that upside, but that's a tough one for him. Yeah. Of course, the boys in the back are headed there tomorrow. Rick, who is producing this show because once again, Jordan on vacation again, that is Jordan once again on vacation from on ground, a company.

26th. What was it? September last year? Unbelievable. Yeah. Anyway, I'm not, I'm not dwelling on it. I'm not dwelling on it. Best of luck to the lads. I'm sure they're going to have five feasts over there. Everything, lots of content, GC, Frank, TST even. Boy, Chuck. He's a, and congratulations on the yoga qualification TST. We love it, man. We love it. I use, I use like more excited for the boxing. I know you're going to, so maybe that will obviously fly into it. Like, are you more excited for the boxing than you are this UFC event, just the

Times Square, the novelty of it all. Ryan Garcia talking that shit about his split personalities. Good build so far. Ben, you've been to Times Square. You lived in New York. How often were you like, how often were you excited to go to Times Square? Were you like, did you wanna go over there? No.

It's like dread, you know. I was there a couple summers ago. I took my daughters on vacation. We went to Broadway musical and we went to Times Square, went to the M&M store, all that kind of stuff that you're doing and it was over, especially for a couple of kids from Montana, it was pretty overwhelming for them.

And I was imagining like, where are we setting up the boxing ring and all this? And who is allowed to see like, I'm imagining you Chuck, just like, you know, perched in the window of an H&M or something. That's exactly what I thought it is. Although it's like a bubble shrimp or whatever, like into the bubble gum bubble gum. Yeah, I believe that's where I'm sitting. I'm not kidding. Um, it's, I don't I'm not kidding it's I don't know I guess there's a novelty to this like alright let's see how this rolls yeah there's also just a chaotic element to this that I'm like oh man you know I'm gonna see Olmo with his you know his hat off smoking cigarettes you know what

I mean like the type of shit you see out there somebody's gonna try to sell me their demo CD I know yes yeah the the fake Rolex, but it'd be, it'd be interesting. You know, I see like there's already like, it's funny, but combat sports fans, like they're trying to deliver this ridiculous scene, right? Like it's going to be crazy to look at without a doubt. And it's a good card. Haney's on the card. Obviously, Ryan Garcia, we just said at the top, there is good fights on this card, but it's all about the location here. And I'm already seeing, just before we're going live, I'm just looking through my phone

and to see what people are talking about. They're like, what are these fences? These fences are all around the ring. They're gonna stay up for the whole thing. And I'm like, what is, you're already in fucking meltdown before the bell is- What about guys walking out and like babies basically arriving in cabs?

I'm like, this is- I don't know. That'd be cool if everybody pulls up in a yellow cab. That's what I think I've been made unless I've been lied to. I feel like that's what's supposed to be. I mean we'll see. I don't know. I actually I can't even I don't even know where to pick up my credential. I may not even get into where I'm supposed to go. We'll see. The question I have about when you're doing something like this is like obviously you know you can't really sell tickets to a thing like this. You're doing out in like the middle of America's busiest public square.

But also it's like, how do you control who gets to be there? Who gets to be ringside? All that kind of stuff. Because it feels like, it feels like a jerk move. If you're going to be like, we're taking over Times Square. Now all you plebs get out of here so that we can bring in our VIPs to like actually have good seats. Cause if you, you chose to do this in public and if you want to do that, then it should have to be whoever we got, whoever staked out a spot.

Like it's the Macy's parade. Like that's the way it should work. You wanted to do it out in public out here among the people. So let the people choose how they get to be there. If ever there was going to be like in the nineties, when the, what was it? Like a, the dude with the glider or whatever, the parachute who came into the box during, if ever you're going to get one of those episodes, I mean, this would be the one, right?

Yeah. I mean, you're, you're right out there. You're going to have subway rats crawling across people's feet. Like it's, I mean, but that's, you know, this is something though. You're going to have subway rats crawling across people's feet. I mean, but that's, you know, this is something though, I think we've learned in fight sports is if you create a spectacle, we will pay attention. You know, you might have a train wreck that way, and then we'll mock you mercilessly for it.

But if you create something weird and chaotic, makes us wonder, how is this even going to work? You have our attention. We will tune in to get answers to that question. Would you guys rather be at this Times Square fight or Alcatraz, which is the other weird one that they were talking about? Would you rather go watch a fight at Alcatraz? I think so. Yeah. I'm not getting on a boat and being stranded on an island See it's just the exact opposite. There's like, you know now you're moving a bunch of people to a place That's you know deserted in this case. It's like dropping it into the epicenter of the universe. It's I like these things man

It's like I've been to Times Square. You know, I mean show me Alcatraz Turkey Alchic Looks like it's a it was going a, it does kind of feel, it kind of does feel like a obnoxious flex, and we'll be honest, like seeing those 300 seats, like completely cordoned off. As you said Ben, like I'd love if this was interacting with that space in real time. Yeah, I mean you chose the space, right? Like you chose to come out here in the city of millions of people and you know, tons of tourists and put smack it right down in the middle of that. So like embrace that. I also think the thing about Alcatraz would be like, if you're like, I, a, you know, super

mega wealthy dude have taken over this island and I will invite my cadre of warriors to come by boat. It gets a little enter the dragon. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now we're talking. Yeah, it's kind of a little bit of a, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a, you know, it's kind of a little enter the dragon. Yeah, absolutely. Now we're talking. Yeah, it's gonna look weird. We're combat sports nerds. We're obviously gonna be watching this interesting though. This is the saw big article on the athletic there last week about Turkey Al-Sheik a lot of heat coming

his way and yet here he is with these big obnoxious shows. Like obviously not not pulling. No one's pulling the reins back there whatsoever. But it looks at things. It's just getting bigger and bolder. As we said, talk about MMA going mainstream, which has happened. We got into this sport when it was like punk rock. Basically, we were like, well, we're so cool.

We're so we're so avant garde look at this this crazy sport they just lock these in the cage no one's ever going to make this a big time sport and there's the fucking rock playing marker in the smashing machine um you made a great play on like a 20 something year old guy right like this is such a that's a hell of a thing to pull off it's amazing amazing how he's kept that body so well and completely natural. Not that American. Same with Marker.

Yeah, same with Marker. Do you have any opiates? I can't wait for that. Ben, you made a great point about this. And my brother actually said to me as well, like my brother got me into MMA. Like he was a proper old school Japanese jujitsu guy then into Brazilian jujitsu, all this kind of stuff. So he was a proper old school Japanese jujitsu guy then into Brazilian

jujitsu, all this kind of stuff. So he was immersed in these those early fights and he was shown to all my friends when we were kids and we all just kind of got into it like that. But he made the same point you did. He saw the trailer and he was like, this is literally just scenes from the documentary. Like being one of those old school guys, do you feel a bit shortchanged by that idea? Like they're just going to re-durgitate the documentary rather than give us some new takes on Kirk? I don't know. I mean, I felt a little baffled by it more than anything because I was just like, why?

Why would you do it this way? And granted, this is the trailer, right? Like the trailer shows you two minutes of the movie to try to get you to show up and see it. And there might be a whole lot of other stuff where we really are dramatizing events. You are giving us like a new look, a new take on Mark Kerr. But already you're making kind of a movie about a movie.

It feels like you're making a dramatized movie about a documentary and the documentary was great. That's one of the things you have to take into account. You're making a movie. It has the same title even as the previous documentary, which was excellent. And so you have to do something different or better than that. It was just going to be tough to do. And when you're showing these scenes, like the scene where they're sitting in the doctor's office, and like, if you go watch the trailer to the smashing machine, you'll see that scene. And I was like,

are they including this in the trailer to show us that the rock is kind of nailing it? Cause he was, he did, he did like, he sounded like Mark Kerr. He had kind of changed his physical mannerisms. Like it was, it did prove to me that the rock is doing some acting and not just being the rock the way he is in most other movies that you see him in. And so I was like, is that the goal is to show like, look how much this looks like the scene in the smashing machine. Cause I'm like, all right.

Yeah. Like he's, he sounds like it. Everybody looks the part, all that kind of stuff. But also like why, I don't know if I've ever seen a movie where we're like, we're going to make a movie based on a documentary and we just kind of kind of copy word for word and shot for shot that documentary because the whole thing that's interesting about a documentary is that it's real. Like there's no point to dramatizing that. You see 824 and then you hear the

music my way and you're almost like okay so now this is like the one Batman the last Batman installation was like okay now we're getting like really indie and gritty with this right this is kind of that's kind of what it reminded me of I'd be interested to see it but it's actually the even crazier thing is Mark Kerr nobody would be talking about this guy generally speaking if there weren't that documented now there's a movie like 20 years on kind of remake in that documentary that's in itself is very strange you got guys who are like former drug mules like Ian heinous and stuff

they would make natural movies like Hollywood should be all over but we got Mark Francis and Ganu like Francis and I'm like you've got guys who have crazy stories in the sport But good for Marker man, like kind of dominating the space Hey you guys I Think there's two two options Best documentary. I documentary is a choke or is it the smashing machine? I think it's the smashing machine just because the smashing machine will put you through some emotions. Whereas choke feels like choke I thought was really good and at the time

I was so incredibly excited to the way I found out about choke was just like looking through the discount bin of VHS tapes, like a stamp goodies or something, and just seeing like, and I was like a college student who was doing Jujitsu and very enthusiastic about it. And so seeing Hicks and Gracie on the front, I was just like, why have I never heard of this? I'll pay you any price for this,

even though it was probably like $5. And so I really loved it, but also in retrospect, you could be like, this was another thing that was kind of a Gracie marketing vehicle in the end. Whereas a smash machine really feels like a documentary, a warts and all documentary of sport where you're really going to see some stuff and it really sticks with you. You know,

my favorite documentary is the kingdom. Like that was the best. It was like drawn across a couple of seasons. I really enjoyed that. I don't know how to tell you. Oh, wait a minute. It was like drawn across a couple of seasons. I really enjoyed that. I don't know how to tell you. Oh, wait a minute. Was that looking forward to the rock as Hicks and Gracie down the line, perhaps though, you know, he's doing the odd scene on the beach and he's contorting his

optimism. See, I did wonder, I was like, did, did we end up deciding we're going to do Mark Kerr's story because the rock wanted to do an MMA movie and he was like, who could I reasonably physically embody and imitate? I think so. I really think that that's as simplistic as that sounds. I think that that was probably the biggest reason.

And I think, I think as well, they get to kind of go in with both feet on the industry back then, because the UFC as we know it, we're not involved. You know, like, they can talk about drugs, they can talk about this, and then these saviors coming along and they made it mainstream. We got sponsored by Reebok, motherfuckers!

Anyway, bring them back to the energy here because we're finishing the show. Chuck has to get to Times Square. I want to go all day. These l are like Chuck needs to go to the voice I'm like coming up to a set he was able to hold that pace Ben I don't know. I don't know if he held the pace although there were some moments where the energy dipped down He's jacking it back up now so he can finish strong Like that late take down yeah

We've just been doing a lot of fence wrestling. It's it's Randy Couture V Brandon Vera. I want my fucking hand raised. But listen, thank you so much to once again to Eric Jackman and Andy, because obviously Jordan is on vacation again. So he couldn't do that.

So thank you so much to them for making this happen. I hope you're enjoying your vacation, Jordan. No bitterness here whatsoever for me. Oscar Loseff, you're a beautiful man. Chuck Benetal, Ben, folks, I love you both. Great to have you back. Look, that's the look in Des Moines to all the boys in the back. If you see them over there, give them a high five. They're actually, I mean,

contrary to popular belief, quite nice people. I will give them that much. Chuck's going to enjoy the fights. Ben's going to enjoy the fights. He can't wait for next weekend's PFL. Sorry we didn't get to it there, Ben. Hopefully we get back to it in our time. Happy birthday to your wonderful dog, Carl, again. Lads, that's all we've got. Go and read Chuck's article with Bo Nickel. Go read Ben's article with Demian Maia, which is out tomorrow, or

the one he has with RDR right now. My article with Mason Jones will be up at some point, I believe. Go and check it all out. We love you, Zloze. Enjoy the fights. Hopefully, Chuck, you will get a vantage point for these these Buckley matches in Times Square. It's all ahead of us. Great time for a Chuck Mendenhall vlog, actually.

If we're gonna go down there, this is the one. I mean, I'll write something. You can give me some of those specialty M&Ms. I'd really appreciate it. I'll get you some. Pick those up. Right. I'm out of here, lads. Thank you very much. Weuvias, crackheads. Mwah! Have a good weekend.