The Ariel Helwani Show - Insane ticket prices for Conor McGregor return, Dana White on UFC vs. WNBA pay, more

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

After reading your five-star podcast reviews (04:01), the Boys in the Back spotlight soaring ticket prices for Conor McGregor's return against Max Holloway at UFC 329 and wonder whether the price is worth it (06:34). Next, they react to Dana White's recent comments about UFC fighter pay when compared to the WNBA (32:14) and the potential of a Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm rematch (46:36). Then, they touch on chatter about Khamzat Chimaev's nightmare weight cut (1:02:08), more Ilia Topuria and Islam Makhachev talk (1:03:52), and results from Road to UFC (1:10:29). The Boys preview UFC Macau (1:24:24) and Darren Till's BKFC debut (1:43:52), before making picks and acknowledging this week's lack of a P4P segment (1:48:40). The show ends with your voicemails (2:01:17) and Super Chats (2:32:21).

But boys in the back. But boys, boys, boys, boys, boys. What is good? We are back with another episode of the Boys in the Back. It's a matching Thursday here at Uncrowned Studios. Thursday, May 28th, we both got the black shirts out. And we are looking quite good, I have to say. If I do say so myself, I'm one-third of the boys in the back.

Yes, that is correct. One-third, Mr. Connor Birx. Join alongside me, as always. Mr. New York, Rick. fucking out. Mr. Eric Jackman, Nick, New York, Nick. No, no, no, we're not adopting.

This is on the K in there. And we are happy, happy, happy to be joined once again by the final third of the boys in the back. Mysterious Frank. It's good to have you back, brother. It's good to be back. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

Those dulcet tones coming through my AFB, it feels good, man. It feels real good. I'm glad. I miss you guys. Thank you for holding down the fort last week. week to everyone who called left comments. I appreciate it. And let's rock and roll. Let's rock and roll, man. I mean, I think we need to get the elephant in the room out of the way. Not with us,

but I think it's actually on the other side of the door. Frank, you are a free man right now. Me and New York, Rick, are not. Well, we get ready to take my typical bathroom break right before the show starts. You know, we're going to hunker down here for two, three hours. Maybe you want to make sure you empty out the old bladder before we show underway. And I tried to leave the studio, and I could not. I don't know if it's getting picked up by the microphone right now, but there is someone actively trying to bust down the door on the other side of this studio, because we are locked in.

We are locked in this studio. I was like, yo, man, what's going on? The door won't open. Rick's like, huh? Rick comes over, starts pulling on it, tearing on it. I'm like, yo, Frank, Andy Jordan, the studio door will not open. And then Frank, I just saw daylight for a second. Frank on the other side, came over, tried to figure it out, eventually had to bail.

And it looks like they got it! Let's go! The door is open. Wow, wow, wow, wow. What a crazy start here. Oh, we can't think of enough. There's five guys out in that hallway getting that door open for us. We are free men once again. Wow, the rush of cold air, the freshness of daylight. This is unbelievable. No, no, no, I'll make it. You want to take a break? I'll make it without the bathroom break. We already started the show.

Shout out to Tyler, to Chris. I don't even know who else was out here. George is out there. A whole search party was put out for the boys in the back. They were able to get it. That was scary moments, folks. That was scary moments. We were going to have to be in here forever.

We just never stopped streaming. We will continue to stream the boys in the back for as long as we're locked in here. You know you could take a life insurance policy out on someone within like five minutes. Damn, that's the quickest I've ever had that happen. I was laughing very much so about it. I was like, ah, you know, we'll go to the bathroom in the corner. We got some snacks in here. We'll survive.

And someone was like, hopefully there's no fire. And I was like, oh, hopefully it is no fire. No, no, this is not my fault. That door was not budging. But who'd be safer than us if there was? I mean, the doors steal, like, no, it would be fine. The fire on the inside of. Oh, in the studio here?

We would just have to fade to black and then my voice would come over. It would be like, well, the boys in the backward. You guys have the window. Just get out through the window. We could jump out the window. There are some air vents that I'll climb through, like John. McLean style. It's fine. I was getting a little bit worried this was a plan, a ploy, to take down the boys in the back. This was an inside job. It was Frank on the way. Yeah, Frank was actually so upset that we

showed on about not being here last week that this was the ploy. All right. Well, I guess we can get the the train back on the tracks here at 103 Eastern Stadium. That was one of those that was super funny to us and whoever's watching this is not laughing at all because they don't have the visual of the people just like outside the door trying to get in. Like the door was like, shaking like there was like a giant monster on the other side trying to get in. You could see like little cracks of daylight as we're trying to intro to the show here. Yeah, that was crazy though. That was crazy.

I know it wasn't a ploy to bring down the boys in the back though because, you know, you guys love us. I have to say, congratulations to the fans. Congratulations to us. We've been begging you for it. We've been pleading. We've been trying to bribe you for it, but we reach 200 plus five-star reviews on Spotify. The new feed is up and running. Now we just need like seven more on Apple Podcasts and then we'll...

Seven more. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, just go drop us a phone. Even if you don't, just get Apple Podcasts, download it and leave us a five-star. That's all we care about. And of course, if you're listening on Spotify, you know what to do, drop the five-star. So for the last time, you guys let us meet our goal. Let's read a few reviews and then get on with the show here. Just a few to have.

Ali Hall says Frank had to take the day off to apologize to his mom for stating public he kissed her ass. Frank, is that actually true? Not at all. I'm not apologetic for that at all. I think that makes it worse. The double down is... No, no, no, no. I'm sorry I kissed your ass. I'm not sorry I brought it up to thousands of people on the internet.

I will. I accept the fact that it was a horrible mistake, and now everyone knows. What else we got? Love it. Actually, you're terrible. I was just listening and you're shamed. Groveling for five-star reviews and follows was pathetic. Oh, who am I kidding? Love it. Love you guys.

Keep it up. Look, the grovelling has finally come to an end. You know, rate review, subscribe. Don't make sure you go out there and do that. But the public grovelling has officially ended. We got to the number we were going to, you know, just trying to start up a feed. Start from the bottom. I think we did that.

But yeah, the groveling zone. But leave a five-star review. Yeah, five-star rate. Jay Durbin one says, good times. If you're having a bad day, this podcast is guaranteed to lift your spirits and make you laugh. Listening just feels like having a good time with your friends. Keep it up, BITV. We appreciate that, and we fully plan to do so. Despite the plans of the inside job here at Yahoo Studios, locking the boys in the back, attempting the... Do I still smoke? The plan was thwarted before it could come to fruition. So shout out. Thank you so much for everyone that left the review. If you haven't yet, Spotify, I don't podcast. Great. It's great. Help the boys out. You know, it's good for the algorithm. All that. And that what they say? And thank you. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Let's get into some news and notes around the world of combat sports. And yesterday, a big topic of discussion. Yes. UFC 329. Tickets went on sale for the fight club members. So if you pay, I believe it's $99 a year at this point. You join the UFC Fight Club. They send you a T-shirt. You get early access to tickets, everything like that. I've actually been a part of it before. Have used it to purchase tickets. It is helpful.

You get access to the pre-sale. That's before the pre-sale. So there's a presale period. You get access even before that, which is a good perk for not a lot of money. That's a decent little thing for them to. Yeah, and they send you a T-shirt and like a couple other things. Like, it's really not a bad deal.

And it's not a bad deal for instances like this where tickets are going to sell out fast for guys like Connor McGregor. You know, I'm sure the sphere went quick, things like that. But, man, a major point of discussion with this was just how expensive is. These ticket prices were. Obviously, a lot of these are now hitting the resale market as well, and they're going to do the whole public sale. But the tier list, someone put out, and I've seen a few. This is from Tickets Help One Ticket underscore Help 2022. UFC 329 ticket prices, the return of Connor McGregor.

Highest listed price for front row, $43,0.43,000. Wow. Cheapest floor, 4,110. Cheapest lowers, 1226. cheapest uppers, $622. Yeah, $622 to get in the door. 622 to get in the door is insane and people are willing to pay it. I know that this was just the presale.

This isn't the full 20,000 at T-Mobile or anything yet, but they sold out like that. There's no doubt in my mind that this upcoming presale that I believe starts sometime this afternoon is going to sell out. there is no doubt that once they release the full tickets that this event is going to sell out. Connor McGregor, like, you know, we can continue to talk about Connor McGregor and there will be some people who will say like, is he still that guy? Is he still relevant? We get signs like this, right? We're not going to have a pay-per-view number, so that's not going to be a metric that we're able to use anymore. But we get signs like this every so often where it's like the tickets for a Connor McGregor fight go on sale and it reminds you once again that he is different than everybody else in this

sport when it comes to marketing, you know, his drawing power, his ability to get people to want to commit to watching his fights. The all-time highest grossing live gate at T-Mobile Arena is 55.4 million for the Floyd Mayweather, Connor McGregor fight back in 2017. It definitely won't touch that. That is fucking insane. That's an insane number. Yeah. Habib Conner did 17.1. I think it will beat that. I think it'll beat that. I think it'll go over 20 million. I agree. Because if you look at it, we went on GameTime. Shout out to Game Time.

They're obviously on resale and everything like that. By the way, use BITB if you ever use GameTime. You're going to need the code BITB if you're going to UFC 329. Cheapest ticket on here is still over a grand. $1,217 on resale. Yeah. And this is not the full scope, right? Soon we're going to have people buying for pre-sale today, people putting it on the

secondary market and then general public tickets people buying those putting it on the secondary market this is going to be a fascinating thing to kind of track and and a reminder again of what connor mcgregor brings to the the ufc business and like the industry yeah i mean i just like i actually don't think these ticket prices are going to come down that much like you've seen the world cup tickets and there's such a runway leading into that and like i think there's sort of like a we we haven't had the world cup in the u.s and all these years and blah blah like i think those two tickets are going to drop down as we get closer to the event. For Connor,

I don't think they're going to go down. He actually reacted to someone saying that there was only one singular seat left on Ticketmaster, which I think has now been purchased up. It's completely sold out. And he just quote tweeted with a laughing emoji. Yeah, and he's not unaware. I saw him also retweet something somebody posted about like, just as a reminder who Connor McGregor is,

here's all the pay-per-views of his last couple. fights and how big box office he is. And there's no doubt about it. Intern Josh in real time, Frank, hit the breaking news. Intern Josh, who by the way will be, you know, coming to the studio starting soon. Shout out to intern Josh. Can't wait to see him. He's in line for the UFC 320. Have you seen the slack yet or not? I, damn it. I've just seen it. I was going to make you guess. But he's in line for the UFC 329 presale. A hundred 20,000 people in the queue ahead of him. Who knows how many total people are in the queue because he might be somewhere in the middle. Maybe he's toward the end. Even if the smallest number was 120,000 people, it's absolutely insane. It tells you that the demand

for this is astronomical. And because of the limited nature of it, because of the fact that, quite frankly, like, we will probably get two more Connor McGregor UFC fights. We might only get one more who knows how this goes. Like, if this is the last time, there's a huge scarcity around Connor McGregor in the UFC. There's a huge scarcity of opportunities that you're going to have to see this guy fight, considering how long ago the last time that he fought was and how long the time before that was, the number of times that Connor McGregor is going to be headlining a card is unknown and scarce.

And so, as you said, like, I don't think you're going to see ticket prices going down. I think you're going to see more likely, completely sold out, you know, primary market, completely sold out direct from the vendors, and then a huge secondary market that probably starts to get snatched up pretty quickly as well. So massive. Okay, to your point about McGregor and the scarcity and the pay-per-view buys and everything, he has the top five UFC pay-per-view buys of all time, and then eight of the top ten. Because he has the two boxing, yeah. Well, I'm saying eight of the top ten UFC paper views. The other two is Usman Mosvital, which took place at like peak COVID. There really wasn't much else for people to do.

And then UFC 100 in that top 10 as well. Everything else is Connor McGregor is on the card. Our guy Josh said he was 100, what? 120,000. There's 120,000 people ahead of them. Which obviously makes it impossible for you to be able to get tickets because. Yeah, unless somebody gets there and does not buy them. In Timo Arena, you would need 100,000 people to say no.

To not buy them. I know you're paying. U.S. Open tickets, a great tournament that takes place here. in New York City. Love it. Love going to it. Have been the last five or six years. Tickets went on sale today. They went on sale at noon.

As the clock went from 1159-59 to noon, I got on. 12-0-0-0. I got on. I have the screenshot to verify. Got on Ticketmaster. You are now in the queue. 336,309. sat around for five to ten minutes just seeing what happened and it lowered down maybe like 200 spots.

Of those people who were just buying tickets and you'll never even sniff it. Could never even like a dude, it's just Arthur Ash holds 25,000 people. Yeah, those are gone. It's just like we're getting to a point where it isn't just Connor McGregor. We always talk about like UFC is rising, everything like that. Connor McGregor is going to be the premier event for the UFC that you're going to be able to buy tickets to this summer. the White House is the premier event, but like people aren't going to be able to go to that. It's across all tickets.

Like it is just getting insane. We have a couple of other ticket maps here. The New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals, which is just an insane, insane amount. I mean, I'm seeing some 20,000, some 37,000s, 41,000. Cheapest ticket on game time right now. NBA Finals, Madison Square Garden, 3,256, if I'm reading that right. Yeah. My brother-in-law, Ryan, shout-out Ryan, just plop down 5K to get tickets.

5K. Yeah, 5K. He's going solo. He's flying in for it. Holy shit. But he just plop down 5K. Yep. It's crazy.

It is nuts. Yo, $5,000. Yep. It's not just sports. Ariana Grande is performing at Barclays Center, which is the cheaper. Like, this isn't even MSG. Cheapest ticket I see up there is $735. and that does not look like a good seat.

It looks like your borderline sitting behind the stage. Yeah, that's a horrible seat. So I guess if like ticket prices are just like this across all events these days, I'm going to the World Cup at the end of June. It's 900 per ticket. Yeah. It's just like, is it worth it if you want to go see Connor McGregor?

Like, do you just have to accept the reality that you have to take a fucking loan out to see your favorite artists and athletes? But this is why it's so expensive is because people are willing to pay it. As soon as you stop, paying, you're right. You'll just keep going on. You're right, because everyone I'm seeing

online is just like, I can't believe it's this expensive. We're never going to be able to go to these. My sport is so cooked. Gone. The second it goes on. Josh is 120,000th in line for a 20,000 seat arena. Yeah. It made

me think of two things. One is the point Frank just raised, which is if we are all complaining about the prices of tickets but continue to buy tickets, nothing will change, right? It's the same thing I say about UFC card quality. Everybody complains about UFC card quality.

It's not what it used to be. But then the viewership on that and the ticket sales on that are not commensurate with a inferior product. They're commensurate with a very healthy product. They're commensurate with something that is growing. And so there's incongruity there. The incongruity between this product is not what it used to be. And I'm still consuming it at the same or a higher rate than I used to is going to continue to raise those ticket prices. As far as Connor and this fight specifically, to me, the scarcity is the selling point, right?

As I said, I don't know how many more Connor McGregor fights they're going to be. Connor McGregor fights are an event. Connor McGregor fights are not just, I want to go see, you know, my favorite fighter compete on a card. He is different than everybody else. And so these ticket prices are not shocking to me. And quite frankly, if I was a fan out there, right? if I was somebody in the buying position for these tickets, I'd be looking at this ticket,

the same way I'd be looking at a Knicks finals ticket, which is, I don't know when I'm going to see this again. I'm willing to pay whatever. As in contrast to like, hey, it's UFC 333, and it's headlined by whoever, you know, let's just say it's Alexander Volcanowski.

But I'm paying half what the Conner ticket is, three-fourths of what the Connor ticket is, I feel like I'm getting better value on the Connor McGregor experience. I feel like I'm getting better value on the, not to say that I don't want to watch Volk fight, not to say that he should, you know, not that they get any cut of the tickets anyway, but that the fighters are worthy of the people being in the arena for them, right?

Volk in Australia is an incredible experience. But if you're comparing value, if you're comparing what the experience is going to be as a fan, 10 times out of 10, I'm looking for what is the once in a lifetime thing? What is the thing that I can attend that I'm never going to go to again versus, hey, it's just a run of the mill, maybe my favorite fighter, but maybe this is a fifth time I've seen them. I don't know that I'm plopping down that money. So all things considered, this would probably be the one I'd want to go to as a fan.

And at that price. The question posed is like, is it worth it? But I guess it's just all on your desire to go see this. Yeah. Retail? That means face value, $622. Yeah. Nosebleeds.

That's crazy. To be in the arena for something you might not see. That is crazy. That is crazy. Yeah. So it looks like you're going to be paying well over a grant to get into that event no matter what. Unless you snag up some face values, you're going to be buying it on the resale market. Just going away to looking at other sites as well.

I mean, the cheapest on this site is $1,200. Stupid question. Yeah, man. Broken toe, Connor doesn't make it, do they refund these tickets? Yes, UFC tickets are typically subject to change, but refunds offered if the main event changes. And so when you're somebody who bought it on the secondary market, that's obvious a little bit of a dicier situation because then you have to unlist it and try and get the refund or try to make the gamble that somebody did it. Enjoy Armin Suruki and Maxo. Well, somebody did put out there on Twitter and I didn't grab it.

Somebody put out the price when Connor McGregor versus Michael Chandler was headlining 303, and then put out the price when it was Alex Pereira versus Khalil? What was the fight that we ended up with instead of Connor and Chandler? Alex versus Yerie, too. Alex versus Yeree. And so they put up the price. It was less, but it wasn't as less as I thought it was going to be. Like there's still people that will be rabid enough for the UFC to probably go to this event.

But I do imagine that at the price that they're charging, at the scale that this is going to be because of how ticket prices have even continued to drastically rise just in the overall, not just the UFC but in the meta of like ticket live events and sports. I imagine that people will be hunting for refunds,

but I also think all signs are pointing to Connor McGregor fighting. I don't think that we're going to potentially run into this issue. I have a feeling he'll be motivated to make it to the state. I know everything's getting more expensive, but has anything gotten more expensive than tickets? Gas?

Yeah, I guess, but even gas, like, it's only up like, it's only like doubled in price. Tickets have like quintupled. Yeah, tickets are crazy. And beyond that, the secondary market aspect of it, the like, you know, scalpers and hawks that are buying up all these tickets to then resell them at four or five times face value, like that entire MSG seat map of people just trying to make a big buck. How many people with 120,000 in front of Josh, do you? think we're actually real people? Enough of them. Just UFC fans just being like,

I just want to go see Connor McGregor. And how many were fucking scalping bots? Just like... I think a lot of those people were real, but I think the bots are better. I think the bots logged on faster. And so they're ready to get those tickets. It's a dirty game.

It's a dirty game. To your point, if you want to spend the money, you're also getting a great card. Benoit Anthony, Patty Pemblit, Korni, San Diego, Mauritza, to Gable Steveson.

Now here's the real question. Is $1,200 worth it for you to see Gable Steveson's UFC debut? You can leave after that. Beat the traffic, bro. You got to see Gable Steeveson versus Elisha Ellison. That's very funny. Beyond that, this is the most stacked Connor McGregor card we've had. This is typically the Connor McGregor,

the quintessential Connor McGregor UFC card is like, Connor McGregor versus opponent and not much else. Like there was a time where it was like The John Jones card and the Connor McGregor card Were not buoyed by a lot of great fights This is a great fight card from top to bottom It actually like really is Tracy Cortez versus Kong Wang

Robert Whitaker versus Nikita Krillov Kaika Maka versus Luke Riley Cody Garbrand versus Adrian Yanyes Cody Durden versus O'Day Osborne Brennan Royval versus Lonnie Kavanaugh It's a fucking solid solid solid card It's a good card And obviously you have Connor and Max at the top

it's also international fight week. I had such a blast international fight week last week, and a lot of the events surrounding the actual card are free. So if you want to see Connor McGarry fight,

I can see people making the justification for it. I don't think the ticket prices are going to go anywhere because I think, to Frank's point, people are just going to keep paying them. 100%.

There will be a point where they stop. I don't think we're anywhere near that point. When you think about some of the events we looked at, the rabidness of the fan base for Ariana Grande,

for the Knicks, the New York Knicks, who we, you know, obviously we live it through Ariel every second that, you know, we're on air. But like, these fan bases are not getting any less fervent. They are, they are foaming at the mouth to pay these prices because they have to see it. The demand is not going to go down. What's eventually going to happen is they're going to price people out to the point

that their fans can't afford it anymore, right? You can't, you can't do this forever. There are not going to be enough fans. Like, these Knicks fans, they're going to one of the games. Can they go to two at those prices? Can they go to three? Can they go to the series? Like, we're getting to the point that it's just a one-time experience.

We will reach a point in tickets where it's like the fans can afford one or certain fans just can't even afford it at all and can't go. And so once it starts creeping higher and higher and higher, they'll have to bring it back to make it sustainable. I don't think we're near that point yet, though. They're going to continue to rise. We don't know what's going to happen with Connor McGregor and Max Holloway. We do know that he has one more fight on his UFC contract. Could it be against one of the biggest rising stars? Ilya Teporia was sitting down with Vic Blends and discussed the potential of that may be happening, depending on how Connor McGregor's fight goes.

Do we have a quote card for it? There it is. Elia said, I think Connor is going to win. they fought once and he won who do I want to win and the one that suits me best is Connor if he wins and then has another fight we could end up having that fight

he also talked about he looks good in training yada yada yada yada yada yada xyz do you think we ever see ilyat tippori versus connor migraer i don't but i do find ilia's confidence in connor interesting

like he seems pretty like iliott'sopori is a pretty straight shooter right. Elliot Teporea is not a guy who's just going to like blow smoke. And he's talked about Connor in the past and had sometimes kind, sometimes on kind. Like he also in that interview kind of talked about his Mount Rushmore and said that Connor is in his Mount Rushmore and other things like that. He seems pretty sure that Connor McGregor is going to beat Max as somebody who had faced Max. I find that fascinating from a guy who I think to be pretty smart and pretty analytical in the fight game.

Now, great that it could be motivated by the idea of like that helps him if Connor wins and then he sells a fight with. them. But I'm taking that at face value and interested in Iliate Tuporia's take on it. I just don't think. Actually, I don't think. There is no world where Cona McGregor will get a title opportunity on the last fight of his deal. One, I don't think he's going to be fighting at 55 anytime soon. I don't think there's a world where he can even get down to 55 and fight Iliate Tepori at this point in his career. He seems to be a 170 year at bare minimum. And two, he will not be fighting for a title in his final UFC fight. Now, if they renegotiate and he gets re-signed, all bets are off. There's crazier things that would have happened than Connor McGregor versus Iliot-Coporia. You could really put Iliot-Teporia into outer space with the level of stardom he would have by beating Connor McGregor. But I don't expect Connor McGregor to resign before fighting out that last fight of the contract. So it would not be a champion.

Yeah, I just can't imagine, Ilya and Connor McGreg getting in the cage together. I do feel like from Ilya's standpoint, it's just kind of angling for the potential of a fight. Like just playing the business side of it, you would make so much money. You would get so over in terms of stardom. Yeah, I just think he's just kind of talking to talk business. I don't think we're going to see Alia versus Conradger. We got an update from intern Josh. Oh, let's hear it.

In the cart right now. Oh, shit. Last row in the arena. Thousand bucks a pop. Okay. Two tickets. First of all, we have to talk. about how 120,000 person queue. This is our guy Josh Markowitz, who is trying to get UFC

329 tickets. He's been doing incredible work for us, but he's giving us live updates in the Slack right now. 16 minutes ago, about 120,000 people in front of me. So we wiped that away. He made it to the cart. Two tickets. Last row. So the absolute tippy, tippy top of the entire Arena, $2,453.46. So $1,227 apiece for the absolute back against the wall nosebleeds. Yeah, crazy stuff. That's a no for me. The good news is the price of that ticket does include $1 to support amateur unarrow. combat in Nevada. Good to see. Good to see.

On the $2,400 expense, the $1 going. I don't know. I don't know if that's worth it, man. 2,500 bones just for the get-in price? We're not talking about the food, the beers, the travel, the hotels, everything to do that. My overall sentiment, my number one sentiment, my overall overarching umbrella sentiment is, yes, it is worth it. from the perspective that, again, this is scarce, this is going to be a big event,

this is going to be something that in the memory banks, you'll want to say you were at. From a economics perspective, it's hard for me to advise anybody who's like, Josh is in college for somebody to be like, this is the best way to spend it, right? My yes is if you have the means to spend that. Dude, $2,500 and then like,

let's just say like you were going on a number, normal trip. You would need to Uber to the airport. You're going to pay $600 for a round trip, flight to Vegas, like on the regular. Maybe 400 if you're lucky. You're not just going for just Saturday. So let's call it a minimum Thursday, Friday, Saturday, three nights in a hotel in Vegas. That's going to run you a grand. Yep. Flight, 1600. We're almost at $5,000 as is, and then however much money you're going to spend in Las Vegas for a weekend trip. Nuts.

Yeah, I'm going to say it's not worth it. I've updated my scorecard. It's not worth it. If you got the disposable income... If you're doing this as a Connor McGregor fan, what if he loses? Nah, you still want to be there. That's every sporting event if your team loses, right?

I mean, how's that different than if you go to a Georgia game? They could lose. I'm probably not going to a Georgia game. Georgia's plus 385. Yeah. Is that the actual odds? Is he plus $2.85 right now? I think at one point he got that bad.

I mean, I think I saw Max at like a minus $5.551 point. Sorry, plus $2.75 right now. There is one book that has him. I was about to take that to the bank. I was about to slam that. Oh, no, actually, U.S. athletes can't bet it. Yeah, yeah. Good point.

So, yeah, man, Josh. I don't know, Josh. At least you made it through the queue. All right, so I actually wonder if he made it through the queue because so many people got to the cart and we're like, fuck that. Yeah, like, I can't afford it. Also, how many bots, right?

Yeah. I don't know if they do this with Ticketmaster, but on the Nike, like on the sneakers app for Nike, when you're in line for a drop, there's like a moment, there's a loading screen where they're like, we're kicking out the bots right now. We'll get back to you and let you know if you're still in the line. Oh, Josh saying here, as a ticket reselling scumbag like myself,

is it worth it? I don't think that was for it. Why? Why not? No, man, you got to sell it at face value. Come on. No, what? We're crazy? He says kidding, but I am going to resell them. I mean, that's not a bad play. How much more are you going to make?

They're already charging you resale prices. Well, we were looking at the map. Again, the scarcity is going to be the key here, right? As we get closer to the event, it's a, look, this is the fascinating part of the business, in my opinion. Also interesting, like, kind of McGregor, hopefully. you know, we were talking about his contract, right? We were talking about the death of pay-per-view and that Connor McGregor would have had to negotiate a new contract

in order to compensate him properly for fighting. One would hope that somebody like Connor McGregor could get a little cut of the gate of this event, a little cut of, you know, that whatever $25, $30 million that they're going to make on the gate for this. But he's probably the only one. He's the only one who could really command this. And as we see in the exercise, like, he's the only one who sells out. like this.

Back against the wall. That's like when we go to UFC events and we're sitting in the upper deck and people are like, damn, you broke ass, can't believe it. It's like, dude, we paid $350 for these. Like, it's like, this is not cheap to go to these events anymore. And like, a Connor McGregor one is definitely not going to be the one that you're going to save a couple bones going to that. Yeah, in Seattle, some people were like, I didn't want to say hi because I didn't think it was you

because this is a fucking broke boy seat. You bitches? We're sitting lower level at the MVP event and people were just like, Damn, Ariel fucked you, man. That's tough, huh? Yeah, damn, you're trying to save a couple of pennies. It's like, dude, we're like 14 rows back, man. Chill out on me.

I think UFC Atlanta last year, my friends were like, I had to convince my friends to go to a UFC event. I was like, oh, come on, it'll be great, blah, blah, blah. It was not great six decisions on the main card. It was fucking ass. And they paid like 280 apiece for it for upper level. They were like, yeah, I'm not going to lie, Connor. I don't think I'm going back to that shit.

I was like, yeah. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. don't blame me, man. It was tough. But we'll see. I can, the most confident thing I will say today is that event will be sold out.

Yes, absa fucking looting. There is not going to be an unsold seat. Yeah, it don't matter how much we bitch and moan about the ticket prices. That place will be completely full and it will be wild. Let's roll along. A lot of talk on the Twitter streets in MMA media right now over Dana White's

comments to Rolling Stone about UFC contracts that it a a printed article and a video interview and in the printed article talked about the comparison to WMBA now agreeing to a new salary minimum of around $270,000 a year, which is reportedly more than a journeyman MMA fighter earns. Reporter asks, do you ever see a future where a UFC fighter can immediately make a living wage? Dana responds, Fighter pay has gone up every year and it will continue to go up as long as we continue to be successful.

But to compare it to the WMBA, that's ridiculous. First of all, if you come into the UFC, let's say you sign a three-fight deal, we're going to find out if you belong in the UFC. I should pay you $370,000 to see if you belong in the UFC. Now, a lot of people are poking holes in several different ways against this. A couple that I've seen is, A, this used to be a company that was comparing itself to the NFL, was going to be bigger than soccer, was making these massive statements about this is the future of sport. It is going to be the biggest sport. in the world and now it's getting comparisons to the WMBA newest contracts and it's just like, no, are you crazy? Like to compare us to the WMBA is ridiculous. And then the second part of it is him saying, you sign a three-fight contract, we've got to find out if you're cut out for the UFC. Yeah, I have major issues with this mentality for a few reasons. One, to touch on the first point you made, right, we're the biggest global, fastest growing,

fastest growing global sport. They also glow at times, but we're the fastest growing global sport and we're going to be bigger than soccer and blah, blah, blah. To then say, in point of comparison to the WMBA's contracts, like we're not the WMBA as if that was disrespectful, the WMBA contracts are higher to the point that they're making.

And secondarily, the WMBA is notorious for underpaying. This is why we've had this long, extended kind of negotiation period with the WMBA because the players did not believe that they were being paid enough. That's point two on that. The WMBA is the league that is most notorious for underpaying and you are paying under for entry level athletes in your promotion. And then number three, which is a tangential point to that, is WAMBA athletes have a union

and have negotiating rights and make more of the revenue of a much less popular sport. WMBA is popular, but it is not making them nearly. the number of dollars that the UFC is making, and the athletes get a much larger share of that. So all weird kind of points by Dana White when it comes to the actual like dollars and cents comparison to the WMBA, which is to say, this is an example of why it's pretty shameful what the, what the fighters are making when you're comparing it to the WMBA. The reporter in the interview says, what does a person coming off a Dana White contestor series that's making their debut in the UFC typically make?

And he said, you know, it's, you know, between 10, 10 and 15, 15. Yeah, win and show. Yeah, win and show model. And then we got to find out if they're UFC caliber. Isn't that the point of Dana-Wi contender series to scout these guys to find out if they're UFC caliber? And then you're essentially saying, like, yeah, man, so like a lot of these guys that you're making that you're watching that are making their debuts, we don't even know if they're UFC level. We just have to watch and find out. It's a bad, it's an indictment on, there's a few things there.

It's an indictment on what you said, which is signing athletes to the UFC that may not be UFC caliber, right? We need to see if they're UFC caliber. Well, are they fighting on the UFC's broadcast? Are they on UFC promotional handles? Are they involved in the UFC product? If so, that makes them UFC athletes by default, right? Are they going to the UFCPI? After you get a contract on Dana White's contender series or have a contract with Dana White's contender series,

if you're able to walk into the UFC PI and use those facilities, if you show up on the UFC social media handle, if you show up on Paramount for the UFC broadcast, there's not a perk that you have that a UFC fighter or there's not a perk that a UFC fighter that you don't have at that point, other than the pay. You are a UFC fighter by all sense of purposes. So the kind of like incongruity with we don't know if their UFC level, well, that's what the fuck this is for. Like that's what it is. Like I'm confused. at what you even mean by that. But even worse than that, this idea that like, well, they have to prove it before they get the contract is like mind boggling to me too. Like does the NFL, when you're the number one pick in the NFL, do they go, you know what, we have a contract for you? But we're not going to pay that contract until we know that you can throw the football. Whatever your contract is, rookie signing contract.

Or let me get to the second point later. Rookie first pick in the NFL draft. You've been signed to the Los Angeles Rams, let's call it. You're on the team. If I don't know that you're an NFL player, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're good, bad, whatever. You are going to earn your contract.

That's how this works. Now, in the NFL, they're typically not guaranteed and you have to have signing bonuses. Let me use a different sport then. Forget the NFL. Let's use the NBA, guaranteed contracts. Number one draft pick in the NBA. Signed, it does not matter if you can play basketball or not.

It doesn't matter if you're shit. It doesn't matter if you're the best player of all time. You're going to get that contract because the assumption of risk is on the promotion or on the team in the NBA case. We've signed you. We think you're good. Here's what we're going to pay you. The idea that like we don't know if we want to pay this person big money until they have proven themselves is beneficial from you from a business perspective. But it's horrible for an athlete.

Like this doesn't make any sense from an athlete perspective. And the whole point of that question, the whole point of that conversation was around assurances for the athlete, not for the promotion. And it doesn't allure the best athletes. It doesn't draw people to be like, I want to go be a UFC fighter because I can make big bucks and I can be a huge superstar. You get that one in a million chance that you're going to be a Connor McGregor. And I'm not calling for this comparison, a direct comparison to the WMBA and be like, they should be on a 270K win show, 270K,000 right off rip when they get into the UFC. see. Like, I'll go that far. That would be a little bit egregious. I think that is too much. They have enough money. I think people who are making day, sure, they can't pay it.

I think people who are making their debuts, obviously, they're much further down the card. They're not the drawing power. Now, you can also say that people, four spots down the bench on the Minnesota links are also not the drawing power of the WMBA, but they get this minimum contract. But to sit there and be like, well, Fighter Pay keeps going up. Fighter Pay goes up every single year, but we're still at 10, 10, 10, 15, 15, for people debuting. So even if, you know, let's sign a three-fight contract, even if you're on a 15-15 and you go 3-0 in your first year in the UFC, you have three wins on your belt, you didn't even make 100-K. No. And then you got to pay your coaches and you got to do the training and everything like that.

You've got to divvy that all up. You're left making like 60K after having an incredibly successful year in the highest level promotion in MMA. The catch-all line of fighter pay has gone up. How much? No longer works. It just, nobody's fooled by this bullshit anymore. as you can see by the person from Rolling Stone, kind of diving deeper into specific numbers

and asking how much does Dana White Contender series Fighter make? How much is a debuting fighter make? This is the comparison with the WMBA. This fighter pay goes up shit does not work. There was a time where it did when the media wasn't a savvy about this sport, when people didn't care as much about this sport, when people didn't care as much about the finances of the fighters. Fighter pay is going up,

and we hear this from Mark Shapiro on the conference calls as well, on the investor calls, rather, as well, talking about fighter pay has gone up, blah, blah, blah, blah. The percentage of money that the fighters get of the UFC revenue and of the UFC profits is woeful, is disrespectful when compared to the percentage of revenue that NBA players, WMBA players, NFL players, pick a major sport, pick a sport and pick a league or organization. the percentage of the revenue that they are making is 3x the UFC's percentage every single year. It's just, it has not changed.

There is no, there is no portion of the TV deals that the fighters are getting. There is no portion of the gates that the fighters are getting. There's no portion of the, do they make merchandise? They might make merchandise. I actually don't know the specifics on the merchandise. There's the small checks that they get for the video games, but it is woeful. It is, it is pathetic when you compare their percentage. It doesn't matter that it went up.

How much did it go up? How much is the percentage of your business that is represented by how much you pay the athletes? It is still too, too small. It continues to be too small. And until something changes, it will always be too small. The crutch is also always, look at boxing, bro. The people on the undercard of boxing don't make shit. It's just like, but you're not trying.

You always talk about how broken boxing is from belts and everything standpoint. And also this financially, you can't compare to a sport that you constantly shit on. in boxing. You want to be compared to the NFL's, the MLBs, the NBAs of the world. Why are you comparing to a sport that you constantly berate? It's a great point. And the pushback against that point is, I'll grant you that. Fine.

The lower level guys make more in MMA than they, or with the UFC, than they might in boxing. Sure. I don't know the specific breakdown of that, but let's say Dana White or somebody at the UFC makes that argument, I'll go, I give that to you. what does Connor McGregor make in comparison to the money that he's drawing for the promotion? What does Alex Perr make in contrast to what the money that the promotion is made off his back? What does John Jones make in contrast to what the promotion is made off his back? What does Tom Aspinall make?

Because the numbers are out there for Canello. The numbers are out there for Tyson Fury. The numbers are out there for Bud Crawford. The numbers are out there for the boxing world. And those guys don't get peanuts. Those guys do make more. And so you can have, that's fine. You win the argument.

if you want to say that the bottom makes more. But what do your top athletes get? What do the people who actually make the good money? What do the people that support this promotion and make your business viable actually get when it's time to take home the money? Because I know what the boxers make and I know how much the boxers are making as a percentage of the revenue that that event generated. I don't know how much the UFC fighters are making other than to say that that percentage continues to come back and be abysmal. He gets hounded about this constantly. But there's just nothing that's going to change it.

Well, the argument, I've sat here and made the case for why UFC fighter pay should be higher. Putting on the other cap, putting on stepping into Dana White shoes or stepping into Ari Emanuel shoes or Nick Con or Mark Shapiro or any of their shoes, fuck you make me. If you can't make me pay you more, I'm not going to because this is a business and they're so. Ronda Rousey, I go back to it every single time. Ronda Rousey laid this out in the lead up to the Netflix MMA card. She laid it out perfectly. It's the only thing you need to reference from now until the end of time. TKO is not a fight promotion.

TKO is a stock that has investors. They are chasing bottom line profits. They want to make the most money with the least expense. They want to maximize shareholder revenue and they want to continue to raise their stock price. That's the full function of the business. they do not give a shit about the fights they do not give a shit about the fighters if fighter x who's cheaper can get them closer to profitability that fighter is now more important than fighter y who might be a better fighter but can't bring them closer to profits that's just the economics of the business and if i were

in their shoes i would be doing exactly what they're doing because it has been a very very very very successful and lucrative model so in their shoes fuck you make me if you're a fighter if you're anybody who has a problem with this fuck you make me and until you do I guess just fuck you. Yeah, yeah. We say until we're blue in the face. I mean, that was a great breakdown. I can't help a laugh.

You know, we're sitting here like, man, it's fucking disrespectful. If I was them, I'd be doing the exact same thing. Yeah, I mean, until they unionize, until they give a power to the fighters, nothing is going to change. Or until there's alternate solutions, right? Until there's an alternate opportunity that can be had, right? We heard so many of the fighters who fought on the Netflix card say how much they were being paid. That's great. But is that sustainable, right?

Nikisa came on the show after the event and was like, we're going to do multiple cards a year. Great. Like that sounds like a great opportunity for some of these fighters. What's the economics of that? Can it sustain a big enough roster, all those things? These are the only ways toward something changing, right? If an alternative product pops up, if something pops up where the opportunities are elsewhere and you can negotiate, that's going to be great for fighters. If fighters get together and say, we deserve more in the way that the WMBA did, which they said,

we deserve more, and now they have these minimums, that's how you get things done. But until that day, it's just us speaking into the void. And the void will continue as of now. Speaking of Nikisa Badarian and MVP, Ronda Rousey, obviously defeated Gina Carrano, made light work of it, 17 seconds, yada, yada, yada, yada. Holly Home has a rematch in boxing this weekend, but she joined Ariel Helwani yesterday and talked about the potential of a rematch with Ronda Rousey. I've always been open to a rematch with her

since the day the fight was over said if she wants a rematch, I'm on the game anytime I've always said I'm good with a rematch Do you think she's open to it? Do you think there's a chance? I know I asked her a million times and she said she wants to have babies You don't feel that

I think she just wanted the fight that she had and that's it maybe it kind of gave her some kind of a better finish for her career. Maybe she'll love the way that win felt and come back and still want to fight again. But I believe her when she says she's done. Rhonda Rousey joined Kay Adams on Up and Adams and responded to Holly Holmes claims of she wants to retire. I don't know your phone's blowing up about this. Holly Holm apparently saying she doubts you would want a rematch with her.

What's the response to that? I said I'm retired, A, and B, like, I think that I am a completely different fighter now, and I would clean her clock. And definitely now that I got that new medication, I took it before. So I was diagnosed with cortical spreading depression, which was what was happening in my last fights and why I basically was like, I need to stop because I thought that, like, my concussions were catching up to me. And this was the first fight where I was able to take it.

And when I spiked my head into the mat, that's exactly the kind of thing that would have set me off before. And I would have lost big chunks of my vision. And it didn't come back at all. It ended up working perfectly in a live situation. The Rhonda Rousey getting asked about Holly Holme, and immediately you can just see the offense on her face and like almost dropping a bitch there.

on fan dual TV to Kay Adams. She was like, I'm retired. A. You could just see it. So yeah, I mean, like Holly Holmes says she's retired. And, you know, I do feel like Kay Adams left that part out where Holly Holmes said, like, not that you don't want to rematch with me, but you, she's retired. She's not going to want to fight any more, period.

Yeah. And I don't think it makes a difference to somebody like Rhonda, right? Rhonda is going to always have this feeling and reaction toward it. What I find fascinating, caveat up front, like disclosure, I am a Ronda Rousey apologist. I always will be. I have no shame in my game when it comes to this. Let's hear it.

I love Ronda Rousey. I love her attitude. I love what she brings to the sport. Okay. It is a bit grating at times for somebody to be like, I would whoop your fucking ass. But. If I wasn't retired. If I wasn't retired, if I was in the game.

At the same time, one, I believe in her heart. She believes that. I don't think that's like gamesmanship. I don't think she's like throwing that out there with full knowledge of like we're never going to fight. In her heart of hearts, Ronda Rousey fully believes that she would whip Holly Holmes ass at this point in her career. There's no doubt. She believes she was going to beat her the first time. And now she believes she would beat her this time.

I have no doubt in my mind. It's not like a, it's not like a, you know, hold me back, hold me back. And then you punch somebody and you know they're held back. She really believes she would whoop her ass. But it only makes me want to see it more. Every time Rhonda does this, every time Rhonda's like, Kayla Harrison, fuck you, you're garbage, you're not, you wouldn't be anything without me. You were, you know, paying for the groceries and all this.

But I'm retired. It only makes me want to see her fight Kayla Harrison. It only makes me want to see her fight Holly Holm. I wonder if there's a number that Netflix MVP could get her that would make her open. into the Holly Home fight because that is right there. Holly Home has this big opportunity coming up this weekend and then presumably she's got two potential big options ahead of her. It seems like the Katie Taylor talks are real and there, right, for Holly Home to be

Katie Taylor's retirement fight or Ronda Rousey. Those are both incredible options for somebody like Holly Home who has a huge name and a legacy career in both boxing and MMA. It makes me want to see it. Is there any number in the world that they could pay Rhonda Rousey to delay the having more babies and fight Holly home and if there is please pay it there is

I just don't know if Netflix is willing to pay that money fuck I would want to see that there has to be a number everyone has a number there is a number that could delay Ronda Rousey from having more children and fighting Holly home again I hope yeah I mean who knows what the kitchens fuck yeah I mean who knows what that number

is I hope so I never was that gung-ho about the fight between Gina Carrano and Ronda Rousey like itself I was all in on the drama, not the drama because that's more usually associated with like bad blood, but like the spectacle,

the Netflix aspect of it, the idea that both of these women were coming out of retirement after long layoffs. Like that part of it was very intriguing to me. The fight itself, as you've talked about on the show, I knew that fight was going to be over in five seconds and it was over in five seconds. There was no drama for me there.

I really want to see Ronda Rousey fight Hollyholm. Like really, really, really desperately want to see, the fight itself. I don't, I can skip the drama part on this one. You can fast forward me all the way to fight day. I don't give a fuck if they never step in front of a microphone. I want to see Ronda Rousey versus Hollyholm. There's been, you know, Ariel has mentioned it several times this week about the potential of Hollyholm having these two massive fights. Katie Taylor, Ronda Rousey on the horizon. There is a world. She lost to Stephanie Hahn in that first one now. It was a clash of heads and they had to go to a technical scorecard decision. But like it wasn't like it was a one-way

traffic or anything and she's just slated to blow Stephanie on out. If she doesn't, doesn't win this fight and ronda rousey's just like bro i'm retired she could miss out on both those opportunities and it could just start this weekend yeah and to that point as a reminder for anybody who's maybe not like keeping up with the boxing world stephanie is the champion and the minus 350 favorite holly home is the underdog in this fight so it's not like this is a foregone conclusion of like i beat stephan and then i'm in the in the money here like this is a task that's ahead of holly home this is not some like walkover opportunity where it's like you just get past this and you get the big reward. This is going to be a fight that is that is not easy for her to win, you know,

at least as far as the odds goes, at least as far as conventional wisdom goes, who knows how it ultimately plays out. But yes, like, this is not just like stroll on into, this is not cakewalk. This is not, you know, tune up fight stroll into a big payday at all. Stephanie Hahn is 12 and O. And this put Holly home at one and two in boxing since her return. Yeah. So. And then I can't imagine they're going to be like, all right, go fight Katie Taylor. I think the Katie Taylor fight hinges on a win here. For sure. The Katie Taylor fight is not happening if Hollyholm loses.

The Ronda Rousey fight, though. That's what I'm saying, though, but if Ronda is just like sticks by her guns, he's just like, I'm retired. Neither of those fight might happen for Holly Hone. I believe Ronda Rousey. I'll say three things that I believe. I believe Ronda Rousey wants to retire. I believe that there's a number that can get Ronda Rousey to not retire.

And I believe that saying, retired is the best negotiating tactic to get that number. So I think all three things are true. I think Ronda Rousey does not want to fight and wants to have babies. I believe that she would compromise that game plan for enough money and three, that she's playing it perfectly to get that number if it's even possible. The best, I mean, we've seen it with Tyson Fury how many times. I'm done. I'm walking away. That's how you get the money. That is, Connor McGregor, thanks to the cheese, I'm gone. That is how you play it the best. And so I believe all three of those things to be true, let's see if there can be a godfather offer that she can't refuse because I

would love to see that fight. I think a lot of it depends on how happy Netflix, how satisfied they were with that first part. But I think Holly Holme, Rondraousie would be bigger in terms of fan appeal. I don't know because the first one on Netflix is always going to garner so much more attention than normal ones. But in terms of fan interest, I think that would be much higher. Is the pressure on Holly Holm not only for the Katie Taylor person? perspective because as we both said, right, you have to win this to win the boxing match. But if she has an incredible performance here, does Netflix all of a sudden go, well, shit, Ronda Rousey versus Holly Home is looking a little bit better.

This, you know, Hall of Fame, Holly Home is a Hall of Fame boxer. She's not just like a boxer. She is a Hall of Fame boxer. She is probably one day going to be a UFC Hall of Famer has one of the biggest upset and incredible moments in UFC history. she's got some juice like she's got some momentum in a way that very few women do if she gets a big win here

I wonder if Netflix goes you know what maybe maybe and they've been supportive of the women's fights right like Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano was a massive event for them something that they supported in the past

I don't know it feels like it's lining up but there's a lot of pressure on Holly home to kind of like get that done we're going to find out she's a big underdog to Stephanie Hahn you can watch that on ESPN this week our guy, AH, going to be covering Amanda Serrano also on the card.

Get in the co-main spot. After being the main event earlier this year, Han Holm took place back in January, head butt created the cut, so they had to go to the technical scorecards. MVP always does the multiple main event thing. They love it. They love the, like, there's three main events.

It's like, it doesn't work that way. You can't have more than one main event. Amanda Serrano is underneath Holly Holme on the card. She is the co-man. That is just a reality. I've never understood that. Like, I guess as a fighter, you don't want to say that to them. You don't want to designate them as lesser them, but it's like, if I'm not walking last, like, be legit with me.

Like, what are we talking about here? I don't even think the, yeah, what was the MVP MMA card, triple headline? Triple, yeah, triple. Triple. Triple headliner. How can that be? Can't. There's only one headline.

There's only one main. The headline. That's what it is. It's on the top. It's on the top. The worst was the hat. where they had to do all three fights embroidered on the left side of the hat. Oh, yeah.

At what point are you like, maybe this isn't such a good idea? What is it? Is it an ego thing about the fighters? What is it? It's an ego thing with the fighters, yeah. It's crazy. It's this like wanting to say this thing is so good that it's equal to this. Yeah.

But it's not. You're lying. It's not because it's second. And then on Netflix, it was Rousy Corona. Yeah, it's. That was the main event. I don't get it. I wish they'd,

go away from it. We've seen it in MMA. I think PFL has done it in various times, maybe even Bellator, but like, just call it what it is. You can just say Han and Holm is headlining the event. It's a great fight. No problem. Amanda Serrano is still a great boxer. Nobody's going to be like Amanda Serrano is not the double main event? Oh my God! You guys got to give her that distinction of the double main event. Let's go to some other news and notes around the World of Combat Sports.

T.J. Dillishaw, who's been training at Santos Studio, I believe, with Hamza Atramayev talked about how hard of a weight cut. We saw him on the scales and everything. Hamza Shemaya, it seemed like he struggled to get down to that 185. We know he's had troubles in the past when he was cutting to 170. But T.J. Dillishaw gave a in-depth account of the struggles of Hamzaat Shemite of leading into that Sean Strickland fight. I knew looking from the outside end that like he wasn't eating the foods,

like he was posting stuff and his nutritionist was posting stuff. I was like, oh, Sam wouldn't have him eating that. And then I seen him sitting in the bathtub to cut weight. It was like, Sam wouldn't have him be sitting in the bathtub to cut away. He's like, Sam's not doing his weight cut, you know? And then to hear the story of what actually was happening to him and like, him like puking up green vile and just all the like the crazy shit. Like he should not have made it to the fight.

And to see how he performed still, like round five, round four. Like he still had the better fight in cardio than in Shriclin. Okay. So he kept referring to a guy Sam as his nutrition. Yeah, Sam Calvilla. Mateo Capodaglio, who is also a nutritionist who has worked with Hamza Tchamayev in the past, came out on Instagram and made an Instagram post and said, journalists wanted full access during Fight Week.

I woke up this morning with a lot of people sending me interviews of T.J. Dillishaw, indirectly mentioning me my methods and my work with Armin slash Hamzad. I don't like going back and forth on social media. I think the best way is to answer with facts. Next week, I will be in Las Vegas to supervise Edmund Shabazzian's weight cut for his fight against Brendan Allen. Edmund is an athlete I have worked with for years, and he represents the capo nutrition philosophically perfectly because he follows my guidance not only during fight week, but also in the off season. He says he spoke with him. He's fully

comfortable, blah, blah, blah, everything like that. My work has been defined by intellectual honesty, professionalism, and accountability. This is how I want to continue. I'm not denying that the weight cut for the last fight was difficult, but I strongly believe there were several variables that need to be taken into consideration before pointing fingers or making public accusations. One final note, the protocol used for that fight was the same one used month earlier when Hamzot successfully made weight and got his title against Driecus duplussi. Transparency is the best answer here. Thank you. Yeah, so T.J. Dillishaw had been with Sam Calavita for a long time and been doing, working with him. And so there was a time where Hamzaa was.

And so he's saying this wasn't Sam's methods. This wasn't Sam's protocols. This gentleman who seemingly was the one who was working with Hamza for this one saying proofs in the pudding. I'll show you guys. It wasn't the weight cut. I don't know, man. It just seems like at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to look around and be like, man, there's always a lot of drama around. on Hamzaa weight cuts, huh?

Like, it doesn't matter. I don't care if the protocol was followed or not followed or for this fight, this happened, this fight, this happened. There's always just a lot of drama with a Hamzaa weight cut, right? We saw him, what was it, 179 or something that he weighed in for the, the, what ended up being the Kevin Holland fight fight, instead of Nate Diaz, and then they switched up that fight card. Like, at a certain point, it can't just be the nutritionist.

At a certain point, it can't just be the weight cut. at a certain point it has to be a discipline thing with Hamzat or a medical thing, right? I need to hear from somebody that there's a medical issue with Hamza Tchamayev and you can't make weight because of X, Y, Z. If I don't hear that, then I think it's a discipline issue. And it's like every other fighter is making weight with, you know, a few exceptions. But like most fighters, especially in championship fights, are making weight and not struggling in this way. What needs to change for Hamzaa Chamaif to be able to make weight? There's so much like of this shadowy game around it and this guy's talking about this.

and the discipline and the weight cut and blah blah blah blah blah I just want to see homzop make wait and fight and I understand for people there have been some fighters I think um drickis weighed in on this I think strickland weighed on this who from the outside are like yeah this is just an excuse shut the fuck up like I kind of get that I kind of get that yeah I mean strickland had to get down to 185 you knew where you had to be you've been there before you've moved up a weight class you've made championship weight you got the title like this just sounds like you struggled in this one and it is what it is. Yeah. By the way, it's not

Hamza really like out there beating this drum to death about like the way cut. Yeah, another thing about the Dillishol thing is that he did mention right from the jump. He was like from the outside looking in. And the stories. I saw the Instagram stories and I talked to this person that he was throwing up green vile. I think that bile, but you know, yeah, same does.

You know, he was puking and everything like that. So like it wasn't even like he was in the room there with him. Yeah. And again, I almost don't care. If somebody in the room there with him was like Hamlet was struggling. I'd be like, great. How does he not struggle next time? Like the, I don't care so much about the revision of like Hamza had a tough weight cut. He looked like shit on the scale. We showed him on the scale. He did look like shit on the scale. It probably wasn't his best effort. It probably was the weight cut took a lot out of him. How do you correct that

error? Because this seems to be a recurring issue. He can't keep, you can't keep losing on the scale. If if the argument is from some of these people talking about it that Hamzaa Tcha may have lost on the scale because the weight cut was so difficult, he needs to not lose on the scale. It's that simple. Have the preparation in the training to not lose on the scale. And this is from somebody who believes Hamzad is probably still the best middleweight and probably could be a pretty damn good light heavyweight. The long saga between Ilya Teporia and Islam Makashv, the pound for pound number one, number two. It feels like we've been talking about him forever. Continues on. Elia Teporia talked about he actually doesn't think Islam is ducking anymore

and there's another reason that the fight is not happening. Tell me what. I don't think that it's because of him that the fight is not happening. I truly believe that it's that the UFC doesn't want to make it happen. I think so. It's got to suck, I imagine, at some point.

I mean, there's the passion of the fighters and then there's the business of the UFC. Yeah. Yeah, so Vic Blund's kind of getting into it there that like it's just like the money isn't isn't worth it in the UFC's eyes to make this fight happen. Obviously both dudes commanding a hefty paycheck for that fight. Yeah, and just not again, not being in the business of paying for big fights at this moment. Like the fights that everybody seemingly wants to see they have kind of put on the back burner.

Have you ever tried to move one of those barber chairs? just like off the floor? Yeah. You just touched one. I mean, I've swung it around and sat in it and stuff. They are ridiculously heavy. Yeah, hell yeah. Like, surprisingly.

Did someone move it in that video? No, but the fact that they have like an open warehouse space where clearly those barber chairs are not placed. The only thing I was thinking as seeing this. Oh, someone had to go set it up. I worked at a PR office that we used to have barber chairs as our client seats. And I've had to kind of shift around those barber chairs. We had to bring them in.

I feel for whatever crew had to bring in those barber chairs. That was the first thing I thought when I saw this. Shout out to whoever brought those in. I got to say Vic looks much more comfortable in that chair than Elliot does. Yeah, Elliot doesn't look as comfy. But shout out to Vic blends with the exclusive interviews. He got that big John Jones one where John, like, first spoke about Tom at like a very, like, important and viral moment. Shout out to Vic Blends, getting it in.

Look, man, people get comfortable in that barber chair. Islam Makashev has come out to discuss it talking about saying that he knows Tuporian knows why they aren't fighting at the White House. There's a lot of discussion about this fight but Tupori and his team

know why the fight, Teporea versus Mankachev, won't happen at the White House. I feel like we keep Ilya and Islam only talk about the fight not happening and the other knowing why. I just want the fucking White House card to happen so we can

stop talking about the fight that didn't happen. Why, Ilya and Islam never happened at the White House. It doesn't, at this point, truly, not a rhetorical question. I actually want your answer to this. Does everybody not know why this fight didn't happen already? Is it, is it like, is there a mystery around this to anybody? Is it not just the UFC to do not pay it? There it is. Done. Is that not obvious to anybody? Open and shut case. I don't think Ilya Tuporia was ducking and I don't think Islam Makhashv was ducking. I think the UFC was just like, listen, my orange is not cutting the paycheck for that one. We're going to go elsewhere for the White House. Obvious. Done. Big news. Our guy, your guy, honorary boy in the back. Malcolm Wellmaker,

unfortunately, out out. Writing a two-fight losing streak right now in the UFC. Looking to switch things up, looking to make some changes, leaving Augusta, Georgia, and is heading to ATT. Says an update to all my family, friends, and supporters out there. I have made the decision to move to Florida and become a part of the team at American Top Team Coconut Creek. I spent the last few days here practicing with the team and meeting the staff. The training and instruction is world class just like I expected. But the lengths of the staff, coaches, and athletes have gone to to make sure I feel welcome has beyond exceeded my expectations.

And that was the true deciding factor for me. It breaks my heart to leave my city, community, family, and everything I have ever known, obviously referring to Augusta, Georgia. But I am in a position where I have to make a change. I'll never forget where I came from, Augusta Georgia's 706. Shout out. Fagliars, Kempo Karate. I love you all forever, and this isn't the end. I hope that when it's all said and done, I achieve greatness and bring it back to my city. But until then, I got work to do. Hashtag 7.06. Shout out to him. Reping the Peach State. Yeah, I think with the last two performances,

I don't think making a change. You know, we saw Dustin Porriet do essentially the exact same thing, like, I got to get out of Louisiana. If I want to reach greatness, I'm going to ATT. In Florida, this feels like the same move for Malcolm Wellmaker. It's funny that you mentioned Dustin because I was just thinking about Malcolm that like, for a young man, he has a good head on his shoulders, right? A lot of times when people suffer the defeats that he's had, especially being as big a prospect as he was, right?

He was a lot of hype behind him before those first two losses. He was the guy at the MSG show that everybody was like, you got to see Malcolm Wellmaker. He's about to be the next big thing. And then credit to Ethan Ewing, who's also a fantastic fighter for getting that opportunity. But most of the time when those types of guys fall, it's like blaming this one,

blaming that one, not doing this, not doing that. A little secrecy of like, I change coaches, but I don't want to talk about it. He's just transparent. Like he was transparent after the last loss to Ethan Ewing. He was transparent after this loss to the point that he's like, look, I don't want to do this. I don't want to leave my home.

I don't want to leave my community, but I believe I have an opportunity ahead of me and I'm going to do this. It's the type of maturity. It's the type of responsibility and assuredness that you want to see from a young man in Malcolm's position where it's like, we believe he has all the talent in the world.

We believe he can be something special. It has derailed right now. Now he's going to find out by making this move to a camp like ATT if he does. But I just appreciate like the way he's handling business. Like he is not running. He is not running from the smoke. he's not running from the critics.

He's not trying to make excuses. He's saying, I fell short. I need to improve something to not fell short. Very much what I'm kind of talking about with Hamza, where I'm like there are all this mystery. It's like all this nightmare weight cut that nobody wants to talk about. But I heard the stories and the whispers. It's like at a certain point at the end of the day,

you didn't get the result you wanted. Fix something and make it work. Malcolm Wellmaker seems like a guy who is trying to fix something to make it work. And I respect it. I'm with you. There's been transparency throughout all of it. It's not just like, oh, excuse, excuse, excuse. It's like, man, I fucked up.

Yeah. I got to get better. And I appreciate that, man. I'm going to be rooting for him, obviously. Reps my home state has come on the boys in the back. Nah, no, no, he said 706 forever. He said 706 forever. That's why it even more so is similar to Dustin the fact that he's from a small town in a southern state,

and then he heads to Florida to try and make the improvement. So we'll be watching. I can't wait to see the improvements that he makes down at ATT. We had some fights this morning. I know Jordan was hyped up about it. His boy, Rong Zhu, in the main of. event at the road to UFC gets a

brutal knockout in was it 19 seconds I think a minute 10 a minute 10 took him 70 seconds to get it done against Victor Martinez my biggest question when I saw this it was so good it actually set MMA back if you asked me

did it set MMA back because it was a minus 4,000 favorite and won in 70 seconds a minute 10 so questions have been asked these are not the types of fights that we do here. These are not the types of fights that we do. Well, technically the UFC can say that

because this was a road to UFC. You're not in the UFC, you're on the road to the UFC. Even though you're wrong-jou who is signed to the UFC roster. Who's to check? Yeah, so like, who's to check? Was this like supposed to be like this is a

UFC fight as the main event to draw people in to watch it? Like I saw a sign that was like, UFC main event, UFC fight headliner or something like that. because Rongzhou had won his last two fights in the UFC. Rongzhu is in the UFC. There is no doubt he is not on the road to the UFC.

He was on a road to the UFC card. Can we just talk about, by the way, great career, 20 and 6. We know why Jordan loves him so much. This is dating back to 2021, April of 2021. UFC fight against Rodrigo Vargas loses. UFC fight against Brandon Jenkins wins. UFC fight against Ignacio Bahamondez loses. UAE Warriors fight wins

Road to UFC fight wins Road to UFC fight wins Road to UFC fight wins Back in the UFC Our guy Taco Padilla Shout out Loses UFC fight against Cody Steel

wins UFC fight against Austin Hubbard wins Road to UFC fight against Victor Martinez wins So is he back in the UFC Or is he going to fight again on Road to UFC No, I think he's going to be back to the UFC. I think what you said was the thing, which is they're looking for like a headline slot.

Yeah. Isn't, what's... Because all the other fights on the card were tournament. But what's the young lady? Sheming. Sheming. He's fighting in Roosia. Tomorrow morning.

Those are both UFC athletes. They have both competed in the UFC already. Against Puma Tojah. Yeah. No. Pugia Toma. Yeah. They're just putting...

They're just putting UFC fights. on top of the road to the UFC card. Minus 4,000 is wild shit, though. Minus 4,000. Looked like a minus 4,000. Sure did. Do you know what the... This is amateur research.

I've just looked this up quickly before the show. Do you know what the biggest favorite on a UFC fight was before this? Alexander Romanov, Chase Sherman, like minus 2,500? If that was, then that would be up there. But Bo Nichael versus Val Woodburn was also minus 2,500. Oh, okay. And Isaac Delgarian versus Brendan Marat was minus 2,400.

And if that was the closing line on Sherman versus Romanov, that was also a minus 25. So, like, this blows those out of the fucking water. This would be the biggest favorite in- Does it count if it's on road to UFC? Does this count as in the UFC? I don't know. Why'd they do Rongzsche like that? It's a pro fight that's going to, yeah, I don't know.

As the president of the Rongju fan base, how do you feel about this? A win is a win. wins a win. A win. 28 and 6. He's racking him up, man. It's an impressive career for Rongju. Shout out to him.

Roos to UFC. UFC, it doesn't matter the Rongju fight club as long as he fights. He's now in his second stint in the road to UFC. And if he goes back to actual UFC fights, then he's in his third stent in the UFC. Has he ever lost on Road to the UFC cards?

I think it was 4-0, right? Yeah, I think so. Shout out. Got to throw him on that road to the UFC. Even she minxie. joked in her like fight announcing video she's like I'm setting the world record for most road to UFC fights yeah he's 4 and O in the

road to UFC shout out throw him on that every time okay so like he was credited on Tapology he's 3 and O in Road to UFC and this was a UFC win for him yeah it was a it was a UFC win obviously um we're giving them a little bit of shit because of Mark Shapiro

coming out and being like yeah the Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano set the sport back and all this bullshit. 35 year. Well, the sport's only 33 years old. It was a late replacement. I don't have much of a problem.

My question, though, was like, did Rongju need to stay on this card? Was that, like, an absolute fucking requirement? I saw some video. The crowd of the Galaxy Arena was pretty high. Oh, I'm sure. But, like, this guy, minus 4,000 just got steamrolled. Like, it's not really, like, a competitive fight. Shee Ming, Pugetomar is my Super Bowl.

I'm looking forward to that one taking place tomorrow morning at the Galaxy Arena. Are we going to break that down in a lot? a second or? That's the breakdown. Sheming. Vicious knockout. Okay. And then she cares for Pujut Tomar and the doctor. She's a doctor, right? Yeah. At the, uh, at the hospital. Shout out to she. Later on. Her announcement video was fucking all-timer. Rangzhu was not the only massive favorite to win to win today. And I know we're not a, we're not a tennis program, but I had to address, especially because someone asked me in super chats yesterday, who I thought was going to win the French Open and I was like, Yonix Center with a bullet.

Baby. This guy is on an insane run right now. He's going to complete the career grand slam. Yonix Center minus 10,000 pre-match, goes up two sets and then five games to one. So we just need to win one more game in the third set to be victorious and move on to the third round. Completely collapses, completely falls apart. I believe he was as big as a minus 100,000 live odds. and there's some, I mean, this picture right here is just like, it's unforgivable. 6362-5-1, and then he blows it. I mean, this is one of the biggest upsets. Going from this picture right here to him losing the match is one of the biggest upsets in all of sports.

I didn't see too many wrong ju minus 4,000 tickets this morning, but man, there were a lot of people that laid the cheddar on Yonick Sinner minus 10,000. There were a couple of people that put 50,000. I saw it. There it is. Oh, man. $50,000 on Kalshi on Yonik Center. The implied odds of minus 10,000 are 99.01 implied odds, meaning 1% chance of it not hitting. You said live it got up to minus 100, right? Yeah. The implied odds of minus 100,000 are 99.9%. It actually got even worse because there was a man over in Europe who, when he was up 5-1, placed 747,850 euro to return 8210.

Meaning he wagered 747,000 euro to make a profit of 82 euro. That might be minus a million odds. That might be minus a million. Minus a million doesn't even sound real. And this guy bet on it and then lost. Yeah. That is so crazy to me. One of the biggest upsets in all of sports.

I know we're not a tennis podcast here, but it is tough. Who is to check? Who is to check? Honestly, I mean, there was a guy out there if you want to go troll them, F-O-A-Z-N poker, Fousin poker, who tweeted last night, if you saw $999 and $7 on the ground, you'd pick it up, right? Yonick's a lock. Two things here.

Sinner is guaranteed to win. Fouson, referring to himself, won't wake up. at 5 a.m. to watch. I make money in my sleep. You wake up to make money. Hashtag levels. And his was the cows. She slipped for 50K. And then he put another $5,000 on Fandul at Yonik Center. Minus 10,000 to win $50. Unfortunately, he did not make money when he slept. He lost $55,000. You know that he went to bed not sweating. You know that he was genuine about the fact that it's like, I'm going to make this money in my sleep. What do you think that? moment was like when he opened the fucking phone up.

I am a big tennis fan, so I was watching it. I texted Jordan during it. I was just like, you're watching this? Like he is fucking crumbling right now. Like he was cramping bad. Like he had like a heat stroke, but like you're not going to get a break in tennis for cramps. Like it's not an actual medical emergency. You're supposed to just be hydrating properly and he's always struggled with it.

He was like, he was dead. He was just like he was done. Like the dude he was playing was like dropping drop shots and he was just watching him. go by. He just stood no chance. If I had $55,000 on that, I'd be sick to my stomach. Sick to my stomach. Okay. We both acknowledge he probably didn't sweat for one second going to bed. Does he even check the score? Does he even think about the bed again? He did tweet at like 7 a.m. this morning. He was like, I have to admit, I woke up and I and I checked the score. Oh. Yeah. That moment must have been

That must have been a bullet He seems to be having fun with it He's like if you could burn $55,000 Under the Roland Garrow seat You'd do it, right? Yeah, he's having fun So he doesn't have a actual meltdown Laugh at the $55,000 gone now

Cry later when Elon pays me $42 in all this engagement He's too, he's handling it as well as you can He's tweeting through it He's tweeting through it This guy punched a hole in it Yes, he did something very bad This guy punched a hole in as well

I don't even want to know what the fuck the guy did. 747,000 euro on it. If you have 747,000 euros to play with, you probably don't sweat a lot of money problems. You probably are somebody who has a lot of money. Then why do you give a fuck about getting $82 back on a tennis match? That's a great question. It's a great question. I don't know why.

I don't understand. It seems like you're like money laundering at that point. You're trying to clean it off. Could be. It's a weird thing to do. also the book taking the bet on that must have been like they must be high-fiving in the back office

just fucking celebrating and they saw bros start cramping up they were probably like no fucking way he is I mean he folded so hard because he lost five straight games in the third set then he lost 6-1 6-1 so that's

that's 17 games to one I did not watch this because I'm not like locked in on tennis like that that I would even know that this was happening but I can I remember watching the Knicks and the Cavs when the Knicks started like chipping into the Cavs

Tony Boyleading game one of the Eastern Conference Finals and I remember thinking to myself at like it was like 21 or 22 at its highest point when it got down to like 15 I was sure that they were going to come all the way back and win this game I was sure that it was over I'm sure that watching Cynic on that first like three games of the set you start to be like oh fuck is he dead is this over like before it's before it's

6-1-6-1 when it's first few games of that set after it's broken you're like oh fuck oh fuck is this guy just about to completely melt this also like this puts it to shame like that 22 point comeback is nothing compared to this like this was an impossibility when it was up 5-1 these are upsets upsets less insane than center Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson This is all just on odds Ab State beating number five Michigan

Which was like one of the craziest things ever The Pats when they were down 28 to 3 Was less odds than this And then the 2 16 seeds Who beat one seeds in March Madness Were less than this I think that 28 to 3 Is probably still more improbable

And the only reason I say that Is because of the level of play that is required for that, right? Like, there's just like a certain, even if the other team is melting down to win 28 to three to come back from 28 to 3 seems numerically impossible. Whereas in this case, it's like, if you play long enough and he actually is collapsing, you will eventually win. And he was collapsing.

He was having a heat stroke. Yeah, he's having a heat stroke on the court. Like, you will eventually win. There's a world where in the NFL, you just literally run out of time because you can't score fast enough to come back from 28 to 3. There's also a world he played this out. There's a world where he like retired halfway through the 4th set. People are like, oh, he was just injured.

He's done. Yeah, why didn't he retire? Dude, I don't know. What the fuck? It was a sad thing to watch. It was a sad thing to watch. He couldn't do shit. And like, he was down like four games to love in the fifth set.

And like, he won one point. He turns to his team. He's like, come on. It's just like, not you're fucked, dude. No, legitimately though, you, I didn't even think about this because we'd been talking about this before the show and I'd seen obviously the stuff on social. why did he not retire? He could have retired whenever he wanted to.

That makes no sense. I guess he just had it in him. I guess he just thought he didn't. Oh, boy. Without Koresh being out, it was like a once-in-lifetime. All right, that's enough tennis talk for the day. Crazy. That is our tennis segment for the year.

Shout out wrong Jew. Shout out to Rong Ju. Shout out to UFC Macau going down this weekend. The promotion returns to the Vegas of the East. And we got Song-e-Dongedong taking on Davis and Figurato. Davis and Figurato looking to avoid losing four of his last five. And the odds do not. like him. Speaking of that, he is currently a plus 320, and I actually think it's climbing from there.

He's been a massive underdog in most of his fights recently, and he was able to squeak out a split decision against Montel Jackson, plus 425 now for Davidson Figurato, 38 years old, fighting at Bantamweight against Song Yadong, who in a mine melter is still only 28. I'm not sure exactly how that's possible, but he is the massive favorite this weekend. I think it'll be an exciting fight, but I have have to side with Songyedong. Yeah, same. I just, look, when Davis and Figuero first came up to this weight, I was like, I did not believe he was going to have success because I thought he was perfectly kind of sized for, not perfectly sized because the weight cut was hard, but like, flyweight was where he would have the best advantages. I thought he was

going to be way too small for bantam weight. He came up and had that early success and I was like, oh shit, Mia Kopa, like I was wrong. Like, Davis and Figueroa is going to be a good bantam weight. I think it has now kind of caught up to him. I just feel like he is not. He is not big and physical enough at bantam weight to beat these upper echelon of guys. And Song yong is a very, very good bantam weight. I know his record's kind of like up and down a little bit spotty. But strike for strike and with the power that he carries, he's a real dangerous out for a lot of these. I don't think he's going to be a champion.

I think he's one of those guys that's going to be like in that tier of like, man, he can hang with some of these champions in that division. He can be somebody who's like really competitive with the champions of this division. but I don't ultimately believe he's going to be a champion. Davis and Figuero is a guy that he should be beating at this point in his career, and I think he will. So yes, I believe songs are going to have a really good performance. Shit, at 28 years old, like you just never know what can develop a song song. 100%.

Go ahead. I was going to say 100%, but when you lose to the O'Malley's, when you lose to the Yons, when you lose to the Sanhagans, it has become clear to me like what his ceiling is and what the level is. He can have this late surge. he can change something up and all of a sudden he becomes something different, I would be doubtful that that would happen. He can prove me wrong, no doubt. But it seems like I know what his level is,

which is like if you're the cream of the crop, he can fight with you, he can be competitive with you. He can even be dangerous because of how powerful he is, but he's not going to ultimately get over that hump. And I feel the same way about like almost like a Corey Sanhagan, if I'm being honest. Well, you mentioned like the figgy, like at the beginning he was having success. He started out three and O at Bantamway. And remember he had that peyote. Yan fight. I believe it wasn't in Macau? Am I tripping on

that? Maybe I'm wrong. I don't remember, but yeah. But he had the fight against Piotr-Yon. It was, Galaxy Arena. Shut up. Look at Ligarado, Macau's favorite fighter. He had that Peotre Yon fight, and like, he was potentially going to be in title talks at Bantamweight had he won that fight. It's absolutely

insane. But he was a big dog going into that one, plus 2.45, plus 380 going into the Corey Sandhagen fight, plus 265 going into the Montel Jackson fight, plus 900 going into the Umar and Mamgamato fight and now he finds himself again as a plus 425 going into the songy dong so it was like he had the success but it was like man the odds makers really never had faith in him against this upper echelon at 135 yeah and you know the wins

were over chito who can also be a hit or miss type guy over rob font who is longer in the tooth and like sometimes has the best performances as a career another another another hit or miss garbrand who at this point is not like a top tier fighter. And so it looked good to start. I thought size is going to be more of a problem. I think it has become more clear that like he is not really like going to be ultimately a super successful bantam weight. He was 38 at this point.

And he's older. That's not where you want to be at when you're fighting in these lower weight classes. Song, I think, can compete with the upper echelon. Again, I don't think he wins most of those fights, but he could compete with the upper echelon. I think Davis and Figurato is even a level below that. So I think Song will show his class in this fight and, and do very well. against Davis and Ficcarado.

Let's go to the co-main event. Ming Yang Zhang taken on Alonzo Menefield. Last time out, we saw Zhang get knocked out by Johnny Walker. He was on sort of that like ether everyone path early on here in his UFC career, but was stopped by Johnny Walker last time out. Now he gets Alonzo Menefield, who was knocked out himself last time out against Volcanozumir. This kind of feels like one of those ones that they're going to come in and swing, and someone's chin is going to get touched.

Yeah, this, but tell me if you just, disagree. I'm not like a guy who's like Mingyang Zhang is like world beater. Like should this not be closer to a coin flip? Should this like Alonzo Menefield has proven that he is the type of fighter who is killer be killed, but against these upper echelon of guys, it's like if he catches them, if he has an opportunity, he can make a count. If they catch him, he goes out. I don't feel like this is like as far as the odds would reflect. I don't see this as like Alonzo Menafield is out of this. So Now, granted, a little bit older, right? Actually, a lot of bit older, 11 years older.

But in this division, if you can crack, in the same way that Johnny Walker can crack, I don't think he's, like, I don't think he should be this big of a dog. Both of these dudes' chins have been touched. Yeah. They've also touched a lot of chins over the course of their career. They've both been knocked out four times. To me, it just feels like who's going to get to who first.

I feel exactly the same. But that's why I'm surprised that, that Zhang is a two to one favorite at some books. Like, wouldn't this be closer to a coin flip is just my feeling? And then meanwhile, Zhang's going to come out there and just start to smoke in five seconds. We're just going to get exposed as the idiots. Well, just me, thankfully. We go to a heavyweight bout, Sergey Pavlovich, taking on Talism, to Chera.

Sergei Pavlovich, gone are the days of talking, speaking of ethering people. Sergey Pavlovich used to be like, the scariest man on planet Earth. And then something changed in that Aspenal fight. I don't know if it was him getting knocked out himself. But he has been to three straight decisions now. And he gets Talosin Tashira on Saturday night, who is going to be his tallest opponent to date in the UFC coming in at 6'7. But they're giving Talosin to Sherin a big opportunity to get into the top five of the heavyweight rankings

because anyone can just get in the top five of the heavyweight rankings. It is that easy. I mean, two fights ago he was getting knocked out by Derek Lewis. Yeah. This is another one that the odds feel a little off to me just based on how not impressive Sergei Pavlovich has been since that Tom Aspinall fight. Even in the wins, it's not been like a vintage performance. It's not been a dominant showing. It's been like kind of just a ho-hum performance. And Talasin Tashira is a very unique kind of physical specimen. He's very unlike a lot of the other heavyweights in the division. but man, the gas tank in the last couple of fights has not impressed. And so I do imagine in the later round, Sergei Pavlovich will still be there and be able to take Talasin Tashara out of the fight. But until that point, I think he's going to be able to hang around with Sergey.

I don't know that I love Sergey at that advanced, you know, that steep a price based on the recent performances. But, man, Talasin falls off a cliff in the later rounds of that fight. That tie to Ivasa, the Derek Lewis fight were just. Fuck. Not good performances. Yeah, I need to see Sergey Pavlovich get back to the power punching ways, man. It feels like Tashara is a guy that he can do that against. I don't know.

We'll see, man. We'll see. He's just been fighting in a different style ever since that Tom Aspin will fight. We'll see if he changes it up on Saturday and tries to defend his ranking. He's currently third, Towson DeShera, sitting at 15th. Fucking out. I mean, he beat Ty, who was ranked, like, at that point, right? Wasn't Ty like in the top?

Yeah. 12 or something like that? I guess so. I guess so. Yeah. You sound so thrilled by the heavyweight division. Allison Tashara, number three heavyweight in the world if he wins? I mean, that's probably what's going to happen, no? Fuck me. Don't be mad, bro.

Kaysakora taking on. No, because, does that make sense? I guess that makes sense. But like if Josh Hocke beats Derek Lewis, is he worse than Tallasin to sheriff rankings-wise? Can they actually do that? I don't know, but I'd be down for Talson Tashire versus Josh Hocot. 6-7 versus Josh Hoggit just running in there and just windmilling like this and then flipping them off. That would be great.

Kyle Socorah back after an 0-and-2 start to his UFC career, obviously lost the title to Alashandre Pantos. You're taking on Cameron Smotherman who's back after that scary weight cut. I don't think he has fought since then. Hopefully it's nothing but good news for him on the scales. Yeah, that Ricky Terseus bout from earlier this year. I believe that was on the first Paramount PLE, whatever we're calling them, numbered event. of the year. So hopefully it's nothing but a good weight cut for him this time around.

I like Kai Asakora. For some reason, I just can't quit. Kaya Sakora, like everything that I saw from his rise in stent, and like, he didn't do well against, he got finished by both Tim Elliott and Alishandri Bantogh, but for some reason, I'm going back to the well. I like Kai Asakora. I was about to say I'm a fucking idiot who just believes in Kaya Sakora.

I don't know why. Legitimately, I don't know why. Well, you see the striking and you're just, like, yeah, the guy is good. Like, he is a good fighter. And then they put up like the, remember that time? He broke that dude's jaw on half? Yeah.

Like, yeah, I do. Yeah, he is sick. He is sick. He is sick. He has, like, the dope fashion and the YouTube channel. And he, like, everyone loves him on social media. And you're like, that guy is pretty cool. Maybe he's got something.

And then he gets starched in 90 seconds against Cameron Smotherman. That's what's happening. I mean, that's what's waiting for us. He's kind of like, fuck, man. Why do I believe in Kaiusikori? He's literally giving me absolutely no reason. to believe in him whatsoever in his UFC career. But here I am doing it.

What's the meme where it's like, thank you so much, I love you or something. And then it's like, but I'm just whatever. You know what I'm talking about? But I'm just, I don't know. I'm losing an O and two UFC fighter. Well, I'm just Kai Asakora. It's like, oh, it's like, thank you for changing my life.

Me with the shadowed face. Yeah. I'm wearing a Kai Asikora shirt. And it's me saying, please give me your toughest battles to Jesus. Like, what the hell? He's tossing me, Cameron Smotherman. Yeah, I don't know why. I believe in Kaiusik.

Me too. There's the pick. Jake Matthews. That's what. Taking on Carlston Harris, the representative of Guyana. One day there's going to be a Carlston Harris main event, and we're going to go get some Guyanese food, and it's going to be fantastic. Two-fight losing streak for Carlston Harris.

Jake Matthews, in my head, Jake Matthews is 37. Me too. He's still only 31, and he's three and one in his last four. Okay. He's three and one in his last four, but unless... Should be four and up. He's four and oh, right? Obviously, the Neil Magni fight gets called adrenaline, dumb, yada, yada, yada.

I'm firmly on the corner. I don't think that's much of a controversy. You can argue, like, hey, it played out the way it's supposed to play out. That's fine, but he beat Neil Magny. That fight was over. And so I believe, like, the performance that he had against Neil Magny, was the performance that I was starting to say Jake Matthews is showing the potential

that everybody believes for him, right? You said you felt like he's 37 because he's seemingly been in the UFC for his entire adult life and he's always been a prospect and always been somebody who everybody believed in but wasn't rising to the occasion. The Neo Magni performance,

I think was him showing that he's able to rise to the occasion and he's finally ready to make that step. So I believe he's going to win this fight. I believe this is a fight he should win. But I do think the mental fuckery of like feeling like you beat Neil Magni and then looking at the loss

is going to be an interesting thing to see how he bounces back from but man he's so fucking talented and I do believe like he's trying to I believe he's starting to put it all together Alex Perez taking on Sumadairji in a scrap that should be plenty of fun Alex Perez always comes

in ready to fight when he does get there and I think he is going to get there but that makes for an exciting flyweight event can we talk about how blessed we are this week that like the UFC is is gifting us the ultimate week for not only Jordan but us, Sumadairji, Eriqi Lang, and Rongzhu, all fighting in one week? The best. The one name God.

Yeah. The trio, the father, son, and the holy spirit, Erici Lang, Rongzhu, and, uh... If somebody made like a shirt of this, it would go platinum. The father, son, and the Holy Ghost, but it's Ritchie Lang, Sumadersi, and Rongzhu. Yes. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. And then Yisak Lee is taking on Luis Felipe Diaz as well. And Meng Ding.

Shut up Meng Ding. He's fighting Jose Enrique. You got a ding, you dong, and a sack. It's good stuff, man. Oh, boy. It's good stuff. Without the sacks. Sorry about that.

Ray Saruya is back. with a new look, we're getting blonde Ray, and he looks fantastic. The jaw line looks as crazy as ever. Is he magging in the right picture? I got to be honest. He needs the hair back. Okay, you like the long black hair.

Yeah, not even necessarily the color. The framing of the face did something to make him. His face looks more square with the blonde hair. No, it's the framing. The hair definitely did some covering of like, he looks better on the left. That's all I'm going to say. I think he needs to bring the long hair back. He's fucking jacked on the right, though.

He looks beefier. That's for damn sure. He looks buffered. He's in good shape, by the way. Are we coming to, also, are the UFC logos on his gloves like gigantic on the right? Or am I tripping? Like some A-O-ish shit. I don't know.

I don't mind the blonde hair. Is Kai blonde for this one? Did he go back to black last time? I forget. He usually has the. the changed hair color. Can confirm him arriving in Macau. It looks like a sandy blonde.

Oh, nice. Yeah, so maybe he'll re-dive before the fight or maybe we're just going with something different here. Shut out. Yeah, I mean, Ray Saruya looks to be in fantastic shape. The hair looks cool. Taking on Luis Grim, Gouriel. Should be a good fight. Ray needs to get back on track.

He's been away for, what, a year now? Yeah. Yeah, since the Josh Van fight, which has aged nicely. Well, yeah. We haven't seen him since March 2025. He did not. Van had the answers for what he was offering. But yes, to your point, like, that's now UFC champion Josh Van.

Like, I think that age is better. Like, this feels like a very- You're able to get a few takedowns. He just wasn't able to do much with them. He was able to have success there too as well in a way that even Tatsu Ro Taira wasn't able to, in terms of the takedown game. This feels like a perfect, like, bounce back, get your confidence and then see where you can kind of go from there.

Only 23, about to be 24. Angela Hill taking on Jing Nang Zhang, Kanji Zhu taking on Rodrigo Vera, and then Loma Luke Boonme, taking on Jacqueline Amarim. So, I mean, they're doing a great job of making it a very regional-centric card. Does it feel like Loma is the opening fight

of every fight card she's on? Like, it just feels like, oh, we're starting off of Loma. Yeah, that's actually a great point that, like, she is consistently curt. Jerker. Yeah. Shout out to Loma.

I love Loma. Putting on for Thailand. She's just a fun scrapper. I love what Loma brings us to. She had a nice run, man, four straight. Yeah. Lost last time out, but that's all right. We can bounce back.

We can bounce back. She's a dog, so she'd need to... Quite, slight. Jing Nang Jong coming over from one championship and Kenji Zhu doing the same. How many... What do we got? We got a Chinese fighter in one, two, three, four, five,

six, seven. Not bad. Not bad. It's not a bad card. Songy Dong, breaking news. Oh. His nutritionist. Oh!

He's the same guy that Humzai uses. So hopefully... Oh. Wait, so why are we waiting until Edmund to get the transparency? Because we need to hire the journalist first. Oh, somebody who's documenting it. Yeah.

I got it. Yeah. So that's your card. Road to UFC. Should be a good one. 3 a.m. 4 a.m. start time. Second one of the month.

Because we had Perth, earlier. You're going to be up, right? 7 a.m. main card start. I will actually be away. I will be on a bit of a trip with some of my friends. I don't think they're going to want to get up at 7 a.m.

Oh, I was talking like the three. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not for this one, unfortunately, guys. I'm sorry. I'm going to be in the bunk bed, streaming, you know. Yeah. Oh, guys, Ming Yang Zhang just got knocked out. Oh, shit, guys.

Rest and peace to Ming Yang John. All right, what do you guys want to get into today? They're like, who? Who? Bro, the last time I watched a UFC card with these guys I'm hanging out this weekend, Piotr Yan was fighting, and they were like, you know who this guy is? I was just like, yeah, I fucking know who this guy is.

It's fucking Piotr Yon. He's a fucking champ of the world. You fucking don't know who this guy is? Yeah, it was the Piotr Yon versus, who do you fight Nabudabee last year? Marcus McGee? Marcus McGee. Yeah, it was that fight.

You know this guy? They were like, Piotrion. Well, of course they said Peter, Peter Yan. So you were with Sean O'Malley. You were hanging out with... Yeah, exactly. So they didn't know who it is. This really kicks it off.

This kicks off the UFC summer, man. Memorial Day weekend is here. I'm being serious. The world tour. From Macau to Philly. That's our summer. We got Macau. We got White House.

We got Baku. We got International Fight Week. We got Oklahoma City. We got Abu Dhabi, Belgrade, and Philadelphia. All right. Actually, it is a world tour. I was going to say, bro. I thought you were saying, like, kicks off the string of, like, great action.

I thought you were going that direction. I don't know that Macau is exactly where I'd plant the flag on that one. But as far as, like, international, yeah, the flavor starts here, I guess. It's good. I feel like the next feel like we got it is Macau. I've heard good things about Macau. I've heard it's a better version of Las Vegas. It is, but you're not a gambler in that way.

Yeah, true. Like if you like table games, yeah, like that's a lot of fun. I'll be down for a trip to Macau, but this is more like that type of gambling than like the sports book. Yeah. Shout to Macau. Should be a good one this weekend. You got to set your alarms early if you want to watch. Oh, yeah.

But a nice bantamweight clash in the main event there. And a lot of local guys that are going to put on for what should be a rabid audience in the Galaxy Arena on Saturday morning. That's not all the fighting. We'll get some afternoon fights. BKFC 90 going down, and Darren Till makes his debut in the promotion, maybe the first step to seeing the long-awaited Darren Till, Mike Perry, Barrett. Yeah, that's fucking right. Taking on Aaron Chalmers, massive favorite in this one, and God bless Darren Till and his workout regimen and his nutritionist because he is looking

absolutely jacked ahead of this one. This has got to be the best shape Darren Till has ever been in his life. I mean, he is chiseled out of stone. Maybe he got a tan too. Did he get a tan? Looks fantastic. He looks red and ready to go for Saturday night. Hopefully this is the first of many. I feel like you kind of find out about guys in bare knuckle pretty quickly once they make their debuts. Can you take those shots? Can you hang in there? Because it is sort of just like it's a different atmosphere. But he gets that co-main event slot at BKFC 90 in Birmingham, Alabama. Can't believe it is not the main event. Yeah, I mean, Darren Till not being the main event is a bit of a shock I guess they're giving the prestige of the belt, you know, the rub there, but like, I don't know. It feels like more of a Connor McGregor situation

where you just got to be like, this is the obvious thing that everybody's here for. Dude, like, look, man, this is taking place in England and your poster is BKFC 90 Tierney versus Franco for just as the BKFC Championship. interim world welterweight championship.

No, you got to put Till above that. You got to know that Darren Till is the main draw why anyone is going to be watching this this weekend. And this is no disrespect to Connor Tierney or Rico Franco. This is simply just a trawling power. Trust me, those guys know that everybody's there for Darren Till. They're not unaware of that as well. Do you know who Aaron Chalmers is?

Do you have any knowledge of Aaron Chalmers? Okay. I know him because of previous BKFC fights, but I don't know shit about him. about him. We don't care. All right. Moving on.

I was supposed to tell you a little bit about Iron. No, I'd love to hear them. Everyone stopped chatting shit. So he fought for Bellator. Yes. He was on a very popular reality show, Jordy Shore, which is their version of our Jersey Shore.

And he was part of that crew, that cast at the time and became famous and popular off that, then transitioned into MMA. The most startling thing to me was, like, looking at that poster, the blackout of his tattoos is absolutely wild.

He had a lot of tattoos, don't get me wrong, but now he is just covered and the face that's poking through the middle chest is kind of gnarly. Shout out to Aaron Chalmers, though. Okay, so he's like kind of a star,

2.2 million followers on Instagram. Oh no, that show was massive. So, like, this is a big deal in England that Darren Till is fighting this guy. He is not like, from what I understand, from what I've been told by people in the UK, Jordy Shore was a big show, he was a big star, and things like that.

But it's not quite, it's not quite like mega stardom. This isn't Mike the situation fighting Sean Strickland on a BKFC car. It kind of is, but like, is Mike the situation actually putting butts in seats at this point in 20? You know what I mean? Like, no, Mike, the situation would be on brand risk. Let's call it what it is. Wow. This isn't snooky fighting.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This isn't snooky fighting. Tracy It is, but no I give a shit

so give us a fucking answer Boldie Snooky Snooky versus Tracy Cortez The visuals On that alone I would just pay I'm in

Like I'm fucking in on Snucky Guys let's be honest Jenny would fight for sure Jenny Well Jay well Jenny and her Ex husband Roger

I think Are very good friends With Frankie Edgar She's been around The fight game She's been front row For tons of UFCs Shout out to Jay Wow.

But yeah, it's like, you know, his fame came at a very specific time. It's not like that level. But, you know, as you said, 2.2 million followers. He's definitely got a dedicated fan base. Like, this is a big-ish deal. So I think, you know what, fuck you, Frank. Are you hating Frank? What's the deal, bro?

What's going on, man? Can't even talk about it. You hate him? Are you a huge Connor Tierney fan? Is that what it is? Excuse me, I'm getting offended now. Either way, I'll be watching. It's going to be fun.

He's always putting on good shows and the fact that we're getting Daryntill there. I think if he's successful, the talks have to start, Daryntonel Mike Perry. I think the talks start regardless. I mean, they've already started if we're being totally honest. Yeah. But, yeah. When it comes to the bets for the weekend, though, the parley pals, look to stay hot, baby. We are back in the green.

I've already gotten Pizzi's pick. He's taking Sergey Pavlovich to knock out Talison Deshera. though he says he just wants the money line Frankie, what's your pick, brother? My pick is Jake Matthews, and I don't mind telling you that. Why would you mind? Thanks, ma'am.

You're welcome. I'm actually going to go with the man that I just can't quit for some weird reason, Kai Asakora. Me and Kai's. Kai Asakora. Kai Kara France. Any other Kai?

Kai Sinat. Sanat. Kai Reerving. Kai Reerving. Kai Leerving. jenner kai lee jenner who are you going to say frank jake matthews

what oh i meant kai's oh i thought you were asking what my pick was that wasn't done um i'm taking uh song yodong i think songa don't all right shocker song yadong is the pick for new york rick

we're sitting on green i mean did you guys acknowledge that last week i don't know we did i know you didn't watch we appreciate that man and we will will be even further in the green after we win this one, baby, plus 136. That's it.com. 20 and 40. Every two we lose, we win one. And that's it.

We win 33%, but we're profitable. That's all that matters, baby. We are rocking and rolling. There's some people out there that would die to be 20 and 40 and profitable. I've seen some people out there that put bets out every week that just... Every single week, and they are ass. They are down like 48 units on... 48?

48. 480. Yeah. There's some people, and we're just flinging out some picks as we go into the weekend, and your boys are up. I do have one bet for myself that I'm taking. It's a little Japanese parlay, despite us being in Macau, Ray Seru, Cai Asikora. I love it. What could go wrong? You tell me, those are the bets. Those are the picks for the weekend. Should be some entertaining fights as we head in to the summer UFC World Tour. Normally, now we would shift to our pound for pound rankings and we would give you some witty, quirky reason on why we're ranking these, you know, some sort of pun on a name, something like that. And I just have to be transparent. I have to be completely honest. We just couldn't come up with anything worth doing this week. You're being very kind when you say be transparent and then you lie.

We should acknowledge what really happened, which is when Frank, you know, last minute left us in the lurch last week and you and I did it together. we realized like, you know, it wasn't, like, it was, it was disheartening. It was deflating to have to do it that way. Ain't that what gentleman was amaze? We've just retired it, thanks to Frank. I was actually really looking forward to your pound for pound list last week, Frank. You didn't even send it in.

No. No, no, I didn't. No, it's all good. Now he killed pound for pound. So all letters directed to Frank. I actually went back and was like, you know, I didn't want to like come out here and be like, like in honor of Song Yadong we're doing

top five songs and we just list our five favorite songs and then people are just like the pound for pound list are getting unwatchable this is fucking bullshit man so I went back and now I'm actually questioning everything and wondering if we ever

had a good pound for pound list I went back on Spotify and I just opened up the descriptions I would just choose random episodes we've had some winners pound for pound hills in honor of Jamal Hill we actually thought of that one again this week for Angela

pound for pound New York burrows in honor of Charles Dubrocks that was such shit and I clicked on a few of these and they're time stamped and so I would go straight to them and I would have to listen to my dumbass explain to everyone I clicked on the St. Patrick's Day won and I was like yeah and on St. Patrick's Day you wear greens. So in honor of St. Patrick's Day, pound for pound greens.

And it was like, I like emerald and then I also like a Rougala. And it's just like, is this a de facto pound for pound worst pound for pounds? I'm not done yet. Star Wars characters in honor of Gina Carano putting on Netflix. That made sense. That one made sense. It's not whether it made sense or not. It's just how bad they were. The best part of that one was us rushing through the end and me just reading off characters. And then us being like, we're fucking done with this. Let's just go.

Pound for Pound letdowns? I couldn't remember why we did this one. And what even we talked about? Do you remember what event it was for? Uh-uh. We had to have been an event that just happened. Yes, I think it was something got canceled or something. Or a fight announcement that got mentioned?

Yeah. Pound for bound letdowns pound for bound convenience store food. And God bless whoever writes up, God bless whoever writes up the description of the podcast. It's like, and then the boys rank their pound for pound convenience store food. I'm like, I wouldn't listen to this shit. What was that one for? How did we arrive there? I don't know.

I have no idea. He pointed out it's for Arnold Allen. Yeah, yeah, yes, it was Arnold Allen because of Tesco. A bit of stress. Someone says that's what makes it amazing, just completely shitless. We're starting to look forward to pound for pound. It's not dead yet. Don't worry.

It's not dead yet. This week we just like kept throwing out stuff and we were just like, what was it? Yeah, someone says top five dongs. Yeah, we worked on that like top five meats in the UFC. Yeah, I think. We thought about top five dongs and we just thought that might be a little too far to push it. Yeah, someone said could have done pound for pound early morning activities. thought of that, but like, is that that good?

I like eating cereal. I like taking a dump. Getting a workout and I continue to sleep. Yeah, I like continuing to snooze. Hit the snooze. Yeah, I mean, we're really getting there. Pound for bound Chinese provinces? Yeah. Yeah, they're familiar with all of them. That would have been terrible.

We also did pies. That was for pie. Come on. We were just acknowledging the reasoning. I'm not questioning. We've always come up with some reasoning. Because you buy it, it could put in a circle. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that was the point where he tried to establish that anything in a circle is a pie. That was something. Yeah, because that's why it's pie day. It has nothing to do with actual pies. We did pound for pound sandwiches. That wasn't bad. But yeah, if you just go and click through our episodes and you just pull up the random ones, it's always just like, why did we do that?

So you want to take the circumference and divide by the diameter of pie. We did pound for pound apex predators. That one wasn't bad. Like, let's just click into one. April 30th last. year, UFC Perth, pound for pound. Oh, wait, no, it's this year. Pound for Pound for Pound nightmare scenarios. That one

wasn't bad. Frank, are you confused about the difference between Pye and a circle? Is that what's happening? Fight siblings? It was Pye Day. Right, but I'm saying, are you confused that it wasn't Circle Day? Is that the issue? Right, well, like, because Pye is derived from a circle, right? But it's not a circle. Oh, no, I fucking know that.

I looked into the history of the letdowns. People were letdowns. People were let down by the White House card announcement. Pound-for-pound documentaries. We did that? Yeah. Damn, I was going to offer that one next week. Pound-for-pound three-namers?

That was a good one, dude. Shout out to Jack Della. That's a Jack Della. Who else? Mega preview, Notch it, UFC. Pound-for-pound with a twist. Yes, we did twist. No, we did.

twists. That's the bell for found. Also the best part, breaking the fourth wall, we don't have a running list of what we've done. Jordan has one somewhere.

It's not updated because there were several things that we threw out yesterday and we were all just like, have we done that before? Like I was hard on, if you want to know the ideas for today was, yeah,

pause on that, especially if we're about to talk about you don't. I was big on walkout songs, but we couldn't remember if we had done it or not. And I was also big on pound-per-bound magazine covers with combat sport athletes because of Dana White. It was a tough week, man. We've done like 80 of these.

We're running out of ideas. The first thing I'm going to have intern Josh and his help, another intern as well coming in. The intern has an intern. He's already dead. What did you say? You said the intern has an intern. No, he will not have an intern. There is another intern coming in.

It's our intern breeding program, Jordan. It just takes a few months and then they start producing each other. His name's Jackie. He's very nice. He's going to be joining us as well. One of them or both of them are going to come up with that list of pound for pound from previous so that we will have a reference point. You know Josh is feverishly writing down the list, right?

Great. Even better. Get a head start. Get a head start. I think Josh is trying to sell Conner McGregor tickets right now. Come up with the with the list. list and come up with a list of ideas. We've got to start getting into some... Pound-for-pound activities interns should do for us.

Yeah, yeah. We could do pound-for-pound interns at the end of the summer when they're out. Frank was pushing one because of the ND-500 last year. What was it, Frank? I mean last week. The N-Five-Founder-Founder. Oh, pound-races. Yeah. I've always wanted to do that one. Daytona 500's got to be up there. Oh, that's what you met. Oh, Belmont Steaks coming up. The Belmont Stakes. Wait, but you mean like the core... race cars like like races races yes rick what are you getting at what are you trying to uh we

wow i haven't heard the coner laugh drop with ariel that's great we did kung fu movies we did french things wasn't your number one french thing daft punk it sounds about right oh my god do you remember when we did pound for pound chicago's oh wow it was chicago things Things from Chicago. Yeah. No, no, no, not things from Chicago. It was Chicago Things because then I did. You did Chicago.

Chicago PD. Chicago the musical. Chicago. The music group. What was the one that Frank said that it was like pound for pound and his included like a soundtrack and a movie? That was a duo. Duos. Yeah.

Perfect duos. We did. And somehow I got shit for Batman and Robin. That was a weird one. I didn't understand that. Hound for pound ESPN era things. nicknames Put me a fucking break

You did pound for pound hot sauces In honor of Dustin Boreye Fuck man I enjoyed that one though Good times on this show man Please like and subscribe Like rate review subscribe And just know

Look out for that pound for pound Races coming soon Rick We'll see in HR tomorrow bro Is he shitting on races? Rick Just give us a preview of your list, please. A preview of your list, Rick.

So number one, Daytona 500. Yeah, there it is. Number two, I'm running out of races here. I don't know what else to say. Someone said pound for pound roads. The 100 meter dash. Someone said pound for pound people with one name. Yeah, I threw that one out there.

I threw that one out there. It would have been cool. It would have been cool. Wrong is you, number one, number two, three, four, and five. No, number two is a richie lying. pound for pound cured meats Why? Pound for Pound rooms to get locked in

Yeah, shout out I mean what's it called? Backrooms is coming out We could do that Shout out to back rooms I'm excited for that We're gonna figure something out Scary movies coming out

We should do something with that No we've done Did we do horror movies already? No, we did spooky movies for Halloween Yeah Either way Many more shit Pound for Poundless

We'll know what we did When intern Josh and intern Jack Take care of Pound for Pound shit as well that'll be one that we're going to get to uh frankie we got any voicemails ma'am sheds we didn't do that one already oh hoi hoi this list this list this list Frank I feel like you're going to play both these messages because I rambled you talked about your mom's rear end so I apologize for that but once again I just want

to say shout out to everybody there last thing last last last last last thing Last thing. How you guys have not put Cody Garbrands and you with the boys in the soundboard yet for your show in particular shocks me. So just throw that in there. I don't, that is a rating clip from M.M.A. lore. So shout out to y'all. And yeah, love you. I hope to hear from me more.

Sorry, I'm not a big personality, but I just want to get my thoughts out. So love everything you guys do. Shout out once again. Shout out to you, brother. Appreciate the call. This is the first time I've ever actually wanted a submitted sound bite to be taken in. This is the first recommendation. Hanging with the boys is in all-time clip with the Cody Garbrandt. But fight is a fight, you know?

No, no, it's better than this. Hanging with the boys. Hanging with the boys? Boys in the back. This is Sal. I run Hail Mary Vintage. I'm based in Vegas. When you all come down here for International Fight Week,

I want to hook both you up and even the peeps in the back with their very own vintage tea. I got sportswear, I got band teas, anything you could think of. If you want to go vintage MMA keys, let me know what you're looking for, and I'll take care of you. Thanks, y'all. I love the show. My kid loves the show.

go ahead and get it. Take care. This is the kind of calls I appreciate. Keep you coming. We're in. We just love free stuff. Hell Mary Vintage, a highly popular

local Las Vegas prefereurative nostalgic, retro and vintage sportswear, notably known for sourcing iconic pieces like classic Las Vegas Raiders

and UNLV Rebels gear. I am fucking in. We will see you there. What's up, boys? This is Trevor. What's up, Trevor? What's up, Trevor? I stumbled upon the show

trying to mosey my way out of being obsessed with politics and I'd be happier listening every day basically since I've tuned over I've followed Ariel for a long time just wanted to say

this is a part of the week I look forward to the most sick GCC you're hilarious Frank you're all right and Rick I think you get too much hate

thank you that's all boys love from Detroit shout out man shout it to Detroit man Motown the big breadstick, Little Caesar's Arena. Great spot, man.

Appreciate the love. Appreciate the call. And thanks for being on board, man. We appreciate it more than you know. Great reviews. Hey, guys. It's Keanu from Sydney. I called up a couple weeks ago.

What's up, brother? You know, ask Connor to blind rank nightmare blunt rotations. Saying like you guys really liked it. We did like that. Funny. Here you guys laugh. Honestly, put a message smile on my face. Kind of get me the feeling like when you hear your mom laugh

or, like, the moan she makes. when you kiss her on the arm. I just wanted to ask a couple questions to the game. So the first one is for the boys. Me and my mates are starting up a podcast. Three of my mates, best mates. The main topic will be the NRL rugby league. But we also want to incorporate life and, you know, film and music and stuff.

For context, the NRA use sports in Australia. Do you have any tips for doing so, any P's? to avoid when it comes to podcasting. Yeah. The second one is for Frank. Frank, I consider myself a bit of an audiophile as well, and I know probably nowhere near the level that you are, but, you know, I'm not even joking here.

I actually do really appreciate for audio, music, scenes, like, even mixing on albums, to ask you what, like, any tips for recommendations for microphones, dynamic mics, condenser mics um, yeah, things like that. I think that was pretty much it for you, Frank. And for Andy also, ah, fuck, delete this one, Frank. Delete it. I'll go again.

Uh, yeah, I have plenty of recommendations. Wait, what the fuck? Yo, what's up, guys? Wait, what are they, Frank? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Do you actually have recommendations for him? Yeah, but we'll offline about it. Okay, we'll offline.

Wait, you'll offline with him? Yeah. I got the phone number right here. You're calling him up. All right, wow, that's weird. Our recommendations, he said, like, talking about, like, weaving in life and movies and everything like that. I guess he's starting a podcast, what's the way?

I think it's exactly that. You have to weave it in. You have to make the conversation not so serious about NRL and AFL and everything like that and just weave it in. I also think you just have to do it. Yeah. Like, oh, of course. The, the fear of like, this is not good enough.

This is not perfect is going to stop you from like going and you're going to, you're going to feel like, how do we improve this? It's not good enough yet. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Just keep doing it. Keep doing it. Every day you'll learn something new and you'll improve and improve and improve. Don't worry about how polished the final product is until you're like at a real level where

you need to be concerned about that. If you're just starting out, just like keep going, keep going, keep going. Then maybe in a little bit of, a time assess and be like, hey, what do we need to do to improve this? But for now, just like, volume. Get, get them out, get them out, get them out, get them out, be consistent. Speaking of rugby, shout out to, uh, shout out to our Sydney Swans. In second right now. I know those fuckers at Fremantle. Don't, don't love it. Fremantle's goaded.

What did you know what? Fuck you. Is that your team? Damn straight it is they sent me some merch. What? Also, F the Geylon Katz. Our boy, Long Island Luke likes them and I, don't because we're Sydney Swan's life first. But yeah, you want to use a dynamic mic for your podcast? No, no, offline them. I'll try to. Go ahead.

Next. I just had a quick question. Ariel was talking about how his dad is like an immigrant from Egypt a couple episodes ago and how he like really wasn't interested in sports and stuff growing up. And it made me think about like you guys rents and like what they were rents as and parents like what they were like growing up. So like, I mean, Connor, I know your dad's like super in a train shout out. also a bit of a train nerd myself.

But other than that, like, what were you guys' parents like growing up? Frank, were your parents taking you to, like, super cool art shows and shit? Or, like, what was the deal? Anyways, what's up, guys? Peace. Ended with the what's up guys, respect. I like that at the end. My parents, yeah, my dad loved trains.

I'm just glad about the clarification that he didn't mean, like, rents we paid. Yeah, yeah. That actually made me slight. Yeah, I appreciate that. I was, I'm with you, Frank. Yeah, I was quite nervous about that. Excuse me. Yeah, my parents were kind of just like dorky southern people when I was growing up.

Like they're very strict or not strict? Or somewhere in between? Somewhere in between. I was the, I was like the bad apple of the three kids. So they actually got stricter as we went along. Yeah, they were very strict with me near the end of my high school career. Yeah, went to the office quite a bit back in middle school and high school, you know, a little bit of a misbehavior. But it is what it is.

You know, look how he turned out. Yeah, I mean, they were just, they were just chill. They liked, my dad is obsessed with trains. Anytime we would go on vacation, he would be like, well, got to go see the depot. He was also like a real estate lender, like a commercial real estate lender. And he'd be like, got to go look at this subdivision. You'd be like, oh, oh, trains and subdivisions. And then, yeah, my mom just, they're both just big chillers.

That's about the only way to put it. They just chill a lot. But they weren't Tuleks. They weren't like just letting you do whatever you want. They weren't lax in the sense of like they don't work and they're not strict and they're not like pushing me to do things. But like in terms of like activities, they enjoy like traveling and chilling on the back porch and like sipping on wine and stuff. Kind of respect it. Yeah.

I mean they live they definitely compared to New York, they live very slow lives, slow pace lives. Like anytime I go down there, I'm just like, so what you guys doing today? It's just like my dad loves yard work. I did so much yard work growing up. I haven't done any sense moving to New York. Like every weekend, dad's just like, leaves, got to be rigged, mow the lawn, water this, do that, fix this fence. And then we're going to see the subdivision. And then we got to go look at a subdivision.

It's just like, God, damn. My dad was really into smoking because he went out for cigarettes and we never saw him again. Classic. Before or after, you kissed your mom on the ass. It was actually after. I never really connected those dots before. Explains everything. Yeah.

explains everything. Yeah. my dad I think it has become lore in the show in terms of him liking magic I think we have mentioned that at various points and also related to our trip to the magic castle but he would take me around to like do

to see like really good magicians in like these magicians conferences and things like that which was a lot of fun my dad is my dad is an avid watcher of the show of super like loving sturdy steady backbone guy but from a generation of like not a lot of like I love yous when I was a kid like more of like a firm handshake type of

upbringing now in later years me and my dad are very like like that um now that I'm I'm a grown man with my own kids and he you know he's very lovey-dovey with the with the sex but uh it was rich it was more rigid more disciplined he's also a military man he was in the air force so very like straight down the line type of dude but very reliable always there when I needed them. My mom, um, a,

from a German household and, um, very, my mom was very academically focused with me. She wanted me to be successful and had me on that path and was like very concerned about how I was doing in school and made me like really work my ass off to be good at school. Unfortunately,

that kind of like went away by high school. But she wanted me to like be something and do something and not just kind of like, like waste my life and waste my time. So she, she was hard on me to that extent. But then again, later in life, now she's become a lot more soft.

Like it's one of those things where my parents were, they had me on the straight and narrow for a while. And now that it's much later, we've, they've got grandkids and things. They're like full hands off. Lucy Goosey,

the fun grandparents, not at all like the tight wads that they were. Yeah, I think above all else. I just had two really good parents. That's, that's what I got on. Good parents.

Great, great parents. Andy Jordan, anything to add? Worth sharing? Don't care. Yeah, I mean, I love my parents. The way we kind of grew up was like we expected to, we were expected to do good in school and like focus on that. My dad didn't even want me to start working until, you know,

I was like much later, like about to be at a high school and I was like, dad, please, for God's sakes, I need to go get a job. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, we, I love my parents still. my mom is um they're very into arts so we grew up with like a lot of arts and television and stuff like that around us and I think that really helped

kind of you know they were a little looser and allowed us to kind of express ourselves however we wanted which I loved very nice okay from touring thing Connecticut uh I was just listening to y'all last VITB uh season on this Thursday and you all We're talking about how Abib was not making enough money in the UFC and how Jamie was saying that he made too much money on the tour and that's why he didn't come back.

And I was just thinking about it because I don't feel like anyone else brings up the other side of this, which is if you pay the fighters, what do you guys think they like, quote unquote, and third, how much people are making in the NFL and all that with. the gouged ticket prices that we're already experiencing where normal fans can't afford to go anywhere, the ads are insane. Prices for everything are just going to go way up even more than they already do because of the profit sharing that the UFC already has in effect. So it would require a complete restructuring of the entire system of the UFC where profit went mostly to the fighters and the UFC would have to take a huge loss. So I feel like no one ever talked about that far.

Yes, it's important fighters get paid more, but also if they just all of a sudden got paid a lot more the way things are right now, the fans would be the ones who severely, severely suffer even more than they are any far. So just wanted to kind of throw my hat in that because I feel like no one ever talks about it. I hope you guys.

The ICB. Appreciate the call, brother. Love you as well. Thank you for the support. court, man. I just disagree from the standpoint. I don't think the fans would be on the hook for it, because as we talked about earlier with the ticket thing, like, eventually fans will just stop paying for the prices. We're not paying 3,500 to see Pantosia versus Steve Ersig at UFC 301. They're just not going to pay for that. And like, when you say the UFC would take a loss, they wouldn't actually

be taking a loss. They would still be generating hundreds of millions, if not billions of profit. that they would be taking a loss of their expectations of what they want to earn, what they're telling their shareholders, that they're going to earn everything like that. I agree with everything you're saying. They're not going to do this because, as Ronor Rousey said, as Eric said earlier, they are a business. This is not a fight promotion on how quality of a product can we put on. It is how much money can we possibly make.

Yeah, and they're publicly traded, and that's their responsibility to shareholders. Like, that is just the reality of the situation. You said it perfectly. the part, I agree with many of the things he said, the part that I disagree with is that the, the company needs to take a loss. That's just objectively false. Like the company can, the money, you're suggesting that there has to be a shift in the business model and there has to be a shift in the money. That is 100% accurate. You are right about that. But what you're suggesting the shift is, is that they're transferring that cost to the fans. When in reality, that cost can be transferred

to the UFC's profits. They can make less profit per year. They can still make a nice amount of profit, but less profit per year, and the fighters can be compensated accordingly, and then they will take less for themselves. As an example, the NFL is a hugely profitable business,

way more profitable than the UFC. They share more with their athletes. So there's an objective truth that, like, you can still give the fighter, the athletes in your sport or in your league, in the case of the NFL, a significant amount of your profits, a significant amount of your revenue rather, and still be extremely profitable. The UFC has that opportunity. It's not that they are, it's not that they are facing a situation where if they were to pay

the athletes commensurate with the pay of other organizations, at least from a percentage perspective, not from an overall raw number or gross or total perspective. they would still be able to have very, very high level of profit. They'd still be a very profitable company. It would just be less so. And there's only so much we can advocate for that to be the case and also acknowledge that it will never be the case unless the fighters fight for it. So it is what it is.

But the mechanism by which you're offsetting the cost, I think is a little bit incorrect in terms of where the expectation would be. The expectation would be take less for yourselves. at a TKO level, at an endeavor level. As I said, the NFL as a league, not a publicly traded company, but as a league, is a very, very profitable endeavor. And the athletes make a significantly higher percentage of the revenue. Yeah.

And just like the loss thing. You know, you see these. It would not be a loss. You see these massive companies, you know, Walmart is down year over year, 2% or whatever. It's just like, oh, but they still generate. generated $100 billion in revenue. I had a friend who actually used to work at the NFL, and they would be like,

oh, like, we're pacing out to be down 0.8% or whatever. And it's just like, okay, well, you generated $25 billion in revenue. It's just like the ultimate goal for the UFC is to make as much money as possible right now instead of being as quality of a product and the greatest fight promotion in the world. Like, it's just how can we make as much money as possible? Money is the ultimate goal for them. It is not about putting on the best fights. it is not about being the highest quality promotion.

I think they've made that clear. Dana White, shut the fuck up and watch the fights. Like there it is. There it is right there. Shut the fuck up. Give us your money. And watch it or don't. We don't give a shit.

They are obligated by being a public company, which is very unique, right? The NFL, the NBA, these are not public companies. They are obligated to make that happen. So they're in a very different position. The UFC is not a stock, but TKO, the combination of the UFC and WWW is a stock and previously WWU is a stock on its own. That is a mission. That is something that they owe this to the people that are shareholders of their company. That is very different than the NFL. And even in that scenario, you know, we're looking at a completely different

model. So different situation, but I think we're on the same page and hopefully that answers your question. And the expectation at least from my end, or I imagine many others who suggest this would be that the UFC just takes less profit. Yeah, and I would feel zero sympathy for doing so if you made a better product. Hey, boys, Tom from Jersey, and I'm just listening to your episode from last week. And I just got done listening to the Ick, pound for pound. That's a great one. I was actually thinking about sending Rick an email this week to see if you guys are hiring,

and I was going to send in my resume. But I don't think you guys would like me very much. I call people buddy when I meet them for the first time I'm a chronic oversharer on social media and yeah so I'm just going to go fuck myself

have a good day guys thanks ma'am appreciate you this is so great thanks Tom got ahead of that and you got it out in front of it we appreciate it man thanks do not send that email

you did the work for us yeah we don't need to see the resume that you would overshare details about yourself thanks so much man What's up, boys in the back? This is the smoking ace maverick Coming at you from San Jose, California Oh, yeah, what's up smoking?

I just want to say, man, it's a thing is really cool. You guys are planning on sponsoring the Iowan Lion. That's dope. Patches have been ordered. Boys in the Back Patch. I'm remembering back in the days at Old School UFC when people still had

sponsors on their shorts. Yep. There was some people that had the worst placement of a sponsor. The Condom Depot across their ass. It's tough. Horrible idea. I don't know who told them that was a good idea to do. We're talking about it.

Tell the Iowan lion to not wear a boys in the back patch across his ass. Worst placement ever. That's what you said. Don't do it. Don't do it. Put it across the front of your thigh. Do not put it across your ass. Worst choice.

All right, guys. Love what you guys do. Keep it up. By the way, guys, Billy Zane was not in the mummy. Look it up. Thanks, guys. Bye. Do we say Billy Zane was in the mummy? I said that. Okay. And he's right. All right. Nailed it. I was thinking of some other guy. Appreciate the call, brother. Thank you so much. I actually disagree. We're thinking, I do agree. Boys in the back, not on the ass. We put that on the crotch, boys in the back. And then across the ass is our three faces like you see them down. below. So that's on the, that's on the, on the ass. I have given absolutely zero instruction to the Iowan line. All I've said is we were sending the patches. Do we need to or do we let him just choose and laugh about whatever the outcome is? What we are going to send him is two different patches, one that's this logo right here in the corner, the BITB. So if you just look, we'll look

down at that one. Yeah, that one right there. We send him the BITB. And then we send him the BITB. And then we sent him the gold uncrowned. So here's the issue. You had to do a minimum order of like 12 patches. Okay. Weren't the cheapest things on earth. No reason to send the Iowaan lion 24 patches for his shorts. So we had to ship them here first, and then I'm going to send them to him.

His fight, he leaves in like three weeks. So I'm praying, as soon as they get here, I will mail them off to the Iowaan Lion and hopefully on that LFA card. We will be watching the boys in the back and uncrowned on his shorts. But what if he puts it on his ass? Even better. It's not going to work, though, on his ass. It's just like a square patch.

Okay. You'd be surprised what you can make work. Yo, boys in the back. It's Jammer. Jim. Jim! So, uh, I don't know, man. I think you guys might have to start calling me a Mystic Mac.

Uh-oh. Because I predict these things. I was fucking dead on with that prediction. I've got a question this week. It was a NBA question. I'm sorry, there's just no MMA going on. I don't know what to ask about MMA. So if you guys could draft from all time, any player all time, the beginning of their career,

we'll put all players into one draft pool and you can draft, we'll just say a top three. What would your top three be? And this can include Michael Jordan, Wilk Chamberlain, Larry Bert, anybody. Easy. If you have to be basketball? If all players were entered into one talent pool, who would be your top three? Easiest question. I love you guys.

Juses. Michael Jordan. Yep. He's on mine. LeBron James. He's on mine. And then for my third? Kareem?

Not a bad one. Who are you going with for three? Shaquille O'Neal. Easy. Oh, I like that. I like that. The dominant big man. Shack, Jordan, LeBron.

Those are the three, to me, those are the three best players in NBA history. Yeah. I know Shaq is not considered that. The dominance he had at his piece. He was an unfuck-withable guy. Yeah. He was so fucking good with the Lakers. Yeah.

Shack M.J. LeBron. Sick. I'd hear a Wembe combo from somebody at this point. We've got to see what happens. Yeah. Got to see if he stays alive after tonight. Hey, guys. It's Mark here.

I just wanted to shout out the boys in the back. Appreciate it. G. G.C., going through that in the May training session was inspired, man. Hey. I feel like so few were willing to video that, too, but you did it. New York, Rick. Shout out for willingly putting yourself to sleep.

The last time you had a nap that good was probably watching Roar to the Rings, am I right? And lastly, I wanted to shout out the pound-for-pound Ix list. I really thought it was hilarious, first off, specifically New York Ricks list. I wanted to point out that Frank seems to be everything on Rick's List, complainer, overshare, too cool, rude to staff, says Ike a lot. You know, that feels on-brand. Is there a problem here? Thanks for making the bad days better, and the good days great, guys.

peace my man what a call concise to the point that was good shit that was good shit the X list went over big I knew it would I knew it would man there's a couple of them when I have them I know I have them if we had Frank on it I think that would have been a supernova like that

would have been one of our top pound would have been one of the best things for coming for I appreciate it I hope the hope of the full of it's all right yeah man thanks I hope we got it back sure do we do okay how about this for pound for pound

fuck should we have done that this week Frank had to give us his redone the yes. Yeah. Was she here? Retroactively. Any off the top of the don't? This is not the don't. This is not the don't list, Frank. We're talking about the, okay, okay, okay.

Yo, what's good boys in the back? Walk front bench and everyone in between. Shout out. It's your boys ski long time, first time. I'm going to try to make this quick. Nailing it so far. I would like to hear some of your thoughts. So first off, spoiler alert for any Star Wars nerds that are out there that I want to see

Mandalorian and Grobu. Looking at you, Frank. five, four, three, two, okay, so there's a relevant role in this film. I haven't heard anybody talk about it, so I just wanted to hear what you guys have to say about it. There is a bald-asshole fight promoter in the movie, the character, bald-asshole fight promoter, and he is looking to screw over his star fighter, who is, get this, he's two fights away from the end of his deal.

Oh, shit. There's also a punchline in the movie about, you're an independent contractor. So it sounds to me like they're referencing some familiar territory, maybe trying to send a message, but who's the check? Who is the check? Okay, interesting.

Yo, does somebody at Lucas or Disney, like no ball like that? It sounds like a direct Connor McGregor reference. And Dina White. Yeah, of course, yeah. I mean, you have to go so hard on the bald, you know? The way you did it. That dickhead. Bold

promoter. I was like, all right, man. He's just like, yeah, and he's just such a dick. He's bald. I don't remember hearing it that way, but I guess I wouldn't, right? What were you telling me, Frank? You're barbers, like, they identify people, they're just like, the bald one.

Exactly. I was like, hey, I met Billy Corrigan the other day. He's like, who's that? I'm like, the weed singer smashing pumpkins. He's like, the bald one? It's the identifier. Yeah, and then not put 10 minutes later, the barber next to him was talking to his client. And he's like, I don't know who that is.

He's like, oh, sure you do. And he's like, oh, the bald one. And I was just like, is this how you guys remember? Okay. That's always the idea. In their defense, their business is hair? Does that change anything? That's what I said.

And then they were like, no, no, no, that's the only musician I know that's bald. They were like, nah, no, no. We just hate ball, guys. I know that's bald. I was walking through the park yesterday, and some kid with a giant afro was like, hey, man, I like, I like, I like, I kind of looked at him and I was like, huh? And I think he felt bad and he was like I mean like their beard like I like

I like it I was just like thanks man I like your hair too I was like was that just a sympathy compliment Are you just seven year old kid Seven? Yeah it felt like he was It felt like he was digging at me first Would you told me this story before

Okay I thought you said when you were seven or eight And then when you were like I was like but you anyway Okay I have a story from when I was young Okay Not seven or eight but this has sparked this in my head

Okay Now that was actually all the voicemails, so keep going. Oh, is it actually all the voice sounds? Yes. That was a good one to end on. Speaking of my mom, I was on the subway with my mom. Okay. And I must have been, so she must have been, okay, I must have been under five because

she was taking me to preschool because by the time I started kindergarten, I went to kindergarten, my mom wouldn't have taken me, my dad would have drove me. So I must have been, let's call it like three or four, right? Because I could talk and you'll see why in this story that this is important. but I was not in school yet. So I must have been three or four and or on the subway with my mom and I have never seen a bald man before.

Like it just was not something I'd seen in my life to that point. I get on the subway and I asked my mom why does that man have no head? Because I didn't know words for it. I just like said that. And he heard me and was like apparently very nice to me like explaining like, most of us are, you know?

I was afraid to promote. Approach us. But yes, I asked why the man had no head and my mom was horrified and then the man was very nice to me but uh yeah seven's a little too old to be like out in public just like asking

people shit like that yeah he's definitely trying to shit on me for sure that's tough but you like your beard you disarmed him yeah pound for pound bald dudes that's not that's not a bad one shout to all my bald brothers out there hang in there one day I give a shit so give us a fucking answer

baldie I'm down for bald dudes because I mean I think it would be a badass list, but who, when do we do it? What is the inspiration? Who's coming up that we could do it? Last weekend. Maybe Volk. Valk.

Yeah, we could have done it with Stathom. Okay, is it bald beard? Does it have to be combo bald beard? It's a quality combo. I do like, the bald one is a good nickname, actually. When you're not saying it like, look at the bald one, you're saying like the bald one. Like a, you know what I mean? There's prestige to it.

Yeah, I'm like, uh, he's coming. The bald one. Like, that's all they're known by. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The bald one. Not like, ah, look, the bald one. Like, it's like the great one. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

The bald one. The chosen one. I was going to start saying who I think are the top tiers, but maybe we do do the list. I think there's some good ones on that. Yeah. Stone cold. Yeah, got to be up there. Fod.

Rock got to be up there. Statham. Statham. Yeah. Connor Birx. Pound for pound uno. Number one. All right, we got, thanks for all the voicemails.

Really appreciate all the calls, as always, guys. Any super chats? Yeah. Tormented. Dot TEC. Longtime fan of the sport, UFC 66. Thank you very much. Dan Severn went to my high school.

Dad is best buds with his brother. Never loved the sport more than when I found this show. Keep killing it, boys. Trevor. Damn, shout to you, Trevor. You've been around for a minute. Dan Severn is, like, he's a man's fucking man. That's like elite tier gangster old school dude.

My man. My man. UFC fighter, catch wrestler. WWE had a stint in WWE. He's like a hard, hard man. Like a real like man's man. All time stash. Yeah, Don Frye type dude.

UFC 66, 2006. My man's been around for a minute. Shuckledover, Steve Ortiz, too. Shout out to you, Trevor. Thanks for the $10, man. Romeo Dabstan, reminder that Bo Nickel claims he can read minds. Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah, I saw that video. He was like on a thing where he was like, I just always have these intuitions. And then like I asked my training partners, like, were you just thinking XYZ? And they're like, yeah, I was. Isn't that just like, I don't know, pattern recognition? I don't know.

Six cents. O'S Pearlman also can't read minds. Breaking news. Yeah, breaking news. Turns out he can. What is the news? No, I just said, Great news, so frank.

But you got to be careful when you say breaking news, Frank just hits it. Yeah. What were we talking about? Streets into all. You're talking about O's Perlman. Oh, yeah, and Pablo. I feel like I have a six cents. You feel like you do?

There's times where I'm like. Breaking News. Connor has a sixth sense. I knew that the breaking news sounder was going to get hit. Yeah, there's times where I'm waiting on a. I'll be, like, waiting on a text from someone, I'll be like, oh, wonder when they're going to text me back? And then I'll be like, bing. Okay, so are you saying you understand Bo Nichols, like, feeling that?

I'm saying it happens seconds before it happens. It's almost just like, maybe it's just the, you know, the waves hitting my brain first. I've also suspected that. From the satellite, you know, frying it out. You suspected that you feel that, or you suspected that he feels that? No, specifically, Connor, because, like, all of a sudden, I'll see him, like, do a weird wink thing. And I'm like, oh, this phone's about to go off. And then, ding.

there have been way too many times in my life or like I'll be chilling out he winks at you and then he doesn't wink it's like he's having like a spasm of sorts yeah I'll piss my pants and I'll get a text there'll be times where I'll be like sitting at home and I'm like my roommate's gone

and then I'm just like I wonder when they're gonna get back within three seconds oh they come back in the door the fucking the keys are rattling in the door I'm just like oh what the fuck better put my pants back how do we test this there's no way to test it

There has to be a way to test it. Because right now I don't feel anything coming in. Next time you feel something, say it. So we can... Oh! Yeah. I'll test one day. I love it.

I'm interested in this. Frank, I didn't receive a text. Damn, he's so good. I didn't feel anything, man. The 6th didn't go off. All right. Anything else, Frank? Bitch of a Turk, 1840.

the deal with Sam Cavita training he seems to only try to kill these guys in the gym and it isn't translating it to wins besides for Armin. Yeah that's that bullshit. The guys seem to love them that train with them. 100% to be in an insane

shape. But like yeah there is kind of a list of dudes that it feels like they may have been overtrained going into the fight. But is that on like this is a very I've always thought that the nutritionist like I have the secret guy thing has always been a little bit dicey in the MMA space. If no other reason than the fact that like, well, works for one guy is not always going to

work for another guy. If it's working for Armin, that's great. But it might not work as well for this. But then you have a guy like Hamzot where now it sounds like he wasn't even working with Sam and he was doing something else and had some weight problems. So now is it a Hamza discipline issue? I never know what to kind of make of this. I ultimately think that most of these guys, including Sam are good at their jobs, motivated to try to make these athletes perform at their best. Sometimes they hit the mark. Sometimes they miss the mark the same time, the same way that the athletes in the fight sometimes hit the mark, sometimes missed the mark. Or in the preparation, in the sparring, in the whatever.

These things are such a mixture of different things. It can never be perfectly calibrated. There's no perfect camp, perfect cut, perfect this, perfect that, perfect fight performance. You know, we heard Malcolm the Wellmaker talk. about it to call back to the show. He's like, this was the greatest camp I've ever had. Their performance didn't match that. There's so many things that go into this. So basically what I'm saying is like, I imagine Sam Calvita is pretty good at his job. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't think that there's like a secret formula or a guru who's like,

I can do anything. I'm the best at everything. I just don't believe that. I think that's a good way to break it down. So Max Rabkin says, and bear with me here, comparison. Chicago to Abu Dhabi. Chicago to Abu Dhabi. To attend UFC 242 in 2019. Habib's last fight with fans. Did he fight the fans? So this is what I'm confused about.

Allen cost four days, 1250. Saw Bala get a bonus and flew back sitting same row as him without the sex. Wait, what's the name of the guy from Dagestan? Matt. Matt. So is this possibly him? Okay, so. No, he doesn't live in Chicago.

He made that clear last year. Yeah. Chicago to Abu Dhabi. No, he went to Abu Dhabi. he was I'm saying I thought this might have been Max from Dagestan who's you know a fan and obviously lives in the States but last week I said isn't he from like the Midwest and he's like fuck you I'm not from the Midwest I'm from Boston or some shit anyway put that back up let's do the math on this all right okay 1250 for four days that feels hard to believe yeah I don't actually but you got you got tickets a flight and a hotel for 1250 for that

shit I guess the tickets were probably pretty cheap if I had to guess yeah 200. Chicago to Abu Dhabi is probably also not a very popular route. Which may, 600? Maybe? You're definitely not getting that now. You're definitely not getting that now. I'll also say, I saw someone be like,

I got McGregor-Habeeb tickets lower level for 800. Yeah, that was a decade ago. Yeah. Duh, like, obviously. Yeah, you ain't getting it that for now. Max is in the chat saying, no, I'm a different guy. Nah, we love you, Max. We knew, we knew.

Shout out. Shout out Max. Personal stash 420. If Rhonda is going to fight a real fighter, let's have a beat Dakota. That will not happen. No chance of that happened. Weight glasses, age, everything. That doesn't feel like a bigger fight than Holly, Home or Chris Cyborg or Kayla Harrison.

Dakota Dichiva is on a different path. Like, she should be fighting the best now, not the best of yesteryear. Like, that's not what I want for Dakota. Was she fighting Denise Kielholt? Yeah. Get her a title fight. Get her to the UFC. Title fight.

Fuck that. Get her in the UFC. The fights for her in the UFC. I'm tired of seeing her as a minus 3,500. PFL made her what she is. No doubt. They deserve a lot of credit for making Dakota Dichiva a very lucrative, potentially lucrative and marketable and sought after desired

MMA fighter. They did a great. great job with her. There is a point where after doing that, your thinking is, well, we made her, let's keep her, let's keep pushing her. She is all these things. When in reality, she cannot be the best version of herself in your promotion. The best version of Dakota Ditchova is the one that is fighting the best flywates on the planet and the best flywates on the planet exist exclusively in the UFC. There is not a, there is not a deep enough roster with the PFL. to keep her busy and give her enough, like, high-level fights.

And so I think that the best thing for both parties would actually be Dakota going to the UFC. I know it doesn't seem like that for PFL, and I imagine that business-wise, they have to be thinking, we can capitalize on her, we can keep her, we can do it. But you're not going to give her the number of fights. In fact, it reminds me very much of Francis and Gano. Like, you can't sustain a one-sided thing. There just isn't enough talent. You don't have the heavy weights to sustain Francis.

You don't have the fly weights to sustain. truly Dakota Dichiva there's just not enough competition for it it would be best if they let her go maybe there's like a signing vote or something they can say like hey we will get we will trade her we will trade let's trade her to the UFC get something valuable in return and and call it a day but I can't imagine that they're gung ho about doing that I imagine that they're probably thinking we can do it we can do it but you just you can't you don't have the flyweights for it Denise keyholtz is not a Dakota Dichita that we care not even close Breezy says, guys, Frank kind of sounds like Huey from the boys.

Any of you watched the finale? If so, what did you think of it? Rick did. I watched it. The Boys was very good in the first few seasons and like all television and the reason why I don't invest myself in television is eventually it just, it becomes self-parody. It becomes like, it becomes a derivative of itself and you're chasing this thing where it's like the boys became. A version of what people think of the boys as opposed to what the boys was in the beginning.

It wasn't horrible, like say, stranger things, which, Jesus Christ, what a fucking horrible finale that was. And what a horrible final season that was. This was more palatable and not like super bad. Like the finale itself did enough fan service and paid off enough to the storylines that like it was like a solid 7.5, 8 out of 10. But I am glad that the boys is over. Like it just, it has run his court. I feel like a lot of these shows lately have not been able to stick the dismount on these endings.

TV is very difficult. Yeah. Breaking Bad. I mean, Breaking Bad is a great one. The Wire. Wires. Sopranos. That was controversial. But, like, that was a sitcom, so I didn't have that much expectation. If just the finale sucks, that's different, right?

Versus, like, the last season of the boys was just not as good as the beginning of the boys. Straight up, end of story. Same for Stranger Things. Same for so many of the TV shows. legendary show and then just like... So Euphoria is going to be a banger. Are you actually watching that? I am not.

Okay. You got to see the little clips. Yeah. What kind of clips, Frank? What are you seeing of Euphoria? Frank? Frank? I don't have to answer that.

Andy gives me updated on what's going on. Frank? I have machine guns this season. It can't be bad. Tannons or machine guns? Hercules 9-1513. G.C. Who do you have winning now? The French.

She! You list a few names I can't pronounce. I'm thinking Casper Rood, but Zveriv clearly, hold on, put that back up. Zveriv clearly has his greatest chance now. Shout out the Sun, Sinner's best rival. Yeah, man. That's his name? A lot of people talking about the heat, most of the match, it was sub-90.

I understand it gets hotter on the court, and you're obviously doing physical activity, and you're directly in the sun, but, like, your opponent wasn't struggling with it at all. And, like, you were dog-walking and making him run around. So, yeah, he has got to figure it out, man. He cramps up way too much. We've seen it happen to him at the Australian Open. We've seen it happen to him at Masters 1,000s. Like, he's got to get it together because he's like an all-time player.

But, like, the sun is his arch nemesis. Daytime matches or his arch nemesis. Like, you got to get that locked in. This is kind of what I was saying about Hamzot in the weight cut. Yeah. It's like, you can blame that, right? If you're a sinner, you can be like, ah, the sun. I had heat show.

But if this keeps happening, like, bro, you got to figure this out, man. You have to. His level was so much higher than the other dudes today. The first 2.99 sets of that match up until it was 5-1 was how that match goes every time that they're playing in neutral conditions. He's got to get it together, man. Minus 10,000. Also, it's crazy because this isn't an unknown.

I saw someone tweet yesterday like the Patrick rubbing his hands together thing and it was like, Sinner has to play during the daytime. really? Oh, Carlos Alcaraz was interviewed about it and he was just like, yeah, Senator's going to win as long as his body doesn't fail him. Oh, I didn't know that this was such a narrative heading in. Oh, yeah. I wasn't, so why was he minus 10,000?

Just because they were like, he's so fucking good, it doesn't matter? Like, the levels are just so much fucking higher. I guess, like, if he was able to get to two sets up and then 5'1 in the final set, the thought is even if he has the worst meltdown ever, he can win one more game and he just couldn't. Also, very real chance. the later he gets in the tournament, the more he plays at night.

So he doesn't even have to worry about it. So they were like, he'll get past this and then he won't have to worry about it. Yeah, like Djokovic, he's such a star. He is only playing at night at the U.S. Open. Like, he's just going to play at night, so he doesn't have to worry about that shit. Yeah.

So, like, the daytime really is a factor. Like, if you're at the U.S. Open in August and, like, you're out on, like, court 17, and there's absolutely nothing to relent from the sun. No shade, no nothing. It's like a 98-degree day, and that's hardcore, too. So you're just, like, soaking in it. Like, it's brutal, man. That's why, like,

the opponent wasn't. Jokevich play. That's, that's my biggest thing. If the, if the opponent is fine, like, if he's out there cramping, too, then it is what it is. But, like, dude, you're an all-elite player. You need to, you need to handle it better. I actually don't mind that Casper Rude pick. I saw the, I saw the odds, and he's, like, plus 700. I'm not touching it, because, like, the pressures ratcheted up on all of them, because this is a once-in-a-lifetime. We're either seeing Jokovic's 25th, or we're seeing a first-time Grand Slam winner on the men's side. rude I don't mind because he's great on clay court

and he's been great this season I saw him play in the French Open final against Nadal shout out Nadal obviously came out victorious don't mind rude don't mind Jokovic just because of the level Zverav is it would be fucking crazy if Arsenal wins the Premier League

after all the bottling accusations and then a week later or two weeks later Alexander Zveriv gets his first grand slam He's known for it the biggest fucking choke artist on earth is Alexander's Bear No, I mean, James Harden just played. He chokes worse than this guy.

He's been up two sets to love several times in Grand Slam finals and has blown it every time. Looked like he was going to get it in 2022. Got hurt. Obviously, that's not choking. But, like, the Dominique team match in 2020 at the U.S. Open final being up two sets, having match points. Like, guy is all-time choke artists.

So if he's able to get the first Grand Slam, that would be crazy. He's the favorite now. That means nothing. Zvere of his bottler McGee. Like he just loves choking But we'll see if he can end that This was the book on Rory for a while And then Rory has come through

Yeah Yeah yeah man At the Masters at least People can turn it This is the chance This is the one But that's the nerves for Zverev is like Oh fuck this is the chance

Now it's almost like Hang with Alcoraz and Sinner Now it's almost like the more pressure Like as if he was the underdog And somehow pulled off a miracle It's you're not choking You're going up now it's like, I'm supposed to win this.

Either way, if you don't watch tennis, I highly recommend tuning into the French Open. HBO Max, that's all you need is the subscription. Beautiful clay courts, Roland Garros, Paris. The men's and the women's are both wide open. It's going to be fantastic. Who's the favorite in the women's? Igis Schweitech.

Okay. Yeah, she's a bit of a clay specialist, her Sabalanka, Cocoa, Cocoa, I highly recommend it. You want to make it interesting, throw a few shekels on it, but like a five-setter, in tennis, there's nothing better. Because what they always say,

when you have a big lead, kind of like the Cavs had, you can like try and milk that clock, milk that clock, milk that clock, milk that clock. In tennis, you gotta fucking finish the guy. And like, Senator couldn't do it. Pause on that, but Center could not end the match. Yeah, shout out to tennis.

Too much tennis talk today, but fuck, man, we're getting into the Grand Slam season. It's a good time, good time. And lastly, Aussie Gaming 8472 Since G.C said the UFC is going on a world tour Y'all could do pound-for-pound UFC locations globally and or pound-for-pound world tours in general.

Shout out, boys in the back, salute emotion. That would be very meta doing my coined UFC World Tour in honor of that. We're doing the pound-for-pound world tours. Last week on the show, G-C called it a world tour. I don't... I don't mind dream cities that they have never been to that we want to see the go to.

Fight locations. But didn't fantasy fight locations? Someone said like Mars or something? Yeah, yeah. We went crazy with it. Did we do pound-for-pound fantasy fight locations? Yeah, yeah. I can't remember shit.

Josh, get on that, man. Josh, get on the helipad? Yeah, it was like Nadal and Federer played tennis on that helipad. You said it was fight up there. All right, enough tennis talk, man. They got a shit up. No, I'm into the tennis talk. Your passion for it is making me excited about it.

I'm telling you tap in, man. The French Open's going to be great. At the very least, tap into the two finals next Saturday and Sunday. I used to get up all. the time early in the morning and watch tennis. Like I was a religious, like turn on ESPN2, Mike and Mike, throw on tennis in the morning. And now that I don't watch TV like that anymore, I haven't seen tennis in years in that capacity.

But I loved it. Elite sport. Elite sport. One of my best memories, Roland Garros, 2022. You can't bring beer into the, like, stadium. You can only buy it at the concessions. And like in between sets, I would just go out, let me get three beers, just shrugging it. Empire, Eiffel Tower off in the distance, Raphael in the doll playing.

Was it as hot as you're describing now? Okay. Because chugging beers in like 100 degree heat does not sound fun. To be clear, most of the match was like 85. Oh, really? It peaked at 90. Now it's hotter down on the court and they are playing. So, like, give them the respect, but also like...

Get it together, brother. You got to get it together, dude. Like, it wasn't 112 or something. All right. Anything else, Frank? Nope. All right. That'll do it for us here on the boys in the back.

Nice weekend. BKFC, UFC, UFC Macau. Obviously, the crack tomorrow appointment viewing. As Pizzi and the boys get you ready for the weekend. And then we're back. Shortened week here, Memorial Day weekend. Chop the day off for us. Alas. Next week, one more Apex card, and then it's White House Week.

I can't believe it's here. Feels like just two days ago. I was like, that shit ain't never happening. Alas. I got a piss really bad because we were locked in here. So see you next week. You can stay get your ass beat. You can stay and get your f*** ass beat.

Okay. You can stay and get your f***in' ass.