The Ariel Helwani Show - Israel Adesanya's future, Arman Tsarukyan picks Conor McGregor to beat Max Holloway, Bellator lives? | The Craic

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

The Craic is back for a special Wednesday edition, with Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes as usual. The lads kick things off by reacting to Israel Adesanya’s loss to Joe Pyfer and what it could mean for the next phase of his career (05:00). From MMA to wrestling, the guys discuss Arman Tsarukyan vs. Uriah Faber being booked in RAF (20:15). Tsarukyan also made some bold comments on The Ariel Helwani Show, suggesting Max Holloway would get knocked out by Conor McGregor in their rumoured bout, which the trio dig into (31:27). Petesy then gets Chuck and Ben’s take on Alexa Grasso’s highlight-reel knockout-to-submission sequence (38:49), before the conversation turns to Khabib Nurmagomedov’s comments on women in MMA nearly simultaneous to Grasso’s stunning finish (44:06). Attention then shifts to the PFL, with the promotion reportedly considering a rebrand, including a potential return to the Bellator name. The boys brainstorm their own ideas (51:00). To close, the lads preview Derek Chisora vs. Deontay Wilder (01:02:07), then get to your Spring Break Super Chats (01:08:00).

Do not adjust your cameras, your television screens, your phones. It is me. It's Pizzie Carroll. It's Wednesday. You're going, Pizzi, what are you doing? You usually banished to the back room and then brought up on a screen sometime during the show, perhaps, on a Wednesday. You don't get to talk to us on Wednesdays, not directly, not like this, but guess what? It's spring break, and there are no alternatives. You have got to stick with me today. It is the crack. Crackheads. I hope you're here. I know you're usually first. kind of people, but we're here today and we have a lot to talk about. All the

rest of them off, Galavanton. All of the rest of them. Oh, Rick's off here, Ariel's off over there, Frank is over there somewhere. You know, we have Andy here, thank God, because Lord knows, I don't know how to do all of this stuff. I don't know how to make a live happen, but here we are.

I'm live right now. Speaking to all you beautiful people, and my Lord, do we have a lot to speak about. We've been speaking a lot, I'm not going to lie to you, just in the old waiting room here before we went in, Probably not going to hit those raunchy topics till the back end. But we've got a lot to talk about, as I said. Bring in Ben and Chuck and get them around me.

I need my homies around me here. Oh, yeah. I've been away, boys. I've been away. I had a bit of a holiday for two days. Might have, you know, just had one toe in the MMA world. Might have just had one toe. So if I'm completely wrong, as I often am, about things I'm going to say here,

you need to check me. Be like, Pizzi, that's very last week. You've got to stop doing this. you're completely out of the game and frankly the audience hates you is that okay with you chuk? Far for the course, Pizzii. I feel like this is just kind of every week

you know, so yeah, we'll do our best. Thank you. You're a gentleman. Ben, would you also promise to do that if I'm coming across a bit out of date here? Where I draw the line is saying that the audience hates you because this audience is used to you being wrong.

They're used to you having wild opinions that cannot be possibly justified and they love you for it. They absolutely love it. Thank you. I mean a lot. I need to hear that today. They're used to breaking news and you're kind of dragging us back onto the script,

whatever it is, you know, that's going on like, hey, guys, let's follow what we're going to talk about here, you know. In case you don't know, everyone, you know,

these Wednesday viewers might not listen to the Cracker and Freud is for some reason, even though it's the fillet of MMA podcasting, that's a little line I came up with today. I enjoyed that. What is it? What is it? What is it? You'd call it a fillet,

I believe. Ah, okay. We call it a fillet. here. Fill it steak. You call it a fill it up. Like fill it up. You're saying the crack is the, the prime cut. Is that what you're, okay. That's what I'm saying. So like, it's not easy. You know, like, you know, of course, Ariel has to book all these guests. He has to, you know, constantly text people, find out news to give it to you. What I have to do is make a little list. That's all it is. No, that's fine. And, you know, sometimes the boys don't stick with the list. And that,

that's an issue that we face. But I think today that we're in this big slot, this prime time, Wednesday's lot. I think they're going to stick with me. The list is trimmed down this week. I noticed I was just like, is Pizzi still in vacation mode? Is Pizzi still, he's coming off a bit of the drink? And he's, because the list is, it's usually a lot longer, a lot more extensive. This time the list is, uh, kind of bare bones. You know, well, you know, you're not wrong there. Okay. You're not completely wrong.

One half of my buddy is sweating, which we discovered in the waiting room, too. massive sweat pit here. Oh, yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. It's all right. This side.

So only half of my body is responding badly to the last two days. But listen, that is not why everyone's here. We need to talk about Israel, Adesania, what is going to happen with him? What about Armin going out of the show and being like, oh, I hope they don't match Max with Connor, because Max is going to get their shit knocked out of him. I'm like, this is not a direct quote. Not a direct quote. That is just the general nature of what he was saying. then we have PFL rebranding potentially DeBelator and I can't wait to get the boys

takes on that as well that's it that's uh that's quite quite a situation they've got going on over there we've got like look there's fights this weekend chris duncan the pride of Scotland would have been a shepherd on the side of a mountain which yeah forgot about that yeah crazy had he not been an mhm a fighter that sounds delightful honestly I mean is that job still available can I apply I mean he's head learning the meta apex okay Ben, so why the hell would he do with that? Okay, he's made it. I mean, if you ask me,

meta apex or shepherd, it's... I don't know, man. You're living an untroubled, peaceful life out there with the sheep. Yeah, and he does have a good face of a shepherd. Listen, we don't need to get into this, okay? We need to speak about Adisania for us. A lot of people weighing in.

I saw Demetrius Johnson on with Ariel, and he's given, like, he does one of the greatest voters of all time. Some people think the greatest voter of all time. He's going to say, look, we've earned our money. You know, we are legends of the game, which is true in Adisani's case, a true innovator of the striking game. You know, him and Eugene Berman, what they did, often overlooked a brilliant, brilliant champion. He is now on a four-fight skid and a lot of conversation about, you know, why would you keep doing this? What do you have to prove at this stage, you know?

Ben, I know you've got an article coming up on retirements and why fighters might look at that exodor and why they might not. What's your feeling on the Adasania situation? You know, I think that we are sometimes too reliant on just the results to tell us when we think a guy on our retires, just looking at the wins and the losses. And I don't think that tells you everything you need to know. Because you look at Israel-A-Sanya's streak, right, where he's lost four straight. But that includes two former champions, one top contender and then now Joe Pfeiffer, who seems to be a guy coming up in the Divis. vision. There's not one of those fights where you look at it and you go, hey, if you lose to that guy, you need to quit. None of those guys are like that. All of those guys are dudes where you could be like,

yeah, these guys could conceivably beat just about any middleweight on any given night. And that, I think, is something to give you mind. Like, we look at it in the totality where we go, he fought all these guys, he lost all these guys. He didn't look completely outclassed or anything. You know, in this Joe Piper fight, he had moments. He also looked at. at times like he was fighting a style that did not favor him, that he was, he was standing there in front of Joe Pfe for a little bit more than he needed to. And that kind of stuff where you go, is he doing that because he's trying to kind of recapture some magic and some confidence? Is he doing that because he feels like that's all that's available to him at this point?

Because some of the other skills that he's relied on, some of the stuff he got away with earlier in his career, physically he's just not able to pull that off anymore. I don't know. But when you ask yourself, like, what should go into that decision of retiring? I think, I think Demetri's Johnson was on to something in that you have to have a good answer for why do I want to continue? Be honest with yourself about that. Because if it's, I want to get back to the top and be a UFC champion again, brother, that's probably not going to happen for his sonya at this point in his career. Let's just be honest about that. If it's because, hey, I still love it. I still think I got a couple good ones in me. then hey, maybe.

But then let's think about what kind of fights we want to take. A fight against Joe Pfeiffer in Seattle on a fight night thing is not the kind of fight you want to take. If you're at Israel-A-Sanya's point as a former champion thinking, I want to go out there and have a few more great brawls, have a few more great knights. I want to add to that legacy. Fight a peer. Fight somebody else who's in that same kind of run.

Don't fight a young hungry guy and see if you can get a fight in a home territory. Look at what Michael Kiesa did. Get one of those kind of fights where you can have that feel good moment and you can maybe have a little better feeling going out the door. But be honest with yourself about what it is you want. Because I think you're right. If it's not the money, if it's not a championship, then what is it? Is it also just, I don't know what comes next and I'm delaying finding out? You just need to be honest with yourself about what it is.

Yeah, you know what's funny about him is you mentioned just the record not being able to tell you everything you need to know. Um, you know, he's a dude who's very level-headed. Like, I feel like he sees the game a little differently than some of these fighters that end up in this position where they're kind of skidding out of control toward the end and they're like, I want to, I want to get it back. They delude themselves into thinking they can. I feel like he understands a lot of what you're saying, Ben, like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like he's, I feel like he has a grasp on his situation. So I don't think he's delusional. I think he just wants to keep fighting.

And then that also introduces then the next line of. questioning, which is who do you fight? Like, he was very, even like when he's talking about Joe Piper, he's like, you know what, man, I had somebody had to give me a shot and I had to get through that guy. And now I'm doing that for Joe Piper. He understands his situation. So at a bench, like, remember, he fought Anderson Silva when Silva was kind of in this position. And he was able to kind of go through that.

And is he going to be that guy? Is it going to be the benchmark for these, you know, which they hate the, they hate the term gatekeeper. But like, in some ways, that's what it is, right? Like you're going to be the benchmark for these guys coming up. Like if you can get through him, you belong at a certain echelon. If you don't, you're not there yet. Like, I don't know what he, like in terms of that yet, but I will say that he just strikes me as a very level-headed guy.

Even throughout this fight, like, he, you know, he's handling the losses, like, as well as you possibly can. I actually wrote a column about this very thing about nobody, like, kind of treats the cruelty, the cruel realities of the fight game quite like Israel at a Senate. We don't see a lot of guys who handle it like that. So I feel like he's coming at it from a different perspective. Now it's just a matter of the matchmaking. If he's going to continue, it is a matter of that matchmaking. And honestly, man, like if he doesn't take one of those fights like Ben was talking about, like where you're just kind of not necessarily getting right to make a run at the title,

but just to kind of, you know, get a favorable matchup because we've been fighting these really good fighters, I would be, then I would really be wondering what's going on with him. You know, one of the things that came up when I was talking to a bunch of fighters, like, you know, coaches, ex-fighters, people who've gone through the decision to retire, all that kind of stuff, a lot of them point out specifically with Israel, they were like, I don't think he needs to retire. What I saw in that fight against Joe Piper doesn't tell me that guy needs to get out. It wasn't like he was just starched, you know, the way he was kind of by Nassarine Memovov. It wasn't like he was completely out class and took a bad beating. He was in that fight. He had moments in that fight. He got stuck in a position he couldn't get out of and he got stopped there. But, It didn't seem like he took a ton of damage in that. And they were saying, like, you need to look at how these losses are happening. Several people without, you know, coordinating with each other, without me bringing it up, pointed to the example of Frankie Edgar. And, you know, they did so with respect, being like, you know,

Frank Heber was great, had some great moments. But when you saw the way his career ended and the kind of beatings he was taking toward the end of his career, you went, that's the sign that you need to stop, right? Not necessarily just because you're losing those fights. It's not the result. It's how you're getting there. And that is going to pile up. That's going to catch up to you.

The other thing, though, that came out was I talked to Javier Mendez, the coach at AKAA about it. He has a different perspective on it, trying to tell fighters at times when he thinks they need to retire. He said that's never once worked. Never once has he been able to as a coach to tell a guy, even a guy he has a years long relationship with, a guy who trusts him and trust his opinion. he said never once has he been able to tell a fighter, I think you're done, I think you don't have it anymore, and I think you should quit, and then go, okay, yeah, I hear you and I will quit.

Never. So we can say what we want about whether you think he should stop, but you're never going to talk a fighter into it. To your, both your points. Like, Adasania is a curious case, because obviously it's not a Frankie aggregation. Do you remember how we fought against DDP? Like, he was, like, we were kind of going,

shit he's back. And Assange is back. And then obviously went wrong in the fourth round. Pfefer, moments like that, the first round, he looks really good. He's fainting. He's doing everything. Joe Pover clips him a few times with those heavy hooks that we've seen blast people into the shadow realm.

And he was fine. Like he's looking straight at him. And you're just kind of like, if you're at Asanja and you know how amazing you wear at the height of your power. And then you have moments like that where you look like that guy again, it must be very, very difficult. But on the other hand, has there ever been a guy

who has more options to him available outside of the fight game? Like, this guy is so charismatic. Everybody wants to watch him, whether it's people hating on him or people supporting him. He is a really, really, he's an exciting guy.

Like, he has always been someone who speaks a bit different, who acts differently. That's kind of where I'm at with it. I'm like, you're saying, I've seen this so many times where the thing that keeps fighters fighting is the crisis of identity that they have. Yes.

Outside of fighting. What the hell am I if I am not this? But for when I'm looking at Adasania, I'm like, you can be anything still. You can be absolutely anything you want to be. So that's kind of where I am with it. Like I want him to walk away when it's not a Frank Yeager situation. Does that make sense? Yeah.

You know, and this is something I talked to Michael Kiesa about this just because he, on the same card had this great retirement moment. And, you know, he's, he's a smart guy, always a thoughtful guy and interesting to talk to. And he was saying that one of the things that has helped him was having his commentary gig with the UFC, in part because he knows, I'm not retiring and then stepping out into nothing. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to be doing on-air analyst stuff. I'm still going to be in the world. I'm not just saying like, all right, the fighting portion of your life has done, do something completely different that doesn't have this thing in it that has been the bulk of your adult life. And also, though, being able

to look at it from the perspective of an analyst where you've gotten used to thinking that way, you've gotten used to stepping back and seeing the sport in total, the way we see it, the way fans see it, and going like, okay, I can do the same math that other people are doing. But he also said, like, hey, the difference for me is the last few fights, especially, I've gotten to fight outside the rankings, essentially. I didn't have to do that. I was fighting guys where it's like, you know, they're not easy fights, but it's also not the very top of any division. And so it's the stakes are a little bit lower. Where Israel-A-Sanya, there's not going to be any easy nights for his-O-Dos-Sanya. Because he's Israel-A-Sanya every time he shows up. Somebody is out there

gunning for Israel-A-Sah. Somebody wants to put that name on their record. And that's going to be the case for as long as he sticks around. The same way it was the case for Anders-San. and Silva when Israel was on the other side of it. It was like, I want to go out there. And the UFC is thinking of it that way because they're like, we're paying Israel to Sonia, Israel to Sania money to fight. And so we want to get our money's worth out of it one way or another. And you got to realize that's going to be the way everybody thinks of it.

That's going to be the way everybody approaches it. And as Rashad Evans said in my story where he was saying like, hey, once you've been to the mountaintop, once you've been a champion, you've had those magical knights, you are competing against that in a way. every single time. It's not just you versus Joe Pfeiffer. It's you versus the memory of the time you walked out in Melbourne doing backflips and then you knocked out Robert Whitaker. People are comparing it to that. You're always up against that on some level. And that's not going to change. And so you got to think about like what is realistically possible for you in the context of all of that. Yeah. And it's like for like Demetrius mentioned this too. Like for Joe Piper, he was talking about, you know, when you're coming up or you're a guy who hasn't quite made it yet, You're not making the big money yet. You want to save every penny you can. And now you've got this huge opportunity.

You know, Israel, out of Senia, especially in the case we just saw, becomes like the Super Bowl, right? You're like, okay, I got to beat this guy. That level of hunger of the guys who want to beat you because you held such a high bar and you're compared with the greats in the sport, that's tough, right? Because these guys want to beat you more than anybody they've wanted to win a fight. They're going to train harder. They've got you circled. and to meet that kind of intensity and what is Israel? Something like 36 years old.

He's been like 100, over 100 total combat across combat sports, you know, fights all over the place. That's going to be tough for him to show up for. So these things are all factors. And I mean, they're unique to guys who have set that kind of bar. They're unique to guys like Anderson Silva or Chuck Liddell's. The guys who have really, really understood the top of the fight game

of where, you know, in their era, what that's like. To his, the one thing I say, even though he doesn't get at, like the thing that strikes me the most is he gets hit more. You know, he used to be in a spot and then he was not in that spot

when the guy went after him. And I just feel like right now, Joe Pipe, there was one instance in that second round where Piper completely telegraphed a right hand and just boom, he lands it. And I'm like,

I just don't think that that shot lands in a previous iteration of Izzy, right? Like back of the day, it's stuff like that you're like, I'm not sure. what that means for him in terms of can he get that back? I don't think you can. We've never seen an example of a guy who suddenly has fast twitching

like he can get out of the way again. He becomes more evasive down the line. So it's living up to your own bar, man. And his bar of excellence was so high that it's like that's the problem. Like when Ben says you're competing with yourself, you're competing with your past self. That's where the problems start. Both of you guys, when you're speaking about this, you say, don't take these kind of fights,

take kind of fights that make more sense. Can you think of one, honestly, either you guys off the top of your head, a fight that makes sense right now for a design. No. That's tough, right? Yeah, it is tough. It is tough.

I saw somebody, like, I think it was New York, Rick was saying MVP. Um, not bad. But he's coming off of such a, I mean, it's just like, is there, is there anybody out there who is more,

who the quality of their fights is more dependent. depending on style than MVP. You put him into the wrong style matchup and you get nothing. You get absolutely nothing. You put him in a right style matchup. You get something great. But if you mess around and you get it wrong, he won't fight and he won't let you fight. Flashbacks of Mahican Sun against Paul Daly when MVP fought.

Remember that fight? Oh, my God. Oh, that was brutal. He's had a few of them, right? Like, it's, yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, what about like Usyri, Balgari, the dude who's like he fought him. glory kickboxing. I brought this one up before. They have a history in glory.

It's one of Pereira's guys, so it's almost like this vicarious, you know, part of that camp. I think that that's a bad matchup for Izzy at this point. If you watched their kickboxing fights back in the day, they were pretty close even then. So I feel like that's even a bad matchup for him, but at least you have somewhat of a back story.

And like Ben said, you're trying to get your money's worth of the guy coming up. If only Robbie Loller were a little bit younger, you know? You could have a lot of fun. That is a fight. Brush Johnny Hendricks off. Let's see what he's in.

What is Johnny Hendricks still? He's, I think he's a police officer now. He's got to work, man. He didn't. He's not going to, I believe so, right? I believe he became a police officer. What was the thing he used to trail up with all the time? He's like, you know what I'm saying?

Well, no, wasn't, you know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? He was, I think it was, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know what I mean? It was like, he used it like a, like a period. Dude, that's like, if you're transcribing it, you're like, I got to start cutting all these out.

There's just no way how he's going to say. Speaking of someone with a lot of activity on his plate right now, Arm and Sarukian, I see today matched for another RAAF event against your eye of favor. I mean, the guy's activity in the old wrestling mat is unbelievable. He's the face of RIF, man. Yeah, he is. They can't hold an event without this guy. It's wild.

Like, oh, well, I tried to watch it. The streamed cut. Like, while I was trying to watch it on YouTube, RIF made it a event. available internationally. I know it's on Fox Nation over there, right? Made it available the show on YouTube for international people. He starts his match

and it's just over. It just gets cut out but I was willing. I was interested to watch this wrestling match and I really and I know he spoke about this on Friday, Chuck. I really didn't expect to be. But suddenly this guy is becoming must-see TV, not even in MMA. I'm watching

a goddamn wrestling mat now. I'm surprised about that, you know? It's kind of to like, this hasn't worked in the past. I remember Meta Morris, like they do the jujitsu things. They've done things where they borrow a couple guys like past legends, whatever, they bring them in. They got a Chrome Gracie in there or something. And you watch it and somehow it still doesn't translate.

I don't know. You know, it's just it ends in too many draws. It just doesn't captivate. They've done a good job of kind of splicing in enough of the hot names, I guess. Like even Marob is on this next card coming up. you know, just guys where there's some intrigue. Even Dylan Dennis and Colby Coventon, it's just enough to like, okay, what are they going to do?

And you see them in this different context. But to watch it reverse. Like, because I wasn't a big, I didn't watch a ton of wrestling and I didn't wrestle growing up or anything. I don't know if, did you wrestle been? I can't remember. You played football, but. Yeah, no, they discouraged us from, I did a lot of, like,

jujitsu and stuff, but never like high school wrestling. But I never really, I remember watching the meets back in high school, but I never watched the NCAAs. I never really do that stuff. So it's kind of fun to be like really into MMA for all this amount of time. And then to go back and try to see the technical side of wrestling on that level, I find it like from my station right now, I find this a lot of fun. So I've been tuning in based on that, but also based on, you know, Armand and that cat he was just going against. And they've got like, you just don't know what's going to happen.

There's these wild card elements that are going on. And it's been fun. I don't know how long it continues or if it can continue to grow. But right now it's been a good time for me. It's surprising the extent to which it's captured a lot of the fan base, because it's, I mean, we see the numbers on it when we run stories on it. It's surprisingly popular, you know. It was number one on Yow sports over weekend, right?

Like that's not the Lloyd vlog or whatever. Well, and the last one, the one where Armin and Georgiopoulos got into the brawl at the end of it was, did huge numbers. And so it's like people are interested. And you're right, Chuck. That people have tried different versions of similar things like. this and it has never really got off the ground. This one does seem to be working. When I heard, though, okay, Armand's going to wrestle your eye of favor, that's when I went.

Is he going to wrestle absolutely everybody? All three of us at some point, are we going to have to wrestle Armand's Rufian at one of these RIAF? Just a size difference. I mean, I know, you know, I mean, that is one of the things that I think that you can do and you can play with if you're RIF is that we're wrestling. We're not going out there and beating each other's skulls in. It doesn't seem quite as high risk. If you take a match way out of your weight class or you bite off more than you can chew, you get ragged old around the wrestling mats a little bit.

It's not the end of the world. And so they can have a little bit of fun with that. But also when I heard like, Uriah Faber, I was like, does Uriah thinks that's a good idea for him, man? Armin's a lot bigger than you are, man. A lot bigger, a lot younger. I know, you know, Uriah is a gamer. Your eye is a tough guy.

Athletic guy was great in his prime, but I don't know, man. That seems like not the one I would. Favors, isn't there? There's got to be like five of them. He's at like every UFC event. You know, they're always, hey, there's your eye a favor in the crowd, you know?

And he said he's competing all over the place. Such a, he's all over the place, man. He's got businesses. You know? Like, it's just so much going on with that, dude. It's interesting, right? Because Armin is the guy that we would say He was in the Bilal Muhammad position of his division.

He's in the Leon Edwards position of his division. And suddenly he's gone off. Would you say the Mofsar Evalov? It's called it the Mofsar position also. The Moussar. You're dead on there, Chuck. He needs a raven. He needs a raven.

He needs a raven. That's another good point. I'm sure Ben's actually got a better marketing idea for him. We'll get to that a minute. Yeah, I've one right now off the top. No, we'll go back. Ben, just raise your hand when you've thought of the concept. Okay, I got it.

The fire eater. He comes out. He's, he's, he's, he's, holding like a little torch before he gets in the cage every time to humph beats the fire. I love it. It's a straight bro wrestling. I love it. Just spitballing. That would be brilliant.

He's a, he's kind of proven, right, to the UFC, but going with his promotion on making it an interesting thing. They're like, oh, we kind of fucked up here. Um, yes, the guy is absolutely unhinged. And yes, we probably, we can't. That's a draw. Just like, that is a draw. That's part of the appeal. That's part of why it's working.

That's what's why you want him at an R. F event. It's not just because he's a good wrestler and he's going to do good wrestling. It's because maybe he'll do something crazy and stupid. And that will be interesting. That will be fun to watch. But he has managed to sort of like exist outside of the way the UFC wants to structure this stuff where they're like, uh, we decided you're not the guy. We're going to keep skipping over you. We're, we're not into it. And he's just like, fine, I will go be a thing in other ways. And he's, it's worked. It's absolutely like, if you just sat here and told me a year ago that we would be talking about Armand Sarukian this much

or with this much enthusiasm and interest, I would have said no way but he's done it. We're saying things like you know, we shattered some crazy number, whatever it is like on the site. Because Shaheen can't talk about this enough. He's like, dude, draw numbers, man.

We need to be looking at this stuff. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Because it's not just that he's you know, volatile and all that stuff, but he's actually proving to the UFC without like doing anything in the UFC that he's a draw. Like he's actually kind of going, you know,

he's making the counter argument for himself without competing in the UFC. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And look, you got to give the assist to Nina drama as well, you know, Nina and Armin, who have become the Lenina McCartney of MMA content creation.

Is that right? It's all there. I'll take your word for it. Yeah. It's everywhere, dude. I can't go on the fucking internet. I can't. I can.

I don't have any problems. It doesn't seem to come up for me. me. I got a different algorithm than you do. It's just all the time they're getting off a plane. They were eating McDonald's on the bonnet of a Rolls-Royce, I believe.

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting situation there. Is that the one where he tried to get her into a fight or something? I saw something like one clip. See, Chook's Algo's the same as mine, Ben. You're the one, right? You're out of the one clip, okay? I'll tell you, I started following

this astrophysicist guy and he's been blowing my mind with his video. So that's where me and just a different algorithm. He's got he's got like ballet and opera and stuff like that now. You know, he's, he's, he's, his is educated. Ours is, you know, Nina, whatever. Yeah. Nina drama, whatever you call her.

Yeah. It's, uh, right. This is the thing. You, you'd, you'd have told me like two months ago, Aramon's on Ariel and he's saying like, I think I'm going to be backup for the Whitehouse event. I'm like, no. No, you're not. You, you are not.

You're so far from being the backup fighter from the white house event. It's insane. And now he's saying, I'm like, yeah. No, he's absolutely. Look, I wanted him to fight. I wanted him to fight for the title, but just the way the UFC felt about him, I never thought they put him in the spot. Suddenly now you're like, this guy's proved that he is one of the biggest,

like one of the biggest figures in the sport right now. He's being followed all these videos, his food videos, as I mentioned, the Nina drama stuff. It's racking up huge numbers. I mean, they have to be seriously considering this right now. Let me ask you guys, if they, if, if, if, if, Gaea fell out of that fight and now suddenly Armand is in that fight. I'm so fucking happy to. I mean, but dude, I mean, that's a bigger fight, though.

I think publicly that's a bigger fight. Is it not? Am I crazy here? I mean, for which audience, I guess is the question. I'm just saying broadly. That is true. I mean, just like broadly, like the UFC audience. Don't you, do you think it's a bigger fight?

Like, I know they're, this is, it extends further, but does the types of eyes that they want to draw on the White House even, you know, exceeds anything that Justin Gachie's name is going to do, right? It's just more about the White House. It's more about the event. But if you're talking about just strictly to UFC, right, the public that follows the UFC, I feel like that's the bigger fight anyway. There would be more excitement around that. Yeah, I mean, it would be more excitement from the people within the combat sports space who know, who understand what that means, that Armands Srukian and I'm going to fight.

I think that for the general audience, it wouldn't really make much of a difference. I don't think that they know any of Ilya, Justin, or Armour. And I think that as far as stylistically, if you're going to get the kind of fight that would appeal to the general audience, it's probably going to be Ilya and Justin as brief as I expect that fight to be. I think that you probably get something that way more people look at it and go, oh, hell yeah, this cage fighting stuff is awesome. When is it on next? And I think that's the goal of the UFC. With Gay-Chi versus Tupoyer, are you going to get like a head? but on the, you know, the way-ins,

are you going to get like a pre-fight brawl, you know? That's the thing, though, if you're concerned about Armin is like, we can't rely on this guy. He might do something unhinged. He doesn't seem able to control himself. Do you really want to put that guy in a situation like that on the White House where he might screw it all up and not if you have any other option, you don't? Well, who's the plan C then?

Like, if they got him in the wings, who's in the wings for Armand in case something happens with him? You don't know. No. All right. Nina? Maybe it's you, Pizzi. I mean,

for Trump's birthday, that might be a big one, you know. Pizzi, here he is. Nobody knows. But I will get massacred. Like, it would be spectacular. Like, be a real pros versus Joe's kind of situation.

He could kick my head right off my body. Like, did they do an MMA version of that? It was called bully beatdown. Oh, right. Well, I know Bill's going to say. It was called Bellat, That's Elator.

That is a good one. That's going to come up later on. Don't worry about that. Bellator, you aren't safe. We have more things. Stick to your outline. Yeah, we'll stick to your outline. The only thing that Armin said, which I thought was very interesting was, because I

haven't heard a lot of people say this. You know, when you're kind of around Dublin and people are like, Pizzi, now that Nate Diaz is fighting for Netflix, who is McGregor going to fight? And I'm like, well, based on what Ariel seems. to be saying and based on what everyone's saying, because Ariel probably said it first, is that Max Holloway is the guy. And they're like, oh, man, that's, that's not going to go well for Connor. Then Armin comes on. He's like, no, I think that's going to go terribly for Max Holloway. I think he's going to get annihilated by Connor McGregor, who we haven't seen

win in six and, six and a half years. That's a wild take, right? I have to, I mean, but I have to say that I just, like, he didn't sell me on his argument for it. Like, he's, he's talking about Max can't wrestle all these years into that. I'm like, okay, but I can tell you one guy who's not going to wrestle him. Yeah. It's going to be Connor McGregor. So I don't even know what, like, it was kind of off on a, on a tangent there of something that is not even going to happen. Now, if you're truly saying that Max has lost a step in terms of what he does well, I'd probably dispute that.

I mean, just look at the Justin, I mean, the Dustin Porre fight from not too long ago. What was it last July? I mean, to me, no, I don't think that he's diminished in the way that Armand was presenting. Yeah, I mean, I could see you come out of that Charles Oliver fight and you go, okay, big hole in Max's game. Armand seemed to really lean into like since when Charles have good takedowns and he was stringing them together and making Max look clueless out there. Right, that's not going to be Connor McGregor's game. And if you're trying to picture a way Connor McGregor wins that fight, it has to happen in the first three minutes. that's it.

Like he's, Conor Gregor super dangerous for the first few minutes of the first round. After that, incredibly less so. And Max Holloway is the kind of guy where, you know, he's tough guys, resilient guy,

and he shows up looking like he's ready to do five rounds of work every single time he's out there, ready to do five rounds of busy work, too, where he's throwing a whole lot and just keeping you dealing with him. And that, especially since we haven't seen Conn McGregor look, good in a long time

and look like he's really still about this life, it's hard for me to imagine that he shows up out of nowhere after all this time and looks amazing against the guy who has been here this whole time doing it. Well, I'll tell you, Ben, I don't know if you saw it, but there was a video of his hand speed hitting the bag and I...

His hands were moving at a speed. I will say that. Okay. We can admit that, we can agree on that. Me and Chuck saw it. I saw this one. I saw this one. I only saw it because you posted it. hitting the heavy bag and I was just like yeah I mean that's that's a guy hitting the heavy bag but that's not like if you walked into the gym and you saw that guy hitting the heavy bag

you wouldn't be like holy shit who is that you know you'd be like it's Alloway that's a guy that's a competent person hitting the heavy bag but it's not anything that's blowing your mind it would be strange if mcgregor did kind of beat holloway in a situation uh like and then you'd be like, well, he caught him at the bookends of his greatness, right? Like he caught him way early in his career and then caught him at the tail end. That would be a very strange trajectory for, for, for, for McGregor's, uh, rivalry there. Yeah, but it's also like that when you think about McGregor, he's had a lot of bad injuries, like fight changing, like, you know, it's obviously not fight ending.

I mean, it's a career ending because he's coming back. It seems like he is going to come back. He is training. But it alters how you fight when you've suffered a broken leg like that. We've seen it so many times. And there's also like, you know, he's not exactly been, you know, going to Whole Foods. Keeping his note playing. You know, we've seen him in some states that, you know, wouldn't, you wouldn't remind you of an elite athlete, a lot of them.

Like, I mean, weekends upon weekends of comments on X and all this wildness where you're like, well, that is not the talk of a guy who is drinking water all the time. You know, this is not a guy who is well hydrated. Are you insinuating? This is not a guy who's been eating salads. I mean, maybe he has, actually. He was always very into healthy eating. Grass-fed beef. Isn't that what he said?

Steak on a stall! Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't think it's going to go. I don't. I think that's the fight, though. I mean, that's going to be the fight. And I will watch the shit out of that fight. I'm not trying to say I won't.

I will be fucking glued to the TV for that shit. Magic of Connor did come out as a wrestler in that one. takes him down. It's a dual that can be. It's actually just curious because Ariel had heard

that everything was going well. I had heard the same thing about two weeks ago from a well-placed individual. And you're kind of like, well, where is it? And I know they're probably keeping it in the back burner,

but it's like the importance of him signing, there's so much subtext to it now given the fumble with Jones. Or maybe just that, that's their new. plan, right? That's what Ronda Rousey is suggesting. Like, this is the way they are now. They don't want to give

this much money up. But if they can't get... Who gives a shit is what Dana White said about it when asked about it. Who gives a shit? That's a good point. Which makes you think maybe the answer is not him. Should we shoot up and watch the fights? That's the thing though, man.

Me and Chad, we're talking about this on the co-main event this week is when you tell us why don't you guys shut up and watch the fights? Man, we'd like to. We'd really like to. but you got to get the fights made for us to shut up and watch him. And if you don't do your part, we can't do that part. And especially, it's wild to me to sit here and talk about like who gives the shit when you're going,

we're talking about when you're talking about John Jones, you're talking about the guy you keep saying is a top pound for pound fighter in the history of this sport. As long as he's breathing, as long as he's breathing, he is the best fighter on planet Earth. That's what he said. Direct quote. And you were talking about, you know, whether or not you're going to get him on what you've said will be the biggest fight card of the year, a historic fight card at the White House. And to go from all that to who gives a shit, you have successfully convinced us to give a shit, man. Don't be like who gives a shit now that you couldn't get the fight made.

And it's the same thing with the con if you, if you end up in a situation where you're just not willing to pay Connor McGregor enough and you can't get the fight made and you end up in another who gives a shit situation, you are. casually convincing us not to give a shit. And that is not in your best interest. That's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing as a fight promoter, man. You are unpromoting these fights by saying all this, like, who gives the shit stuff? Nobody smokes a cigar, though afterwards better than Dana. Have you seen him like, now he's posting every time, like he's got a cigar post-fight? Oh, boy.

Ah, look, it's a good time. Look, we had, we look, last week's card was fucking great. Yeah. And I was sitting there and I was like, this is, I fucking love when this goes well. UFC, this was great. I'm texting everyone. Like, are you watching this? This is exactly how I want to feel every weekend.

I know you can't feel like this. Come on, all right. I was texting the Irish people who were still. I was like, are you still watching this? I'm like, wow. Look how far we've come. And of course there was this magical moment. Alexa Grasso had this unbelievable.

Like just what a perfect example of what MMA is. Those few seconds. Yeah. Just like, this cannot fucking happen. happen in any other sport. Cracks her, leaps across her back, chokes her out. God lover, Macy Barber's on the ground and it looks horrendous. Like, for a minute, I'm going, this is good, this is going, fucking terribly. Thank God, Macy came out later and she said, look, all good, apart from the fact that this happened and knocked her back in her career a bit, but Alexa Grasso, who was a massive underdog in this

fight, like a really, really considerable underdog, just has this complete video game moment. And it's, I just keep on thinking about it. Like, I'm just, sitting there going, holy fuck. Like what? That isn't, it's kind of like where I felt when I saw Moody Mouse do that mighty whizber. What did he call it that? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just like, what a beautiful example of what this fucking crazy sport is. You know, am I going too far here? I'll stop. No, no, you're, Ed, I was thinking about it. Somebody pointed out to me where they were like, look at what a good job Mike Beltran did as referee with that moment, because that's a tricky thing to deal with, where you, you, you knock her out, essentially, get her to fall into a rear naked choke at all. all happens, bang, bang, bang, bag, so fast.

Mike Beltran sees it for what it is, gets in there. And Macy Barber, when it is initially stopped, she's physically on autopilot there for a few more seconds. And she goes and, like, rolls for a single leg to him, which that right there should tell you something about the level of training and just the muscle memory drilled into these people. Because neurologically, whatever is happening there has got to be fascinating. Because she is out. She, and she's still, her body's still like. trouble go for the single leg and she and she reaches for it and then Mike Beltran and handling it there he taps her you know like being like hey if if your body's still on autopilot maybe it'll

respond to the tat because that is another thing that has been programmed into you and and she does and then she sort of it's like her body remembers oh yeah you've been knocked out and she she goes right back into that state and he kind of catches her and cradles her her head to help her you know not damage yourself anymore. And it all happened just like that. And it made me think of when I was at that combat sports official summit and John McCarthy, Mike Beltran was there. And John McCarthy was making the point that especially when it comes to MMA,

there's so much different stuff that can happen in a fight. No matter how many fights you've worked, no matter how much you think you've seen, you haven't seen it all. There's always something new that can happen in these fights. I think he saw it there. Part of it was like with that particular fight was just how unexpected it was. because there are fights where you're like, okay,

the potential of something crazy happening is in this one, right? Like there's a certain guy, like McKinney, for instance, like he's on fire, all right, something crazy. Let's check this out. Alexa Grasso gave us no indication that that was even remotely in her arsenal. And so, like, it was just the shock of the, you know, the shot itself, that left hand, landing flush,

and then within a split second, the instinct to just latch that neck, like something out of like, you know, Mutual of Omaha, like Animal Kingdom or something. It was like, it was crazy. And then to get that kind of thing, that's, you're right, there's something that it taps back into when you've watched a lot of MMA that you're like, oh my God, okay. Now this was like, this reminds me of some time when I first kind of fell in love with this sport, when I was really first getting into it. There's something about that that you're like, the potential of that, right? like the potential and just the vulnerability, you know, of going into, to go in there and a fight like that.

All of that came into play. What I loved about it in the end, and I think Ariel might have talked about this too, was the UFC generally doesn't let the camera hover. Yeah. Like it did on Macy Barber. And that was like this really wild piece of theater because she's just staring dead-eyed off into the distance and laying there. And we must have been on that shot, you know, five, six seconds, eight, say,

it was like, it went on forever. That was wild. Like usually they're showing you straight up at that point the victor and they're trying to keep you away from what, you know, the vanquished. They don't really want you to see the aftermath of that. But they hovered on it and that that somehow was very poignant. Yeah, usually they're very intentional about trying to avoid that. And I think, but yeah, this is one where, and I don't think necessarily they need to be. I think I wonder sometimes if that's a holdover from an earlier era where we were always concerned, hey, something bad's going to happen to somebody.

It's going to break containment out of the combat sports bubble to a bunch of people who aren't used to it. and it's going to be a bad look for the sport. Maybe we're over that because it is, I mean, if you're somebody who loves combat sports, there's a part of you that has to love the heartbreak of it, that has to love the thrill and agony, you know, in equal measure on both sides. And so showing us that, I think, you know, makes it feel like more vulnerable, more human. And that is part of what we're there to watch, whether we want to admit that to ourselves or not. It adds to the magnitude, too, of just like what Grasso did.

Like, this is the condition she left somebody in. you know and she's sitting there kind of like in a prayer like I mean it was just like it was like what was the uh the Sakuraba and jason mayhem miller i think esther lynn took the photo where he's kind of vanquished and she's just kind of praying over i mean it was kind of like that but sometimes those those pictures if you just see a still of it you're like wow man it kind of tells you everything you need to know without even seeing it yeah yeah it's interesting that we have a new Habib Naramauga-Madoff talking about women competing in mixed martial art days after. This unbelievable moment happens.

We're talking about this, like, the visceral feeling we have watching this. Like, this is, this is as pure as martial arts get in those moments. And Habib's come out, and he's asked a question at a press conference. I believe it was like a, I believe the lady who asked him the question was like a real estate agent. I believe it was some type of real estate press conference he's at, maybe. and he kind of speaks about like, do you want to get punched in the face to this lady, starts talking about like,

I can't abide women getting punched in the face. I don't want to see it. Like, you know, whether it's a man punched a woman or a woman punching a woman, like this shouldn't be the case. And look, it's a controversial flashpoint once again. But I couldn't help but notice how profound it was that it came on this week after that amazing moment, right? That's suddenly like, this is out there.

In fairness, I mean... Like she had a big, no, I got too. That's crazy. Like, Habib, like, we've learned a little bit that he held holds different social views than maybe a lot of us do. And Habib doesn't want to see a woman being a judge or a lawyer or a doctor either, probably. So, like, maybe we don't need to be asking him his thoughts on this kind of stuff. I remember when he was all up in arms about what he deemed an overly erotic play that was. was being performed somewhere in Dagestan, he didn't go see that play. He was still mad about it.

So maybe we should put his thoughts on that in the same category as his thoughts on women and MMA. Like, it's just like, we don't need to hear from him about it. You don't need to have an opinion on everything. He was tight in the bear though. It was hair. It was hair, Chuck. Hair, okay.

Go, go check it out. No, it wasn't. It was not. But a bit. It's a good, it's a good point to have. Like, I mean, obviously, um, he's from a different culture than us. He has a different code of ethics than us. Like, should we be like, getting up in arms about this at this point, Chuck?

Like, or is this just the, the, the case, he's one of the great, great fighters. And every time he says something like this, there's going to be a big reaction. It's fine for everybody to have their point of view on it. Like, why anybody would have to take it seriously or adopt that point of view. Doesn't make any sense. If you remember, Dana White basically had this exact. this exact point of view early on. He was like, I just have no

interest in watching women fight each other for those reasons. And there were other people that were, obviously there's an echo chamber that surrounds Dana. But like, obviously that all changes when Ronda Rousey comes and he comes around and then he makes all this money. Now, obviously, a guy like Habib,

we put him on a pedestal in terms of his fighting career, but I'm just, I don't think I ever really put too much stock, you know, into his opinions on these sort of. of things. So I would advise anybody who, you know, to come up with their own opinions based on what they watch

and not on what Habib says. This just reminds me of you and Chad's conversation in the common event a few years of back then when you was like, if you really want to like a fighter, learn nothing about them. Yeah. Just turn on the fight. When he's fighting, don't follow him on Instagram.

Don't follow any of his social media. Just show up when he's fighting. Yeah. That's the way to do it. If you want to be a fan, you want to just enjoy it and stay a fan learn as little as possible. You have a dude on this card, this apex card coming up that's exactly like that, the Ewing kid, right? Like he shows up, nobody knows anything about him in that big spot at Madison Square Garden.

And he shines, right? And then you're like, oh my God, who is this guy? It was a perfect example of what you're talking about. Like everybody fell in love with him at once because nobody knew anything about him. You know, that's a big part of the Fador mystique, I felt was that Fado. was sort of like a black box that like we we love the fight and obviously he was a brilliant fighter

and was seemed like he was a generation ahead of the heavyweights he was facing a lot of times I went back and I was watching clips somebody posted here's what's on my algorithm is old pride fights and stuff somebody was posting clips of Fador and Miracle Crow Cop and I was like shit this is better than

half the heavyweight MMA you see on a general UFC event at any time and it was 15, 20 years ago and still it was like even when you try to interview Fadour you felt like I'm looking into the eyes of a Yeti I'm not getting anything back I'm just it's it's all it remains so mysterious that then he can kind of become anything you want

him to be anything you need him because you just you feel like you're learning absolutely nothing even from talking to him there's something if you say I mean that if you can't have a raven on your shoulder and you can't eat the fire remain mysterious just shut up and don't just let us imagine who you might be. And the times when you'd talk to him, like he never raised his voice. It was always like, he'd get such a monotone,

like, he'd be interpreting, like, through his, like, his guy there, like, or as priests, you remember he was traveling with his two priests for a while there? That'll lead into your air of mystery is like, have a mystical priesting, follow you around in the back. Is he fade or new? He's like, you know, my schick's going to be, I'm going to travel

with a couple of priests. This is, yeah. I got a dude who looks like a Rasputon following me around. That's exactly what that guy looked like. it's it's so funny to say that because I'm thinking about like my early fandom like what did I know about Fadar nothing like what did I what did I what was the like obviously knew about how he fought what did I know about Crow Crop he comes out to wild boys by Duran Duran and is a vicious

murderous striker like it just made no sense and you're like that's got to mean something right he comes out to right foot left foot yeah yeah left foot hospital white foot cemetery one of the great one of the great quotes what a fucking time what a fucking time yeah not many of them Social media, man. Just doing, you said, obviously, right? So he's going to fight this weekend. But, lads, before we get to this weekend, saw a clip there yesterday.

I'm on my holiday. I'm enjoying myself, you know? And I see, Ariel speaking to Johnny Eblen, who had a fantastic win at the weekend, absolutely destroyed Brian Battle. Beat, like, just absolutely unbelievable. Like, had him flying through the air on five, several times.

Like, in the first two minutes. I think he took him down eight times before he submitted him. It was fucking insane. So. Did that answer your? question about battle by the way like you're saying are we sleeping on battle a little bit he's seven one in the u.s. i mean i don't i wouldn't go i don't i wasn't gonna say i told you so but somebody sat here in this chair and said i think it's a bad style matchup for him yeah yeah i did pick him in

the parallel pal's uh draw as well ablin i was like okay i was like oh my god you did not pick battle all right all right i did all right um but he's having this conversation with arryl and i'm like they're talking with a rebound okay let's just listen to what they're saying here and then Ariel says, one of the options, and I'm not bullshin you boys, and I'm sure you saw this. As I said, I've been taken away from the game a little bit here. One of the options is to go back to Bellator? And Evelyn's like, yeah, great idea. I think this is the craziest idea.

Like, all right, I get, like, I get to some extent, right, Belator had some brand recognition, some brand recognition. But surely, at this stage, at surely we go in a new direction here. any other direction if you're going to rebrand. Not go back to Bellator. How does I, like, Chuck, how do you feel about it? Well, you know, like, okay, so back in the day when Affliction did their show, there was always like this Pride Never Die. This was only like a year later, and the Pride Never Die thing was like a big deal.

And you're like, because everybody loved Pride, right? It was like this other thing. Have you ever seen a Bellator Never Die t-shirt? Like, have you seen anything like that? The bottom line is I'm like, if you're doing it, you're doing it strictly for brand. recognition, but it's not like Bellator had a better reputation than the PFL in my mind. I mean, I know it had like more longevity, but it had a lot of different iterations. And a lot of what you remember about Bellator was the Bjorn Rebney era. You remember the tournaments. You know,

you remember Scott Coker coming in and, I don't know, I mean, just kind of like running it, but like, did it ever really gain traction? I think that you'd, you guys still. me. I mean, I think I would want to etch a sketch and build something that in my, like, if they've got a new vision, build it within that new vision and let people either fall in love with it or hate it. But don't put something that has like, and I'm not saying Bellator has this for everybody, but like almost a negative connotation to it. You know what I mean? Like, to me, that's what this would do. Or yet either has a negative connotation or zero connotation, especially because it's like you had Bellator, you kill it off and now you're resurrecting Bellator. That would make no sense to me. I remember when Belator, had a video game out. And I saw a, like, a video of two guys. Yeah, it was real. I saw a video of, like, two guys doing the thing where they're playing the Bellator video game.

And they were clearly not fight fans. I think they had each pick a different Pitbull Brother to fight as each other. And they were just making jokes about the name. There was, like, Bellator. Like, it sounds like a medication you'd get for Restless Leg Syndrome. Like, ask your doctor about Bellator. Yeah. And so it's like that, like, you come back with that.

I don't know. It's, that seems to me like what you would do if you just were lazy and didn't want to come up with a new idea is you just resurrect that one. And it said, and it also, every time I hear about the idea of a PFL rebrand, especially one that changes the name, I'm just like, you already did this, man. It was World Series of Fighting. That's what they should go back to the World Series of Fight. That was unwieldy. The name was unwieldy. PFL, I think, is fine.

I think if you're trying to like trying to change the perception in people's minds and using changing the name, uh, while also like sort of changing the format and the approach is going to be what does that. I, I don't know if that's going to work. I think that the only people who even like realize that are the people whom the name PFL is already working on. Like we already know what the PFL is. They kind of know who's in the PFL.

That just, it just makes no sense. And it also just seems to me like, Like, you're looking for an easy fix. You're looking to wipe to sleep clean and you're being like, we're not HBO anymore. We're HBO Max. Like, you're looking for something like that. And it's just, that's not going to be the thing that fixes your problem.

I got an idea for one. You guys tell me if you like this one, right? Proud. I see what you did. I see what she did. Proud FC. Man. Come on.

I was thinking, when you brought up affliction, I was like, shit. Affliction would be a better name to resurrect than Bellator. Right. I'm writing this down because I know, Ben, Ben, you've got, like, come on, you're the Raven guy, you know? Yes. A proud FC, right? I don't mind that.

I'm not going to like that. If it's going to make free react like this, I mean, I don't know if it's going to work, but. Roud. Ben, what have you got for PFO? Let's do some, let's keep the FL and let's change the P. Let's see if we can find any word that starts with N. Let's just see if we can create enough brand confusion that we just,

people are like, oh, there's NFL on tonight. And like through a, this is bullshit. A gradual trickery, we will gain audience share. I mean, it's a thought. Either that or we just go straight Leonard Skinner. We call the fight promotion Leonard Skinnerd. It's a name that has worked for a long, We can even like, you can mess it, you can mess with the spelling and just spell it like traditionally this time.

And people will be like, when are the skinners on the night? It's like the bare, bear, it was it the bare naked ladies, whatever, didn't put it on the billboard. They were the bare naked ladies. I mean, it's going to draw on a certain kind of person, you know. People give it a chance. Yeah. All right. Look, NFL and proud FC are both great names.

I've got something that will cater to like the Instagram, TikTok generation. Okay. Knockout World. that's what the name of the promotion is. So you say the people. It's an elderly home. It's like a place you send the elderly. It's like, and that's kind of,

I guess that fits a motif, a Bellator motif. Somebody going to come out here and win the knockout world championship to a split decision after like takedowns and top control. Hear me out. Listen to the difference of this. Listen to the difference. I'm going to use a foet from a couple of weeks ago as an example.

Oh, uh, you're watching the fight? this weekend? Oh, no, who's fighting? Oh, uh, Kostlo van Steenis is fighting Fabian Edwards on the PFL. Oh, I didn't know that was happening. Here's the other one. Are you watching the fights this weekend? Who's fighting? Costlo, Van Steenis is fighting Fabian Edwards in knockout world. I mean, that sounds pretty fun. That's not bad. What about, what about like just one of those old Batman from the 60s, you know, like the little bam or like, pow? Kaboom. What about something like that? There's a

so little faith in the audience being shown here where he's just like just spitballing. We're spitballing right now. And if we're thinking about it in Pizzi's terms, why don't we just call it outer space? Because then people will be like hey, you hear these guys? These two guys are fighting at outer space. You tell me you don't want to see that? You tell me you're not going to tune in just to see? You've done it.

That's the one. It's outer space FC. That's what it's called. That's a problem with this. When they're talking about it. I'm like, fuck, you can't do Belator. But then, like, I sit there going, what would I call it? And I'm like, no real good options. I don't have anything. I don't have

anything. I don't even want the F's, boom. Any of those maybe would do better. Well, fucking hell. It's not a promising sign though, right? That they had this meeting and they were like, Roy, what do you think? And they have all these people sitting around. And then the takeaway is like,

let's really have a thing about going back to Bellator here, guys. Let's really have a serious conversation about this. That does not fill me with confidence in general. No, that's not a good sign. Yeah. Well, we'll wait to see. Don's old baby.

Get Don back in. Don may have some things. You know, he might have something up his sleeve. Don't worry, he'll write a LinkedIn post about it if he does. You'll see it. It's a bit of a weekend this weekend. We have an apex event. I know that doesn't exactly get the blood full.

in the same way as this last week's Seattle. You look at the lineup on this. This is one of the most apex events that has ever apexed. Yeah. And I was at, I was at Ladd. Remember the Dumont Ladd. I was there.

And this is right there with us. It was neck and neck with Ladd-Dumont. Well, and you headlined by Hanato Moikano, a guy who famously remarked, nobody likes the apex, brother. Now here he is in the main event at the apex. It's the money.

do they call him? Money Moikano. Money McConnell. That's not. He also said, Foiters, that's stop complaining about not getting enough money. You know, not to take it, imagine. When he was the one, right, he was like the one guy who turned down the lawsuit payout. Where did that check go? Just got spread out among all the other fighters who were like, yes, please, my mama didn't raise no fool.

You want to put some money in my hand. Here it is. Yeah. How shitty would you feel about that? Like, he would have been on for a goal. Good bit of, like, I know people who got money, like a significant amount of money, even like if, if it's not a someone of Mikano status. And then it's just like, oh, what happened to it? No, you just gave like, Neil Syrian Carl Pendra next few thousand. He's like, oh, well, that wasn't the stand I wants to make, you know, to Jesus price. I mean, the money's got to go out somewhere. Might as well, it, you know. It's crazy. It's also, I mean, I'm, I'm sympathetic to the O.C as well. I do think that they deserve the lion's share of all the money, but like, still, you know. Everyone believes that, sure. I mean, see fun. But the problem with this main event is like, I know,

it's Chris Duncan, man. Have you seen this guy fight? He's fucking incredible. Yeah. Like, he's an absolute dog. And he's fighting Moikano at a stage in his career where you're kind of like,

you know, it's not the fight you want to be putting Moikano in against this guy who could have been a shepherd. But is this, I mean, that's what this is, right? It's the showcase moment for Duncan here. Like,

isn't that what this? I feel like that's what's going on. They're like, Maquino's kind of ran his, he's, he's had his moment. now we're going with this guy. Yeah, I'm kind of feeling the ebblin babble kind of situation here, you know?

You think Chris Duncan has the face of a shepherd? Is that what you said earlier, PC? Well, it just means he has the grimace of a man who spends a lot of time by himself on the hills, you know what I mean? He has that kind of demeanor to him, I feel. I feel like you got more of a shepherd look about you. Maybe a shepherd's pie. I love shepherd's pie. I fucking love it.

I don't know what to take as a compliment. No, the delicious. I love him. Oh, man. Yeah, it's not. It's hard to get exo over this one. Yeah.

Fuck. Jondi Roba, breechie is on there and. Yeah. Ewing. Yeah. I mean, that kind of, like, you know, seeing his follow up fight,

I guess there's some intrigue to that. The duty's fighting, too, is like, kept missing weight, right? So he's fighting at Bantamweight this time. So I don't know if that intrigues you at all. No, I'm sold now.

That's changed everything. Knockout world tonight on Knockout world. If it was knockout world, I'd be more interested. There is World that you saw this weekend. I'm going to watch the shit out of that. It's like, it's like two guys probably, probably shouldn't be fighting anymore, but accepting that by fighting each other. You know, I'm like, I'm completely fine with it.

As long as you're doing it together, boys, go out there. This is Chisora's last fight? Is it declared? Or? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. He's been saying it. His nephew's on the undercard, too.

heavyweight boxing baby you can't beat it you know i mean unless you know it keeps going and then it's yeah chasora is the kind of guy though the longer he stays in the fight the more exciting he usually gets it's like you watch the first few rounds you're like oh this is not going to go well then he just doesn't go away and then against someone like wilder yeah i'm gonna be honest man like the wilder like so i i just assumed wilder was because i i some of his losses obviously have been like the big thing I didn't even know he had this fight in Wichita, Kansas that happened last year. I had no idea that even went on. Did you, like, he's, he fought some, you know, kind of relative no name.

Oh, I see it now. And picked up a victory. I had no idea that that even happened. Yeah, that's, listen, it's a weekend of fight and going, I don't know what to tell you. You know, it's, it's going to be on. It's not going to be like last weekend's card, you know, with Itama and all the day. There was a lot of great shit happened in last weekend. So, you know, it's in all regards, is.

is a little bit of a letdown. This is the universe correcting itself. It's like, okay, hold on a minute. Let's give him this one. But you know what? If I can, if I can turn on DeZone on a Saturday afternoon since they're fighting in London. Yeah. And since I also just can't figure out how to unsubscribe from DeZone.

And I'll just, and just to be like, hey, what is, what is Deonté Wilder going to do for a walkout? I'm interested to see that. That's, that's enough right there. You already got me in the door for that one. Use an excuse later, you know, obviously my costume. was too elaborate and therefore I could not fight. This is the general bondage section. I forgot about that.

Like that 40 pound costume wear. It is frankly a joke that you think you can separate general banter on this show off into a certain section. General banter is the show's identity. Damn it. We're in the general bond to sex. If they would just start taping at 1255 Eastern, you would catch the general banter at its absolute height. I mean, whatever people. She talks about is usually that it's,

it's always 50 times more compelling than whatever we start off with on the show. Well, let's, let's talk about, why am I picking up a little later? Um, let's talk about this. Um, I haven't gone swimming in a long time. Oh, God, look a fish. Okay. And we're in this hotel and Elaine's like, come swim with me. And I'm like, yeah, I can swim.

And, you know, we go and we swim and we swim and she swims a lot and I swim a little bit. And I'm like, pissing in my own. And every time she comes back after one of the legs, I'm like, can we go? now. Can we go now? That's loads. You did, you did lots of swimming. And eventually she says, yeah, okay. So we leave and then this is a thing that I forgot about swimming, but it's actually in every gym in the world. I go to my locker and there's just three elderly men sitting around in a circle basically, just like perfectly around my locker completely naked. Like, balls are on the bench. Like, and they're just sitting there and they just watch me,

watch me getting changed. And it's like, this is what. is this every time you walk into a locker room. And I said to Chuck and I said to Ben, and we all unanimously agree, they're not the same three men, I should say. Like there's three dudes in Missoula. There's three dudes in Danbury, Connecticut. But there is always a few people. Sometimes as many as five people. What is going on with these guys on their old models? I don't know, man. I just think you just get run out of pucks to give it some point. You must get to an age where that just sounds like a great idea. Yeah. It just, We are not there yet, so we don't understand it.

But you must, I think there's a lot of things that I do now. That sound like a good time to me now that would have baffled 20-year-old me. And so I have to assume it's going to be the same with this. I dread that day. But it does seem consistent enough across, we're talking about it across national borders, across oceans. It's still happening. So maybe the lesson here, Pizzi, for you to take away is that community comes in many forms.

you find it where and how you can. Come into this world in your birthday suit, Pizzi, and apparently that's how you want to kind of wrap things up as well. You know what I mean? I don't need any of see it. I have to go and eat my lunch after this. And it's also like,

but you know what is funny? Like from that point of view, as you guys are saying, you know, like it is funny if you think about they're just three friends and they see me getting out of the pool and like, we go on and freak this guy out.

Let's get completely naked and sit around his locker. Yeah. And then they're all just like a stony face. And then I leave and they're like, oh my God, it is, he was freaking out. It's going to get changed so quickly. I'd like to see my balls. Like, they are like, this is hilarious. This is actually the funniest.

That is pretty funny. Like if they're all in on it and they strategically sat there to make me feel uncomfortable, that's fucking hilarious, actually. It's changed my perspective on it already. You are going to get the general banter section band. You're going to get it banned from this show. It's good. Natural, you know?

Well, not everyone. You know, fuck. I don't let's say. Jesus Christ. Oh. Yeah. So you got any bantering to do here? All right.

He's just bantered. You know, I was thinking about, you called it a fillet, you know, and I think that maybe that's how they come up with it. It was like, we have a Friday slot. What do we do? Oh, why don't we have a piecey fillet? What do you think about that? What do you think about that? Anyway, that's general banter.

I was just trying to... Yeah, we had the general banter section. Andy, do we have any super chats? Yeah, yeah. Okay, here we go. Timing is impeccable. Pizzi, thank you for cheering against us. I did cheer against you.

We needed that motivation. Bosnia is going to the World Cup. Congratulations, Bosnia. This gentleman was on to his last week. I said, I always support Italy because my best friend, Daniel Sansovini, known since he's a child, and I know his family so well,

love them very much. Did you see, let me just explain to you what happened here. Italy had to play a playoff game. They knew that. But there was a game that happened between Bosnia and Wales, where the winner of that game would have to play Italy in this kind of playoff game to see who goes to the World Cup. They have the Italian players watching the game and they cheer when Bosnia win because they're like, we're going to fuck these guys up.

We are going to smash Bosnia. And then Bosnia smash them. Knock them out of the World Cup. Wow. The greatest teams in football history. I mean, what a celebration that must be in Bosnia, by the way. It's a bad look for Italy. Czech Republic, the people who knocked us out, also going through on penalties,

beat Denmark, much better team you'd have to say. Had better penalty takers, I thought, beat them on penalties. Unbelievable there football, even though Ireland are once again, not going to a major tournament. How was that? Okay. Ben, are the cracking going to make the playoffs? I haven't really looked at the standings there. Well, I don't know if you've paid attention to what's going on in the Pacific Division.

of the NHL, but seemingly no one there wants to go to the playoffs. I did. I haven't noticed that. They are in a contest with each other to try to see who can be on the golf course first. Because in the east, you got a bunch of teams who would all be playoff teams if they were in the Pacific division. And in the Pacific, have a whole bunch of people being like, yeah, you take it. Nah, you take it.

What I think is the most fascinating thing, if we're going to talk hockey for a minute before we get out of here, is the Las Vegas Golden Nines. Knights replacing their coach with like five games left in the season and replacing with John Tortorella not exactly a player's dream to go in the locker room at the end of a long season. I just kind of known as being a little abrasive as a coach, not the guy that the players are like, here's a guy who understands our struggle and will treat us as fellow professionals and equals.

No, he's not that guy. And imagine at the end of an already incredibly long professional hockey. season or you're just like it's winding down man one way or another and then they're like you got to go in the locker room today and john torterello is going to be sitting there waiting to belittle you and you're just like god damn it man i thought we were just about done here it's incredible in the premier league they would call on a guy like that like to just bully them into winning like that would be the kind of last resort so it's interesting how to different sports when in the playoff start Pretty soon.

Pretty soon. The way the NHL likes to do it is we play a season that lasts somehow for 13 months. And then we start the playoffs and they last another six months. This is one of the things. I understand every sports league is moving this way because we want to make as much money as we possibly can. So the seasons just get longer. The playoffs just get longer. But we should not be playing professional hockey in June, man.

It is right outside. People don't want to be playing ice sports. They don't want to be watching ice sports. It's a winter sport. You got to wrap that shit up by the end of May. It baffles. Every year, I end up watching the Stanley Cup finals in short sleeves, you know, and it's hot outside. And I'm just like, this feels wrong.

It just feels like it's against nature. You don't need to be doing it. For you wondering, Pizzi, they do have one month that he can wear shorts out there in Montana, right? Like, that's unusually. Well, that's better. That's more. one more month than I can have, I promise. Hang on.

You always hockey and basketball playoffs happen in tandem. Yes, pretty much. Yeah. And speaking of that, the never Nuggets last year did the exact same thing. It was like three games left. They fire their GM and their coach going to the playoffs. I mean, this must be the new trend right at the end.

All right, let's bring in the heavy and let's see what he can do. Although the Nuggets brought in a guy who was, they got rid of the bully, I think, in that sense. They got rid of the strong arm. I will say the, the, you know, normally you guys are used to me talking about how much I hate and I'm disinterested by basketball, but this year now that I'm in a position to win the March Madness bracket that I'm in, it's looking, if Michigan wins out, I got it pretty much at this point. My stance on it has radically changed. Invested. March Madness is not over.

No. When is the final? We play the final four, I think April 4th. And then I think April 6 maybe is the championship. Yep. Well, look, that's how I'm going to enjoy spring break, boys. That's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to have to get ready.

G.C's coming over here in four days. Try to text them. I'm like, meet me here. This is where I'll get you. Nothing doesn't write back. I'm like, this is going to be interesting. You know what I mean? This is going to be zero communication.

So my PC's got to save the day. I'll do it. I'll fucking do it every time. It's me. I own this fucking town. Anyway, what I appreciate is that when you fly into the Dublin airport, and you go to the baggage claim to get your stuff, they got a big sign on the badge claim that's like,

hey, idiots, we drive on the other side over here. Don't forget. Probably smart for them to do that. It is, it is. And I, but you just, you got to wonder how much shit had to happen before they're like, we need a sign up at baggage claim. It's not enough for there to be a sign at the rental car place.

It's not enough for the rental car people to tell you. We need the, we needed more signs to tell people we drive on the left side over here. because something's got a gift. I think that's more because Irish people just keep on going to America and just driving straight into oncoming traffic. I'm like, shit.

If we keep doing this, we need to explain to people. Not a good idea. Anyway, boys, we're not going to be back until, I mean, we're doing the post show on April 11th, so the crack won't be back until whatever that is after that, okay?

So enjoy yourselves. I'm going to miss you very much. It's like midway through April, right? Like, it'd be like, it's fucking crazy. It's absolutely what I'm saying. Who knows? Maybe there'll be some breaking news. Life of Riley over there, Ben.

You see this while we're working. These guys are vacationing. There'll be so much general bantering to do when we come back. I work on both, but the two arms, the uncrowned arm and the Ari Lohanishow arm. So I'm going to, I'm not going to get fucking holidays. You know what I mean? I'm just helping GCC when he comes over here. Chehene, okay?

Enjoy Cabo, buddy. All right. We're going to get out of here. We love his very much. We'll see you soon. Don't know when. Don't know the date. What's soon?

Love you. Bye-bye.