The Ariel Helwani Show - Islam Makhachev eyes 170, Sean O’Malley’s shot at revenge, Lerone Murphy’s big night at the Apex | The Craic

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Sean O’Malley is getting a second shot at bantamweight king Merab Dvalishvili, but some people aren’t happy about it. Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall and Ben Fowlkes kick off the show discussing the UFC 316 rematch (4:40).With Manel Kape’s meeting with Brandon Royval being the only fight announced for UFC 317, the big international fight week card, the lads contemplate a potential super fight between Merab and Alexandre Pantoja, who have both effectively cleared out their divisions (19:22).On the topic of UFC 317, comments from Islam Makhachev's camp have claimed that he will await the winner of Belal Muhammad vs. Jack Della Maddalena before making his next move. Does that obscure the chances of his highly anticipated meeting with Ilia Topuria (23:52)?Looking forward to the weekend, Chuck shares insights he gained from speaking to Lerone Murphy ahead of his clash with Josh Emmett (40:31), before the trio give their verdicts on the revamped PFL (54:11).Finally, Ben discusses his fabulous European vacation, sharing thoughts about the waffles in Belgium, his mastery of the French language and accidentally wandering into Amsterdam’s red light district (1:03:40). Join us on the bike: avironactive.com/uncrowned

Welcome, everybody. It is Friday. That can only mean one thing. It is the crack and we are back, baby. Shout out to all the crack heads in the chat. You know, we love you. Got a very interesting fight for one man fighting out of Manchester. Lerone Murphy spearheading an emerging superpower, you might say. Manchester top team run by Karl Prince.

You know, they've got Lewis McGillin. They got Ibrahim Ibrahimov. They've got they did have Dakota de Cheva as well But the Rome Murphy out there flying the flag front and center against Josh Emmett this weekend a lot of news Over the last week and we of course heard about Sean O'Malley getting his rematch with mirabda Ville, we'll be talking about that at the top of the show and we'll also be talking about some comments by Islam Makashef, apparently waiting to see what happens in the 170 pound title fight before he makes a decision on what's next for him. I'm sure Ilya Topuri and Charles Olivera are very excited about all that.

We are going to be joined returning from his European sojourn, the great Ben folks of the Co-main event podcast on Uncrowned. And of course the man, you know, in, Chuck Mendenhall will be here as well. What hat is he going to wear? I don't even know. I'm very excited to see though. But before we get going on all that, let's have a word with our friends from Averon. Your workout routine shouldn't feel like a grind.

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We know one I Jordan had a bit of a trouble with the Averon system, potentially, you know, he could bounce back. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens there. But before we just waste a whole episode praising the great people at Averon, we must bring in my fantastic guest. There is look at these two handsome bastards.

It is Chuck Mendenal and Ben folks. Chuck, before we bring in our international traveler. How are you, sir? And what is this hat? I don't know this one. No, this is a this is an old school Denver Bears hat from from the 1980s. American Association, you know, throwback. I thought I'd wear that for you, Pete. And then, you know, I think that Ben is back from gallivanting.

Isn't that what he was doing out in Europe this time? Exactly what he was doing. He was galavanting the shit out of the place. Like the level of galavanting reached 11. Ben, and you've got your haircut. I mean, I think Europe changed you, bro. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did a little galavanting.

I'm a galavanter, so I'm gonna galavant. I'm gonna dilly dally. Uh, you know, I might even mess around in lollygag. You don't know. Oh my God. I do have a question though. What, what sport did the Denver Bears play? All he wants to know this. That's baseball, minor league baseball.

Oh, AAA. Yeah. Before we ever had, this is, you know, Ariel was always talking about his Montreal Expos, I saw Tim Reigns play for the Denver Bears before he ever even got there as a kid. You saw, you saw Rock Reigns play for the Denver Bears? Yep. That's true.

Dwayne Johnson. Crazy. That's insane. They didn't exactly put themselves out coming up with a name, did they? They were just sort of like, and there aren't too many bears in Denver, despite the, you know, what you may think this isn't Missoula. You know what I mean? They just went, it's a classic sports team name choice.

Let's just go bears either Bobcats or bears. Let's go bears. Well, I'm a big fan of the bears, even if they are now defunct Chuck, I must say. We're going to talk about Ben's trip to Europe towards the back of the show. Apparently we have to talk about MMA on this show. I don't know. I've heard of it. It's apparently a big deal over in the States.

Let's get straight into it. O'Malley lads. I didn't think this was crazy at all. I thought it was probably the most obvious fight after the Umar one. We knew that Marab was very upset with the Umar situation. And he was even saying in the lead up to that, it's like, give me Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley hasn't fought since. And here we are back, uh, with this fight.

Anyone particularly shocked that they went with this angle last? No, I'm not. I mean, especially because if you're looking for a fight that's going to do some business at Bantamweight, Sean O'Malley still has a name. Sean O'Malley still has, he captured people's imaginations a little bit. He's been very quiet lately. You know, you obviously, we haven't seen him fight since that last time Rob, you just don't hear from him quite as much anymore.

And that seems sort of by design on his part. You know, I saw the headline about how he's going to be taking a break from, I believe it was social media, marijuana and masturbation. Uh, Jane the peen, I believe is how he said it, but thanks for these three things. I was like, I heard that and I was just like, so no fun. He's having no fun. I'm sure the UFC would wish as he would still do at least one of those

things to help sort of promote the fun. But listen, I'm a Montana guy. So you tell me that Helena Montana's own Sean O'Malley is going to fight for the UFC title again, I say, hell yeah. We absolutely want to see. Montana, we're not Dagestan. We don't have a whole bunch of these UFC champions to choose from. So we've got to take them when we can get them.

a whole bunch of these UFC champions to choose from. So we got to take him when we can get him. I finally asked just about that. Uh, Ben, what, what is the buzz like for him in Montana? In a way, like a state, like you'd imagine are more plugged into a guy. I know he's moved, right? Like he, he trains with Tim Wells somewhere else. I'm not too sure. Maybe Arizona.

I'm not too sure. Tim Wells, also a Montana guy. I used to train with Tim back when he was like a teenager and do Jiu-Jitsu with him. And, uh, even back then you'd be like, well, let me get my licks in on this guy while I still can. It's not going to last very long. If you go to Ben's like social media, it's just him submitting a teenage Tim Welsh over and over again, since like 2009. Yeah.

Honestly, Montana really will support its own, even if we understand that you can't stay here and be a professional athlete in most sports. So we understand you got to go somewhere else. You got to go to a bigger gym, bigger city and get that work in, but they will remember you as long as you remember them and Sean O'Malley does a pretty good job of that. He came back and came to a university of Montana football game and had the, the honor of hoisting the number 37 flag, which is a big deal. And it's a kind of a big like pregame ritual thing that a lot of times is

reserved for former Grizz football players, but they had him come in and do it. And it was a big, they got Bruce buffer to record, go for him and everything. And he had to have like his own special security details just to keep people up off of him. And then my favorite part about it is like, I don't know if we, what we thought like, oh, he's going to come in, hoist the flag and this is when he was still champion. And then just sort of disappeared. Oh, he stayed for the game.

He was in the locker room talking to the team. And then I, reliable local reports told me he's out at reds bar for the post game activities until it closed. Like he was having the real grizz game day experience where you spend the afternoon down there at Washington Grizzly stadium, watching the grizz beat up on Eastern Washington or whoever. And then you go down there downtown and you're out there drinking Red Bull vodkas until they make you leave. That's what he was doing.

That does sound like. By the way, what is the closest the USC has ever come to like Missoula, Montana? Is it Seattle? I remember like, I went to the Vancouver one, hanging out with you in Vancouver one time was like a home game for you. Cause you didn't have to travel too far. Yeah. I mean, Seattle is probably the closest.

Like, you know, as far as just like mileage wise, Seattle, Denver is all pretty similar and far still though. Yeah. But I mean, they're direct flights is the thing. You can't get many direct flights out of it. Well, you can go to Seattle, you can go to Denver, you can go to Minneapolis and Salt Lake city. And that is it.

And so we, we look at Seattle as a home game, basically, but it's also, I always thought it was kind of funny when the, cause the UFC at times, you know, when they got legalized in New York, they would sort of like to brag like we're, we're now regulated in all 50 states and legal in all 50 states. And it was like, well, kind of like they could come do a show in Montana. No problem. Because we don't have a state athletic commission. So you could do a show tomorrow in Montana.

If you want, there's, you could make up your own rules, uh, for an MMA show in Montana and nobody is going to stop you. But they also, there was absolutely no push from them to try to form a state. It's not like Brazil where they were like, you don't have a commission. We will create one for you. Nobody cares. Cause I love how it hasn't changed since like, you know, it's been that way since what the 18 seventies.

It's kind of still the same rule set out there. I love it. Somebody tried to hold an event where they said one of the ways you could win an MMA fight was if you were able to throw your opponent out of the ring or cage and his feet hit the floor, like Royal Rumble style. Like that, tap out, knock out, decision, or over the top rope. And over the top fence. That's wild. Well, not to steer it back to the original conversation pizza here, but,

Not to steer it back to the original conversation pizza here, but, but you know, it's not surprising at all, obviously that, you know, that the mora would want to fight O'Malley. I think that if you don't do this now, you run the risk of not probably getting that fight and he doesn't necessarily have to be an A side in this, you know what I mean? Like even though he's done, he's done a great job of keeping himself relevant, kind of growing his fan base through his social media, being a funny guy, all the things he does.

I think Sean O'Malley, just by being who he is, kind of draws attention to it. Even if people don't like it, right? They're going to complain, but they'll watch. But I mean, honestly, if you go watch that first fight, there's a reason that people are kind of upset by it. I don't know if it's just skipping the line or anything like that, but that first fight was pretty lacking in terms of competitiveness. You were there, right?

I was there. And the building, I think that was the fight that brought the most kind of like, okay, here we go. Right? Like everybody was into it. There was a big buzz. The big spare carriage. Yeah. It was a huge moment.

As it kind of went on, and I would say midway through, like not even midway through in the second round, where it was just like an onslaught by Murab in that round, it was, you could feel it deflate in that building. It just was like, okay, this is, I don't think Sean O'Malley has much for him. And obviously there was some weird things

going on, uh, first 15 seconds, Welch and, uh, and Murab were having like this argument and they're like, what is going on? Excessive coaching? I mean, what is going on? He kisses his head at the end of the second round, uh, and Murab were having like this argument and they're like, what is going on excessive coaching? I mean, what is going on? He kisses his head at the end of the second round, um, gets up, almost gets the best punch that lands on the first four rounds or when O'Malley swings at him, when he prematurely got off, remember he got off of him and walked away and

O'Malley, uh, almost clocked him at the end there. I think Murab just thought the round was done. A very weird fight, but not a very competitive fight to the point that in the fifth round, you know, people were cheering any offense from, uh, from O'Malley and there was just a tiny bit to the body. Remember that round? Like he kind of hit him a couple of times. You would think that he was landing like huge shots on the verge of putting them away.

It just wasn't, it just didn't live up to billing. And I think the fear a little bit is why would it go differently the second time? Were you with that one as well, Ben, the game at this fair. I don't know. No, there was someone else from one ground. Sorry. My mistake. I, I do think like I, to the extent that people are disappointed or not

that excited about the matchup. And I agree with Chuck that if you were Marab, especially, and you're trying to make the most of your points on the pay-per-view while you're champion, you do want to fight Sean O'Malley. Cause who else, you get to look at the, the Bantamweight rankings and you don't see anybody who has that potential to help bring you in some viewership and some buys the way Sean O'Malley does. So that is the fight for him.

And at the same time, since we haven't seen Sean O'Malley fight since then, and since it was pretty one-sided in favor of Marab's strengths, that since then we've only gotten more convinced are going to be hard for people to overcome, you know, seeing what he did to Umar. And so you come away from that, just kind of talking to yourself and going, what, what reason do we have to believe that Sean O'Malley has figured it out since September, you just have to talk yourself into thinking that he did it in secret. He's not changing his pain though.

He's not changing his pain. And I think we need to take that into account. Okay. That's the old rampage Jackson. Like I know that's exactly what it reminded me of. Just telling people that you've made some, uh, minor tweak and everything is going to be different. Like the time when he's weak.

I mean, Jesus, speak for yourself, mate. When he said something along the lines of how he'd given up ketchup, and like his cardio is going to be way different this time. And then he just went out there and just had another rampage fight. I forgot about this. That's funny, man.

That's brilliant. And also just, you know, he's basically saying like, hey, go back and, I know basically saying like, Hey, go back. And I know he told the stereo, just go back and watch the fight with the no commentary and you tell me, you know, no matter how you look at it, he lost that fight and I mean the rounds he lost, he lost badly, you know, where he was just out of the round the whole way from, from post to post. So I think if he's going to take any optimism and probably, um, he does this,

like the fifth round would be the one, right? You're like, okay, we're picking up from the fifth round. Fifth round is where I started to actually have some, some moments. And if you're doing that, I guess, psychologically, you could say, if I do more like the fifth round, you know, maybe, maybe things are different. Um, if you remember by the end of that, I, I, I didn't hear this until afterward, but, uh, Welch had told him, you know, like the body language is so poor at the end of the, between the fourth and fifth rounds, you remember

Welch was telling him something along the lines of like, Hey man, we're almost, we're almost through it. There's only a little bit left. It's just that kind of, that kind of thing just felt so defeatist kind of coming out of that fight. So, um, maybe it's for the better that he's kind of playing this, you know, I've been working on things in secret. I've, you know, I'm coming back because what else can you draw from?

You can't really take much from that first fight. You almost have to take it on that faith. Yeah. He's talking about this labrum injury as well. An injury to his groin, things like this. Um, to, to Ariel's point, uh, he made on it on his show earlier this week, he was kind of saying like, no one's getting hired done by like, there's no kind of evlo of situation here where you're like, ah, come on me.

Like how can you overlook this guy? He's effectively cleared out the division. You look at the rankings. I mean, to me, maybe Jan would be an alternative choice. Uh, another guy who we marabbed quite convincingly just drained his will to live over the course of 15 minutes. I went, you know what? Fuck it.

This, this guy's pretty good. Um, but it, it feels like he's on the verge of 15 minutes. I went, you know what? Fuck it. This, this guy's pretty good. But it feels like he's on the verge of clearing out the division. And I also think his popularity is growing every time he's in there. And I do feel as though kind of like what we saw with McGregor and Poirier, right? In those second and third fights, like when he was going in there to beat this dude, it extended his popularity in a way that we've never seen. Even when McGregor is giving them all the McGregor stuff, like he's sitting there with a broken leg, your wife is in my DMs, the people are laughing at that

stuff, but it all kind of bounced back into a big positive for Poirier. It kind of adds to his iconic status. Like, um, Ben, do you think like this could push Marab again? As we said, he's becoming increasingly popular or win over, you know, one of the most famous Montanans we've ever seen in the UFC. Could this, could this kind of win him more favor, call you more favor with the fan base? You know, every time I think we have a chance to see Marab, I think that you see that he does a good job of showing a ton of personality.

And I think it's just a matter of getting him in front of people. And I do think people enjoy the kind of charisma that he brings, especially even in some of these fights where, yeah, he has the kind of style that traditionally hasn't been the thing that excites the core fan base that much. You know, the, the wrestling base, the just high motor kind of fighting style. That isn't always the thing that really excites people, but he does have those moments and those ways of even when he is just kind of doing mirrored things to people, he's giving you a show.

You know, we saw that in his last title fight where it's just like, he is going to take these opportunities to, to inject a little showmanship into it. And I think he's really good at that. I think that comes very naturally to him and he has that just sort of. Enthusiasm, a weird sort of like aggressive yet happy joie de vivre that comes off the guy. Yeah, look at this. This guy's been to France in the last couple of weeks, I think.

I'll tell you later about my unsuccessful attempts to speak French, but he, he has that, that sort of like energy and enthusiasm that I do think people like when they get to see it, it's just getting them to see it. That is the challenge. He's got a little bit of that, yo, Romero thing going on where like, even in the first minutes, when the first 15 seconds or whenever that occurred, when he was arguing with Welch and he's everybody's like, what has happened?

It's almost like the Javonta Davis, you know, uh, taking the knee, you know, in that, in his last fight and you he's, everybody's like, what has happened? It's almost like the Javonta Davis, you know, taking the knee, you know, in that, in his last fight and you're like, wait, wait, what has happened? I mean, this is not like, this doesn't happen during a fight. I find him in that way, kind of almost like, you know, he's, he's oddly entertaining. He brings a different kind of entertainment.

It's almost like the Habib, when Habib would talk to Dana during the beat downs and things like that. I feel like he's got a little bit of that in him. It's like this ruthlessness that's almost like the Habib when Habib would talk to Dana during the beat downs and things like that. I feel like he's got a little bit of that in him. It's like this ruthlessness that's almost like, look, look how easy I'm making this looking and if you, if you watch it from a certain angle, you start to appreciate how dominant he really is. Yeah. It's interesting you say that Chuck, because I can remember was speaking to John Wood before that fight with Umar and Amager Madoff and he was kind of like, you

know, look, look how desperate they are to find another Habib. He goes, what if Murab is Habib? You know, what if he goes in there and he keeps doing this? What, what if it's that guy? He firmly believed that that will be a conversation at some point. And we're certainly hurtling towards there. Like even, even mentioning that fight, Umar and Amager Madoff brought in kind of skip the queue to give Marab some fresh blood at the top of that division. I noticed that very similar things have been happening with Pantoja, right? They got Koyasakura.

They brought him in, kind of let him jump the whole queue to go in and fight there. We know that, uh, three... Herseg too was kind of like that. He was kind of bumped up. That's correct. Yeah. He just kind of thrown in there as well. Yeah.

And that's obviously where we're looking at 317 and that's going to be international fight week. And they've only announced one fight for that. And that is a Roy Valvy Cape. But do you think, Chuck, do you think that we could be approaching a situation where we're looking at a potential super fight as much as the UFC don't like to do this, but with the likes of Pantoja and Marab where they're so effectively cleaning out the divisions, would it make sense at some point?

And not that this was an option that they didn't take and they've chose Sean instead. But do you think that could be an option for her down the line where they'd look at something like that? I think it could happen in the sense that Pantoja is crazy. You know, he's had, he's had such a crazy, like sudden rise in a weird way, because for a while they were kind of, the belt was changing hands and this is a division, but suddenly he came along and kind of quietly started to rule that division.

And then it becomes very difficult as we're talking about to find the challenges. This has traditionally been a thing in the flyweight division is, you know, a guy goes for like, he defends the belt a few times and you're like, okay, who next? Because now we're starting to recycle guys or we're inventing contenders who shouldn't be there type thing. I mean, they've got Horoguchi is back in the mix, right? Like, so they've, I mean, they've got, you feel like they're kind of setting it up to replenish in the cupboards a little bit, but if the, but there is a little,

there's a part of me that thinks if you're going to do a super fight like that. It's because Marab also has kind of cleaned out his side of things and you're like, okay, what do you do with these guys? If that continues, if Marab goes through O'Malley and I don't even know what you do with Marab, you know, next, as you kind of go forward, because it was going to be Figure 8 until he lost. And if you put Jan in there, that first fight was so one sided that it's hard to

make that case too. So I don't even know what you do with Marab, um, just yet, but if that's the case, if Marab gets dropped by O'Malley and maybe, uh, maybe, uh, Pantosia wins, whoever he fights next, you might be looking at a, at a fight like that. It might make the most sense from both standpoints at that point. Um, then as far as O'Malley and 135, 135, we've mentioned the labor and we've mentioned the fact that he is no longer jaying his pain, which serious factors going into this fight. But if he was to lose again to Marab, do you think 145 is an option?

We discussed this very briefly on an aerial show and I know the lad spoke about it yesterday on Boys in the Back, but it kind of makes sense to me that he would slot in there. And in terms of Ilja being this kind of injection of excitement that at the division was one shot power. It looks to me that O'Malley has a frame big enough to support a move up to that division. And of course, he has fantastic power in his hands, as we've seen before. And of course, head kicks, everything like that.

Do you think that will be the natural move for O'Malley if he is unsuccessful again against Marap? It might be just out of necessity. I wonder how he would do there just because especially you would have to think about does the punching power translate when he goes up and weigh. And also we've seen guys before where they get used to being a, a big guy, or especially like a tall and rangey guy for the division they're in. And they kind of tailor their fighting style to that.

And a lot of times guys struggle if they go up and wait and end up fighting opponents where that's not such an advantage anymore and you can't lean on it the same way you could before. I also think that when you're coming off of a performance where people saw a pretty good blueprint on how to beat you, you're going to have to show people that that's not going to work for everybody. They're going to keep trying that until you show that you can shut it down. And it's not as if there are no good wrestlers at 145.

You know, those, you got to go a long way up and wait before you get to a division that doesn't have a lot of good wrestlers in it. But I think what else would you do if you stick, if you, you lose twice to Marab. And especially if Marab ends up holding this title for a little while, it's going to be hard to get back there. You might have to just go up just to give yourself some chance to kind of wipe the slate clean. Yeah.

Let's hope they don't give him the old Evo ev card if he does move up. You know what I mean? Hey, let's see how good that wrestling really is. You'd wonder at that point what he's done wrong. Like your card is mapped. Oh, Mally, get out of here. Oh my God. Um, I mentioned 3-7 Dean earlier and obviously the only fight as I

mentioned is a Royval v. Cape. I'm sure that the OC would be very happy to see Cape get a winner as they could move that into a potential new challenger for Pantosia. But one of the most interesting things about this card is the fact that we all have at least flirted with the idea of this super fight, right? Islam V Tupori potentially happening on International Fight Week got some news

earlier on here that would suggest that this is even further off than we initially thought. I believe on air Jordan has the quote here from the lightweight champion Islam Makashev. Sorry it's a journalist Alvaro Cominero. He says sources told me that Makashev is planted and he will wait until May 10th to see what happens between Muhammad and Della Maddalena to make a decision on his next fight. His participation in International Fight Week is in jeopardy. My God. I think I saw championship rounds shared this out earlier on. Rick put it into our message group and I was like, well, Jesus, last week we're

kind of talking, will it be Olivero? Will it be to Bury? It turns out might not be a title fight at all. Um, and honestly, when I'm reading this, I'm kind of like, I thought you and Bilal were mates, this feels like a very strange thing for a friend to do. Like, hang on, I'm just going to see if your man can actually win this fight. And if he doesn't, I'm going to slip right in there and try and take his belt. What the fuck is going on here, Joke? Oh man. I don't know, but when did, I mean, did, did Khabib have this kind of power to just

be like, you know what, man, I'm not interested in this guy, this guy right now. I'm going to wait. It's like, this feels like a new like sort of thing, or, or we're getting information that's not entirely like, you know, right because, well, I mean, it could be that he's, he has his druthers and it could be that he wants to, whatever he's communicating that, but I don't know if they just let them be the selective would they, but they just let them sit back and be the selective through this process. This seems kind of crazy, especially when you get like a, I mean, can you get a

bigger fight than Ilya Toporia right now? Can there be a bigger fight than that? Like, so. Absolutely not. I feel like the UFC needs to interject here at some point. Yeah. Well, and I feel like somebody should just talk sense into Makachev just because it's like, you've been handed a lottery ticket with the winning numbers on it. Just walk on down to the corner store and cash it, man. And he's like, I don't know.

I'm going to wait and see if a different lottery ticket shows up. And you're like, I don't like that store. I was hoping the clerk could come to me and it doesn't make any sense to me because I totally agree. I think it was Malky Kawa who was on Ariel's show, uh, not too long ago. And he was saying that basically the two biggest fights that you could conceivably make in the UFC right now, this year are John Jones, Tom Aspinall, and Islam

Makachev versus Ilya Toporya. Now the lane has kind of been cleared. So many of the obstacles in the way of making Makachev versus Toporya seem like they have been removed. So just make it, just do the obvious thing that will make a bunch of money for everybody that everybody wants to see. Don't think your way out of this one. It makes no sense.

I mean, the only thing I could think is that Islam is thinking, Hey, if I just go and beat another featherweight, I won't get kind of full credit on fan scorecards for it, which to some extent might be true, but so what man, you will make a bunch of money. It'll be another title defense in the books. And I don't think that people would come away necessarily being like, if you beat Ilya Toporya, you'd just be another featherweight. He's the best featherweight in the world right now.

He wants to go up and wait. Like it's the moment is right there. And if you sit around waiting for the future results, waiting to see how everything shakes out, you might miss that window of opportunity for one reason or another, and then you'll really be kicking yourself. He'd also be the guy where like just crazy momentum goes to die. Right. Like you, you Volkanovsky, when he went up there, you'd be like, it's similar.

Right. Like Volkanovsky, when he fought him was like Volkanovsky, man. He's like generational at this point. We're talking about him in these, these big buzz terms, it's similar, right? Like Volkanovsky, when he fought him, it was like Volkanovsky, man. He's like generational at this point. We're talking about him in these, these big buzz terms, but like he goes up there. The fight was pretty good. He loses, then he gets more emphatically knocked out and now he's kind of on this

different trajectory, right? And now they're like, this is your chance to do it to Ilya Taporyev, the darling, you know, in the UFC right now, who's, uh, you know, all, all over the place. And I feel like that by itself should be a lure, you know, if people think the guy's invincible on some level for doing what he's doing, this is a, isn't that good enough to be like, well, he hasn't bought me yet.

Let's do this. Yeah. I actually, I think I agree with what you're about saying. I do think that's the first thing that crossed my head. But what Ben said about, you know, will people think diminish this victory because this guy is a 145er. And I do feel as though there was a bit of that talk when comparing, comparing Islam's impact to that of a babes. They were like, well, this guy's, you know, find this guy that's coming up from 145 twice. Like,

is he in his mind going like, I want to be the guy going up to usurp the welterweight guy? Like, I don't want to be preempting it. Is he preempting it by saying like, you know what? I'm going to flirt. I'm going to bad eyes over there. That's a good joke. Just to, just to give the illusion that I'm looking up that I wanted to fight a bigger

guy, but I'm going to settle for this, this little fellow, you know? Yeah. I mean, Jack Delamandelina already got a rough one in Bilal in terms of a title for you. Imagine if he wins like, yep, you're getting Islam Makashef now. 170. What a joy, but very, very interesting situation. But I must ask. I don't think Tom Aspinal and John Jones is going to happen on international fight week. Obviously, as I said, at the top of this conversation, the one everybody was focused on was Islam. Would it be Olivero? Will it be to Tupori? Has this taken away your confidence that will happen, Ben and all like that, that

Islam and to Puri or Islam v. Olivero will be that headline act. You know, I don't know. It's right now. It seems like we're going off a lot of rumors and vibes. It seems like we're going off a lot of rumors and vibes. It seems like we're going off a lot of vibes to try to see which way the wind is blowing on that. Cause you do have to come up with something big for international fight week. Just that's at least the, the tradition personally, I'm going to let you in on something I have tickets to see Wu Tang Clan and run the jewels that night in

Seattle. So there's a part of me that almost doesn't want to see, uh, you know, them come up with a really great headliner cause I'm going to have to catch up on it on Sunday morning, but you know, if you're trying to look around at like the fights that are feasible for that kind of timeline, it does seem like Mark Teporia is the obvious choice. Like you said, uh, Tom Aspinall and John Jones, that's the one I feel less optimistic about at this point that we're actually going to get done, but

you gotta get done. One of these, man, you have these two huge fight opportunities. If you're the UFC, you're in a contract renegotiation year for your broadcast rights deal. You need to show the flag a little bit and be like, we still do have stars. We still can put together huge fights. We're not just turning out endless apex content.

There is still like premium content for premium prices out there. You can't go over to, you need to make one of these fights happen this year. Did I tell you guys that I, uh, I sat down with old dirty bastard one time back in the day in New York city, oh yeah, back in the day, New York city. Oh yeah. Just for an interview. When you say sat down, like were you guys doing

like a story or are you just like drinking cough medicine together? No, no, I was interviewing him. No, I interviewed him for, for Blinder magazine way back in the day. Um, but anyways, that's just, that's an aside. No, I mean, it was 20 years ago, so it was a long time ago, but you just mentioned, you just mentioned Wu Tang.

So I was like, maybe I'll throw that in there for you guys. You know, what was he like? Chill. Give me some, what's the, I thought it was lovely. He was a very nice dude. I mean, you know, it's very crass. Uh, I thought he was lovely. He was a very nice dude. I mean, you know, he's very crass

Person in history who has ever referred to him as lovely Busters is very nice. I'd have to I wonder if I could find the article online somewhere But I didn't get like a ton. It wasn't like I was sitting there for a ton of time But it was like a half-hour conversation. It was it was pretty cool at the time. That's all Oh my god, it's zone is touring with them now, right Ben? Like his son is doing the ODB parts with Wu Tang now, I believe. Oh, I, see, I was just wondering about that. Cause I was like, well, that is one guy

I know is not gonna be in, cause that's, especially as soon as me and Chad Dundas got these tickets, he was like, hey, do you want, like, we should go and see this. And I was like, yeah, which Wu Tang are we gonna get? Are we, like, are we gonna show up and there's 40 dudes on the stage?

Yes. You know, my own, my own version of Chuck's story is that once I spent one night in jail in New York city with the 62nd assassin, a very minor member of the Wu-Tang clan, he let us all know that he was the 62nd assassin, a very minor member of Wutai. Holy shit. Yeah. He was on several B-sides. He gets shouted out.

You know, he gets, when they're naming names at the end of a song where like, you know, method managers naming people's names. He's like, oh yeah, oh yeah. And all the assassins from 49 to 65. Shut up. I've actually gone to see them before, Ben. I've seen them, which wasn't ideal. It was an outdoor festival and obviously rap is a lot better when you're indoors. And they were, we were, we bumped into the place.

It was like, like we were only 14 and we were at this weekend festival. It was crazy time and they were playing this tune and it, you know, it was kind of a tribute to ODB they were doing at the time he'd already passed and they had these headbands. Remember everybody was into the woo wear. Can you imagine a load of freckled ginger people wearing woo? Not very good, but they were throwing these woo wear things into the crowd and everybody, you could only get them in one store in Ireland.

So I think people were pretty excited about wearing a potential sweat band around the head. They were throwing these woo wear things into the crowd and everybody, you could only get them in one store in Ireland. So I think people are pretty excited about wearing a potential sweatband around the head. So you got this rugby scrum of drunken Irish, uh, you know, teenagers to 20 somethings, they throw them in and there's a, there's murder, there's lots boxing the head off each other to get these things. My friend, Mackenzie, he's a big tall guy. He got one and he like put it on his head and watching the gig or whatever and he's deluded himself. Look at this. I turned around to him halfway through it and like half of the

W is like getting peeled off. Oh no. Bro, they tip X. Do you have tip X over there where you delete like a spelling mistake you'd make with a pen you put out tip X over it, like to cover up the mistake. That's what they'd put the W's on the headbands on. So very, very upsetting product placement for good times. Three different, totally different stories about the Lutane clan. This is a crack.

You have better stories. You have better stories. Okay. I'm not trying to say, I'm only one of them dickheads. Oh, I'm going to whup this story. No, listen. Jesus Christ. Could they do just to steer it back one more time for your pizza? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I heard them talking about this being a potential option with a Dracos du Plessis. But again, we're kind of just holding it out.

The hope of that fight happening, which would be, I think a gray fight, a perfectly acceptable fight, having Hamza back in the U S and this destroyer that we expect to be, uh, to have a title fight at the end of 2020, the year he debuted and fought three guys in like three weeks or something. Um, but I definitely liked that. But again, I haven't heard anything other than Dana saying, we're going to get this sorted out. I haven't heard anything since maybe you have been that, that, that this is being,

this has all been sorted out and Hamzat is now allowed into the U S again. Have you guys heard anything? I haven't heard anything on it, but if you look at our political climate right now in the U S. Seems like they could get it done. I mean, yeah. I mean, Dana White was just over there with like kid rock and Bill Maher. So he could have just like, as an aside been like BT dubs sign this.

Uh, here's a piece of paper signed this. It says Tom's can come into the U S and fight. And that's probably all it'll take. Like we, we live in a, in a great time for a dude to ask the president of the United States for a favor. So that part, I would not be concerned with as far as like the question of would that be enough to make you a big, big enough deal for international fight week, I think the approach you want to go with not dissimilar to like UFC 300, where

if you recall, people were not exactly blown away by the idea of Alex prayer versus Jamal Hill is the main event and that one, but you gave enough of a full slate of action that MMA fans still appreciate that, like even if you can't come up with a headliner that feels like the biggest possible thing you can do. And again, there's probably only two of those that just are even theoretically available right now. If you give them a full night of fights where every single one of them is a person we've heard of and a fight that feels like meaningful, that it has

stakes that we're aware of, that has like an interesting stylistic matchup to it. If you just give us a full lineup, we know enough about this sports where we go like, all right, in the aggregate one way or another, I'll get my money's worth, cause you can make one good fight and it doesn't mean you're going to get a good fight out of it. You know, if you, if you give us a main event, like even like a main card that is five solid fights that all mean something that we care about each one of them for some reason or another, then we'll buy that. Like the, and you honestly, you have a better way, chance of beating piracy that way.

Because people are like, Hey, the stream might crash on me, whatever. If I only care about one fight, then I can, I can do it that way. But if I want to watch this thing for three hours and I want it to be a stable stream, I'm more likely to think about. As pizza might say, calling the lads over and, uh, and we split the cost and we actually pay for this thing. You know, don't think they're all based on the pay per view is lately banned. I don't think they're all that concerned about this piracy stuff, you know? Something tells me they're not there in the HQ going, let's make

every fight a fucking bang. It's not, it has a bit for a long time. And that is one thing I want to, I'll never miss an opportunity to remind people of this, that around 2020 ish. Remember when Dana White got back on the piracy. It's just about to point this out. And he, he, for a few weeks there, we would show up at these press conferences being like, we got him.

We're watching the sky. He's crying. Yeah. We're, we're, we're surveilling his house. We listened to his phone calls. We're waiting for him to turn it on. Dangers up in trees with binoculars, like looking at people. And the thing is I had, I sent out some, some private messages to some friends

at other MMA websites, cause I was just like, you guys are just repeating this every time he says it, you guys are just running the story as if it is a factual claim. Is there any proof? Is there any even like suggestion that he's actually doing any of this? And they just would reply back to me and be like, Hey man, it does traffic. It does clicks. Dana says it, we run it. We didn't necessarily say it was true.

And I, and so here's where I got down into it. I was working for the athletic at the time and I, and I did a story on like the, the ins and outs of piracy all over the place. And I remember talking to UFC executives and they as politely and diplomatically as they could said, you know how Dana is. He says stuff, he says stuff. And sometimes it's an exaggerated version of the truth. And they, I remember, I think it was, uh, Lawrence Epstein said something

along the lines of, I want to assure you we're not doing anything that's against the law in terms of like surveillance of people, but basically they were like, no, we're not, we're not doing any of that, but we're like, we're talking tough. And then it just ended. It just disappeared. Never talks about piracy anymore. They've completely lost the battle on piracy and they kind of just don't care.

And it's probably coming up again in some of these ESPN contract renewal conversations. But you know, when I talked to a lot of anti-piracy experts, they were like, there are things you could do and they're not doing them. Like it's not a big enough issue for him. He wanted to yell about it for a little while and then he completely stopped talking about it. Or maybe they just tango down this guy. Maybe he is no more. Surely his tears, surely his tears were the proof that he in fact was got to Ben.

That's why you can't find an illegal stream of the UFC pay-per-views anymore. But, uh, speaking of bangers, we got Lerone Murphy and Josh Emmer this weekend, boys, and say what you will about the apex, but this car, that fight, right. I'm kind of pissed off because had you put that in London in March, it could have saved the entire thing. Like say if, say if like he's in a prominent spot on the main card, he probably would have been like a calm main event situation. We already talked about the fact Tom Aspil wasn't there, Patty Pimble wasn't there.

I think that fight would deliver so hard. And I think as far as I know, and I believe Chuck, you, you spoke to Lerone about this as well. I heard similar from Carl Prince's coach. He said, apparently as the elder Statesman, as a guy with a higher ranking, Josh Emma was like, I'm not fighting him in the UK. Um, so I understand it from Josh's perspective, but it is a very good fight. Um, you had the pleasure of speaking to Lerone. I did.

Doesn't, doesn't like to, uh, give a man too much when he's being interviewed. I found over the years, but what did you take from it? Can I break the fourth wall real quick though? We had a chance to talk to Emmett as well. And Ben, I hope I, I'm not throwing anybody on the bus, but I was like, Hey, does anybody guys want to talk to Emmett? And, uh, the, the, there was a long, like several hour, um, no communication thing, and then, uh, Ben, I think it was, I think it was you, it might've been Drake.

One of you guys came back and said, you know, I just not sure what, what kind of questions I would ask. I mean, I was like, that's the problem. Right? Like you're, you're, that was me. Yeah. Stand by it. I didn't know you were going to tell everybody, but I know, but you know what,

if you'd seen that glorious beard, wouldn't you have reconsidered? Like, I didn't know he was growing his beard out like that. I mean, you know, I like Josh, I like watching him fight. I think he's an exciting guy. Seems like, you know, a good guy to have around. But I was also just sort of like, I don't know what we're talking about. I don't know.

There's nothing like a, like a big burning question that you could ask that feels like it would be so different. Uh, you know, you don't want to be like the thousandth person to be like, so remember when you knocked Bryce Mitchell out and then he turned out to be an embarrassment to all of us? Like, you don't want to be like the thousandth person to be like, so remember when you knocked Bryce Mitchell out and then he turned out to be an embarrassment to all of us. Like, you don't want to do that.

He just shows up with a beard and you're like, you oiling that bro? This is great. But I mean, to answer your question, I mean, I feel like Laron is one of those guys who's in a, in a strange situation. That's the reason I was like, let me talk to him. I've never talked to him before. I know you've done pieces on him. He's got a crazy backstory like, let me talk to him. I've never talked to him before. I know you've done pieces on him.

He's got a crazy backstory. That whole getting shot in the face thing, which has been talked about, but it, it never seems to be like a central part of anything. Like it's just kind of out there. I was like, let me talk to this guy and just kind of get a sense. Um, I feel like he's just one of those guys who is forward focus. You've talked to him plenty of times, like he just, he wants to just get to where he's going.

And so you talk to him about things like, why weren't you fighting in London, man? I mean, wouldn't that have been a huge homecoming when they're talking about the UK golden era, wouldn't you want to be part of this? He's like, yeah, I did. But, uh, you know, Josh, Emma didn't want to fight in the UK and, you know, that's fine, I'm fighting in the apex. Just kind of shrugging his shoulders. And I mean, I guess that's okay, but what

started to occur to me was like, maybe he needs to be a little bit more disgruntled than a little bit louder to kind of move up these rankings. I don't know, like in the official UFC rankings, um, which you could, which, you know, you can take whatever you wanted from them, but I think he's 10th, right.

And Emmett is eighth. So even if he extends his win streak to nine, isn't it in the UFC, it would be something like nine where he's unbeaten. He had a draw. He had a draw. Right. So unbeaten. He may not even ascend higher than eight, which is just kind of a crazy, you know,

that doesn't really compute, you know, like if you have that kind of run against anybody, but especially stacking guys like Emmett, um, I think that you should be a little higher, but anyway, I think he's kind of understated. Like he's not trying to create waves. I think he's kind of taking it as it comes. Um, but it's, it's an interesting study, right? Like I even asked him like, you called out Josh Emmett, you got him.

That's how vocal things are. You, you were being vocal and he's like, yeah, my, my coach actually, I didn't know who I was going to call out. My coach just whispered that in my ear and I said it. And I was like, Laron, come on, man, you gotta play the game a little bit. One thing I will say about him is, uh, like he's a, I spoke to him about this once we were doing some video shoot in London and we were about to go on or whatever, and he was just so stoic, you know, he's having a good time smiling,

kind of joking about things. And he kind just so stoic, you know, he's having a good time, smiling, kind of joking about things. And he kind of started talking about protecting his energy. Like he's like, I don't, I don't invest energy into things I don't care about. And I am very careful about what I put my energy into. And I'm like, wow. I was like, all right, this is, this is quite deep. Well, we have also, I spent a lot of time around Leon as well. And the thing about Leon and the Ron, which they have in common is that they, they are very vocal, right? They, they don't, they don't talk a lot.

Um, but anyone who's kind of grown up around a working glass area, there's, there's any, there's any amount of guys who can tell you all their war stories, but the fucking guy who doesn't say anything is usually the craziest guy. He usually has, he has usually seen some shit and you know, obviously we know this about Laron. He was shot in the face. He knew he died then a couple of years later, he was hit, but he was on his bike. He got hit and run, right? Someone just drove off and left him there to die. This is while he's in the UFC, but I think it's honestly like as cool as it is, right? Like I'm sure there's so many fighters who have a mundane origin story.

And I hear that about Laron being like, how aren't you using that? I think people forget that, you know, being shot in the face and being left on the side of the road to die after a hit and run, it's pretty fucking traumatizing stuff and you know, the idea that you can just zip into this as a selling point every now and again, just tap into it. Yeah. He kind of made that occur to me when I was talking to him one day. He's like, yeah, this isn't nice shit to be talking about, you know?

And then I spoke, I spoke to Carl Prince, who is his coach in Manchester. And they're all local lads. Like the gym started with Laron and Lewis McGillan who both like obviously Laron's where he's at, but McGillan is this shit hot prospect out of Europe. He won the PFL European. He won the PFL European championship last year. He's a one hitter quitter. He's unbelievable. Very energetic, like crazy. Like a saying the wordless shit ever.

And when I hear Prince talk about Laron, this guy who's been under his wing now for five years or so, he's like, you should see the impact he has on the kids around him. Like when he's in there, there's nothing about shutting the face of the road. Nothing about this. He is, he comes 30 minutes early. He does all his own work and then he will start coaching everyone else. And then he's hanging around to tell the kids all this stuff.

I mean, very similar to what I saw in Leon when I visited him in Birmingham, he was preparing for a title defense against Usman that rematch and he had taken two school kids who were suspended from school and I didn't hear why they were suspended, but he took them, put them in his like massive BMW, drove them to the training room to make them see what hard work looks like. Like this isn't all like being a tough guy isn't what you think it is. It's coming here every morning and putting that work in. And I know they aren't the most attractive stories to tell about guys.

Like they're not going to have like a great headline is Leon Edwards, really nice to kids. Or LeRon Murphy, really looking after his community. They aren't going to grab a lot of eyeballs. I fucking really respect it. And I respect it. Um, not only him as a man, but the impact that has on the sport. We have so many guys and guys who grab headlines for saying audacious kind of shit. I think it's amazing to see someone who's come from a background where they could

have easily been snared up and all this gangland shit in, in all this kind of stuff that happens in all of these cities that, you know, big cities like Manchester or Birmingham, for example, I think it's an amazing thing for the sport to have these guys be a kind of a beacon for guys in those working class areas and going, geez, I want to be like Laurent Murphy, not because he was shot in the face, because he is such a mentor to all these people around him, you know? See, they should have used like you to kind of sell why he should have been on that London card.

You know what I mean? Instead of this apex card. Well, see, but the, the, the London card aspect of it, like I get it. If it was really Josh Emmett who said, Hey, I don't want to go over there, but do you feel like you got a better deal fighting them at the apex? Because like that is kind of like, a, you know, okay, you don't want this bad idea. Here's a worse idea for you because I think it's kind of built into people's

heads now who watch the sport regularly. When you see the UFC out there in a city that is not Las Vegas, and you see them in front of a big crowd, that means this is an event that matters. You see them in basically a warehouse at the Apex in Las Vegas that says to you, this is not an event that matters. And this is a really good fight. It's a meaningful fight. It's a, definitely a main event quality fight for the, where the fight nights are

at, but when you do it at the Apex, you're, you're knocking it down a little bit in terms of just like the importance people are going to attach to it. Whereas if you did that one in London, not only would you really, you're knocking it down a little bit in terms of just like the importance people are going to attach to it. Whereas if you did that one in London, not only would you really, really, really help that fight card out, but it just feels like a bigger deal. It's harder to make these fights feel like a big deal. I guess you were around for a lad Dumont. I mean, I was just a throwaway fight, you know, I mean, it's etched into all of our minds. Yeah.

It's such a profound impact on this part, but to, to both of your guys points, I mean, it's etched into all of our minds. Yeah. It's such a profound impact on this part, but to, to both of your guys points, I do feel like that is the tragedy of this fight. Like no matter how good the Ron looks a, because he's not going to put himself out there and we know that's what the UFC want. And, and like, obviously the fact that it's in the apex, it's not going to have this, right. I, I pictured the wrong. When I think about what could happen in London, the permutations, he goes in, he

beats a guy, he suddenly lifted up as like a new guy to be behind. Lerone's on this streak. He's only fought in the UK once it was a decision against Josh Kulabau in a card that was like full of names, like had he been there, he could have done something. And I, I think that's, that's what unfortunately happens here. He, I think he'll win this fight against Josh Emmett. I think this guy is either a top, like I think Lerone is either a top five guy or a total contender.

I don't know which one he is quite yet, but unfortunately I don't think the setting will allow him to drive home a point to the broader fan base. Like a new contender has arrived at 145. Right? Like that's the issue. And a sandwich between obviously like, you know, what you just had in London and the UFC's pay-per-view, right? Like, so people who watch the sport that are like tuned in for bigger events, you're, this is the forgettable one. This is the one kind of stuffed in the middle and people tend

to not to pay attention to it. Yeah. I mean, I do think that if you go out there and you have a really great highlight, if you have a really great finish, something I can get, make it easily passed around and shared, then sometimes it can work to your favor that you got the night to yourself pretty much. You don't have a whole lot of like competing things out there trying to get other people's attention and trying to stick in people's memory.

Cause sometimes that is the obstacle for these guys, right? Is that you go out there, you have a great fight on Saturday night. There are also a lot of other, you know, good, meaningful fights on the same fight card and come Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of the next week, it all gets sort of clouded together and then we're already turning around and focusing on the next thing. So sometimes it is to your advantage that this is the only one that we cared about. The only one that mattered coming off of that fight card.

But you're right. When you are sad once between that and the pay-per-view people go into look ahead mode right away. It could be too, just throwing it out there psychologically. It was like, you know what? That's fine. I don't mind this. Some guys don't love having the pressure of like hometown things or whatever.

And if you look back, like his one great, I thought his masterful performance came against Barbosa at the Apex where he went to five rounds. Um, so in a, in a weird way, you're like, maybe, maybe psychologically he doesn't mind this, you know what I mean? Maybe he's, maybe the setting actually speaks to him on some level. Yeah. And we've seen it work for guys as well. You know, the more they win, certain fans will like to be like,

I'm with this guy, you know, and it did happen for Leon and yeah, let's see what happens. It's actually for an apex card. It's pretty good. You want to some Brito against Pat Sabatini is going to be a banger. Cotavius Ramirez against Chang'e Li and Mershite against Tavarez. Um, personally, I'm very excited about Davey Grant and Daniel Santos. Davey Grant, the dangerous one.

I mean, what a fucking guy this is. I don't think he's ever been in a boring fight in his life. And Reese McKee, a teammate of Paul Hughes, Reese McKee, he was not 30 yet, but is considered a bit of a legend of Irish MMA because he's just been around so long, still searching for that first UFC win. Big pressure. No Irishmen have lost this year in the UFC, right? So it's kind of, I mean, there's pressure.

I didn't want to have it up. I was like, just raise you go into your thing. We won't talk before we'll talk after, but yeah, yeah, it's a very good care. Oh, look at this Jordan throwing up some loop on me versus Nunes, Henry V. Falco and Demopoulousis against Alan Carr. I mean, Jordan is an absolute, he is die hard. Like plugging those prelims. Did you just watch the PFL last night, lads?

They tried something new. There's no season format anymore. We're straight into knockouts. And unfortunately, speaking of Ireland success, Nathan Kelly, who was another dog, to be fair, went down in round one. And that was at 1am on a Friday morning. And I was able to stay right up until 3 30. When I saw Logan store, the walking down that ramp, I said, you know what? You're just gonna guard from that MVP fight.

I just saw him coming down. It was like, you know what? Think I know how this one's going. And I think I'll take this extra 20 minutes to just sleep. Um, I guess, I guess my, my, my, uh, Jason Jackson's got a big win in the main event. It should be set against Koroshev. Um, I think Panetta knocked out Boris in the, in the common event. But I guess what I'd ask is like, do you think this will help the PFL ads?

Like this cutting out the regular season and jumping straight to knockout. Do you think it adds more of an urgency to the fan base to check this out? Or do you still think they're, they're going to struggle to get those eyeballs? What do you think? It's an uphill slog, honestly, and where they're at right now, especially it's like, like you said, you know, you got a Thursday night, uh, you're trying to get, trying to rally people and just sort of get the awareness out and like, Hey, we're back and we're doing this thing that is so much of the battle for a lot of fight

promoters, not named the UFC is just letting people know there's a fight. And now it's on Thursday night of all times. It's not necessarily a time that a lot of people have circled as that's, that's fight night and so trying to, to, to get people excited about that and translate that urgency to them. Like you said, kind of doing away with that format seems like an attempt to do that. It also seems like the PFL is in a situation now where every single time we

see them, it's something different. It's, you know, that is not often a great sign that does not tell you that you think things are going wonderfully if you have to change it up every single time. And so I think that right now, like Chuck, I thought your column on it made an excellent point about that. This seems like a vital period for them because they, they seem like a dangerous territory. The UFC's own standing with ESPN could be an opportunity in some ways for PFL, but also you got to really crush it right now. Cause it doesn't, the runway doesn't feel like there's all that much room left on it for PFL to take off. And it's like you said, I mean, there's hasn't been like a known identity

of what they're trying to do. And we've seen tournament structures in the past, obviously the PFL Bellator and going all the way back to pride. It's very difficult to keep that on course. Even if you do have time carved out and everything, it's hard, harder than ever. I think for people to pay attention to a bracket, they pay attention so little, you know, like you mentioned, you go through a fight card on by, you know, Monday, we're already at your sketching.

We're moving on to the next fight card. It's very difficult to keep in your mind. You know, this guy just got through him and he's going through him. I think that they, they want to look at it like it's a sport, a different kind of sport, but no sport plays out in a tournament or a playoff that lasts that long, you know, you're asking a lot of the attention span, I guess, to kind of pay attention to like all of this as it unfolds. I thought the fights themselves were pretty good.

There was, there were certain things about, um, the look, the look and feel of it. Obviously it was a, it's in Orlando, right? They're doing it at the, uh, the universal studios or something like that. Um, it looked, it almost, it didn't quite feel like the apex. It felt like a little more, um, there were a few more people there than that, but it, it was a different kind of setting for them. I thought their pacing was slightly better. They got some good fights, like a couple, they were doing the PFL origins thing,

which I think humanize and some of these people is probably not the worst, uh, you know, things that they can do, especially with guys like Jackson, the, uh, what do they call them? The ass kicking, the main event guy. So, I mean, like, I thought just kind of knowing all of that, um, it's, it's, it's, you can see that they're making the effort. How that translates, I don't know, but I do feel like, as we're mentioning in the piece I wrote, like, you got to know kind of where you're heading, you know?

And I feel like the bigger issue is like all the names of the PFL, where are they? What is, what's going to happen with them? They, it seems like they fight and then they just go away. Like they can't keep momentum with the big names. How are they going to keep the momentum even in the tournament? Like I feel, I feel like it's going to have to be revisited in three months and see kind of where they're at. Yeah.

It's interesting you mentioned that about the attendance because on a bad night in Dublin, like a PFL had one. Um, you know, it was simply like a low crowd in the three arena. There was still way more people in Dublin than there is like whatever they do in Europe is really good compared to whatever it is in the US. Like an Ariel said this to me a few times, like he's watched some PFLs in Paris with with Dumbay and stuff. He's like, it's hard for me to believe that this is PFL sometimes compared to what is on offer in the US compared to like they're going to do this show on May 10th in Belfast

with Paul Hughes and it's going to be fucking crazy. Like they've already had to release additional seating. Like I think the last time they went to Belfast, they had 2000 people there and it was Karl Moore v Corey Anderson in the main event. And I was like, I was pretty shocked by, you know, I thought more people be out to sport West Belfast on Karl Moore, who's also in that light heavyweight tournament this year in the PFL, but I guarantee that it's going to look fucking crazy and I just don't understand how they can kind of nail it in Europe, it seems, and just not have that, not have any kind of momentum in the U S at all.

Whatsoever. Like it's just what it feels like to me. I, I watched the fights. I do think that Chuck is right in that Jackson does come across like a star. Like they really put that, put the spotlight on him. And he was an entertaining guy. Like they had them sitting down with the coach, coaches conversations, shout out, um, and very, very interesting guy, a very jovial guy, very charismatic guy. But let's see where this goes.

And that gene too, like he came through, he fights next. If they play it correctly, that's got to, they could build that pretty nicely. You got two very dynamic kind of personalities going to each other. I've got a big fat flow flowing around this room. So if anyone's seen that, I apologize. Probably smell me. Yeah. I'm telling you.

Um, what was it going to say? Oh no. Yeah. Do you think that this is what I wanted to ask just before we move on and we take a look at some of Ben's vacation pictures in which he looks amazingly regal. I'm going to say, and it's the last time he's made for that life. He really is. He cut off his hair.

Like it's a new man since he came back. He was like, get rid of this. I'm no longer European. But, um, before we get to that, I was just like, could GFL come in and immediately rival PFL for like number two, because I don't feel like it's nailed on for PFL as much money as they've put into this. And I know GFL, there are so many, there's so many issues people have, but like, could they come in with all this nostalgia and this Dylan Dallas for Tony Ferguson situation

and like cause more of a stir than the PFL straight off the bat pen. Well, it depends what you mean by a stir, because right now it seems like GFL is poised. They're going to create a kind of a stir because so far right now everybody is just like, LOL, can you believe this? This is, is this really going to happen? And, and what is this even going to be like? And I think that there will be some interest in some of these like first

events just cause people are going to be like, okay, I got to see this. There's interest if there'll be an event or one beyond it, like one event, you know? But yeah, it's really a different thing to go from like, Hey, we're putting together a concept and some names that you know, and to build something lasting is a lot tougher. And to build something that you're going to be interested in, you know, like week to week, month to month, rather than just the novelty factor. Cause the novelty part, GFL has kind of nailed that.

And yet already though, you're looking around and you're like, one problem when you have a bunch of these old guys that you're staking your whole thing on is that, uh, they are going to get in the gym and remember that they're old. They're going to remember that they, they stopped doing this for a reason. And I speak as an old guy. I, you know, sometimes you get in there, you try to ramp it up like you used to. And you realize you just can't do that anymore. And you're already seeing it.

You see Frank Mears hurt, uh, for BCO, very dooms out, like that kind of thing is going to be a big obstacle for them. But it doesn't seem like, uh, maybe I'll be proven wrong. Maybe it'll be an ongoing concern, but right now, most of the interest seems to be like, like you're telling us there's going to be a car crash on this date. And we want to see it. I think that the, it's like more like that morbid curiosity to see how this plays out. The problem is besides if you just get past the fact that the average age is

like something like 43 or I don't even know, but it's like, they're up there in age, like most of the, most of the people, the most successful things. Like if you take WWE or you take any pro wrestling success, or you take the UFC, what is the thing they're always doing? Their event is the event, right? Everything's kind of central, but everything's coming out of it too. Like there's so much future involved with every event. You're always looking at what's next.

I'm trying to point this out a little bit, even in the PFL piece, if you don't know where things are headed, it just doesn't, like it feels like a one-off and it always feels disastrous. You know what I mean? There's almost gotta be storylines that kind of keep pushing forward that people are like, man, if this happens, then we get this. It's got to keep going like that. Otherwise people lose interest in it. And this one's set up completely opposite of that.

You know what I mean? Because it's like, you're talking about, let's, you know, let's milk a little bit more out of this guy and this guy and this guy based on the nostalgia factor. And I, that's a recipe for disaster for it going forward. Will it be fun going in or will it be like curiosity, curiosity, get the better of all that stuff will play in. But the problem is how do we feel about it coming out and what do you want to see out of it next?

That's going to be the weird part of GFL. I want to thank you both there for so eloquently saying, no, PT, you fucking idiots, I respect that very much. Um, Ben, we've missed you so much. Yeah. Let's get onto these pictures here, man. You were away and I was so fucking jealous because you're in all these wonderful places.

Jordan, set up one of the pictures there and let the man talk us through this. Oh, look at this, man. Okay, I have you to thank for this one, Pizzi, because when I told you I was going to Paris and you said, oh, you gotta walk up to Montmartre and walk through the, you know, like walk up the street past the Moulin Rouge. And I was trying to tell my girlfriend this. I was like, okay, the, you know, like walk up the street, pass the Moulin Rouge.

And I was trying to tell my girlfriend this. I was like, okay, Pizzi says we got to walk up and the only directions you had really given me, you were like, the street that the Moulin Rouge is on, just keep walking up past it. And she was like, what does that mean? Walk up the street. And I was like, well, it looks like a hill. Let's walk up the hill. And that's exactly what I was talking about.

Yes. And you were right. And that was, that proved to be like kind of good enough directions for a while anyway. Cause we're just like, I was like, doesn't it feel like we're walking up the street? Like, and she's like, yeah, it does. And then, uh, she said something. She was like, didn't he send you a video or pictures? And I was like, you know what?

He did. He sent me the video of the guys sitting outside this cafe, this little pub playing music. And so I pulled that up and I just looked at what I could see in the background. I felt like one of those internet sleuths. I was like, let me see the, because you kind of panned around with your video and I could see some of the names of the businesses and I just put those into the map and I was like, sure enough, there it is. And so I just walked out there, went to the same place that you sent me the video of, sat out there, had a couple drinks, had a nice time.

It was a great, right, it was a great neighborhood to sit and just enjoy for a while. Although this is where my disastrous attempt to speak French came in. Cause I read a guidebook and they were just like, like you said, Pete, even if you don't speak French, they appreciate you trying. And so I, you know, I read up the important stuff of just like how to order a beer, how to say thank you for the beer, how to ask for the check to pay for the beer, that kind of stuff. And in the guidebook, they're like, you know, when you're ready for the check, you say la edition, s'il vous plaît,

you know, the addition, the adding up of everything you had. And so that I saw the waiter come by, I flagged him down and I said, la edition, s'il vous plaît. This man looked at me, he turned and looked at me flagged him down and I said, La Dition, si vous plaît. This man looked at me. He turned and looked at me right in my face and he said, what? They make you feel so stupid for attempting, but they also would be disgusted if you didn't, it's a very, it's a tightrope. I was just like, you know what I mean. At least four motherfuckers said this to you today.

Don't deny it. Unbelievable. What a spot though. My that's beautiful. There's a great place. Yeah. I loved it there. And yeah, let's have, let's have another Jordan.

What else we got there? Oh my God. Look at this suit. And can I guess it looks, it looks Amsterdam in the background there to me. That is in fact Amsterdam. You note the canal. You know, I didn't realize how much of Amsterdam is just canal crazy. Yes.

I had some notion that they had them, but then I went there and I was just like, this place is practically all canals. And when you're looking at the little map, you're walking around trying to find somewhere, you know, you're, you're looking up walking directions and on the map, it looks ridiculous. It looks like you'll never get there. You look like you're just walking in a spider web and you're just winding along a series of canals. But I loved Amsterdam. I was only there very briefly, but got to meet up with some friends in the CME listening audience, had a great dinner in Amsterdam

and went out, had a wonderful time. I zeroed in a little bit on that picture and I could see the red, red lights kind of reflect on your face there a little bit. Did you walk in a red light? We did kind of on accident. We walked through the red light district and we didn't even realize that was it. I guess I was expecting it to feel like a real strong vibe shift and it didn't really, it was just like the only way I realized that it was I walked by and

there's a woman standing in like a window, way I realized that it was, I walked by and there's a woman standing in like a window, barely wearing any clothes at all, cheerfully waving. And like, but she's, she very much looks like she's standing there as something for sale in the window. And I was like, Whoa, that's a human being though. That's kind of jarring. And that was the only way I knew. Yeah.

A lot of guys, if you hit the district there, you'll get a lot of guys not obeying Sean O'Malley's commands about Jane the pin. I'll tell you that much. They- You've worked that in now four times in this one podcast. They don't mind doing it at all. In fact, I think they really enjoy doing it and they don't care if you watch either. Some of them have, have perhaps come there just strictly to do that.

Yeah, that's right. Look at this one. Wow. What is this building behind you here? Wait, there's a dead giveaway in that food you're having right there. Is that a Belgian waffle? I see it is. It is the, the Belgians are very proud of their waffles.

They're just selling them out on the street. Like they're hot dogs in New York city. Uh, I appreciate that. I love a waffle, especially when they're just like, Hey, uh, you Americans think that a waffle is a food that you just eat by itself, maybe with a little bit of maple syrup on it. And you were egregiously wrong. A waffle, you can put all kinds of stuff on a

waffle and, uh, I, I really enjoyed that. I had, you know, just a short stop over there in Ghent, Belgium and had a nice time there, but especially like, man, I love a waffle. So those people are after my heart. Did you see Chris Rini? I thought I saw a picture of you and Chris Rini, our artist friend.

Yeah. I saw Chris hung out with Chris Rini in uh, Amsterdam and uh, yeah, we, we went out, got espresso martinis, our friend Max De Vries who lives in Amsterdam, he was like, we got to go around the corner for espresso martinis, but I'm going to warn you guys. I haven't been in this place since I was in there super

drunk one night, so I might walk in and they might ask me to walk right back out again, but no, it was fine after my own heart. I'm going to do the exact same thing today. It's best for my teeny incredible piece of alcohol. And Elaine, my, my, my fiance, Elaine introduced me to an espresso martini. One night when I probably had it, I was in that slump, you know, when you're like, we've been out all day and I'm done. And she was like, get one of them bad boys into it.

They perk you right up Chuck. We need to revisit this at some point, but so we had Belgium, Paris and Amsterdam, sorry, Ghent. Should I say, um, what was your favorite place out of the whole lot? You know, I really liked Amsterdam and wish that I'd carved out a little more time to spend there, but honestly, Paris is an amazing city. I, it's one of these things where, you know, you go there and you see what all the hype is about.

And it was just kind of like, all right, I see why they won't shut up about it now. Because it really is, especially for like a big city and you're used to the way big cities are in North America, right? Where it's like, you know, New York has its own special charm, so does Chicago, places like that. But a lot of places within those cities, you're walking down the street in New York and this street looks like it could be in Chicago or Toronto or San Francisco. It doesn't feel that different.

And when you're in Paris, it felt very different in that sense where, especially you're looking around at some places and you're like, all the history that you see there, the historic buildings, and you're like, in America, we would have bulldozed this by now and put a Sephora here. So no joke. You know? Like, we would have just been pushing right over it for the sake of relentless capitalism and they're not doing that here. And it was, I had a great time the whole time in Paris. Also, uh, my,

my girlfriend who was a dancer and teaches dance at the university of Montana. She took me to the Paris opera ballet. I did not expect really to enjoy that. And then you're in there watching them and you're just like, okay, these people are some athletes. These people doing some amazing physical feats here. Yeah. She takes you to that and you took her to Jim Morrison's grave, to add some fresh graffiti. That's that balances up. Want to take this acid now? No, the great, you, you went to like, I can remember telling Chuck about this

the last time I was in Paris and I was telling about Oscar world's grave and they had to put the paraspecs in front of it because too many men were too many people were kissing, should I say the stone you, you witnessed it. And I hope you kissed it. Wow. There's lip marks all over that plexiglass surrounding it. And there's also an interesting like note telling you like, please don't do this because the family has to pay

for the cleaning costs on this grave. And it's unsustainable Frank. Weird. Portrait of an artist as a young man is not selling that well. Or what, no, sorry, That's not well, is it? That's Joyce. Yeah. Come on.

They're all over. We're, we're the best, but maybe Joyce's family is paying it. Who knows? Yeah. Jesus Christ. But yeah, it looks like a hell of a trip. Um, unbelievable. Deloitte had a good time.

This guy's like, he says he's a homebody, but I think what, like a month ago, he's in San Diego drinking beer in the morning. I was, I was envious of that. Now he's in Europe. What does next month a baseball game. Yeah. Intern Mr. International bad folk. What will he do next?

Uh, was very jealous. I'm gonna say of all that, but, um, that's all we've got for you guys today. No, no, I'm sorry. That's right. Wow. New graphic. Fuck me. Jordan wasn't ready for that.

I mean, who came up with this wizardry? That, that was absolutely insane. Let's go to super chats. Fuck me, Jordan. I wasn't ready for that. I mean, who came up with his wizardry? That was absolutely insane. Let's go to Super Chat. Excuse me. I'm not suggesting Islam is scared of Ilya, but is either potentially that he thinks, but is it potentially that he thinks there's a higher risk in this fight that isn't worth the reward? I say no.

I don't, I think that matchup wise, he probably feels pretty confident in that one. I think that if, if there's something that he prefers about the idea of going out to welterweight, you know, if JDM were to win the title there, it's the, the respect and the added allure of being a two division champion. I don't think any of it is that he thinks Ilya beats him. I think he looks at Ilya and says like, okay, that stuff you were doing is going to work against those featherweights down there, but it's not going to work here. Yeah.

He's massive as well. That's the thing. I think Islam's like, as soon as they see me facing off with Ilya, they're going to be like, yeah, Islam's got this one. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I want to be the guy taking the got this one. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I want to be, I want to be the guy taking the risk this time. You know what I'm saying? I've convinced myself he's just posturing now.

He's just looking up at, he's just looking up so he can like, uh, oh yeah, I wanted to fight the guy, you know, but he'll settle. It's not a bad show. He'll settle for the mega fight. Jordan, pull that up one more time so I can shout out whoever that was. I should have done that the first time. Ethan Cheecho. Cheechoo? What are we going with there boys? the first time. Ethan Cheecho. Cheechoo?

What are we going with there boys? Cheechoo. Ethan Cheechoo. Thank you for the five Canadian dollars. God bless Canada. God bless America. God bless Ireland. God bless Paris, Ghent and Amsterdam.

God bless Chuck Mendenhall and Ben folks. Dammit on Air Jordan. God bless you. Oscar Loseff. God bless you. This has and Ben Foulkes. Dammit on air, Jordan. God bless you. Oscar Losev, God bless you. This has been the crack crackheads. Enjoy yourselves responsibly over the weekend. We can go too far, especially as crackheads.

We always, we don't really know where to draw a line in the sand, but I'm telling you, be careful, enjoy the fights and I'll see you in it. Ooh, whoa. I will not see you next week. Interesting note to make at the very end of the show. And I'll see you in it. Ooh, whoa. I will not see you next week. Interesting note to make at the very end of the show. Next week, it will be Ben and Chuck doing the show. Please, please pretend that I like in the comments be like, Oh, we missed Pete.

He just in case Ariel's like, you know what? Maybe this works better if we, you know? Does he add anything to this show? So please, but like, so grateful boys, I've got an appointment I cannot miss next Friday, so I appreciate it. On Air Jordan be here as always, Oscar Losev be here as always, and I'm sure all the crack heads will be here

as always. Thank you so much for joining us today, enjoy Lerone Murphy v Josh Emma tomorrow, we'll be back on Monday on the Ariel Luwani show tomorrow. We'll be back on Monday on the Ariel Awani show and we'll be back on Friday with the crack just without pizza carol. We love you so much. Thank you again. God bless.