The Ariel Helwani Show - Ilia Topuria splits with coaches, Alexander Volkanovski vs. Yair Rodriguez 2? | The Craic

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

On this week’s show, Petesy Carroll is joined once again by Ben Fowlkes and the returning Shaheen Al-Shatti.With rumors swirling that Yair Rodriguez may get another crack at Alexander Volkanovski, the lads discuss whether that's the correct fight to make, what happens to Mosvar Evloev, and more (04:56).Then, the conversation shifts to news that Ilia Topuria has split from his longtime coaches (19:55), leading to discussion about whether the timing will be problematic, and comparisons to Conor McGregor regarding how the star controlled his most recent training camps (22:28).After touching briefly on the verbal spat between Islam Makhachev and Chael Sonnen (34:47), the lads weigh in on whether Makhachev and Topuria will ever meet in the octagon (48:35).Finally, the show ends with a recap of Jon Jones' recent social media posts — and how the Tom Aspinall saga has affected his legacy (50:02). Plus, the latest on the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford megafight, including Dana White and TKO's involvement (1:00:11).

Crackheads, we are back! It is Friday! That only means one thing! It's the Crack with PizziCarol, that's right! Not the most exciting week in the world for MMA, let's be honest. It should have been the magnificent debut of the GFL. We could have been watching Dylan Dannis v Tony Ferguson this weekend, but we're not seeing it. We're not seeing anything That's an issue to me. However, we do have a lot to talk about. Ilya splits ways with his longtime coach It all seems very amicable. Is it though? We're gonna talk about that in the show We also have to talk about the situation that has emerged from an evloef tweet where he's saying I'll see you at the next one, Volk, which has led a lot of people to be like well, I'm hearing that Volk and Yair are going to fight again. And a lot of

people are upset about that. So we're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about Islam Makashev's beef with Chael Sonnen that's emerged seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, we have to talk about the John Jones situation again. That's six six months maybe seven months of conversation about this similar to the whole ilia and islam situation we had for some time um i also want to talk about dana and turkey i mean i told you on the ariel owani show i love me some drama and i feel like i'm gonna get it i saw a publication in europe reporting that, oh, Dana has been cut out. I know that hasn't been confirmed anywhere else, but we can speculate. As Ariel refuses to do, it is my favorite thing to do. So I hope to do that today. And plenty

of it. Also, obviously, want to talk about GFL. What we missed out on this weekend, the collective joy we shared through their fantastic music, Protect your neck. Whoa. All of that stuff. That's beautiful. It's like 2025 stairway to heaven as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, I've been talking absolute Brown for about two minutes now. So let's bring in my lovely boys. We've got two very, very handsome, two very, very excellent writers here today. We have the editor in chief Shaheen Alshadi, one of the greatest of all time and Ben folks, you know him and love him. Look at that lovely facial hair that he definitely manicures. And we'll ask him about that later. Shaheen

Alshadi, how are you getting on, sir? I'm doing wonderful, man. It's good to be back. I haven't been back for a bit. And you bring me back on the deadest of all dead weeks. So I feel like you're maybe sending me a message with that. But I get you. It's OK, Pete. I still love you. That is not the case whatsoever. And Ben will be the first to say that coming on one of these weeks is much better than making your debut on a week where we had to talk

discuss a massive court proceeding regarding Conor McGregor. I think you'll agree, Ben. Yeah. See, I see it as a vote of confidence for you because he's saying like, we don't need, you know, big news items, the obvious things to talk about. We can get by on personality this week. And so we will, let's get some people on who can help carry the show, even if there's not like pressing business, really an MMA that we absolutely need to talk about. There you go. How do you feel with that?

I actually said to Chuck this week and I was like, listen, man, you're not quite bringing to the table what we need. So get the hell out of here. Go back to the minors. Get your game right. Dial your curveball in and then we'll have you back. He flew all the way to Colorado to scream at the Denver Nuggets. That's what I heard. That's what I heard.

He couldn't come in this week. He got on a plane, went over there to pick a fight with one massive man called Yogic. Boys, I love you very much. So glad you can be here. As we said, it's not a very busy weekend. She not a busy weekend versus a really, really busy weekend. Which is more stressful for an editor of a combat sports site? That's a great question, Pizzi.

Probably the not a busy week. No, you know, it's the busy week. The busy weekend is more stressful because not a busy weekend. I can actually have an actual weekend to like be a human being, you know, but that's not happening anyway. There's like there's multiple pro wrestling shows that are pretty big this weekend. There's like a boxing and Josh Taylor fight that's big. So like, I'm definitely working. You guys are, but like, I'm still doing stuff.

So not that I don't weekends off don't exist for me. Overrated weekends off Shane. Who needs, you know, who needs time off at all? Um, lads, we better get talking about this MMA stuff. I spent the first 10 minutes of last week's show discussing dreams I had from last year. So I feel like we should get to the subject matter a bit quicker this week. Was that not a hit? I feel like people enjoyed it when you got out your dream journal from 2024 and started

reading full quotes from it. Jordan was like, we should make this a weekly segment. I don't know about that, man. You know what I mean? I have to look my missus in the face and some of these pretty X rated. We had a tweet from Mobsar Avloef, the man who was in the position that we would describe as the Leon Edwards or the Bilal Mohammed or the Joe Benavides perhaps or not quite Joe Benavides but anyway he's in this situation where he's probably he is definitely the the best contender in that division and it seems as though he is not getting his date with the champ

once again here he is and with a hashtag Abu Dhabi here it says if you are a UFC fighter and believe you are the best in the world then you have fight every fight they throw at you no risk no reward see you guys in July it's on do we have there we go this is the one area now he tags the great Alex Volkanovsky says thank you champ for trying to fight me I will fight in July and you fight in September. Hopefully we both win and we can meet in December. Now the situation that we got from this boys is right obviously Evluev isn't fighting but then a lot of people start doing the old mathematics. The old well he's fighting in September big

show in Guadalajara all types of trouble with the old venue over there but we had several people including one Jamie Theo from Bloody Elbow saying as per sources the fight Evaluez has accepted is a five round comment event against Aaron Pico a big fight in the featherweight division and from that we also had people deducing that it will be Volkonovsky v Yair II. Yair Rodriguez a man who lost to Volkonovsky at UFC 290 then went on to lose to Brian Ortega in a fight where I've always described it as he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and then he got the decision win over Patricio Pitbull. Now we we don't think we have this quite confirmed yet, but a lot of people, a lot of people have been saying this is the way it's going to go.

Tell me, boys, Shaheen, I'll start with you. What do you think of the idea of Yair getting the second crack at Alex, if this is what is going to happen? You have like a crack jar. I feel like you just slipped the word crack into this show, like an extraordinary amount of times where it's like that little hidden gem you see in the movies if they like say the title of the movie.

And like everyone gets all excited, like, oh, they said it, they said it. I feel like you need to have a little crack jar behind you. We can just throw some money in. I mean, this is dumb, right? Like this is pretty dumb. I've heard the same reports. I've heard the same reports. I've heard the same rumblings of Moe's are

versus Aaron Pico is sort of the direction they're going right now, which on its face, like that's a great fight. I actually really liked that fight just as a whole in and of itself, like separate from everything. I love the idea of just throwing Aaron Pico to the walls in this and seeing if he can survive sort of like the toughest part

of the featherweight division right now. But man, like who's asking for this, right? Like you just went through the resume for Yaya Rodriguez. That Alexander Volkonovsky fight was not close. That was a blowout. And he hasn't really done anything super impressive since. It's, I understand like the UFC's tendency

to just go with the schedule rather than what sort of like makes sense on a level of just like you've earned this and like sure we're going to go to Mexico. So let's get the Mexican guy to headline. But like, man, I don't know. This feels like more of the same for 2025 of just not giving us the fights that feel like they sort of should be made and instead just handing us stuff and say, and deal with it. I don't know. Is anybody excited about the prospect of this rematch? Cause it doesn't do much for me. I know Ben is looking in there.

No, I agree that this is another instance of the UFC calendar dictating what happens in title fights, which is fine for the UFC calendar to dictate some stuff, like who ends up on what card to some extent. It does feel like when it comes to title fights, that's when we ought to be able to be a little bit more selective, because clearly, if this is the plan where we're doing Volkanovsky

and Yair again for the UFC Noche thing, it is purely because we want to have somebody for local appeal which I mean arguably you do not need to sell tickets you just need it for the kind of identity of the event since you really want to brand this one a certain way you go to a market that you don't go to very often if you have UFC fans there you're probably gonna sell it out you know just regardless just by telling them there's a UFC event coming that's probably gonna be enough but you want to have it there so you can say, okay, yeah,

the USA Noche event, Yair Rodriguez is going to get another title shot. But yeah, it wasn't particularly competitive the first time. It's not like we've seen Yair Rodriguez do stuff since then where you go, he cannot be denied. The man has a clear mandate and it must be given another title shot. That just hasn't happened. And so especially when you have Mosar Evolyov sitting right there where you're like there's a fresh challenge and a different kind of challenge

would be interesting to see how Volkanovsky stacks up with him. That does seem like the obvious one and it is hard not to see it as the UFC has had several big fights that sort of fell in its lap. I don't even know if this one is something you would call one of those big fights like Volkonosky versus Evaluweb. It's not like that one is going to be a record breaking pay-per-view, but it is going to be the one that makes sense. It is going to be the one that feels like it ought to be next given what the state of

the division. But between that, you had this prospect of Ilya versus Islam, you have the just maddening prospect of John Jones versus Tom Aspinall, and so far the UFC is going over. It's just making other fights and just being like, good enough, buy it or don't, we don't care. And especially when, as Ariel likes to say, MMA finds itself in a little bit of a recession right now

You can't afford to miss these opportunities You don't have that many big fights that you can really make and so when you have them You ought to go ahead and make them and it seems like that we're just going like all right. Well Like the same way Ed Lueb is doing in his tweet there where he says I'll fight in September You know you or you you fight September. I'll fight in July, we'll meet in December, which nobody's gonna point out, we're asking Alex Volkanovsky, gentleman of a certain age, to have three title fights in one calendar here.

But you're also just sort of assuming certain outcomes, and you know what happens when you mock the MMA gods that way? They will ruin your plans. Mount Science, of course. It's kind of like, this is happening so often that and I know we always go back to it. Like what the UFC were meant to be right? Like we make the fights the boxing doesn't like this is this is flipped completely

on its head with the age of Saudi and everything like that. But it's it's just happening every week now. And is there a way that like the UFC are like a victim of their own success to the point where they're like, we don't really need, we can just do what we want. Like fuck what everyone else thinks. Like this is just good for us. And I've seen Yair fights in Mexico and I know Chuck has been to his fights in Mexico. And he, look, he's a big deal there. The crowd really love it really love it. I think Chuck was at that fight with Jeremy Stevens that got ruled a no contest and he said it

was wild. But it's also proud to me that I feel like Yair has been given so many opportunities to be this guy and he just hasn't done it. The Bryan Ortega fight is one of the crazy examples of they're trying to set up this Ilya fight. It's going to be massive for the whole Latin America, Spanish speaking fan base. And somehow he loses that fight. I still don't know how. Like he was, I think he knocked Ortega down like three times in the opening minute of that fight. And here he is getting another opportunity. Is this going to eventually hamstring the UFC? Like, does this eventually hurt them, lads? Or is it just or is it just this is what it is now? Like, this is this is what the fans want.

The new fan is all on board. You sweet summer child, Pete. No, no, nothing's nothing's going to hurt the UFC, man. Like it's exactly what Ben said. Like all of this is dictated by the schedule, but also it's just like none of it actually matters because the UFC just says, hey, we're going to Guadalajara. That's selling out regardless. Like that, like you could have me versus you headline that card and still like full arena. They're going to get stupid money for tickets that are incredibly, incredibly overpriced at

this point. Like it's just kind of how it works. Like what you said about Yair Rodriguez, sort of getting all these shots. I think that's a great point to make. It feels to me like he's almost like the Colby Covington of the featherweight division right now, in the sense of not like the personality, right? But more of just like, we just kept spoon feeding Colby shots

and eventually Colby is gonna take one of those shots and become a champion and he's a popular guy and maybe that'll work out. And it just never worked out. And that's sort of where we're at with Yair. I mean, the man is three and three since 2020. Do you know how many wins Movistar Avoyev has since 2020? It's basically his whole UFC run. Like he's, he's, he's what? Like nine and oh, seven and oh, since 2020. Like it's, it's ridiculous. At some point, an old friend, an old buddy of mine at MMA fighting, Jed Mishu, used to use this

phrase and it always rings true with me. At some point you gotta eat your leafy greens. Like if Loya versus Volkonovsky is not the title fight we particularly wanna see, it's not the title fight that's gonna get everybody excited. But if this is a system with rules in place and sort of, not even rules, but just sort of like a loose framework in place where that if you win, you advance.

And that sort of meritocracy to some degree, at some point you gotta just get this guy a title fight. It's Bilal Mohammed getting the title fight. Like no one wanted to see that really, but he needed it. And eventually we got it and we got through it. Now we're on the other side of it. You can't eat pizza and ice cream all day. You're gonna, you're gonna like, it's gonna be fun.

You're gonna have a great time, but then all of a sudden you're not gonna have a great time. And just like things go awry if you're just generally indulging in that way. At some point you gotta eat your lettuce, you gotta get some kale, you gotta get some spinach and just got a stomach through the salad. This is our leafy greens fight for featherweight.

Featherweight's a really great division right now. I'm very curious to see, especially with Aaron Pico coming in, like what comes out on the other side of this towards the end of the year. But to get there, you have to get the guy who has actually earned it and who's been putting in the work, you have to just let him get a shot, man. I don't understand the hesitation here.

Yeah. You know, I saw, uh, chase Hooper's tweet on this where he was just like, this is the UFC's last ditch effort to delay, or at least, you know, maybe put a roadblock in the way of an Evo ev title reign and there might be something to that. I mean, I think it's mostly like, hey, we're going to Mexico. We want a fighter who's a big deal there, but I don't think that there are in any rush to get to a point, especially if

they think like he probably wins the title, maybe holds it down for a while and maybe it's not that fun and maybe it's not that popular for people. So I think that that is a possibility. It's all going into the calculation perhaps. But it is, you're right that if you're asking like, hey, is the UFC when they're missing the opportunity to make some of these fights, especially the big ones, you know, like Ilja and Islam and Tom and John Jones Is it hurting the UFC like not in any way that they actually care about which is the money? Like the money is still flowing in they're still just like up in the ticket prices to see what's the absolute limit of what?

The market will bear you know They might have run into a little bit of an answer when they went to Montreal with a kind of a week overall card But you know, it's gonna change depending on where they are in the world. And then they're coming up on a new TV deal where they're gonna see a huge increase one way or another and you also more than any other sports organization have a split that favors ownership to a monstrous degree. It's the dream of every other supports organization where the owners

get to keep 80 to 90% of the money that no one else gets to do that. And so it doesn't really matter that much that even if they you lose some fans I've said for a while they long ago stopped trying to be in the growth business the growth phase of MMA where we're trying to recruit more and more fans. They're in the growth business, the growth phase of MMA where we're trying to recruit more and more fans. They're in the cash out phase. They're in the pure revenue phase. And maybe one of the worst things that happened to the average fans viewing experience was

when the USC figured out, here's how we can offer up a kind of gradually worse product, but make more money doing it. And that's what you see here. Like, this is kind of the end result of that is that they don't have a real incentive where they go, we gotta make this fight. If we miss out on this fight, we miss out on money that we need.

They don't, they're gonna make the money either way. That's a fraud. I will say just to add like as fight fans itself, right? Like not media, just speaking as people who watch this stuff week in, week out, who have done this, who basically committed our entire lives to this, right? Like selfishly, I want to see Alexander Volkonovsky fight someone new.

There is very little time left in one of the greatest fighters of this era's career. Like the fact that he has been able to squeeze out, I would safely call this his post-prime, right? Like we are not getting prime Alexander Volkonovsky anymore. The fact that he's been able to squeeze out what he's been able to squeeze out in this post-prime version of himself. We don't know how long this is going to last.

Like it was impressive enough that he even reclaimed this title and beat a guy like Diego Lopez, who's on such a hot streak. I don't know if we have two full Vogue fights left where he's at this level. I don't know if we have one. I don't know if we have three, like whatever that number is, why are we wasting it on a retread that wasn't that interesting of a fight the first time? Like Mozart is a completely different style

than VULK has ever fought. Just historically, it'll be more interesting for us to be able to look back and say, wow, VULK, he was able to get past all of these tests of this era, all of these tests of this era, and then he was able to take out a few guys from that last era too, and all these different stylistic era. And then he was able to take out a few guys from that last era too, and all these different stylistic matchups,

and he was able to figure out it all. And rather than that, we're just gonna, again, walk back a fight that we just saw a year or two ago that wasn't close. Like to me, this is just not interesting. And again, we're doing a lot of speculating here. So like maybe this doesn't happen and we all look dumb, but if this is the direction it goes,

it's just so par for the course for 2025 right now. It's also like just the final thing I'll say about this is like Evlo, if I get it right, he's a grappler. He's not like the, you know, he's not a guy that's going to kick someone's head off and make a thousand highly reels, whatever you're going to say. But I feel like to some degree, Maraba has proven that like you don't have to be to to eventually get that kind of fan support I remember um John Wood I interviewed him from

crown before the humor fight and you know there was this sentiment that the UFC want this new Nomaga Madoff and he was like no Marab is the new Maraga Madoff like they just don't understand yet and I think eventually they get this kind of momentum. And I think Evaluwef could be a guy like that. Okay, it's not quick. It's not the type of thing that's gonna set the world on fire immediately. But I mean, I agree with you guys.

I hope we're wrong and I hope we get this fight. But the man who dethroned Mr. Volkonovsky and who has now left the division, Ilya Toporya, it seems is not fighting Islam Makashev. Well, he isn't. He's fighting Charles Olivera in the main event of International Fight Week. But there has been a story here about a split

with his long-term coach Clement, obviously, in Alicante. He was on submission radio area this week. And I believe On Air Jordan has the video for us. Is that correct, the great On Air Jordan has the video for us. Is that correct? and he wants all the energy on him, you know. You feel, you know, always this is not good for the sentimental thing, you know, but at least the life. We go with him on the journey, and now he grow and he want to fly away you know. We are very proud to

do all the way with him. We are very proud for everything he do you know. I want everything in his life continue going well. And that was of course submission radio and we do have some further reporting on this from Marseille and that's a nod to how big Iliad Tapouria is. Marseille covering this, Marseille one of the biggest European sports publications of all time. Obviously very famous for their football coverage but Iliad Tapoura due to his massive stock in Europe has become a regular in their columns and as far as Alvaro Calminero has tweeted here it says Marca explains that both parties live in different cities and their multiple professional projects prevent them

from collaborating in the same way they have always done. It was incompatible that Ilya lived in Madrid and the coaches with many more students were in Alicante. For quite some time Ilija's work was formed by his own brother Alex, Javi Clement, who was not related to the Clement brothers and he added Manny Tamvane and Matthias Hibero, prestigious BJJ Blackbelts to his team. The separation was already tacit but not but unofficial sorry. Lads this is the We've we've seen different versions of this before. And one was McGregor, which was quite worrying where it's like McGregor didn't so much as leave John Kavanaugh, but the focus became very much about

Conor McGregor, Conor McGregor is leading this camp. And I have a quote here I'd like to read from John Kavanaugh, because I can remember reading this and just having such a bad feeling. It was before Donald Cerrone who we all thought that Connor was going to beat Donald Cerrone when they fought in 2020 but this worried me when I heard it at the time. This is what John said, I believe this was the Mac life because that was the only interviews they were doing at that time. With Connor's fighting IQ, with Connor's understanding of the game, really this training camp is about us all getting out of his way. Providing him with an environment where he gets different looks, different feels and support him. Where he wants the training camp to go with intensities and listening to him.

Where he has days where he has where he has days he wants to push hard and days where he wants to slow down. It's not so much about us coaches sitting down to game plan and then filling Conor in.. Connor knows more about fighting than the rest of us put together. Now I'm not for instance saying that that is Ilya Tupuria's attitude here, but we've also seen Francis Ngannou leaving Fernand Lopez a guy who introduced him to MMA

and then he had great success under Erik Nixik. I'm wondering, are any of you is getting that feeling like Ben, are you getting a feeling that this could be a negative thing for Ilya T Topuri in terms of he's after taking this big leap up to 55. It seems that we're all poised for this moment where he's going to become an even bigger superstar. And suddenly we're seeing, oh, things look a bit different there over in Madrid. You know, it gives me a little bit of concern for him just because things were really going well.

You can't do a whole lot better than undefeated and beaten two of the goats from your last division. It's hard to be more undefeated, you know? So whatever you were doing, the instinct is to say, just keep doing that. It's going great. I guess a lot of the question for me depends on what is the new situation going to look like? I think where you really see historically fighters get into trouble is if you're the boss of your own training camp. Like that John Kavanaugh quote

about Conor McGregor, that was clearly Conor is the boss now. Like everybody, and this has been an issue for Connor McGregor Just in his entire life But it also played a big part in his decline as a fighter is like you're surrounding yourself with enablers Essentially who all see you as the money faucet. They don't want to do anything That's gonna turn off the faucet They they if they're faced with a situation where they're going to be like, hey, I need to tell this guy some stuff he needs to hear. But he might get mad and tell me to get out.

And then I'd lose my spot at the trough. They're not going to do it. And a lot of people should have done that with Conor McGregor at a lot of different points, both in the gym and in his personal life. And they couldn't do it, or they wouldn't do it. Or if they did do it, they were gone. And so look what happened there

I think we saw it honestly with BJ Penn at points in his career and who knows what's going on with him now But there were points especially where we watched when we got a good look at BJ Penn preparing like for that That's like a GSP fight, you know that big one where there was a lot of Indications that BJ was the boss of his own training camp. Nobody could tell him, hey, we need to put in this kind of work today. And that's just how it's going to be. And so I think a lot of fighters struggle when they get to this level where they can call their own shots and maybe the shots they choose to call aren't the best.

I don't know if that's the case for Ilya now, because especially some of the stuff you hear there where he's saying like, hey, we're in different cities. And especially if he's saying like hey We're in different cities and especially if he's saying hey He wants to have a training camp built entirely around him me and my brother have this gym business here We can't just like leave our entire business to focus on one fighter But if I'm Ilya Deporia and I am already at this point in my career And I'm fighting to get to an even bigger point in my career, I absolutely want a training camp that's all about me. Like the way boxers do it.

I don't want to be a guy in the gym. I want to be the guy. The entire team is structured around me. The practice sessions are all structured around helping me win this fight. That is the way it should be. I totally agree with that approach. It's just like who are you going to bring in to help you with that approach? And you're kinda running out of time.

Like the fight is in like a month. And so it did make me wonder, did you get to a point where we were trying to set up our training camp, it wasn't going well because of our conflicting schedules and geographic challenges and stuff. And so then we said, oh crap, we gotta scramble and put together something different.

Because that would be really concerning because you're not going to have too many more weeks of really hard training at this point. You, you gotta have the work done here pretty soon. What do you think, Oshadi? Is it, is it a more of a Francis and Ghanu or is it more of a Conor McGregor? I mean, I feel like the fact that it's happened in a way, Ben, is him kind of saying, I am taking control of this situation. Do you know what I

mean? The fact that he is saying like, you guys stay in Alicante, I've built this shit Madrid, kind of look, I could be wrong. I'm often wrong. But it kind of makes me feel as though he's already kind of taking control. What says you El Shetty? It's interesting you throw Francis in there because I don't feel like Francis is a good comparison for this situation, right? Like Francis changed camps after he lost, after he was quote unquote exposed and et cetera, et cetera.

And also he changed camps, I would say to an upgrade, right? Like we all have immense respect for Eric Nixik and what they do over there in Vegas. Like I would, no one would ever criticize anyone for going over there and working with Eric. And obviously it worked out in the way it did. Francis has been unbelievable since. This to me doesn't feel like that scenario.

And at least on its head, like when you first hear this story, right? I think the knee jerk is to say, oh, well, that doesn't sound like a good idea. That type of thing, just to be really dismissive of it. But I will say one thing about Ilya that I have come to really appreciate and one thing that this man has been very consistent with

is, oh, look at that. All right, come on, fly. This is just landing on my big bald head. He's just trying to get a word in, you know? He wants to weigh in. Respect. One thing that I have really come to appreciate about Ilya and that he has been consistent in

is just his complete flaunting of the MMA gods. Like just not given a single shit about what, you know, the MMA gods may think about X, Y or Z or just like how things historically have worked out. Dude put in his Twitter bio that he was the featherweight champ far before he was, like in the lead up to that fight. Like dude just flaunts it

at every chance that he possibly can. He's saying all kinds of reckless stuff before he's about to fight these legendary fighters, things that could very easily be clipped and thrown back at him. If he gets knocked out or he loses and it just comes out, it has a working out for him every single time. This to me feels like another example of that. Just like going up to lightweight, ditching your title after you've beaten the two most legendary fighters of this current era at featherweight and then going up to lightweight and trying to do that. That felt like another version of this of you're just trying to essentially do the Connor. Like there are so many flauntings that are happening that again, I have immense respect for the man to continue to give

it. Cause this is just the latest in, Hey, if, if the first, you know, 20 times that he has basically towed the line with the MMA gods and said, come get me and they have just been unable to, then if he's able to do it again, man, more power to him. Yeah. No, no, you're right. He is he is breaking trends. He's a habitual line stepper. He is. I love that.

Rest in peace, Charlie Murphy. McGregor and Ilya, though, there is parallels between them. There's obvious ones. And I know thatlya though, there is parallels between them. There's obvious ones and I know that Tupori has shunned them. Like he has said, like, I'm going to do more than this guy and he's obviously well on his way to do that. He's going to do it at 55. But I do feel as though he's got that aura to him. You know, like you've be around this guy, like you feel him enter a room. He's like, fucking I am Ilya Tupori. Fucking bow out my feet and you're going like,

oh, shit, I'm doing it. I don't know why I'm doing it. But that's just my concern because it all happened so fucking quickly with Connor. It just was it was like, remember like at one stage we're all like, this guy's like a fucking monk. You know, the way he's talking about movement and he has Edo Partale out there trying to hit him with the fucking the pool noodles. And we're like, what is this? Then he knocks it out Aldo and we're like this is amazing and then suddenly it was just like what the f- what is going on here? And I'm cautious I don't want Elliot to go down this path because obviously McGregor's when he was in his pump was such a fun story but such an amazing

thing maybe I'm biased because I'm Irish but uh what do you think Charles Olivera is feeling about this, Ben? Do you think he's going? This is quite tasty, actually. Ben Hickman Yeah, I'm not feeling discouraged if I'm 12 over. I'll take any little edge I can get, even if it's just a psychological edge, because he's a tough guy to fight.

And so if you're telling yourself, like, hey, the guy is changing horses in midstream, his training camp maybe not going that great. He's also going up a weight class So he's gonna be dealing with bigger fighters that he's used to who knows if his power translates the same way I mean he does have fight it in the UFC at lightweight before early in his career So it's not like he's never done it but you can tell yourself like you know things are pointing in a direction of like if he were to Lose this one. We would all look back and be like look those were the signs we saw it He made some bad choices in the lead-up to this fight. Maybe shouldn't have got up and wait at all

That's absolutely what everybody will say. So if I'm Charles Oliver, I go sure. Yeah change camps again, you know See if Ido Portal will come hit you with the pool noodles What and see that's the thing to PC when you say like with Conor McGregor it all happened just so fast, it was going great and then it wasn't, my instinct is to respond, was it though? Was it though? Because there were some indications. And it was honestly one of the things people really enjoyed about Conor McGregor and his

way up was he was like, I'm larger than life and I'm living larger than life and come along with me on the journey I'm going to spend all my money as soon as I make it I'm going to be as much a celebrity as I am a fighter and I'm going to be living kind of wild and out of control and then I'm going to pull it together and go in there and fight and it just got to a point where you weren't pulling it together anymore. You were doing all the other stuff and not the fighting stuff anymore. And I don't feel like we've gotten that vibe from Ilya the same way. Like he does seem to sort of enjoy the training and the lifestyle of a fighter more.

And that's one thing, you know, I remember talking to Trevor Whitman about this once where I was like construct for me Your your ideal fighter And I thought he was going to list physical traits and he started off with a bunch of just like Psychological traits where he's like I want a guy who wants to be in this gym all the time I want a guy where I need to tell him to go home Like I need a guy who doesn't want to party. He's not just like not partying He like he does not want that kind of a life

And it seems like ilia's a He like he does not want that kind of a life. And it seems like Ilia is a little bit more in line with that. So I don't worry that this is the beginning of the behind the music style decline where it all goes wrong for Ilia Toporia. I just think you're going to go in there and fight Charles Olivera. I know it's not Islam, but it's no slouch either. If you're not sharp and if you're not ready for that, he could surprise you. For me McGregor's downfall and I agree with you saying is quite clear I think it's Mayweather and then we're just we're just slowly watching the unraveling then like it's just how much becomes

public at that stage right because it's immediate like a month later, he's in Dansk watching Artem Lobov V. Feely and he drops like a homophobic slur. And from there, it's just like hitting a guy in a bar every week. It's like something. You know what I mean? So I do think you're right, though. I don't get the same kind of partying atmosphere. Like I don't recall any video of Ilya Toporya being kind of inebriated or anything like that. Perhaps that video the day before he fights when he's had one glass of wine and he gets really giddy. He's weighing in like that. That's probably the closest we've got to that.

But yeah, it's it's interesting. We'll have to see how it goes. We can come back and lambast them for it, obviously, after all of error. If he does manage to beat it, he will use this as a stick to beat him with. Until then, we will remain down the middle on the fence. The man we all hoped he would face, Islam Magashev. He is, of course, going up to 170. He's going to fight Jack de la Maddalena at some stage.

Ali Abdelaziz says is not happening in Perth, which, of course, JDM wanted. He said that on a recent appearance on the Ariel Awani show. But Islam is a strange kind of beef here and it's a man who was no stranger to beef guys it is Chael P. Sunan medium rare of course and I like this in a way because Chael as a fighter can say things that a lot of guys online who are throwing shit at Islam because he didn't take the fight he He could just say shit. And as a fighter, he can get away with it. He has said that Ilya is a coward. This is a fact, an act of cowardice, him not fighting Ilya Tupuria.

You have an undefeated number one ranked world champion who's chasing you down. You are so interested in getting away from this guy. You have you that you leave your belt, said Shail. Islam in response to this via X he took to X that's for you Chuck Mendenhall chasing hype and money is not the same as chasing greatness in sport but average athlete who built his way to the top with cheap trash talk won't understand that so please sit and watch others. Watch how others doing it. Uncle Chael. Damn. Hashtag double champ.

This is a bit of a weird one. This is a great tweet from Ali Abdelaziz there. He managed to get the diction and to kind of like mimic the writing style a little bit. Like not bad. Do you think Islam is even aware of this? I'll shout it. I think he even knows. Do you think he knows he has a has a twitter account

Yeah, i'm sure to some degree right i'm sure i wonder what i'm gonna say this time I just always picture the meme of ali at like 40 phones Um, what a strange one though, right? Like uh, I think chael loves this shit like obviously and I think he's gonna squeeze like 12 YouTube videos out of this but this is his vocation at this point and honestly he's good at it like he like just the same way he he did for trash talking your way to the top remember after he had so much success with this and you'd see fighters try to come along and try to do it like he saw Like Roy Nelson just like yeah He's gonna try to do it now and all they succeeded in doing was making us appreciate that Chails actually good at it because he makes it look easy

He makes it look like there's nothing to it But it's not that easy and he's doing the same thing now where it's like he's made himself into this brand where like if You go to his YouTube page. It's astounding just the volume, the amount of videos he's cranking out and he does not need much. And those of us who are in like sort of the MMA related content creation business to one extent or another, you got to respect the hustle because he's just throwing stuff out there. He does not need too much prompting and he'll just jump on it and be like, let me make a video about that, see if that works.

And just cranking stuff out, sitting in his little chair in front of his little, like the bad guy sign. And honestly, it reminds me, like CNN picked this particular fight and do it this way. I was reminded of like when I used to teach rhetoric writing to college students and I would try to drill in their heads Look if you're gonna make an you're gonna write an argumentative essay

Pick a thesis statement that somebody could at least plausibly disagree with don't pick something where you're just like murder is bad Because it's boring. I guess not gonna be a difficult argument to make Nobody's drawn in by seeing you make that argument pick a pick a thesis where we might see it and at first go, I think you're wrong or I don't know about that one or I'm pissed off that you would even make this argument because that'll draw people in and he's really good at doing that. And here that's pretty much what he's done.

I think that, I don't wanna say that there's a kernel of truth to what he's saying, but I do see, I kind of see the point that he's making. He's saying like look you're trying to do the thing of saying I'm gonna challenge myself go up a weight class be the smaller guy I'm not I'm done fighting guys my size or smaller guys coming up to lightweight I want to be I want the respect of going up there and people saying hey he left his own weight class and went to a higher one but I only decided to do it once I saw who was champion. Now, the details of it are, I didn't wanna do it when my friend and training partner was champion.

So like that's what he seemed to be actually waiting for, not, you know, kind of Randy Couture waiting until Tim Sylvia was the heavyweight champ to be like, actually I'm back. You know, or even George St. Pierre waiting to see Michael Bisping as middleweight champ and be like, yes, now was the time I would like to be a middleweight, not when Anderson Silva was champion now.

Like you could make the argument though, cause you're just like, you waited until the guy who had been like the number five dude at welterweight where he became champ. And then you very clearly waited until that moment to say, now I want to go up a weight class. And this guy who, who is coming up, who is an undefeated guy, everybody's really excited about it. I'm going to choose not to fight that fight and instead fight this fight. And if the reason you were doing it is legacy and respect and all that stuff,

it's not money because you'd make more money with the Ilya fight. If the reason you're doing it is because you want us all to be really impressed, I don't know if we will be. I don't know if you're gonna get that. I also think that's a dumb thing to chase in this sport because people are gonna say what they're gonna say and you can't really control it. And then look at this fight you find yourself in

with Chael Sonnen who's gonna be a lot better at talking into a camera than you are. And he's got all day to do it. He doesn't have anything else he needs to do. You're a great Chael Sonnen tweet whisperer, you know that? That is like, this is a profound breakdown of what Chael said to the point I'm like, holy shit, okay. Chael and I have known each other a long, long time. So I've had an opportunity to get acquainted with it. But I mean, that's the thing. You know what they used to say about like don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel full. Like don't get into a beef with the New York Times or something like in MMA.

It should be like don't pick fights with people who have nothing else to do all day, but talk shit on social media and YouTube because that's your that's exactly what they want. You're going to have to go to the gym. You know, you got other stuff you need to do. He doesn't, he doesn't have anywhere else he needs to be. And he's very, very experienced at this at this point. Oh, damn, he is he is taking him down. I'll shoddy. I mean, do

you agree with that sentiment that like, you know, obviously, we all want to deal with Islam. Do you agree with the sentiment that it is a kind of a, a bisming GSP situation? Like he's jumping on opportunity to, to get this in a, in a kind of a Bisping GSP situation. Like he's jumping on an opportunity to get this in a kind of an easier way than it would have been, let's say. I don't think I would agree with that sentiment because is anybody like, do we view Jack Delamatta,

Lena in the same lens that we viewed Michael Bisping as champions to me, Jack feels pretty legitimate as champion. Is Jack a lesser challenge than Bilal Mohammed would have been? Cause I don't know that anybody would really say that. One thing I am curious about Ben and I want to, I want to dive into it. You, you said that you don't think people will, this fly is just obsessed with me. I've got one too now. Fuck's sake. It's growing everywhere, man.

Ben, you think you said that you don't think people will be impressed if Islam is able to pull this off. Do you think that? Yeah, I think that will because I do think that Jack Delamatta Lena, it's he looks on paper maybe like different than

Ilia because Ilia has the undefeated record and you know, absolutely. But Jack Delamatta Lena's losses were his first two fights and they didn't lose any. So it's like that's still really good. We could almost give him credit for being undefeated record and you know absolutely yeah but Jack Delamont Elena's losses were his first two fights and they didn't lose any so it's like that's still really good we could almost give him credit for being undefeated because he's been undefeated basically since he got his feet under him in this

sport and figured it out but you know how people are they they look they want to see that oh and if they see anything else then you know you're not the guy but I do think that because he was for one thing the plan B title challenger It was he was not really supposed to be him in the first place It was supposed to be you know somebody like chef and we said alright. We can't do that We don't want to put it off throw Jack Delamatta in there And then he goes in there and he wins looks great in the in the fight and wins But still I think he he has not built up that sort of reputation at where people

naturally think he's the guy at that division. He's the champ. Everybody knows who he is. Like if you're stopping MMA fans on their way into a venue and you're saying, like, tell me who the champs are in each UFC division. This is what I could see him stumbling on because he just hasn't been there at that point long enough yet to really Hammered into people's minds that like if you went up and you beat Jack de la Maddalena for the title

You really did something like I think it's still just new to people not saying that he doesn't deserve the respect as champion I think I think he's a legit fighter like we've seen him. He's looked really good He looked really good in that below fight. But I think in people's minds, especially if that's why you're doing it, is public perception. I could see a lot of ways that you don't get that kind of payoff that you hoped for. And you would have been better going for the much more predictable economic payoff against Iliad for you.

It's interesting because it's interesting to me, because I like the way you're sort of laying things out. It's just, I don't know. To me, I've never felt that Islam was doing this for public perception per se. To me, it's always felt like something he's been trying to pursue to differentiate himself from Habib Nurmagomedov. Because that's the ghost that's followed him his entire career, even before he was this guy, even before he was the pound for pound king and this unbeatable champion. Like he was Habib Jr. He was the,

the next coming of a big friend. Yeah. He was a big friend, long time friend and training partner as I wrote in thousand different articles qualifying him, right? He's Habib's plus one to the party. Yeah. And so it always felt to me that the welterweight thing was his version of like, okay, what can I do where I'm not in the same boat? Essentially like how do I get to a different set of waters than Habib and differentiate myself a little bit? Because he's also been consistent with this. Like when Leon Edwards was the champion, he was calling to fight Leon the entire time. Like all the whole Volkanovsky era happened when Leon was champion. And every time Islam was like, hey, if I do this, I wanted to be the next one to move up.

And he just never got the opportunity because lightweight, it's so hard to give that grace to the lightweight champion because there's always just 20 lightweights coming up who want that challenge, right? So to me, like, I can understand it from, like I am more disappointed than anyone probably to not get the one fight that I think we all wanted of Islam versus Ilya. To me, it's, you know, the person who it sucks most for is Ilya because the two fights streak

that that guy is on right now, and I said it at the time, like knocking out Max, knocking out Volk, that's one of the greatest two fights streaks of all time. And if that man went up and then did the same to the number one pound for pound fighter, a division above like record breaking champion, that's the greatest free fight streak in MMA history. And like, that's a, that's a crazy thing to have under your, under your belt as your resume, as just this three fight run. So he's getting shafted in that sense because Charles Oliveira, as much as I have immense respect for him, he's just not the type of guy who I don't know that we could say that, right? Like if he goes up and knocks out Charles, are we calling this the greatest three

fight run in MMA history? I think that's a little bit, yeah, it's just not, it doesn't have the same cache. So in that sense, like that, I am so disappointed in that, for that aspect, because I am such like a lover of the history of this game. And to me, everything in a historical perspective is the most interesting version of all of this, of like, how does each of this game and to me everything in a historical perspective is the most interesting version of all of this like how does each of this fit with what we've already seen before so seeing something new seeing something crazy like that would have been really awesome but you know a little bit is the contrast with what Ilya is doing because Ilya said hey I beat one goat from my division to claim the title, knocked him out, which

nobody does in this division. Then I took on another goat in my first title defense. Another guy nobody knocks out in this division, knocked him out. So what do I do? Do I stay home as champion and keep defending the belt? No, I want to go up to the next division where the dude who is the champion at that division is scary. And the dude who is up there seems like he

probably beats me in most people's eyes you know they were gonna look at that Ilya versus Islam fight and favor Islam whether they liked Ilya more or not they were gonna look at that matchup wise and be like oh that's gonna be tough for you and that's a huge risk to leave behind your championship in one division that you could have held down and you know pretty much cemented yourself as the greatest ever to do it in that weight class with a couple more title defenses and instead you're gonna go up a weight class against a guy who seems super tough who everybody regards as one of if not the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and you specifically picked

him and said give me that guy like that's really impressive and that's like to see one guy trying to do that and the other guy not only denies us that by leaving the division but is like I'm gonna go up a weight cuz I'm gonna do the same thing but against the guy who Does not have that kind of cache in people's minds a guy who? People were probably gonna expect me to beat honestly like even with the difference in weight like that that contrast happening at the same time side by side comparison is what makes it seem I think the people not only like a disappointment because they're not getting one of those fights but a little less impressive than what Ilya was trying to do. Yeah I agree with that and I do think JDM is great too but it like you know it isn't

the same thing he hasn't defended the belt. I don't think as much as Bilal kept telling us, I don't think he's, he was considered, we'll look back and think that was one of the greatest welterweight champions of all time. I think we'd all agree with that just before I move on though. I'm of the opinion that that fight has gone forever. Do any of you disagree with that? Like, I don't think Ilja and Islam will ever happen now.

I think people keep saying to me like, well, if he. I think that's premature. I think that's incredibly premature. Yeah. I mean, here's here's the scenario, right? Ilia goes up, knocks out Charles Oliver. He's the lightweight champion. Islam goes up, loses a hard fought decision to Jack Della. What's Islam going to do that? He's going to go back down, right? Then it's Islam versus Ilia. Yeah, I don't know.

It's I do understand the path to it, but I just feel like when the UFC don't make things, when they're right there, it just won't come back around again. I don't know. How many times we've seen it in this sport where we do eventually get that super fight, but five years too late. Yeah. I could see that. I think that there are a number of different ways that you work your way back to Ilia versus Islam. I don't think it's like a now or never kind of deal. But it will never feel as if that's the thing is you'll never you'll you'll lose forever with a feeling of in the meaningfulness of what this fight would have been. Right. Because in that scenario, Islam goes up and loses.

He's not the same Islam in the way that we look at it, right? Because we look at him now is this unbeatable force, this immovable object. He's this guy who just has torn through everybody. The moment you see the first crack in that armor, it's never the same. You can never think of somebody in that same way. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. And I don't want to do another lap of they need to strip John Jones. I know everyone's having their turn this week. I must have seen 700 media guys being there. The fuck the fuck is going on. I'll shoddy will tell you I was doing it back in February before it was cool. And everyone called me a wanker for it. Woo. But John Jones fucking biggest own goal of all time obviously with these tweets this week. Like basically like, I'm fucking retired guys.

Oh wait, no, I'm not, I'm not retired. Who the fuck said I was retired? What the fuck are we talking about here? I looked it up today because it's something that was discussed. I believe Rick, Rick, who is our audio engineer for today? I mean the famous New York Rick, Oscar Lozav not here. Him there sluggingging in the back. Amazing. Thank you, Rick.

But I think it was Rick who was who first brought up to me that, you know, Jones could actually become the longest reigning heavyweight champion in UFC history. Like, which is a big deal, right? I think it's Cain Velasquez. Cain Velasquez also at the moment on August 17th. He will become the longest reigning heavyweight champion of all time with the UFC one title defense, of course What I wanted I'm calling that a half a title defense we're not calling that a full title exactly right He will like this will go down the history books. I believe if this happens

Well, what I'm asking you go what when ESPN tried to put out that tweet basically, oh, yeah, look, he could have the longest title reign and two weight classes. They got community noted. They know because they called it an undisputed. They said it'd be the longest undisputed heavyweight champion. And it's just you don't actually know the meaning of words. If you think that's the way to frame that, because they got dunked on so much by Twitter users for saying it that they had to like append a note as if somebody has just like made a factual error that cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Like, so that's that's how like strong the pushback is against really giving him like full credit as heavyweight champion at this point.

Which leads me to my next question. Will he make it to August? August 17th then? I mean, is that what he's trying to do? Is he just trying to run out the clock? I don't know what else he's fucking trying to do at this stage. Like it's absolutely mental. He's sniffing a lad's hair on the back of a moped. Like what the fuck is going on? He is purely doing whatever the eff he wants and just laughing at all of us. That's what this is. He is just enjoying watching everyone running circles with their hair on fire about this. The thing that kind of is baffling to me is like, one of the many tweets he put out that seemed to just sort of like worsen his public image this past week was when somebody was like,

you having fun with a belt before you get stripped? And he was like, lol do I seem like I care about that kind of stuff? Yes! Yay dude! Yes you do! Do I seem like I care about that kind of stuff? Yes. Yeah First of all you care enough that you're tweeting at randos about like That's the thing is like it feels at this point like the way we're finally getting any sort of clarification about where he stands in His career is like him responding to like, you know

Connor is the goat for 2069 on Twitter like that seems like how we're gonna finally hear him be like, yeah, screw it. I don't want to be champion. I don't want to fight it anymore. And he's always been super image conscious and like legacy conscious. That's why he wanted Stipe. It's why he specifically called for Stipe

and stuck to that fight. Even when the public support for it had completely eroded, he wanted that name on his resume because he thought that's going to make me look better because I would look like I beat everybody at light heavyweight. And then I went up and beat the guy who had the credentials to be called the greatest UFC heavyweight

champion of all time. I beat him too. Even though you beat a semi-retired version of him well into his 40s, it just didn't look like he was even in the game anymore. Semi is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Come on. That's why he didn't buy Fight Chainsaw in like look like he was even in the game anymore. So Semai is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Semai, what do we come on? That's why he didn't buy Fight Chainsaw like a decade and a half ago, however long ago that was.

It's just this is with this man's thing. His entire reign is just like this hyper awareness of manicuring whatever kind of legacy that he thinks that he needs to have. And it's just he's doing tremendous damage to that now because it's like if you don't Because it's like, if you don't want to fight anymore, and if you don't want to be heavyweight champion, if you don't want to do the Tom Aspinall fight, like that is your prerogative. You get to make that choice. If he's like, hey, I did all I needed to do here. I got enough money. I'm getting into

my late thirties now. What do I need to fight these young hitters for? Let me get out of this game and go live my best life on the back of a motorbike in Thailand. Fine. Do that. But not a good time. It looks like not only fine, like that's totally acceptable, dude. Yeah. No one would argue with you. You've been going a really long time.

None of your peers from your era are still doing this really. Like not a single person. If you after after he beats the pay and then he just retires, not a single person would have faulted him for it and just, yeah, OK, yeah, we would send him on his way with blessings. And but like when you're holding up the heavyweight division and you're seeming to just under like enjoy the trolling of it and it's one thing to troll us. Like, you know, the fans and the media find whatever, you know,

but like Big Tom don't deserve this gas hands Tom does not deserve you like holding up the prime of his career just so you can be like lol at all you guys I'm just messing with you like if that's what you're gonna. Do then fine give them back the heavyweight title go play around in Thailand do whatever you want and have a great time. And honestly, I think that what would end up happening there is if he did say like, hey, I'm not doing it. Here's the heavyweight belt back. So long and thanks for all the cheese.

The UFC would move on very quickly. Book Tom Aspinall versus somebody. Everybody else would move on very quickly. John Jones would be shocked at how quickly people move on. And he would hate it because he does really care about being regarded as the greatest and about what people say about him and being thought of that way. And especially if he exits on this right now it's gonna be part of the narrative that people are gonna say you ran from Tom Aspinall that's why you ended your career was you know like like the big homie Chuck Mendenhall said in his great

column this week you turned legacy into a game of keep away. And that's going to be a thing tacked on to the end of the resume there for John Jones. And I think that he would hate it. And I think he would end up coming right back. Yeah. Just to me, it's like, can you imagine if this was flipped, if this was John Jones on the other side of this is John Jones, essentially Tom Aspinal in this situation. And you could go, you could go a couple of different routes with this, right? Whether John Jones wanting to get to Shogun Hua and it's just like Shogun's like, eh, I'm good. I'm gonna keep, nah, I'm good. I'm just gonna keep doing my thing. And just did this perpetually for like two years straight wasting, you know, the youthful prime of whatever young prime years of John Jones. Or

flip it the other way. One of the many, many times that this man got stripped of the belt, Daniel Cormier has the belt and John Jones is trying to come back to fight Daniel Cormier for the belt. And the whole time, Daniel is just like, nah, nah,

I'm good, dude. I don't need this. I don't need like I'm having a great time. I'm releasing videos of me doing all this stuff on the motorbike in Thailand. Like, I'm just really enjoying my life. Like, can you imagine the level of anger and frustration in public just venting?

We would see relentlessly from a man as petty as John Jones. That dude would be tweeting every day about how Daniel Cormier is the paper champ, Daniel Cormier needs to fight him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like that would be, he would not handle this in the way that Tom Aspinall is handling this essentially. So it's just like, what are we doing, man? Why are we doing this? Like Chuck nailed it of just like at some point, like John's going to be John. What are you doing, UFC? Yeah. Like this is legit. Tom Aspinall could be like an all time great. And if we just lose two or three years of prime Tom Aspinall because of this, like you're never getting that back. Yeah, plus the thing that John Jones said where he's like,

I told the UFC my plans. And if that's true, if he told them some stuff and they've been continuing to tell Tom Aspinall, like, I don't know, we'll have something for you by the end of the week. They've been continuing to tell us, oh, we're confident, we're gonna get this fight booked. And meanwhile, John Jones was telling him,

no, you're not, at least not anytime soon. Then that's kind of indefensible. Why, why not? Just like, I guess you thought that you're just gonna wait him out and he would change his mind, but the time has come, everybody's just sick of it. We've seen that when Habib retired. Yeah.

And like, Habib retires, I can't remember what exact month it was, like. It was late in the year. It was like September, October. Right. And then he didn't actually get stripped. We didn't move on until the title. It didn't get vacated until the next year.

Dana was taking him out to dinner up and down the last strip trying to talk him out of it. It's local. I talked to a few people within the camp like it's fucking like Tom is not. He's not like a big, you know, glitzy glamour guy.

Like it's just it's getting frustrating having this guy going through the motions and training when he doesn't have a fight and it's been frustrating. You know, like it's he hasn't really had a proper everything's been thrown last second to him when he has a fight these days. Like this is we think the greatest the greatest heavyweight of this generation like this coming generation, he's going to rule the rules for a long time. It's really fucking with a guy doing this to him, like messing with an athlete doing it this to him. I think he inevitably gets stripped in the most frustrating part of that. I think Tom

fights, Gan probably wins and then Jones straight on Twitter. I'm, oh, I want to come back now, you know, and it's going to be a whole neutral, a whole different thing. And that could put them on ice again for a very long time. Just want to hit two quick things. I will say, I will just say if that's the outcome, because I, I I'm with you. I don't think that I think that there's zero chance we get this fight at this point this year. It's very clear what John Jones is doing here. If that's the outcome that we end up with where come July, the UFC just comes out and says, Hey, you know, we couldn't get it done. Tom, you're the champ. And we just wasted basically a full year to do nothing to end up in the same place. That's fucking inexcusable, man.

Yeah, I do. But like, I mean, I genuinely believe that's what's going to happen. Absolutely. I wouldn't even be surprised if we get to August 17th they give him like something about tweet or something you know what I mean oh well done John and then he gets stripped but just two quick ones Dana and Turkey still not quite resolved there boys at Turkey put out a tweet there a few days ago talking about Sela will promote this we always thought Dana was gonna promote it which could be still a thing because Sela works for TKO and here's Turk and Turkey we have confirmed the promoter for Canelo v Croffer will be Sela for Riyadh season the broadcaster we have not decided yet but the date will be

Saturday 13 September more details soon as Ariel described in the show earlier this week and it was meant to be the Friday so it would not compete with the UFC's event in Guadalajara venue all over the gaff as we know um I have a feeling and I think we all said this from the jump that if something was going to happen here it would be just too many cooks in the kitchen two massive egos here and if this is a thing we don't know is a thing it could get very very interesting I just wanted a quick tally from you guys if you guys are with me or do you think guys are with me, or do you think I'm overreacting or do you think as I will suggest to me that they're trolling? I don't. I think this

is real and I think it's about to get juicy boys. Just real quick. I have to address this because this guy's blowing up the chat. Blessing breaks out there saying he Tom Aspinal hasn't, we haven't lost two or three years wasted two or three years at Tom Aspinal. Tom Aspinal became the interim champion 2023 my man. 2023 that is how long heall became the interim champ in 2023. My man, 2023. That is how long he has been the interim champ. He has been interim interim in 2023. We are like almost halfway through 2025. He sat there saying Connor wasted two years of Michael Chandler. Like Michael Chandler wasn't the champ. My guy, not the same thing. These are not the same things whatsoever. I'm sorry. What did you ask? I know. And I said, Connor

wasn't fucking void either. She's just listening to me all the time. whatsoever. I'm sorry. What did you ask? I know. And I said Connor wouldn't fucking fight either. She's just listening to me all the time, boys. I've been nailing this shit. If they're from Europe, I'm all over this shit. But sorry, we're talking about Turkey and Dana. Are they on the rocks, essentially? Ben was about to hit me with his take here. What do you think, folks?

I mean, I think it's entirely possible that you get two people at that point who are used to being the head guy in charge and maybe they don't work well together. Maybe that they run into some hiccups there. It also seems like the whole thing of TKO's involvement in boxing at this point, like I go back to listening to that shareholder call where they went out of their way to be like, we're just taking some money from the

Saudis to promote the stuff. This is not a venture that we are investing in. We are not starting a new boxing promotion. They're starting a boxing promotion and they're paying us to come along and do the promotion part of it because we have experience in that. And so that seemed like always the level of involvement and attachment that they wanted and they did not want too much more. And so if you get into that and you know maybe there's some disagreements here or there about when

or how to do it, I could easily see that they are like well hey look this wasn't ever our thing to begin with it was your thing that we were just collecting a check to be part of because you know know, we'll take any anybody's money if they've given it away. And maybe it's they don't see it as that big a deal. So I could absolutely see that. I'm sure they don't love the counter programming aspect of it though. That doesn't help. So who knows what's going on there? I feel like, you know, you've toned this down. I'm getting ready for a war of words here. And you're just kind of like, nah, just a quick side step. Tell me please, I'll shoddy.

I'm going to get some juice out of this. I want some fucking juice. I mean, who could have seen this coming? You know, two men who are extremely rich, one maybe much more so than the other, but both of whom are just extremely used to owning the show, doing everybody do what they say and just really manicuring whatever their product is to the nth degree of their own vision. Not getting along. Didn't see that coming. This is really quite mind blowing stuff. Oh man, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. If this is how this ends up, it is a very

predictable outcome, but also there's so much money involved that I could see that, you know, they ended up making it work and figuring things out. But it is quite funny that it took what? A month? How long did it take before this fell apart for whatever this introductory version of this was going to be? Didn't make one fucking event, the boys. Jesus Christ. Um, final one, GFL is meant to be this weekend. And I'm and I'm a bit sad that it isn't happening. You're the only one. I think. No, I'm so sad. I'm so sad. The amount of traffic that Dylan Danis versus Tony Ferguson would have done

would have been twice the amount of traffic that in the last UFC pay per unit. Well, like this one I'm saying, right? Like it would have been one of those moments, Ben. And I think, I think we all know, like we would have all been watching that. Do you remember the draft? Do you remember the fun? Like X for one night just came back. It was like, oh, like a warm hug. We're all like, yeah, what the fuck is this? Collectively just ridiculing what we're watching. We had the fantastic song. Do we have that, please? All A.I. all in black. It's come on.

One of the greatest songs. This is it's right up there with the IFL one, Ben. Come on. You like you. I love that. Don't you? You did the column. You did the class. It's not at the column that week. Don't you? You did the column. You did the column. That's blasphemous. It's not. At the eye. You did the column that week.

And then it happened. And I was watching it. And I was like, is he watching this? He was tweeting at the time. Holy shit. Has Ben Folk seen this? This is insane. And then it's just gone.

A whimper. Dylan Donis, we told Tony Ferguson, for all the reasons why it's disgusting, it was also just so fucking MMA. I mean, it was beautiful. It was a beautiful thing Yeah, but I'm gonna I'm gonna quote all shoddy here and say who could have seen this coming It was always the most likely outcome that this just wasn't gonna happen at all and and maybe the best

Outcome because a lot of these fights who were essentially going down to the senior center and being like do you have a little bit more? Brain damage left in you cause we would like to try to profit off of it. We won't, but we'd like to try and to have some of these fights not happen. I don't know if you can look at any fights and you'd be like, we are all poorer for not having seen this fight at this particular time. There's nothing on there that we needed to see. That's ridiculous. We would have finally found out if Dylan Dannis could beat Tony Ferguson on a fight losing streak. Come on, Ben. That was a big news for me. There was like a decade where I made my money being the number one Tony

Ferguson mark in the entire industry. I still maintain prime Tony Ferguson beats Habib. I don't care how many you tell me I'm wrong. Don't you want to fight, dude? We could have seen Tony win a fight. That's that's all I needed. That's still a god again. We would have been like, oh, my God, he did it. Tony Ferguson did. But what everybody wanted to do for so goddamn long.

But it's not happening. You know, just on the brain damage point that Ben made, that was insane that, like, they were given testimony in the class action lawsuit, like Vandalay Silver. And we were that like they were given testimony in the class action lawsuit like Vandalee Silva. And we were like, we were on shows going like, this is truly disgraceful. And then GFL a couple of months later, like, and Vandalee's back this time. Fabrizio Fabrizio was like, yeah, I've got a brain tumor.

I'm showing some signs of TBI. And then like months later, they're like, and he signed to the GFL and was just like, but I don't see how those two things go together. So yeah, no, the, the human spirit in general is probably better off with these fights not happening. But we are worse off because I will say with, I agree with Pizzi in the sense that like one of the most fun aspects of covering a sideshow circus sideshow sport like this is the nights where we can all sort of collectively watch something together and just sort of point and laugh or point and gawk or

just basically like experience some really weird shit together. Like we have seen, we, we have those at times over the years and they're always so delightful. And this would have been, it feels to me like the really ultimate version of it where like, we probably were never going to get an event, but it may be weird. It could have at least gotten one of it and one event to always look back at it. Like, Hey, remember when that was the thing for a second? And we would have had such a great time, such a great miserable, weird, awful time doing this all together and just watching this on Saturday where there's nothing else going on in the MMA world. And we, everyone would have been paying attention

whether they liked it or not. Really, really missed out on a beautiful thing. Yeah, you get a bit emotional listening to your Alshadi. Oh, fuck. And listen, we don't have it. It's a weekend of stuff. Well, what's on? There's the the Taylor fights on this weekend, the UK.

There's what wrestling is on, you said, Alshadi. Maybe I'm going to check out some wrestling this week. Well, you know, if you read our website that pays, you know, you would know that WWE has an event on Saturday, Saturday, nice man event. And AEW has one of their big pay reviews in actually my neck of the woods in Glendale on Sunday. Are you going? I am going. Is Ramondi going? I don't know. I thought you'd link up. I thought you was like form like Voltron for these wrestling events We're gonna have to talk about every money George. Yeah. Yeah, he moved to Georgia to do to be an Atlanta Falcons writer Oh, yeah, Jesus. I know I know you look you're not an American but Georgia and Arizona are very far apart my friend I genuinely wouldn't know that I don't have I don't I don't even really understand the Irish map of being, being completely

honest with you, but it's one of my flaws. I do having gone there, you can get to anywhere in a couple hours. That's what I learned. That is very true. It sure keeps on trying to like plan this road trip around Ireland. Like we got to do at some stage, all of us, we should all do it. It would be absolutely magic, but we can do it by lunch. Like it's not, it's not even that hard.

Well, listen, maybe one of these weekends when MMA takes a collective breath to see where we are, we could do it then. It is one of these weekends this weekend, AW and WWE, whatever Alshadi just said, they're going to check them. We love them very much. Alshadi, thank you for coming back. We love you so much. Hold on. Hold on. Yeah. Okay. I was going to say we have a super chat. Every time it shocks me. Jordan. Here we go. Brett. Five dollars.

Mini tournament. Valk V. Yare. To Pico V. Evelo. And after Valk and Evelo have both win, we do Valk Yare. Nice. I didn't know. Had me in the first half. Very, very good.

Do we have any more there, Jordan? It's just the one. Oh, shit. Nice. I didn't know what else. Had me in the first half. Very, very good. Do we have any more there, Jordan? It's just a one. Oh, shit. Alexander Hurst, five UK pounds to Queen's English money. If Islam moves up and wins but then goes back. All right, let me just

sorry. I wasn't thinking there as I was reading that. If Islam moves up and wins but then goes back to fight olives slash Spanish, it gets stripped again. Also, Jones leaves USC, PFL scoops and Ghana Jones. Oh, listen, as great as that is. And I do believe in my heart that in Ghana is going to pull off some type of stroke here where that's going back to the UFC or something else. I just don't see the PFL. I don't think the PFL can put on a ringanoo fight. So if it's going to happen, I think it's got to be in the UFC. I think they have the money left to make something like

that. Although it is, this is the thing though, about these champ champ things. It's like, at least Ilja was very clear. I'm leaving featherweight behind, don't want to, or feel like I can't make the weight anymore. I'm leaving featherweight behind don't want to or feel like I can't make the weight anymore I'm leaving that belt behind here. It is you guys fight over it I'm going up a division and with Islam just being like I want to go up and basically prove a point are you gonna stay there if you win and defend that belt because We get into that same question all the time But we're just like if you just want to go up there and win one fight and that fight is for the belt

You're kind of just screwing up two divisions at the end you know that's not great so uh that's a fair point there two things on this one one i'm now going to refer to this fight as spanish olives because that just feels that feels real nice like i like i like what you did there place around the corner makes great spanish olives i go there for happy yeah it's just it rolls up the tongue in a very good way. Number two, gentlemen, do we think because like obviously, like, I don't think it's going to happen. But if Francis did come back and we end up this John Jones saga ends up with us just getting Tom Aspinall versus Francis as like the ultimate consolation prize of just like, oh, wow, I didn't expect this. But this is this works Jones essentially sees all of this attention being showered upon whoever wins this and like all of this

of like, like, does John Jones see all of that and then have a higher chance of being like, okay, screw it. I'm going to do this. I can't have all these people talking about how great Francis and or John Jones is. And then you know, I think that's the biggest thing that John Jones has all of that and then have a higher chance of being like okay screw it I'm going to do this I can't have all these people talking about how great Francis and or John or and or Thomas or does that the way that fight plays out very violent etc.

cement the fact for John Jones of like nah I'm good I don't want to fight these dudes. I think he would hate the attention and the the the enthusiasm that we would have because of I mean imagine in this world where there's there's a lot working against this possibility but that we laid out where Aspinal versus Nganu happens people would get so excited about it they would forget John Jones's name and immediately and he would hate it he would hate to see it would basically be like you know you you're intentionally showing up somewhere You know your ex is gonna be with a beautiful new woman on your arm Just because you want her to see that you're doing great, you know

Like that's and everybody else at the party goes that same person's like dude. Do you see how great Ben's doing? Yeah, like that's what you would be doing and John Jones is exactly the kind of person it would work on. 100%. Okay, so negging John Jones is how we get more money. Mm-hmm. He is not the kind of person who'd be like, I'm happy for you, I'm glad to see you living well, I wanted good things for you all along.

He's like, burning your shit. I hope it would be up, but it's not, and that's fine. He's fucking throwing water in your PlayStation five and shit. But that feels like that's straight from lived experience. That's all we've got done. Oh, my God. I think that's going to fucking happen, boys. I don't call me crazy. I think in Ghana was going to fucking come in here and Superman this like just come in and save everything.

Dana's acting like he's the man for a day. Shit goes completely wrong after the fight, obviously. Like it's a it's complete fucking carnage afterwards. But I have a feeling that might happen. And if we make us would never let us be that happy. They would never allow it. They will. It's the great correction is coming, boys. Something it would have been GFL, but we didn't quite get that. Something is coming.

Lads, I love you very much. You're both very handsome and talented men. Thank you for joining me on this show. I was enjoying a picture of your dog, Carl, in the water earlier, Ben. Fantastic stuff. What a dog. What a guy. That's all we've got. It's a quiet week. Go and enjoy yourselves. Thank you to honor Jordan for making us look and sound beautiful.

Thank you to Eric. We don't have Oscar Losev this week. We hope everything's going well there. Eric, you're a wonderful man. Thank you to everyone. We'll be back on Monday on the Ariel Luany Show. From me, Shaheen and Ben, we love yous very much. Have a wonderful weekend.

Mwah!