The Ariel Helwani Show - Ilia Topuria vs. Paddy Pimblett, Conor McGregor's appeal, Khamzat Chimaev lands stateside | The Craic

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

The Craic is back! Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes return as usual, and kick things off by breaking down Ilia Topuria’s newly minted no. 1 spot in the official Uncrowned pound-for-pound rankings (4:03).Shifting to what’s next for Topuria, Petesy and the gang weigh in on Paddy Pimblett, Justin Gaejthe, and Arman Tsarukyan as potential contenders for the lightweight champion (10:30).Conor McGregor is back in the headlines. The former champ withdrew his application to introduce new evidence in his ongoing appeal. The guys discuss the latest in McGregor’s disappointing run of recent news cycles (30:52).Looking forward to UFC 319, the trio celebrate the good news of Khamzat Chimaev finally landing on U.S. soil; a reassuring sign that his middleweight clash with Dricus Du Plessis is on track (38:10).The UFC also recently announced UFC 321’s return to Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. The crew debate which championship fight will top the card, with Islam Makhachev vs. Jack Della Maddalena being the likely frontrunner (49:26).Another middleweight making waves is Sean Strickland, who was caught in a bizarre in-cage brawl at a local MMA event. The trio break down the wild footage of the incident (57:30).To wrap up the show, Petesy gets the guys’ takes on Jake Paul officially becoming a ranked WBA cruiserweight, and talk Ben’s trip to Seattle to see Wu-Tang live (1:05:28).

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, you had us on Wednesday last week. It's Tuesday crack crack heads. I mean, we're mixing up the amount of volume you're getting these days. I mean, you're going to have to space it out. It's usually Friday last week, Wednesday now Tuesday. Whew, that's a lot of crack. I hope you were enjoying it responsibly as they say. We are still reeling reeling from International Fight Week. The great Ilya Toporya becoming the latest UFC double champ,

an amazing knockout victory over Charles Oliver. And yes, the uncrowned pound for pound charts are in the rankings. They're all here. We've all had our say and we're about to hit you with that knowledge. We've also got news from Ireland. Conor McGregor and his appeal got underway today. We've also got news from Ireland. Conor McGregor and his appeal got underway today. And it looks like Hamza Chamayef is in the United States of America. This is all fantastic stuff. This is all good stuff. Jake Paul, he's ranked as a cruiserweight now.

USC 321 has been announced in Abu Dhabi. There's just so much to talk about, guys. And I'm very happy to say, as always, I'm joined by two bastions of MMA journalism here, the uncrowned mighty, mighty duo of Ben Foulkes and Chuck Mendenhall. Boys, how are yous? How y'all getting on? That was a depressing rundown, by the way.

It's like, you know, Jake Paul, McGregor, pound for pound rankings, which is Ben's, not Ben's favorite, I'd say that's not your favorite. But otherwise, I absolutely love it. Can't get enough of those pound for pound rankings. Uh, we're going to talk Superman versus Batman after that. It's going to be a good time. Rankings are so cool.

It's what the kids want. Very cool. It's what gets the blood going these days for the reading population. I think we should do away with these long form features that YouTube goes specializing and just in charts, just rankings. That's all I want from now on. Top five feelings I have on the back of a pay-per-view. That's what we're going to do.

Like bleach a report like 20 years after the fact, you know. Oh, it's fun. We do have a good time. Boys. Yeah, we should get to the rankings straight away. The pound for pound rankings. I mean, a bit of movement here. On Air Jordan has joined us from Las Vegas, the last of the Mohicans in Las Vegas from

the Ariel Hauwani show. And what a trip those boys had. I saw them eating that chicken yesterday and I was thinking about what would I look like if I was stuffing really hot chicken in my face? Not good is the answer. So for that brief moment, I was happy I wasn't there. But for the rest of it, it was very, very jealous. I almost say it looked like a fantastic adventure for all the team. Jordan hanging around, of course today. He loves us for that. Jordan, can you talk to the people or you can't talk to

the people right now? How does that go? He's not talking to me. He can't even talk to us. Yeah. He can't even talk to us. What kind of psycho he can talk. Oh, here we go. What house who goes to Vegas for the weekend and then stays until Tuesday. It's that's what I was just thinking. That's a long ass weekend. Tell him how long you've been there.

Jordan. Eight days. Eight days. This is a hell hole. That's when you're at the pawn shops trying to get rid of shit. Like you're like, this necklace is worth something, you know? Are you hiding out? The guy who hates Vegas the most, you're the longest.

Oh man. At that point, you're going to, when you leave town, you're going to have to leave in a hurry in trouble with some real bad people. That's what happens if you stay in Vegas for that long. in trouble with some real bad people. That's what happens if you stay in Vegas for that long. Just blink if you're in trouble, Jordan. Oh, we can't see you. Oh well.

Well, hopefully you're not in trouble. Anyway, guys, great show today. Yo, hit us with the, with the rank is Jordan. Well, we still have you live there in Sin City. Oh, what's that? I'll tell you what it is. It's a new man atop the pound for pound rankings. It's Ilya Taporyev.

Look at it. Look at his cheeky little smile there with his two belts. Look at that cheeky little, look at his little face there. Second place is Islam. Every one of you guys who voted for Ilya Taporyev as number one were like, Oh God, I hope I'm not being an idiot. Every single one of you guys who voted for Ilya Toporia as number one were like, Oh God, I hope I'm not being an idiot. Every single one of you guys prefaced it like that. And to be fair, I believe I'm talking to two gentlemen right now who did not pick

Ilya Toporia as your number one. We've got good sense still. I mean. Well, the way I go about the pound for pound rankings is Chuck has my proxy. That's right. I... That's right for pound rankings is Chuck has my proxy. That's right. Uh, I, I, That's right. This is really behind the curtain bin.

You sure you want to hear this? I don't, I don't love the pound for pound rankings, uh, as an exercise. And so, and I also don't feel passionately about the order that people appear in most of the time. So I feel like I tell Chuck, Hey, whatever you're doing with your rankings, copy and paste it, put my name on that one. I've buried it up for you. I try to like get into your head a little bit.

You know what I mean? You're like, what would Ben say about this? You know, I put Raquel, I put Raquel, Walt, Pennington in one of your rankings. Like last time, and I was like, wait a minute, why should, she should be gone by now, right? Like she's, she's been gone a minute. I mean, don't you think though that like, for one thing, everybody, when it comes to rankings and it comes to any kind of goat conversation, we remember whatever

we saw last that occupies a big spot in our mind. And so you go up a weight division, you beat a guy at a higher division. We just saw that then. Yeah. You're going to be number one pound for pound. Islam Magachev goes out there later and beats, uh, uh, you know, Jack Delamattalena and people are going to be talking about him as pound for pound. Like that's just how it goes.

We all accept that. Uh, it's poor guys like Marab and Alexander Pantoja who got to get stuck down there just because they're staying home in their own weight class. But that's how it works. I will say this was maybe three and four, respectively three and four. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, Murab and Pantoja.

I will say that the first four guys now on our men's rankings are pretty solid. Like that's like, that four is pretty inarguable whichever order you want to put them in, but I'm like, they have, that's, those are four guys who've really distinguished themselves, um, to belong in the top four. And then it gets very difficult from there, you know, like it's, it's a lot of, like Aspen all you have them up there, but obviously he's not really fighting a lot. And he didn't get to fight the guy that we wanted to see him fight. Um, but what are you going to do?

Drop them out based on that? You know what I mean? So it gets, it gets weird after the first four, but the first four are very, very solid right now. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. And to Ben's point, like, I do think recency is part of the criteria

big time for the pound for pound rankings. Like it is actually like right now, who do I think is the best fighter? So of course, of course, not you. And Elliot goes in there and bombs the head off Charles Oliver era. You know what I mean? You're like, yeah, fuck. Yeah, he's number one in the world right now. I mean, coming out to Antonio Banderas, you know, come on. The guy it's making me feel a certain way.

If you hear that shit at 6 a.m. in Ireland and you're like, holy shit, this is an amazing entrance. That's wild. That does not happen anymore. 15 years in, you couldn't give a fuck what's happening when they're walking to the cage most of the time. This lad whips out a desperado tune. I nearly shit myself.

I was like, God, oh my God, this is what it feels to be young again. Amazing stuff. It's funny that everybody's basically like, all of us hardcore guys who've been around this game a long time are like, that was revitalizing to watch this guy come in there and suddenly like give a spark of something that we this guy come in there and suddenly like,

give a spark of something that we, we remember from back in the day, you know, like there's something about that performance and this, the whole setup and that night that it was like, uh, I dunno, it tapped into some genuine, like original source of enthusiasm for the sport for me. Yeah. Well, also, I mean, the thing is too, we don't often see a guy just be exactly who he tells us he is. And like for him to show up at the weigh-in at the ceremonial part of the weigh-in

and be standing there with Charles Olivera, like, Hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what's about to happen to you here. Like it's already over. You don't know it yet, but it is so great. And like, I, I apologize. Like that is had to be you.'t know it yet, but it is. That is so great. And like, I apologize. Like that is. It had to be you. You know, I like you, man.

Sorry, it has to be you. The implication was I had to go up here and beat the hell out of some lightweight. I didn't want it to be you, but they said it had to be you, and so here we are, and I'm sorry. And it's like, that is. Good thing Charles never learned English though,

can't understand. It's an incredible it's like, that is a good thing. Charles never learned English though. It's an incredible amount of like, we would call it arrogance or hubris if you lose, but when you just keep winning, I don't know, we got to call it something else because that's just an unbelievable kind of next level confidence to have. And then to go in there and a part of you is going like, man, I, the MMA gods can hear you, they can hear you bragging this way. Uh, and, but then he goes in there and he just does exactly what he said he was going to do. And you're like, well, what can you say?

Except that like, he, he knows the future. He knows better than anybody else what's about to happen. He really is a superstar without even really having to tell us he's a superstar. And without the UFC really even putting like any kind of extra special effort into it, just him showing up seems to be enough. Like that is something that we have been missing a lot. And he's above like superstition, right? Like some guys, I mean, they'll still tell you whatever, but I think there's

such a superstition in our sport, especially from people like you can't take anything for granted the moment you take something for granted in the sport, some chaos happens and you get something else. Look at Cyril Gaughan now, possibly getting a shot. When you're, when you take for granted, we've got Aspen O'Lan Jones, right? Like you can't take anything for granted. It seems like it's always punished. So to see a guy so casually, not worried about the governors, the

cause, you know, cosmological governors and what they might do to like, uh, to spite you, you know, and like the, and to make it not come to pass for him to just go out there casually, like, no, no, no, no, we've got an agreement. Me and whatever's going on. We have an agreement and this is what's going to happen. And then it happens. I mean, that's like, that's, it's always the stuff that starts to feel transcendent.

You know what I mean? Cause you just don't see that kind of thing. Yeah. And another thing that we don't see a lot of, or we haven't until recently, is people being pushed into the cage for a face-offs. Very exciting time for fans. Oh, look at this.

Things are happening. Joshua Vann's in there. There's Paddy Pimlet. Um, Dana didn't like it. Dana didn't like it, Chuck. Uh, I thought it was, it was a great moment. It also like just solves the, the, the mathematics we're all doing, right? We're all sitting there going, is it going to be Gagey?

Is it going to be, uh, Sarukin? Yeah. I feel like you can't really walk it back after that, can you? You can't really... Stop. That's what he hated. I think that's what he hated is like that he's a guy who likes to oversee his operation.

He doesn't want Joe Rogan going rogue and saying, Hey man, come on in, come on in, Patty, let's, let's face off because Dana's the dude, right? Everybody has to kind of get their approval through Dana. And I think, you know, he's got a point, the family's in there and all this stuff. It's... But it was, I don't know how you guys felt about it. I thought that was an incredible moment. I was like, oh, this is beautiful.

They're already setting the table so brilliantly for the next fight. I think a lot of people that works the imagination, Patty being who he is, he's a natural foil in a situation like this. He can bring out dimensions. Maybe we haven't even seen, uh, from Ilya get his temper going a little bit, which he's been so poised. I think that it's all brilliant, but Dana's kind of sometimes like, it's weird to watch him rain on the parade a little bit when it's his product.

I'm like, man, just embrace it. But I really do believe it's just, you overstepped your authority, Joe. You go through me on those kinds of things. Yeah. I think that's exactly what it is. He's, I mean, he'd be, especially the older Dana White gets the stodgier he seems to become. That's true. Just in terms of like a fight.

Like, he used to be the guy who was like a opposite of somebody like Bob Arum, who was out there as like, I'm the old boxing promoter telling you how it is, kid, and it's been this way for 50 years, and it'll continue to be this way. And Dana White was like the young brash firebrand, uh, changing things up. And now he's hit a certain point of like age and financial success that he's kind of become more of a Bob Aron type himself, where it's just like, he wants

to be this certain kind of way. And he doesn't like anybody else doing it, going off script and doing anything other than that. Uh, cause it was like a, an entertaining moment. Like if you think that your job is to go out there and show the fans stuff that they can get excited about, then you did it here. And I do think he'd rather just like not have the options limited that way. You don't want to see Patty Pimlet feel like now he's in a position

where you got to come to him as the challenger. Uh, yeah. So I don't think they love that, but it's also like, if part of the job of every single one of these pay-per-views seems to be to get us excited about a future pay-per-view, which that explains why they're always running ads for the next one during the current one, uh, then, then you did it here.

Like, you, you set up what's next. You don't then have to go into this like period of chaos and confusion where we all sit around waiting to hear, like usually what we wait to hear is who got the call from the USC and said yes first? Said yes to the date for, right? And like here you have something where you're already working like a narrative that then people will be interested

to see it come to fruition at some point in the future. So like, I don't see it's bad. I think it's kind of an excuse to be like the families were in the cage. It's like, man, we were letting Brock Lesnar come in there and shove Daniel Cormier. You know, I don't know how concerned we really are for anybody's family as like innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, you know? Chook's got a great, great article out about this whole situation on, on crown at the moment. I'm just going to give you a little paragraph from her here.

Sarukin is a dangerous matchup for Tapuria. He's an art house think piece, a more sophisticated experience. Pimlet is a Michael Bay film. He's going to give you crashes, explosions and comedic one-liners in the most distressing moments. As a natural followed with some bad blood, he's going to shade in parts of Toporia's character that we haven't yet seen. He's going to treat the microphone like a fuse burning down to fight night.

And it has already become... The Michael Bay analogy is definitely accurate because, yeah, Paddy Pimlet, he's bad boys too, right? Yes, yes. He's out here with the camera doing the slow, like, 360 pan while we're talking about shit just got real. And Armand Sorokyan is like Tinker Tailor soldier

spy. Like, it's a quietly slow burning kind of procedural sort of thing. Oh, he's the limley. I felt so bad for him, though. I was thinking about, how would you like to be Sorokyan sitting there that night? You know, you're thinking, yeah, man, I can beat this guy.

And then in your head you're saying, okay, we sat in the sub, then on there bringing in Paddy in and sat in the sub, you're like, dude, where's my shop liver? Yeah, you're like, you probably got to be watching and going like, oh, I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could just walk up there and get in there and make yourself the next contender.

You got to get a seat where you can climb over the partition pretty easily. That's what you got to do. I also think though that like at this point where we are with lightweight, I don't know who is that interested in getting hung up on the rankings in terms of like who deserves to be number one contender next, right? Like don't we just, we want to see something fun. We want to see like good times happen, especially because it's like

Islam leaves the division, leaving it essentially without a champion. And so we have this fight, which seemed kind of felt like it was going to be Ilya Toporya versus TBD. And we were going to just choose somebody from among like a name, grab bag of like three, four names. We chose Charles Olivera. He goes in there, beats Charles Olivera easily, just makes quick work of him. And so now it's not like there's somebody who has to be next.

Like Armand Swarovski, I think lost a lot of whatever fan support he might've had. You know, when we were like, all right, like we're gonna, we're going to let you have a lightweight title shot and then you don't show up for it. And now people are just kind of going like, well, there's history with Patty and Ilya seems like it'd be a fun fight. It's not like anybody feels it would be at this point, a miscarriage of justice. If Armand Serukhin doesn't get his shot in time, like, there's just not like a, a ground swell of support for that.

And so. Just Armand and his family, you know? Right, yeah. And other than that, people are just like, we wanna see a fun, interesting fight. I agree, man. That seems like it has some personal stakes and that seems like it will be an exciting matchup

of styles and Patty and Ilya checks all those boxes. Pizzi, you've been abdicating for this, man. Like you wanted Patty Pimblitt even before Charlie got in there, right? Like you wanted Patty first. Oh no. I don't like that. Are you muted?

It's not working. Well, sorry. There it is. I was coughing loudly and I turned that off for a second, but now I'm back. Um, speaking of personal stakes, little quote here from Patty Pimblitt, very aggressive. Here it is.

You don't need to sell that fight. It sells itself. Two people who genuinely dislike each other. You don't really get that. I don't know about that. We haven't seen that since Habib and McGregor. Two people who actually hate each other because I hate him. I wouldn't even want to finish him. No, we don't want to go that dark, do we?

I mean, let's keep it a little light. I don't want to finish him with a minute left in the fight after I've elbowed him 700 times. I want to disfigure him. That's what Paddy Pimp says. He wants to take away that man's good looks, Ben. That ain't right. That ain't right to destroy something beautiful like that.

Although, like, you get the same thing from Ilya, and I think this is part of what would be the appeal of the fight is Ilya being like, I did not enjoy having to do that to Charles, I will enjoy doing that to Patti Timlitt. And you're like, man, if that's how good you are at hurting people when you don't want to, what happens when you really, really want to? Or does that knock them off as moorings to have like some kind of emotional like stake, you know?

And, but see that just creates more doubt and questions and anticipation about the fight itself. Whereas if you matched them up against Armand Tsarukyan, you'd have to just be like, Hey, Armand has won this series of fights and therefore that's why we're doing this, uh, and also we're, we're not even going to try to make sure everybody can spell his name right. Like, cause we think this is just like a next tsunami, you know, um, you all agree that Gachi shouldn't be in this, like nobody, I feel like it's one of those two

guys, right? But then what do you do? What? I don't know. That's a great question. Where are those guys? Potty Pimler. What do you do you do? What? Okay. I don't know. That's a great question. When you go with one of those guys, Patti Pemblit, what do you do with the other one? I mean, I'm not opposed to Surukian and Gachey.

I don't know what you guys think. I would be okay with that. Why not just have them fight each other if they want to do something? I mean, this is a problem you get into a lot of times with divisions that have more than one plausible contender next is because you get a lot of guys where they feel like, especially Armand Surukian get a lot of guys where they feel like, especially Arman Tsuruki. And you can see why he'd feel like, Hey, I, I earned a spot. I got here.

I don't want to risk that with more and more contender fights. I don't just want to be taking number one contender fights endlessly. When I am already the number one contender, I don't want to put that up for grabs. Like, let me just go and get my fight. And so like, you can understand why he feels that way, but that's why you get so many of these divisions that seem to have sort of like a roadblock at the top or just like a lot of inactivity at the top, because anybody who's three and up just feels like I'm already there.

That can only, I can only lose that by continuing to fight and, you know, nobody wants to fight down the rankings. And so it's like fewer and fewer fights that even make sense for you. I mean, Justin Gaethje, like, I definitely do feel for him, some of the stuff he said about how things have gone between him and the UFC lately, where he says like, Hey, I was promised these certain kinds of things, like, Hey, do this for us. And this will be what comes back. And it seems like he's feeling like the UFC maybe hasn't kept up there and what he understood that agreement to be.

But also at this point, after we saw him go face down in the max Holloway fight and the BMFI where we like, we love the fight. We're very appreciative of the effort, but also we don't exactly come out of that one being like, he's got to fight for the lightweight title sometime soon. You know, like it would be fun. Like he brings a certain like excitement and chaos to any of the equations. But doesn't it also seem like, especially the type of fighter Ilya Tupori is that he'd pick Gaiety apart pretty easily.

Yeah. And also we know, I mean, we kind of know what Gaiety is going to offer. We know his ceiling. I think you're dealing in guys. The reason there's so much imagination surrounding these other guys is because we don't know their ceiling, right? Like you don't know how far Arman Surukhian can go. You don't know Patty Pimblitt's ceiling yet because he's still on the rise.

He's won all of seven of his fights in the OC. Sometimes, I mean, it's rare to get the scenarios like what we're, we're dealing with Topperia where you're basically like talking about guys where you're just not seeing them lose really. You know what I mean, it's rare to get the scenarios like what we're dealing with Topperia, where you're basically like talking about guys where you're just not seeing them lose really. You know what I mean? Like, so I feel like that that's part of it. And with Gaetje, it's almost like, and you hate to say this, but it reminds me a little bit of when the, you know, the whole Mosvédal, Ousmane, you know, all the guys in that division were just kind of at the top. You're like, well, I've already kind of seen, we need new blood somewhere in that division were just kind of at the top. You're like, well, I've already kind of seen, we need new blood somewhere in that division. Well, this one, it's all new blood at the top.

And then there's a couple of guys like Gachey that are there. They're intriguing because they always put on good fights, but you kind of know more about Gachey than you knew these other guys. So I feel like that's why the intrigue is so big for Toporia and these, you know, either Armand or Paddy to step in there against them. Yeah.

And look, they need more than that. Like I'm looking at the rankings here for that division. The lads who are there have been there for so long. Like obviously Islam's gone up, but Olivera, Gagey, Holloway, Poria, Hooker. Gamrot's a new name in the, in the title mix, I guess. Dariush is in the top 10 still. New guy. But like there isn't a lot of guys, right? Fizu, Fizu, sorry, Moicano Chandler, Benoit, Sandinee, who we all thought was going to be up there.

And then Grant Dawson, like they need, they need to get those. They need to start turning over some new contenders big time. Basically what we need, we need to replicate what we saw welterweight at lightweight, you'd think, right? Like it just, it does feel a little bit stale. One of, one of the things that was discussed quite a bit last week, um, was the idea of toporia fighting in Spain and Dana White said, you know, we just can't go there at the moment. When you hear that this guy is pulling numbers akin to a Real Madrid Champions League game at Rafael Nadal tennis game.

Like this is crazy. This is top tier. The Philadelphia Spanish sport. I would say this guy now is like Marco one of the most celebrated magazines of all time putting out this kind of stuff. He is in rarefied air there. They have never had this guy again. Another we've gone this far without comparing them to Conor McGregor.

I'm about to do it now. He is the Conor McGregor of Spain. There we go. He is making everybody care. People really want to check this out. We looked into it at the great honor of Jordan even did some background, despite him being now eight days in sin city. And he pulled up some great stuff from the BBC, some tweets for us, basically a

very similar situation occurring around Santiago, Santiago, Bernabeu, where Real Madrid play as there is in Croke park in Dublin. And we know Croke park, Ben thinks it's a fictitious place. It doesn't exist. I've heard about it. I've heard so much stuff about it. Never seen anybody actually go there. It's not even a, but this is the same thing that's happening there.

It's a residence association there and they kind of make demands on, on when people can go in and play in that venue. Okay. But such a recurring theme, isn't it? It's like, remember the Dallas Cowboys stadium forever. And then it was Croke park. Now we're talking about the Bernabelle. It's like, it's like every, every five years we've got like a new fixation.

Well, and I, I get it to a point, but it's also like the, we have all sort of like internalized the UFC's own logic that if you go and you do it, it would have to be at a time where you could do it. So it's a prime time pay-per-view back in North America, which it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. You could do it at other times. It seems like we're not willing to take a chance on sacrificing a single pay-per-view dollar for this.

If we had it earlier in the day where it would have to air here like in, you know, early afternoon or something like that. Uh, yeah, you might sell fewer pay-per-views, but it'd be an incredible live event viewing experience. Like I understand why doing it in the middle of the night in Spain so that it could air, you know, 10 PM here doesn't seem like a workable solution for a whole lot of people, but like, that's not the only options available. It just depends, like, do you want to create one of these big moments like that? Like if you want to have the moment and you can figure out a way to do it there.

I mean, they can have to. Like little earplugs, right? Like to the, to the neighbors. No, but you, what, Pizzi, you tell me USC 93. Remember that back when, uh, Irish hand grenade was fighting out in Dublin and, uh, in Hindu, I think was on that card against Franklin. Wasn't that a pay-per-view that aired here in the States at like 1 PM? Do you recall like that?

It had to have been a normal time in Ireland. Cause I remember it was an afternoon affair and I felt like that was one of the scarring moments for the, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we're not going to do shows like that. Yeah, that's true. That, that, that did happen. And you're right. It was like our time. It was prime time. That, that, that did happen. And you're right. It was a like our time.

It was prime time, our, our time as opposed to US time, but don't they do these cards in Abu Dhabi all the time at their time? Do you not guys, are you guys watching pay-per-view? So I don't pay attention to, no, I'm kidding. They, they, they, they, that's the one place, right? Like the, I feel like that we still get the, uh, the afternoon card. Um, that's what I mean. Why can't they do a similar thing?

I mean, again, whenever you're trying to figure out why the UFC does or doesn't do a thing that you can't understand, it's money, isn't it Ben? You should hear the voice in your head going, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's what it is. Right. Cause it's just like, oh, why would we do it

in somebody else's local time zone? Cause they're paying us to. And the issue that you get into with some of these other places is like, yeah, you could go and have a huge event there, but do the local authorities in charge of the purses care enough about bringing it there to pay you just to come put on a very profitable show

in their city. And if the answer is no, then they're probably not gonna do it. So like, it could be done. Like we were acting like there are like all these insurmountable obstacles to doing it. The fact is that it could absolutely be done. It's just UFC thinking like it would be easier

and make us slightly more money to do it a different way. I mean, and the environment matters. I mean, when you're talking about McGregor, you think about that Dublin show. I just remember how that felt even watching remotely. You're watching something unfold, you're like, man, this is crazy. The passion that this guy has brought out

of his countrymen is absurd. When the UFC first went to Brazil, it was like that. You know, UFC 134, Ben, I was sitting right next to you for that card. And it was like, you know, it was a mad scene. You're scene. You, you're getting, it was like all Brazil against the world. And every one of those guys was getting like a hero's welcome. Yeah. And you were throwing the beers on.

I know. That's why we work. We're closing every time after a fight, we close our computers. I hope we didn't get. The beers have come raining down from the rafters. Um, but it's like, I just, aren't you kind of dying to know like his reception there? Like, look at those shows in France that they were doing. I'm just, you see the enthusiasm that these people that went dying to have

like a champion or somebody that can get behind rallying behind their guy. I just, I would love to see it. I just, it's just one of those things as a fan of the sport. You just want to see that. Right. And the difference, right? Like, like just in, just to stick to this for a second, the difference are going to see Aspinall v Volkoff and that card, I think was a Pimlet v Levitt was on that card

and Hooker v Arnold Allen. Like that, that 2022 card where it was just the first, the first one after the pandemic and it was a magic night. And the difference between the, the atmosphere that night and then the UFC Manchester when it's Leon V. Bilal in the middle of the night like I was there for both of them it was like you know you could just see lads like checking the times for like trains as the main cars just like what the fuck man three hours Jesus you know and something they they were dying for but you just can't you just can't expect an arena full of people who just don't live at those times to be excited about being there at those times. It's just, it's not going to happen.

The train station after that Manchester card was one of the most fucking depressing places I've ever been in my fucking life. And I've been in some pretty, fucking depressing places. I'm sure. I mean, if they did it at the Bernabelle though, if they really did this, would it not just be, oh my God, they're finally doing something like this? It'd be so cool. Because they haven't done this. They just haven't done a big stadium show.

It seems like they really don't want to. I think in some cases, they just don't want the, they want it to be as intimate as they can while they can maximize the dollar. So they don't want like guys sitting a mile away from the action where you can't see the octagon. But if they really did this, it would be like a monumental moment because we've had these talks about so many different shows that never come to fruition, I feel like it would feel like a groundbreaking event.

Yeah. I also think though part of it at least has to be that they've gotten very used to a controlled and fairly predictable, like live event kind of setup. And so if you go and you do something completely different, like in a big stadium like this, then you'd have to figure out like, how are we going to do it? Like, how are we going to change like our like existing, you know, production outfit to be able to go and do this and maybe do it at different times and all that stuff.

And they are such a well-oiled machine at this point where it just, they can roll into town, set up their stuff, broadcast it. It all goes off without a hitch, looks more or less the same as it was when you were in a different city, you know, three, four weeks ago. And then you load up the trucks and head to the next place. And it's like, I think that there's a little bit of resistance to just doing something new and different, but then that is part of what would be very exciting about it for us, right?

The fans. Yeah. Yeah. Even like Marab was on with Ariel there yesterday. And the conversation came up about like Georgia, when are they going to do Georgia, the same kind of thing. He's like stumbling around for reasons. They were just in Atlanta.

What's he talking about? You know, I realized some, and he's kind of stumbling around for reasons. They were just in Atlanta. What's he talking about? You know, I realize him and he's kind of stumbling around like, oh, you know, we can't really do that. And then of course they'd have to pay for that. Yeah, that's really the problem. Fuck.

And I mean, if they went to Azerbaijan, they would definitely go to Georgia, I think if the money's right. If the money's right, um, onto something completely different, uh, the kind of McGregor appeal got underway in Dublin today. Uh, of course there was, it was highly publicized that McGregor would appeal this and about two months ago, I came to it that he had new witnesses, um, that were going to give, um, evidence.

And that could be had they had they given evidence that would have been cause for a retrial to some degree. However, today, and I'm reading this from RT, the national broadcaster over here in Ireland, former MMI fighter Conor McGregor has withdrawn his application to introduce new evidence in his appeal against the the finding of a high court jury in a civil trial that he raped Nikita Hand. In an unexpected development just before the hearing was due to start, Mr. McGregor's lawyer told the court of appeal that they would be withdrawing the new claims alleging that Ms. Hand was assaulted by her

then boyfriend on the same day that she met Mr. McGregor. Her lawyers told the court that she was owed an apology. Ms. Hand sued Mr. McGregor alleging she was raped in a hotel in Dublin in December 2018. The jury found in her favour and awarded her almost 250,000 euros in damages. Mr. McGregor is challenging the verdict and wants to bring in fresh evidence as part of his appeal. Samantha O'Reilly and her partner Steve Cummins lived opposite Ms. Hand and her then boyfriend Stephen Redmond in Drimna in 2018. After Ms. Hand won her case, Ms. O'Reilly and Mr. Cum. Coleman swore affidavits for Mr. McGregor, alleging they had seen and heard a row between Ms. Han and Mr. Redmond on the night of 9th December 2018,

after Ms. Han had been out with Conor McGregor. They were expected in court to be cross-examined as part of this appeal. Ms. Han was also due to be questioned about their evidence. But before the case started, Mr. McGregor's barrister, Mark Mulholland, told the court that he wanted to withdraw the evidence. He said this was partly on the basis that other supporting evidence they wanted to introduce would not be admissible. Mr. Mulholland said the lawyers had looked at the case holistically and were of the view

that there were no corroboration of Miss O'Reilly's evidence and it was not a sustainable ground. So that is ongoing now. They are different, different grounds for appeal that McGregor's lawyers are looking at. So we will know in the next two days as to whether that has been successful. Obviously, a big chunk of that now being taken away due to those witnesses not giving evidence, it will be down to the judge's charge to the jury, I believe, is one of the issues. The charging sheet, I believe, is one of the other issues. A lot of semantical things going on.

But we will keep you up to date as soon as we get a decision one way or the other on that. And, lads, this story is not going away. It's fair to say, Ben. Ben Wattenberg Well, I mean, it seems like it's McGregor's doing that story is not going away, it's fair to say, Ben. Ben Uh, kind of situation, right? Like we're just, as long as he can keep having some sort of like thing he can point to in terms of deniability, then maybe he thinks that that's a win and it's worth the continued, uh, court costs and all that stuff, but it is like, it's just giving fresh headlines to this story that, especially, uh, as I've come

to understand from you, Pete, you seem like it dominated the Irish news media for a long time there last year. You just, a couple weeks ago, had a story where you're on tape punching a guy in a nightclub. So you're creating nothing but bad headlines for yourself. And I don't know, I don't know if he really thinks that there's a future where the slate gets kind of wiped clean for him here, but that's hard to imagine. I mean, and no matter what, you know, Nikita hand to be kind of like still

dealing in this little regard, I mean, and I know like, you know, obviously if there was innocence from a Gregor's standpoint or any of that stuff, then he's going to go through the proper, he's going to try to show that. But to be in the key to hand and like to keep dealing in this man, like, it's got to just be so, this is rough. It's what, seven years since the incident and you're still dealing in it and still going through these fresh, these fresh things. And it's just, it's weird.

And you know, man, like you get into MMA coverage, you don't think that you got to like kind of know, you know, I wish I kind of went to law school to become a, uh, you know, uh, an effective MMA guy, because it's like, I feel like we need to discuss these court things, um, and law stuff too. It's like, uh, you know, just law, like everything that's going on, but the kind of, I'm with Ben on this. It's just, when you're constantly putting negative headlines, it's hard to draw any kind of public sentiment towards your case, you know, in general, because you're just, you're out there as a kind of wild man who obviously is not

too worried about consequences and whatever you're doing. So it's just, anytime these things come up, man, it's just like, I guess there's a presumption that Connor is probably guilty, you know? And so you hear the tail ends of these things and it's just, uh, I guess, I, I guess that's kind of where I'm at on it, you know? And I feel bad for, I felt bad for Nikita on this. Yeah. I mean, and that was a big story as well that these two witnesses were coming forward.

Like I see horror counselor kind of saying, this is perjury and stuff like this. I just want to get from this article as well, just to clarify. The case continued based on two main grounds of appeal. Senior counsel Remy Farton raised that the issue of Mr. McGregor's answer to Gardi, that's the police here, when he was interviewed, interviewed the trial heard that he said no comment around 100 times. Mr. Farrell said that this was manifest, the prejudicial evidence that should have not been introduced and the judges ruling that it was admissible

was wrong. Mr. McGregor had the right to silence in Garda police again, interviews and a right not to incriminate himself. Council said, Mr. Farrell, that's his lawyer, also raised the issue of the question asked of the jury on the issue paper. The jurors were asked if Mr. McGregor had assaulted Nikita Hand. He said that the parties in this case had agreed that the issue paper should have specified sexual assault rather than assault. So that is what is being debated and.

And conversed over in Dublin court at the moment, and I think it is it is scheduled to finish on the third of July. As far as the judge commented today, it is moving a lot quicker because they were to cross examine those two witnesses. And obviously that was taken off the bill this morning. So that has sped things up quite substantially, I'd imagine. So it could have a decision on this tomorrow, but it should definitely have a point of third as far as I know. And again, we will have a report on that on Uncrowned as soon as we get the information. Now another thing, completely different lads, another man who we were concerned about not getting into the United States.

There's Hamzat Shemayev. Lads look at you. I can see how safe you feel knowing that the middleweight contender Hamzata Chamoyev is in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Can we play the national anthem? No, no, we can't. And there it is. You might want to set that up beforehand. He's arrived.

Look at that, that beautiful flag. He's arrived in Los Angeles airport, but it looks things. This is a, this is a positive sign in terms of that middleweight division. Right. I don't think we were all fully convinced that something wouldn't hit an old hitch before this went down, but the Chicago date looking good, Chuck Mendenhall. I mean, I was doing our rankings and I'm like, it's the first day that comes to your mind, well, if we get this fight, you know, cause he's in our top 10, if we get this fight.

And I'd say that this is a very positive sign. I guess these visa issues and the current political climate, like, you know, it's like, I assumed that this would happen. I assumed that Dana White wouldn't make the fight, like that the matchmakers wouldn't do this unless they had pretty good authority that they would be able to. Um, but it is always good. I still feel like there's a little bit of a let's wait and see because there are still weight cuts and there are still, um, you know, other things

that we've seen him struggle with. In the past. And so it always feels a little hypothetical. It's weird. Like he's lived mostly in a, uh, hypothetical kind of thing, this whole way, like his whole career, like us imagining him in a title shot, for instance, is like, we've been doing this for a long time. So it's one of those kind of like, keep your fingers crossed, keep your toes

crossed and hopefully we get it, but that's a very good sign, man. The fact that he can be over here in the United States and the fact that he's able to kind of, because I felt like he was, you know, he's, it's kind of scarce to see him compete at all because there was only a couple of options available to him to fight. And if this really opens up things for him, maybe to see him compete at all because there was only a couple of options available to him to fight. And if this really opens up things for him, maybe we see him more often. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, you mentioned, like it does feel like some of the magic of Hamza has been lost, right? Like the guy that we first got, even though he's brilliant, he's this great fighter. We all know that there was the idea that he couldn't fight outside of the Middle East, but there was a magic that he had. It was lightning in a bottle when he first got here and as brilliant a fighter as he is and as unique of a character is I just feel like we're constantly trying to get him back there despite him like being way higher in the rankings than he's ever been.

Despite him knocking on the door of this title, lots of people are like, he's going to beat the shit out of DDP. We already discussed how we felt about that. We will return to that in a moment. But has there been something lost, Ben, when Hamza Chamoyev? Like, you know, I felt there was a magic around him. Like not quite what Taboria has now because he's like a double champion. But he had that John Jones shit when John Jones just showed up and he spit an elbow in these Jake O'Brien and, and, and

lads like that. Like he kind of had that thing and I don't know if he has it now. Well, I think what happened was that at a point it kind of veered into self parody because there were these years where it seemed like whoever would win a fight, Hamza would be on Twitter being like, I'll smash this person. And at first people were like, yeah, yeah, okay. That'll be interesting. We would like to see if you're right about that.

And then it got to a point where people, you know, like that hilarious aside from Robert Whitaker before they actually fight where he was like, Hamza was telling me he'll smash me. And I was like, where, where can you even get in for us to fight? Like, I don't like from a practical standpoint, it just, it got kind of ridiculous at a certain point. And I also think that that fight with Kamaru Usman, even though he won it, a lot of the, the air kind of came out of the balloon there when we saw just sort

of how he looked in that fight, especially the circumstances, I think that we expected, okay, he's, he should cruise here and he really didn't. And so I think that now we're getting back to the point where we're like, okay, we can, we can work ourselves back up to that hype level. It'll take a little bit of time, but I think as this fight gets closer, people are going to get excited about it because it's a really interesting style matchup for GDP to have, but also just because like, if you think about, if DDP were to win this, if he goes out there, like you'd have to take a step

back and look at the last like year plus of his career and be like, holy shit. Did this guy who we all kind of still regard as not that good, did he just become one of the greatest middleweights of all time? And I think if he, if he were to beat Hamza Tshemayev, you'd kind of have to say yes at this point, wouldn't you? That's crazy to even contemplate, but I mean, you're right. You're absolutely right, man. Like his, he defaults back to like sleeping on him.

I don't know why, I don't know. Every time he fights you're like, oh man, we gotta like give this guy his respect cause you see what he does. And then we just go back to sleeping on him. And it must be some original idea of how he fought, thought he was more reckless. But he looks awkward, right?

He does look awkward, you know? But I mean, just given the resume and what he's been able to put together, man, that's saying something. But to go back real quick to your Hamsa thing, I mean, Pizzi, you tell me, like, you watch him go through Robert Whitaker like he did, break his jaw up like that. Like to me, that waszi, you tell me, like it's, it's, you watch him go through Robert Whitaker, like he did break his jaw up like that.

Like to me, that was like, okay, wait, now if we lost a lot of the air in the balloon, that puts something back in it for me, I was like, okay, this guy, but the only, it was always the kind of more of the red flag issues. It was always, like I was saying, the hypotheticals you're like, is he going to be able to fight the guys that he needs to fight? Is he going to be able to do this? Can the UFC trust him to be in a championship fight? You know, but I feel like all of that, we'll see how it looks on fighting.

But if he goes through DDP, don't you feel like he would be 100% restored within that? Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think Ben and you made some good points there, like in terms of like, this is his opportunity. We could be really fucking excited after this fight, you know, if he, if he goes in there and he does that and based, this is his opportunity. We could be really fucking excited after this fight. You know, if he, if he goes in there and he does that and based, I didn't think.

In a month of Sundays, he's going to do that to Robert Whitaker. Like even I can remember watching it the next day and being shocked still, you know, you're like, Oh, what the fuck? Even though you've seen it today before, like, Oh, I can't believe this. Um, yeah, it was crazy, but, um, yeah, it's a really interesting for you. It's what maybe, maybe I'm, I'm being too critical of Hamza to say he's completely lost the magic. Um, I was probably a bit, um, a bit too overzealous with that statement, but it's.

You think Nate Diaz dodged the biggest bullet ever was like not having to fight. Oh yeah, no, the way that worked out could, it couldn't have gone better for Nate. Cause the UFC we're trying to do the thing. We're like, okay, you're leaving. All right. Let us get you absolutely trashed on the way out the door by this guy that we're excited about, and then the card has to get reshuffled at the last minute and they end up having to accidentally go, okay, here's strangely a winnable fight

for you that you can go out like flexing and mean mugging and, and ride off into the sunset with your earning potential still intact. Like that, that is, that was an incredible turn of events for him. And as far as like, Humza with his visa issues and stuff, like, let's be real. That all got sorted out on election night in America. As soon as Donald Trump was elected, then, I mean, and this should be, for Fight fans, this should be at least some perks of the trade-off. The downside is the UFC is going to make you sit through a Republican party roll call for,

at every single pay-per-view at this point. The turn-up gang signs. Oh my God. We're going to be out here forced to watch as like an agriculture secretary acts like they're, like they're David Spade at a UFC event. That's the downside. The upside is that now the UFC president,

when he needs to get a fighter into the country so that we can make our title fight go off, can just pick up the phone and make a call. And it's sort of like a rubber stamp for something like that. So it's like, yeah, that's, that's where we are right now in the sport, but at least, you know, at least we get the fights. Jemiah doesn't want any part of this. He doesn't like being affiliated to political things at all, man.

So this should be, this would be new. This would be novel. Do you know what, like, just as you're saying that, I don't think there's a single Irish politician you could put up on a big screen here and have anyone clap in this country. Not one. That's the way it should be. We should, no one should like any of these people. They're just going up everywhere.

Well, I mean, Trump's in a safe place when it comes to a UFC fight, you know? It's funny, but just before we move on, am I crazy? Like, were we all really high on DDP when this, this fight got announced? Were we not all like, they're fucking underestimating our boy. What the fuck is going on here? Were we like going to, did I go into the head, all of us and we were like, yeah, we'd pick DDP right now, or am I going fucking crazy here? Well, I don't, I think that it was that he, as soon as it was announced, he was

immediately the underdog, right? And so a big underdog. And people kind of went like, we're doing it again. We're just doing the thing that we keep doing with this guy where he'll, he'll win a fight and then we'll go, okay, but the next one, the next one you will surely lose and that, that's, it just feels like that same pattern all over again. And yet when I'm trying to sit there and be honest with myself and you're like, pattern all over again. And yet when I'm trying to sit there and be honest with myself and you're like, it really depends what kind of fight you get.

Because if you get a DDP fight, DDP wins it. And if you get a Homsot fight, then a Homsot wins it. Like if he can just drag you down and get you into that spin cycle, like he did to Robert Whitaker, then you got to think he probably wins it. The, the thing that we have yet to see, I think is, I still say while I was wrong about what was going to happen in the Homs odd Robert Whitaker fight, I was almost right because I was like, if Robert Whitaker can just get through the first round, it'll be, it'll be a different fight.

Turns out he could not get through the first round, but I still, I still might have been right, you know, I like to think that you were right. Patty got to that second row. Yeah. If I had bet, you know, a lot of money that Oklahoma city was going to win the championship, I'd be rich right now. You know what I mean?

Exactly. No, but I do think you're going to have to kill DDP. Like he's one of those guys and he almost comes to life. He reminds me a little bit of like, we've seen guys like that in the past. You get hit a couple of times and then they kind of activate like before your eyes and they start becoming like a beast in there, like he's kind of one of those guys. So if Shamiah isn't able, it's very similar to what you're talking about.

If he's not able to kind of, you know, set a tone or, or snatch that fight early. It seems like it would favor DDP if it keeps going. Right. Like it just seems like it would become his fight. He's shown that like he gets better as a fight goes on sometimes. Yeah. And also we've seen that Hamza, Hamza will brawl, uh, once, you know, he gets into those, if he can't just like manhandle you wrestling wise, he will go out there

and brawl, and I just don't think you want to do that with DDP. No, no, it's going to be, you know, we so low key savage at shit talking as well. DDP. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say. Can he make this man cry? That's the other thing. Yeah.

Like he's, he's kind of subtly one of the best shit talkers there is, right? Like he's very psychological with these guys. That'd be interesting. You know, that's a, that's a component to this fight, which should be fun. Yeah, it's crazy. It's kind of like a principal shit talking to you. That's what I always think. It's like people cannot believe he's saying,

they're just like, what the fuck was that? I was not ready for that today. My father, what the fuck? Um, lads we have a Abu Dhabi. We mentioned it earlier. There's another car that happened in Abu Dhabi. Yeah. It's UFC three 21 happened in Abu Dhabi. Yeah. It's UFC three, two, it's UFC three 21.

Look at that beautiful city. It didn't look like that when I was there. Now they're shooting up. That is crazy. What's after happening over there. And that might be Chicago. I'm not sure they might've gotten out of stuff. Just throw a few new buildings in there.

It's kind of fucking out. Um, Yaz Island. Just throw a few new buildings in there. It's kind of fucking bad. Yaz Island, I was there all the way back in 2019 for Habib V. Poirier, and it has come on leaps and bounds based on that image we just saw there and fair play to Abu Dhabi for that. Yes, it is. Just so I understand, back then it was Yaz Island. And then for a time it became Flight Island.

Now it's back to Yaz Island again. And it's not an island. That's straight, you know, more like a peninsula. Fighting over there is kind of like, you know, for Makachev at this point is like Billy Joel playing at MSG, isn't it? Like it just seems like no matter any time they're going to go there, it's like, well, we need our headliner. Where are you at Islam?

No, like seriously do it. Like he mentioned this before, like Habib at that time, he was like the king of Abu Dhabi, like the way he was, he was, he was doing different shit than every other fire. He decided he did. They weren't going to have a press conference. One of the days, all of us traveling across the fucking globe to see this. And he just was like, no, we're, we're not going to do the press conference.

And I was there with thank God Casey and Esther because, you know, they're, oh, geez, they can put their foot down and be like, what the fuck is going on here? We need to, we are here to hear this man talk. And then he was like, well, gonna do a 10 PM local time. How does that suit you? And I will speak for 10 minutes and leave. Oh my God. Like fair enough, mate.

That's class. Yeah. He was staying in some palace. He was a dictator both in and outside of that octagon. Yeah. Yeah. It was fucking crazy. It was a crazy event to be at.

That was the one with the tent and I was on the taxi on the way and there's this half built stadium, amazing looking stadium. I looked at the taxi man. Um, what, what's that there? And he goes, oh, that was the second time we tried to build it. Interesting. So weird, man. Take me to my tent.

Was Ferrari world already a thing back then? Ferrari world was a thing. I believe Casey went there on the Sunday or to the water park. That's where Casey went, of course. Oh, we can go down the slide and come out the mouth of the Cobra. How many shots did we see of that when they were showing off those, like, where it was just like, hey, come to fight islands. I remember Brad Okamoto was out on like a water ski out in the, like with the water there, like spraying water.

I was like, what is going on? This is truly magical. It's like a fantasy island, yeah. I just couldn't go outside because I'm too pasty. They needed Henry Cejudo tugging on a Dana, the white sleeve going, Hey, boss, the plane. That reference is not going to work for a lot of people are too old, too young for that one.

I'll show you staying down in the hotel, like say like next door neighbor away from me and I'd go over to him at night, but it was a three minute walk and I'd have a shower, I'd be in fresh clothes. But at the time I got to the door of his apartment, his hotel building, I'd be just covered completely in sweat. Everything stuck to me. I'd just be like, what the fuck is this? I've never known a heat like it was absolutely crazy, but Abu Dhabi great spot.

You saw the image. It looks really nice. October 25th, it was absolutely crazy. But Abu Dhabi great spot. You saw the image. It looks really nice. October 25th, it's going down. Are we fairly confident this will be JDMV Islam lads? I mean, gotta be right? Yeah, it has to be. I feel like that's the day. So we're talking about like, or designated, uh, home field for Islam.

Is JDM going to stay in a palace? That's what I want to know. I mean, he'd better like that's if I'm going over there as champion, as defending champion, yeah, give me my palace. Here's the thing that like, this is the part, this is some of the stuff that would probably make me nervous if I'm somebody like Arman Sarukian waiting around for my lightweight title shot. I just watched Patty get in there and kind of claim dibs.

Everybody's talking about him. And then I'm going like, all right. like Arman Tsaroukian waiting around for my lightweight title shot. I just watched Patty get in there and kind of claim dibs. Everybody's talking about him. And then I'm going like, all right, so Islam Makachev going to go up and going to have his welterweight title fight probably in the fall, if he wins or loses. You could see there being a big push for him versus Ilya, especially, you know, if by then we're looking at doing like Ilya versus Patty at a reasonable time, like you could wind up sitting here like early next year where it's just like Ilya versus Islam is the only fight anybody wants to see.

Nobody's trying to hear about a number one contender at lightweight. After that, like that you could easily just get passed over for an entire year. I think his thumb looks at this Ilya Toporya, like ascendance sees that big moment and is like, man. You know what I mean? Like as a competitor, I could have, that's the guy's, like now he's got all the juice, right? Like he's got all the juice, but he could have taken that away from him right then and there, right? Like he did, he couldn't have, he could have prevented him from him getting this moment. Like where he's like now getting the coronation, you know. He doesn't really seem that concerned with anything that is, I think that's

the, that's been the surprising part to me is because it just seems like with Ilya coming up, you would have thought he'd look at this fight and see the huge super fight potential being the defending champion and therefore getting points on the pay-per-view, he would have seen this is a big financial windfall for me even just to go in there and do that fight regardless of how it goes. And instead to go up and wait, like this will definitely be just not as big a fight as him versus Ilya on international fight week would have been. Like I think it would still be, you know, people will be interested in this fight, but it just won't have that sort of magnitude.

And Ilya's take on it was that Islam is just basically doing the same thing I'm doing. He doesn't want to keep making 155 maybe. He, he, there's, I think also some part of it that's like, hey, how do you stop just being Habib's friend in the eyes of the MMA fans? Go up a division, do something he never's friend, uh, in the eyes of the may fans go up a division, do something he never did, you know, win the second title. And that may be thinking if Ilja becomes lightweight champ, that fight will be there in the future and very well could be. Yeah.

So you, you don't think, you know, you, you made a, you made a great case for like how much John Jones cared, you know, in terms of how we feel about him and everything like that, you, you made a, you made a great case for like how much John Jones cared, you know, in terms of how we feel about him and everything like that. You don't think he's- He could care less, but he doesn't. But he doesn't. But you don't, you don't think he's looking at like, is Ilya the pound for pound guy and he's like, fuck this. You don't think there's any part of him that's like, fuck them. You don't think there's any part of it was like, fuck them. What the fuck.

I don't know. I think that mostly he's just sort of like got it in his head. What he's going to do. Uh, I think that part of it was also waiting around to see what would happen with Bilal and with Bilal kind of out of the way, it made it feel like that decision was easy for him because it kind of already decided that right. Like, and so going up and wait there and just feeling like, all right, it maybe doesn't hurt that you look and see the champion at the division right now is a guy who at least so far does not seem like one of the all time on undethronable

greats of the division. Like I could probably go up there and get that belt, add that to the trophy case. But it also just doesn't seem like Islam, whenever you talk to him, it just always seems like for one, he has a better sense of humor than you expect. But also that he's just like, is pretty non plus, but kind of all of this, you know, he just does not seem that concerned. No, he's definitely not debating how things were debating. He's just like, what?

No, we have just now put more thought into it than he did. Right. Well, we'll got to see what's going to happen on October 25th in Abu Dhabi. We're all buzzing for it here. Sean Strickland though, lads. Uh, I'm sure you've seen this. All of, all of the crew. I don't know.

Was on air Jordan there as well? Were you at Tofanova on air, Jordan? He checked out a little while ago. He was not. I mean, what the fuck. He was working. This is bullshit. I mean, you went to sin city to do what?

Like you don't even go and watch tough enough and, and see Sean Strickland jump into the cage with a very strange walk. And then this guy Lewis. Crotch shots. Chop him at your own peril. Right. What happened? Right.

Can we just go back to that one second? I think this is a croc issue of watch this quite a few times. The walk, you mean? Sports mode. Yeah. I don't think he's in sports mode. He's in show mode. He's got his crocs in show mode.

Yeah. Uh, if you can, uh, Jordan, just take us back to the startup video to see this walk. I'm pretty sure it's a croc. It's going to loop. Okay. Just get ready for this guys. Watch Sean Strickland as he enters here. It's a croc. It's going to loop. Okay. Just get ready for this guys. Watch Sean Strickland as he enters here. It's a croc situation.

Okay. You know what? You're talking like a guy who knows what a croc situation can do to a man. I've seen with Messopas Crocs a few times and it looks a lot like this before he hits me a few slaps. Now watch. Here he comes. Here he comes.

It's a problem. There is a problem there. There it is. Twice. I think he's in like old school flip flops, right? And like maybe he. Yeah, maybe he. Slaps, slaps as we call them.

I think he, I think he kicks them off at some point. Like, and that's, that's also a, the ease with which he kicks them off while he's getting ready to throw punches tells you that's maybe not the first time he's done that. Uh, what the hell is Curtis doing? Like he's just like, he's over there like,, kind of like Curtis seemed like he was, yeah. Like he was trying to like kind of big brother, the guy in his ear and talked to him about how inappropriate behavior. Yeah.

Well, to me, the, for one thing, he does not give a fuck. Well, especially like I heard him like some, the, the comments he made, I think to like Mike Heck where I didn't know MMA fight where he was just sort of like, Hey, they were talking shit to me during the fight. I'm talking some shit back to them. I win the fight. I get to have that my moment there. Like it's a, you know, kind of a classic DX.

Uh, if you, if you're, if you're a man who grew up within a certain span of years in America, that some reason that's just in you as like, that's the first thing you think to do when you have had a moment of triumph, I've been to a steakhouse in Iowa where they put up pictures up on the wall of people who have like eaten this giant steak. That's a, like a, like a standing challenge to people. More than one of the people is standing there in the parking lot. Boom.

With a DX chop as their celebration after they have eaten like a 70 ounce steak or something. So it's just like. After they've been rushed to the hospital. They're like. Yeah. It's just the thing a lot of people think to do. And so it seems like that's what he's doing there.

And that does seem like an overreaction to that, but it also is like, isn't it funny how when, when he is not the one fighting, when he's like talking, when he's sparring YouTube influencers, when he's storming the cage and he's not supposed to be there, then Sean Strickland is the guy he, he acts like he is that he tells us he is, is where he's just like an uncontrollable savage, and then when it's his own fights, then he is a very careful tactician. Very triggered. Like very holstered. I mean, you kind of like everything's own fights, then he is a very careful tactician. Very triggered. Like very holstered. I mean, you kind of like everything's being measured, but he's ready to throw

hands at the drop of a hat, man. As long as it's not his fight. Like as long as it's, as long as he's not supposed to be there, really ready to throw down. I w you see something that I know it's not in the UFC, but it's there in this big international fight week, kind of tied in, right? Like, but then I remember, you know, you always think back to the Paul Daly thing where I know it's a, it's more of a sucker punch when he like

hits a cost check and Dana White after, I just remember how Adam and he was, you hit somebody after the, after the fight, you know, and you're done, you know, that sort of thing. And then you get to this, this kind of thing, you know, which is just the, the next level, because if that was more of a of a, you know, like a crime of passion or something, like this would be premeditated. Like he comes in, like he storms in the whole way, like he's going to, you know, he knows exactly what he's going to do, but nothing will come of it because this is what Sean Strickland is. Somehow we've accepted him on these crazy terms, you know?

We've seen it a bunch and nobody's going to do anything about it. Well, also the UFC, if they've learned anything, they've learned not to make those kinds of statements. Dana White has learned not to make those kinds of statements anymore. Like if you do this, then this happens because then people will expect you to stick to it and there will come a time when it happens with somebody you don't want to stick to it with. Sometimes that somebody might be yourself and you don't want to have your hands tied.

And so they'll just do his little puzzle. Was it Miguel Torres? Like all these guys, the original guys who get like, they have to learn the lesson the hard way, right? They're the guys who like get cut or whatever. And then later on everybody gets by with it and they're like, wait. Yeah, Jason High lightly shoved a ref

after he had been like concussed. Uh, and Dana White said he didn't even need to see the footage to decide that that guy was cut. That's right. God, I forgot about that one. I saw it. I saw Hernandez, his quote was, it was to, I think it was to Moicak as well because it was on MMA fighting and they asked him like, you know, what should happen? He was like, oh, nothing.

No, I quite like him, Sean. Yeah. You know, I quite like Sean. Yeah. You know, I quite like him. He's played it all perfectly. I mean, the dude got a name overnight, you know? Yeah. Yeah. He was on Ariel.

Ariel did an interview with him, everything like this. It's, it's, it's crazy. I know I can't like, you guys are no better than me. I can't see NAC kind of. No. I'm true. The Coles on this. Can you?

Well, I mean, they will look for any opportunity to find somebody, you know, they, they, they love to take somebody's money away. So like, I could see them doing something like that, where it's just like a $2,500 fine for, for Sean Strickland or something. But, uh, yeah, I don't think that they'll have to. They'll be like, you're suspended. Let's see, how many days was it since the incident? 25 days.

You're suspended 25 days retrospectively. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. They loved it. So now you're suspended. Let's see, how many days was it since the incident? 25 days. You're suspended 25 days retrospectively. Like, yeah. So now you're good again. Lads, Jake Paul is a ranked cruiser waste. He had a win at the weekend over Chavez Jr. Um, did you guys watch that fight? I did not see the fight. I saw Ariel in there in a nice suit, but I was at this wedding.

Obviously I didn't get to catch up. They wanted a few quid off me as well, boys. And I was thinking, you know, tough to pay the few quid when I know the result of the fight, you know, it's tough. 25 snotts. 25 of those snotts. Wow. I'm not giving 25 snotts when I know the result.

I'm sorry. All right. You know what I mean? It's tough. I didn't get to see it. Did any of you go watch it? Well, I was at the Wu-Tang concert in Seattle. I saw some clips afterwards and just, just seemed like, all right, this, the

Jake Paul boxing thing seems like, haven't we learned his stuff doesn't really work on boxing people as well as it works on us and MMA people, like you got lightning in a bottle with the Tyson things just because it's Tyson and everybody is interested in what Mike Tyson does. And yet a lot of the general sports public has not been paying enough attention to realize that Tyson's like 60 years old. They still think he's Mike Tyson. So like you can get a lot of people with that, but as far as just like trolling your way to views that works so much better on MMA people when you were doing

it against like aging MMA guys. And every time he's tried to do it against like handpicked boxing opponents, it just hasn't gone nearly as well in one way or another. Yeah, I didn't have, I did not have big interest. Yeah. I mean, watch what you say, Ben. Pierce Morgan's getting sued,. Pierce Morgan's getting sued. Ben Fogg's getting sued.

Man, people have a weird idea of what you could sue people for. Like, if somebody watched your fight and they thought it sucked, they could say it sucked. You can't sue them for that. Yeah. I just want to say, if you're watching Jake, I thought it was a gray fight and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't think it was fixed.

I just thought that the outcome was already determined. Here it comes. Here's a tweet on how George has put up after years of letting it slide as just haters being haters. Ben, I have asked my team to vigorously go after anyone. Ben who makes up lies, Ben about my boxing career. Ben expect to get served you. I'm not going to call you pig.

Ben, I'm sorry. Expect to get served you pigs. That's too far. I'm not going to call you pig Ben. I'm sorry. Expect to get served you pigs. That's too far. I'm not going to say. That's too far. I mean, the, the thing is sometimes do you wonder, has Jake Paul bought too much into the Jake Paul gimmick because I feel like definitely more than the rest of us. He has, it just feels like, especially when talking about his boxing career,

everybody else still seems to be kind of being like, all right, hey, he's good for him, I guess, getting paid and making a whole thing out of this. And I do have to say, you got to give him respect because he wasn't just like an influencer who jumped into boxing, made a quick payday and then moved on to the next thing, like he really wanted to become a boxer and he's really been after it, like for years, putting in the work and you've seen him get better. He's developed some real skill at it, but I also feel like maybe he genuinely believes he is like a world championship level boxer, just like, I think he's

maybe believed the hype a little bit. And so now when somebody is like, Jake Paul is doing the thing where he picks an opponent, he knows he can beat, goes out there, beats them, and then acts like, you know, he's the champion of the world. Like he's like, I can't believe these people would tell these lies. And it's like, I feel the people giving you a pretty good amount of respect for it, but also like, let's be reasonable, You know, let's not get completely carried away. I mean, I'd only be interested at this point.

I think if he fights a legit boxer who is still kind of nearish to his prime, like in there, at least to his vitality, you know, um, if he does that, maybe there would be allows cause you're like, what, we're, we're just spinning our wheels at this point, like, what are you going to learn from something like this? Nothing, you know, like I, so if you, if we're going to, if he's going to take it seriously, if he's going to project that he's going to take it seriously, um, it's gotta be something like that eventually. He's too high profile to do the traditional thing, especially from where he started.

You can't just beat a bunch of cans. Nobody will care. Um, it's, he's calling out guys like it's all, it's, he's combining spectacle to sport, consciously doing that. So if you're going to do that, you've got to throw doubt now into the occasion, not be so handpicked, get a guy who actually should beat you, like where you're the underdog, right?

Like that's the only way that this would work. Yeah. You got to keep like cranking up the stakes somehow, and he hasn't really been able to do it. And he did it for a while. Like he did it really well where you go like from Ben Asgren to Tyron Woodley to Anderson Silva. And people were going like, all right, it does seem like there's a, like a forward

progression happening here to some extent. And that especially with us, I'm in my guys, you know, yes. And, and in boxing, it's just not as, as easy to do that. And also not as easy to get the fans like fired up about that where it's like, you show up and be like, I'm going to beat one of your, your old heroes or a guy that maybe was never even a hero of yours. And they kind of go fine. Let us know how it goes.

You know, I expect them to find a Klitschko brother next. I'd, I'd fucking watch the tail fight. I'll be honest. I would like straight in there going Darren till if, if, if he fought till I'd be watch the tail fight. I'd be honest. I would like straight in there going Darren till if he fought till I'd be into it. I think I think I'm alone in that basically. Yeah, I was gonna say you might be alone there. I don't know. It's fucking till just seems to be.

I don't know. He was a guy that just never really hit the level that we all anticipate him to. And I know it's very hard to base how we would get on that fight on his fight against Darren Stewart, which Ben covered, of course, diligently a few months back and, you know, Anthony Pretty Boy Taylor. But I think it's something at least we fucking know the guy. You know what I mean? Kind of talk some sweet shit like, look, I'm just I'm just a YouTuber at the end of the day, guys.

I just want guys talking shit and then I'll get excited for it. That's, that's what I, that's what I'm into. Um, speaking of talking shit. No, I have no segue there. Ben, you were at the Wu-Tang cloud as you mentioned there. I didn't have anything. I thought I was going to get something there. You thought it would subconsciously connect something like.

You and Chad, the, the co-main event crew up in Seattle, there open Seattle, does that work over in Seattle? Sure. Over in Seattle. Yeah. He's pretty far up there. P2 look at where Montana's base. It's all over from there unless you're going to Canada, right?

Beautiful. Um, but tell me how was the Wu-Tang? I wasn't a get together of co-main event people. Cause I saw several pictures with a number of people. It wasn't just you and Chad doing this. Well, it was just the two of us who went to the concert. We took a CME field trip out there, but we met up with some of our long time listeners

and friends, had a nice dinner, got out on the town a little bit in Seattle. It was fun. You know, Wu Tang, they know what you're there for. They know that you're there to hear the hits. They know you're there to hear, you know, Method Man and the son of the old dirty bastard, the YDB. He came out and did all ODB's parts and frankly injected a needed boost of

youthful enthusiasm into the thing. It's, it is interesting though, when you go to a concert like this and you kind of look around and you're like, oh, okay. So we're all old. Like if we came to see the Wu-Tang, like we're all old. We all had this album on tape, you know, like that's just a reality looking around the crowd, but, uh, it was a great time. I'm glad that we went.

Yeah. It's old dirty bastards son called young dirty bastard. What's he go by ID? It is young dirty. They just said the YDB. I don't, other than that, I don't know. It does his hair the same, uh, is it's a very animated stage presence and the same, but it's also see that's what you need is it's like, if you've got a crew of a bunch of like 50 something year old rappers, you do need a young man with a little hip mobility still a guy who can still bend his knees.

Uh, although, you know, method Man at one point, he's out here like in a tank top, he's flexing, he's showing off a region where there are almost some abs, uh, and, and pointing out that he's like 54 years old or whatever it is. And so like basically saying like, don't I still look like I'm in pretty good shape for a 50 something year old man? And at that point, uh, Chad Dunn has leaned over to me and was just like, yeah, all right. And it's like, that's about the best you could say to her.

Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. He was like a division one lacrosse player. Do you know that? Method man? M-E-T-H-O-D man. Yes, he was.

He was a division one lacrosse player, I believe. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But anyway, who cares? That's our fearless leader. Ariel Awani is from the great nation of Canada. And it is, if my sources are correct, it is Canada day today. What does that mean? You say, I don't really know, but I love Canada and I love Canadian people.

My uncle, Patty lives in Canada and we love you. Wacker. He's over there. Um, my auntie Helen, hello. My cousins, Tara and Tracy. Hello to you too. Canada day. Um, have a wonderful day.

It's been, it's a good memories up in Canada. Remember when we were in Vancouver and we were, this is one of the greatest things. I still tell people about this. This is back when cell phones were kind of, I guess still new, like where people were like, they were still getting used to all the functions of the cell phone and all of its many, you know, how it's going to take over our lives.

And we would go up to people and Ben would say, hey, would you mind taking a picture of me and my friend? And we wouldn't give them a phone. They would just use their own phones. Like he would wait for them to use their own phone to take a picture. And then we were like, thanks so much. And then we'd walk away and we must've done this 50 times that night. That was so funny, man.

It was great. And people are just sort of, especially like Canadians, they're very nice. They're very polite. Uh, I saw, I love Canada. I love going there. It's always, always fun. And so, yeah, it would be like, I saw like, they didn't want to be like, no, this is stupid. Why would I want a picture of you two idiots on my phone?

They would just do it. And like, just to get their phone. Take a phone. And then we could walk. I don't know. Do the, do they have to have their Canada day so close to our fourth of July? That feels like, cause it's like, okay, you got your Thanksgiving before our

Thanksgiving, you know, kind of getting in there first, and then you got to have like your day come like before our like, uh, celebration of like America day. Like it kind of feels at that point, like they're messing with us. I never respected them. But still, I've never been to Canada, but you're making me want to go. Oh, it's great. That's great country. Sounds fantastic.

That's next week. I will be in studio for the crack. That will be Friday. We're back to normal. So make sure you are prepared for your withdrawals. It's going to be nine days. So you're going to be fairly full. You're going to be, you're going to be fiending for some crack. But you know, on Friday comes around, but I'll be in studio from Monday next week.

So at least you'll get a little dose. Um, very excited. It's Katie Taylor fight week. Last time we were there for that. It's like, uh, it's kind of like St. Patrick's day over there when she fights. Um, I can remember walking through midtown and it was just Irish people. In various states of intoxication, just spread out all over midtown to the point where it's like I'm embarrassed for us But like they had they had a great time

It should be a great thing for me that Katie Taylor's into none of that shit as well Like she doesn't drink none of that stuff She would definitely not get involved in a session that all these people are on what they celebrate her, but it's gonna be fantastic I can't wait to see it. It's a big deal over here. It's going to be a big deal over there. And we're very, very excited about that. And enjoy Independence Day, guys. That's a Friday this week, right? Yes, it is.

Yeah. What do you do on Independence Day? Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I am taking my children up to a lakeside cabin where we just go and, you know, play on the water, grill some hot dogs, make some s'mores. The problem with Montana's 4th of July thing is that we have a few places that will do fireworks, but Montana in the summer, it doesn't really get dark until like 10 o'clock at night.

And so for like the kids, my kids have seen maybe like two 4th July fireworks, uh, cause they just can't stay up late enough for it. It's like, it's gotta be like 10 30 or so before anybody even thinks to start fireworks and every year they say they're going to make it, they say they're going to stay up and they almost never do. And so it's like that part of fourth of July just doesn't, doesn't quite happen the same for us. We're too far north. My son already saw the fireworks display.

Uh, he stayed up for the Ilya to pour you fight. So we've already, we've already taken that. Love that. Love that callback. Lads. I absolutely love you. Congratulations to all you listeners, getting us on a Tuesday. What you lucky motherfuckers.

Um, maybe this will happen again. Uh, I don't know. They tell me to schedule very late. I just stay up in this room away for the camera to come on, like, you're on! So I'll be ready next time. Anyway, thank you all. Ilya Toporya, number one pound for pound fighter on the Uncrowned list. Lots to come, lots of stuff. Get ready for it. It's coming. Happy 4th of July. Happy Canada Day, we love you very much. From me, Ben, Chuck, Oscar Loseff, on Air Jordan, everyone here, we love yous lots, have a fantastic week.