The Ariel Helwani Show - Joe Rogan criticizes UFC White House event, Dana White's media blitz, more | The Craic

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

The Craic is back! This time, it’s the duo of Petesy Carroll and Ben Fowlkes chopping it up. To kick things off, the lads react to construction beginning for the UFC's White House card (03:38), along with Joe Rogan’s criticisms of the event (25:20). The promotion behind the White House event has been relentless. Does Dana White deserve more credit for his recent media tour (38:10)? The UFC President also opened up about the circumstances around Anderson Silva’s exit from the organization, which the boys discuss (44:02). UFC Macau is this weekend, so Petesy and Ben talk the early start time and what the card has to offer (52:00). Holly Holm’s boxing return (58:38) and Darren Till’s BKFC debut (01:02:06) also feature on this weekend’s slate. To close the show, the duo answer your Super Chats (01:17:40).

The crack is back, ladies and gentlemen. We have a smorgasbord of delights this weekend. A lot of combat sports action happening, and we'll be hitting that up towards the back of the show. We are also on the countdown to UFC White House, which is happening in two weeks, June 14th, a Sunday. We have seen our first pictures of that, so we'll explore them shortly.

We've also got Joe Rogan, you know, putting in the old strong arm there. It doesn't like the atmosphere, the environment of which fighters will be fighting on June 14th, the outdoor element of it. He has not been too happy when discussing all of that. Fully enough, Ovin, who makes the thumbnails for this, I was sending him the clip yesterday because I knew we'd be talking about it. And he was like, isn't this the guy that wants martial arts to be contested in an open football field? And I was like, yeah, now that's him all right. Interesting.

However, we've a lot to do. discuss. I mean, Holly Home is fighting this weekend. Darren Till is making his BKFC debut. And Greg Hardy has weighed in 35 pounds over the limit, I believe, or at least 30 pounds over the limit for his upcoming fight with Stossage, Dacro Stossage, which has been sent to me with a great Alan Murphy. Of course, there's UFC Macau as well. And lots of other fantastic things like this AAA El Grande Americano thing, I'm not going to pretend to be an authority on it, but we have a great article explaining that whole beef on on Crown right now.

But without further ado, I've only got one of my brilliant and beautiful co-host this week. It is Ben folks, ladies and gentlemen. And Ben, you know, knowing that I was sweaty this week, you know, of, you know, I was thinking,

is Ben just going to not show up all of a sudden? Is he going to come in later than usual? I was sweating up until the three minutes two mark, but then he came and it made my day, Ben. How are you, sir? I don't know why you worry about it.

I'm always here when I'll say I'll be here. I'm also always going to push it right to the limit of when I, how late I could show up and still be on the show. So I feel like at this point, it's really not on me. It's on anybody else for expecting anything different because I'm nothing of that consistent. That's completely fair. And I think it was the fact that Chuck wasn't here because Chuck's usually an early doors kind of guy like myself.

And we sit here pondering it. But when he wasn't here, I was like, oh, no, this is going to be me just, you know, talking absolute shit for one hour without you breaking that. I'm not going to say I'm not going to do that for the next hour. But, you know, usually you and Chooker there to break it up. And it concerned me, to be honest. I think maybe that's what we need. There ought to be at some point, an episode of the crack that is just Pizzie Carroll monologuing,

just looking into the camera, exploring the depths of his own soul. the void of his own mind just wandering around in the empty space he doesn't even know what he's going to say next I think that I think people would really enjoy that I actually had one of those for a post UFC London area asked me to do one and as soon as I pressed record

just on QuickTime was just looking at myself and I wasn't able to look at myself anymore I was like this is too much I was in the abyss I was completely lost but uh Ben I mean no one's more for a UFC White House than you I mean, you've been absolutely chomping at the bit to get this thing underway.

And I'm sure you're one of the many people who are so excited to see the first layout, which I believe it was Fox News who released these pictures. Do we have those beautiful pictures, Jordan, of, oh, look at that. There it is there. This is the claw structure, I believe Dana Hoyt has been calling this. This is a big part of the 60 million that they've been investing in this. And as you can see, the blue stars there over the top. I believe you can see those from the outside as well.

Things coming together. We are wetting the appetite. And what is your first impressions of the colloquy structure that has been put together for the White House event? Ben. Well, it's not subtle. No. You know, it's not unobtrusive, especially. It is an interesting time.

You caught us at an interesting time here in America, Pizzi. I'll say that. And a quick aerial view of the White House is a good reminder of. of that because we have a giant open construction site over with this ballroom. Yeah, apparently. It's crazy. I've lived my entire life, 46 years in America, never once thought about the ballroom situation at the White House. And recently, I've been, I've been told over and over again that it is a source of embarrassment and consternation for our nation. So we're apparently working on that. Maybe not. I don't know.

what the ongoing status of that is, but it's got a giant construction site over there. And then you have this big, uh, preparation for a UFC event going up right on the lawn. And I can understand how to some people, they take a look at this from afar and they go, well,

don't that just say it. This, this, the look of a carnival going up. Doesn't that just sort of capture where we are? I, I get that, um,

especially, since here we are it's end of may event is on june 14th so that's going to be up there for a while it seems yeah it's not coming down quick that is not coming down yeah uh it's we're going to be looking at that on the white house for you know the next couple weeks it seems so i i understand how that could be a little bit of a shocked people i've been a little bit surprised to see some of the range of reactions now that we're getting close now that there's a physical thing up there that people can look at and be like, oh yeah, that White House, that UFC White House thing, which you, you know, I'm sure you relate to this PTC. You get in a weird headspace being inside

the MMA bubble. Yes. Being deep, like, siloed within any sort of niche interest. And we, this is our jobs. This is also like our passionate interest. I've followed this sport. I've written about it as a professional journalist for 20 years now. I got my first real writing job. in 2006 and I was a fan for years before that. So I spent so much of my life talking and thinking and writing about this sport. And it's easy to lose perspective as to how it looks to other people. Because I think a lot of people maybe heard rumblings like, okay, there's a UFC event at the White House coming up. And maybe they went, what is this just more of the bullshit that gets thrown out there?

11 months ago. Yeah. Yeah. 11 months ago, we first heard about this. Yeah. they might have just thought like whatever maybe that'll happen maybe that won't just like we sent a hospital boat to greenland or whatever um we did not in fact do that uh and they they probably just didn't think about it anymore we've been thinking about it constantly yeah we've been fantasy matchmaking this shit for basically a year now we've been talking all about what it'll entail who might fight on it what it'll mean all that kind of stuff so we are kind of on the other side of burnout when it comes to talking about this thing we've gotten very used to the idea. We've had a long time to get very used to the idea. We've also, those of us inside the MMA bubble, I think it's become largely desensitized to just general absurdities of the fight game. There was a boxing match at the pyramids. There was.

Where was it? What do they call that place where the pyramids is at? You know, I was thinking about this today and I'm still not confident. I'm going to say the pyramids of Giza. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. We had, we just had boxing matches. at the pyramids of Giza. I mean, just in the time I've been following this sport, there, there's been fights at like, Time Square, the lawn of the Playboy Mansion, the, the special forces training grounds of the Bo Pei Police Force in Rio de Janeiro. Yeah, like all kinds.

We've seen fights all kinds of places, all kinds of shit, all kinds of just, like, sensationalized stuff to try to get attention for the fight game. We're really used to that. We're kind of numb to that. And the general public is not. And now that it's going up and now that they're seeing it, I think I was surprised at how strongly negative the reaction was from a lot of people. I mentioned this to you when we were talking to that. I, you know, I wrote my column this week about how Dana White is sort of everywhere.

I'm sure we'll get to that in the notes later on. That is in the notes. It's right there. But when I was posting the column around on my socials as I do, trying to promote my own work. You know, on Twitter, the reaction is always what it is. They know me on Twitter. They're used to my bullshit on Twitter.

The people who don't like me but want to comment every single time and read every single thing so they can get mad about it, they said what they're going to say. The other people said what they're going to say. The reaction is pretty predictable. And but then I posted it on threads, which I maintain is kind of to my surprise, the worst social media platform in the world. It's awful. And, yeah. It does. Even this version of the Elon must own X, which is worse than the previous versions, it's still, threads is still worse by a mile. And I was surprised how many people were mad,

not just like at the Trump administration for having this and not just at the UFC for doing it. They're mad at me for writing about it at all. Even if I'm writing critically about it, they're right at people who watch the sport. They're like we're all complicit in this. They're, They're mad at the whole thing. And I was a little bit surprised at that reaction just because we're so used to it. And that's when I started to wonder, is the USC getting themselves into some negative territory that maybe they weren't entirely prepared for by doing this? Because it's one thing for us to know that they've really aligned heavily with the Trump administration, which is very divisive. Whether you're for it or against it, you must admit it has been a polarizing.

administration in American life over the last 10 years. And you look at the approval ratings, you know, if you're on that side, there's going to be a lot of people who don't like it and are on the other side. We're really used to that. And a whole lot of other people, I think, are not. And I kind of started to worry seeing that reaction where I was like, was the UFC prepared for how there are going to be a whole lot of people who before were neutral or indifferent on the UFC?

who are now very, very negative. They're very angry at the UFC for doing this and for being part of this. And they might not forget it very easily. Yeah, that's really been something I thought about from the start of this. Just this being such a big thing, right? Like to do a fight on the White House lawn. That structure we saw there, the cage thing. Dana White was explained on Rolling Stone.

The reason where they've built that is you're going to have a clear, view of the White House from one angle and the Lincoln Memorial from the other one. So it's going to be this massive backdrop, like a street fighter level, as you've previously discussed it. But like that is where again, whether you're four against this, that is such a striking image. Like this isn't a sporting event that sporting events don't happen here. So for this to be that moment, that to be at the White House, to have this striking image of people fighting there, that's going to be imprinted in people's minds for a very, very long time.

And I guess when I look at, I don't know, you could correct me on this, when I look at American political, when I look back at when they're looking back and casting their eyes back on the previous generations, there is a lot of criticism for every political regime, whether it was the Obama administration, whether it was the Bush one, you know, every, every single one of them, we look back and they'll be ridiculed and be critiqued as every political regime is. in the post-Trump era are people looking back in this and going oh, UFC, remember they did that thing and it's just rubbing them up in such a way that they'll never give it a chance again. Like they won't want to open themselves up to it. And the reason why

I'm kind of, I was seeing that so early is I believe that that is a situation to happen in Ireland with MMA and Connor McGregor being such a massive figure, being the big spectacle, being a guy who everybody, every man, woman and Joel knew who Connor McGregor was at the height of his power. And then when the downfall came, I feel like they were like, we have enough for that now.

And I think it's harder for the likes of Ian Machado, Gary, Paul Hughes, these tremendous fighters. I think it's so hard for them to get a foothold in that kind of household name, in that kind of everybody understands who this guy is, everybody's on this mission with him. Because of that, this is a far bigger scale. This is like a global situation. And obviously the Trump administration, as you said, very polarizing. I guess that has always been my fear about it. tell me what kind of things are people saying to you when they're replying to you because,

I mean, you've been, your job is to be critical. Your job is to challenge power. You have done that since this started. In July, when we start discussing this, first of all, I think it's strange. I think most people find it strange that people are coming at you as if you were implicated in this show happening. Well, I mean, a lot of that is that people don't read, right? They see you posted an article. They see like the image and the headline of the article that it's about the UFC White House event and they might assume that, you know, you're very in favor of it. They don't, they didn't read the article. They are just like, they saw some mention of it and they're mad.

I mean, I wonder, like, for the UFC, I think that probably a lot of the reaction is going to be dismissive of this kind of thing, especially if you're, were to ask Dana White. I mean, you can imagine what would happen if you asked Dana White if he's concerned about backlash. Shut up and watch the fights. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you're pulling a string on his back at this point and he'll just be like, I don't give a shit. You know, like, that's what he says about everything. Like, I don't give a shit with these people think, you know. And though USC probably and TKO executives probably would privately tell each other and themselves, well, those weren't going to be our fans anyway. Those people at this point, like, that's not going to be our demographic. It's not like we're losing those people. It's not like we're

missing an opportunity to get those people. We were never going to get those people. So, who cares? Controversy is good and any publicity is good publicity. But I don't know if that's entirely true because, you know, I've been of the mindset since like the early days of covering the sport that a lot of people, I think, could get into this if they would give it a chance and if the sport would give them a chance to get into it. Because you see amazing human drama on display in fight sports and in a way in like with a raw intimacy and vulnerability that you just don't get from other sports. You know, and it's just built into the nature of it where you have people stripped to

the waist fighting each other in this like bitter struggle that forces them to push themselves through through through through, push each other. one of the things that we get out of it, whether we are conscious of it all the time or not, is that you're seeing human beings test kind of the limits of what they can do and push themselves past what they thought those limits might have been. And just the way you see, you know, people's lives and careers go up and down, like the human drama of it draws you in. And once you get past like the violence, I'm sure, is a barrier for some people, the blood. That's another thing we've just become entirely desensitized too. You're just like, you know, other people are horrified.

You ever watch like fights with like people come over to your house or you're at somebody's house or something? You're watching it with a casual audience and they'll get horrified by the blood and you're just sitting there shoveling popcorn into your mouth and be like, yeah, scalp claddle bleed, man, I'll tell you. But it's not really very dangerous. It's just, it just looks bad. You know, and we're used to that kind of stuff. I think that, you know, this could, like I've never been of the opinion that this was ever going to be bigger than soccer, that this was a sport that absolutely everybody's going to get into. It's not. It's still an extreme sport. It's still like kind of a niche sport. Not everybody is going to be comfortable with the violence and not everybody is going to enjoy that. But I think that you could make it a bigger tent if you wanted to. Stuff like this, though, clearly does not help you because there's a lot of people who are going to come away from this. And maybe it's one of the only times they ever hear or think about the UFC. They probably were aware of it as something that existed. But maybe they don't, they never really watched it and never sat down and gave it much of a chance. And in their minds, it'll be, Oh, this is that Trump thing.

This is that Trump sport. You know, because especially if they do sit down and watch this broadcast, we've talked about, you know, just based on what we've seen the UFC do in terms of Trump support on past broadcasts, there's going to be a lot of it on this. There's just no way there's not. It's on his birthday. We're clearly throwing them a birthday party, whether we're willing to admit it or not. So there's going to be a lot of that. And there's people who tune in to say, like, let me see what this is all about. there's a really strong chance that that's what they're going to take away from it,

rather than noticing anything at all about the fighters, about the fighting. And as the column mentions, I don't know if we're to that point in the notes yet, the UFC is not really trying to get you to think about the fighters right now. They're not trying to put any of the shine on any of these guys who are actually competing on this fight card. Dana White has been everywhere, just media appearances, absolutely, everywhere over the past week. And he's hardly said the names, Ilya, Teporia, Justin Gaichi,

Alex Pereira, Cyril Gant. You know, he's not even saying those names unless he's asked about it. It's been about the UFC, about Trump, about Dana White himself. He spent a lot of time having to push back on any even mildest criticism of Trump, mildest criticism of this event.

And I think that you have an opportunity with something like this that's big and people hear about it. to potentially get people into this sport, get people interested in the amazing stories that you have with some of these fighters who are on the card. But there's also a very real risk that you just miss the opportunity to do any of that

because all people see is you guys are the Trump sport. And I don't think that there's a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people love Trump. That's fine. But like the approval ratings right now, Pizzi in America generally. Even among young men, normally his demographic is a lot more negative than there is positive right now.

And so you not only does that have a potential to drive away potential fans of the sport, but existing fans, there's going to inevitably be at least some of them who are going, do I want to be associated with that? If my friends are like, hey, you're a UFC fan, right? You like this stuff, right? And you're going, I don't know if I want to admit that I do or not. I've committed my whole life to it, actually.

Yeah, and so like there's going to be people who are going to like feel that, feel that as like a social pressure. And I wonder to what extent the UFC has had those internal conversations to prepare for that to like ask themselves, like make sure that we know what we're waiting into here. Yeah, it's interesting. You speak about it being a niche sport. I was doing, um, recording for an Irish publication this morning. And one of the questions they asked me was, you know, they were asking about who the event is for. Like, does this, you know, is it for the, the anti-establishment is that they asked me? And I was like, hang on a second.

You're talking with the president of the United States of America. This is no longer anti-establishment. This is the establishment. And they had me thinking about, and I've often said on this show, about the feeling of us all being outsiders. I was a few years after you getting into this. I think it was 2009 when I started covering the regional seal in Ireland. I didn't move on to the global scene until the Irish fighters kind of took me there with their own performances. But the feeling that this kind of, you know, this was like punk rock.

We were all kind of meeting in these weird places to watch people fight back in the day. And suddenly you are on the White House lawn. You're going to have this street fighter level looking broadcast, which we've talked about before. is there any part of you like if you can you remove this from the the remove the politics from this as dana white has constantly told us that this isn't a political event and look at it and be like holy shit like this is this is a bizarre and pretty incredible thing that the ufc has ended up on this lawn in front of the white house yeah i mean in a way it almost feels like i wished on a monkey paw and i was like i wish this sport would be embraced by the mainstriest by the mainstriest

and would, you know, not just be some sort of, like, backroom thing that most people ignored it didn't even know it was happening. And it's, you know, the finger on the monkey Paul curled up. The wish came true, but I was like, not like this, you know. It's sort of like Twilight Zone sort of thing. I mean, the, when we look at the fight card, I know, I know, like, up and down necessarily the fight card wasn't necessarily what we were hoping for. We were hoping for a little bit more of like a high wattage sort of thing. But when you look especially at like the top two fights there, you have great fighters and, you know, potential big UFC stars on display, Alex Pereira, Ilya, I was disappointed when I heard Dana White and they interview with Steve Inskeep from NPR. I'm a big NPR guy, unsurprisingly.

No, unsurprisingly. And so when I was like, Steve Inskeep's going to interview Dana White, I was like, okay, I got to hear this. And Steve Inskeep brought up, he's like, you know, you got some stories here with these fights. Or it's like, uh, Ily, Tuporia, he's from a refugee family from Georgia, I grew up in Spain. Like, and then when Dana White goes to talk about him, he doesn't really have anything interesting to say. Like, there's so much you could say about it. To Poyia. You really could.

Yeah, he says he's knocked people. He says he's, you know, he might be the best in the world. It's between him and Islam, Makhachev, and he has good grappling and a great knockout power. And you're like, those things are all true, but that's just boilerplate promoter speak. And he just, he doesn't seem excited, doesn't seem interested about it. And you're not like you, Ilya Tuporia is an artist. Yeah.

Out there. You could really talk about that and about the story. Like, you could really lean on that and be like, hey, look, we're not trying to necessarily just do some sort of America rah, raw thing. Like, we're doing this in celebration of America's birthday. But like, we, this sport itself is a global sport. The sport is a big tent. It has people from all over with all different kinds of stories.

And like these guys are a great example. And he didn't really do any of that. He didn't seem interested in doing any of that. And so I thought that was like a missed opportunity. But I do think once we get the fights actually started, I think in a way it will be kind of a microcosm of MMA as a whole in that this does not, this sport does not operate as a sport at all in any other capacity until the cage door closes. And then it's the realest sport there is. It's the purest sport there is, I think. and it only exists that way for the time between the air horns.

Yeah, basically. When they're fighting, it is the purest sport there is. Every other aspect of it does not operate the way a normal sport does. There's just tons of politics, tons like you can be great and it doesn't matter. You could be, you know, bullshit and you could get away with it for a while. And I think that it'll kind of be like that. When they're fighting, it'll be a great event. But as for, could you just ignore the politics and just watch the fights?

as I'm sure Dana White will encourage us to do. I would turn around and ask, will the UFC even give us a chance to do that? That is a very good question. Because we've seen some... Nothing about the way they treated Trump on the other broadcast suggests that they will even give us the option

to ignore the politics part of it, ignore that aspect, and just focus on the fights. I don't see that happen here. And to your point, I think that that is exactly what would turn people away if they're on the other side of the fence and they're seeing fighters,

as we've seen before, hop out of the cage and kind of give their pound of flesh to Trump and, you know, the post-fight interviews where they're talking about it, which he means some. I think that will be tough for people who are, like, opposed to Trump and them are on the other side of the fence completely. Fully enough, Mr. Joe Rogan has weighed in on the event and he has some criticisms, but different ones to you, Ben. Let's have a listen.

Yeah. Yeah. This thing is odd. I don't like it. I don't like the idea of fighting outside at all. Well, there's problems with it. And then it's June and it's DC and we looked it up the last time like last year same day was a hundred degrees. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You add the lights. You add the lights. That attracts bugs. They were talking about maybe using fans. Was that enough?

No, it's not enough. You got bug strips everywhere. What are you going to do? Like how are you going to stop the bugs? I just don't think that you should compete in a world championship fight in a non-controlled environment. I think it should be inside an air-conditioned arena. It should be a controlled environment. Just like every, like you don't ask someone to do any of, you wouldn't ask them to play a world championship basketball game outside in the sun. That'd be crazy. Right? You have to,

you play in a fucking air-conditioned arena. And that's how it should be. Yeah, I agree with you. But I understand the whole thing. I get it too. But it's going to be a pain in the butt. A fucking roof. Yeah. Build a roof. Like you've got all the money in the world, right? You're doing this. You want to do this for fucking America? It's 4,000 seats. You build a 4,000 seat arena. How big is it? Get a fucking barn dominium.

Put it in there. I don't think Joe understands the claw system that we've talked about here. How are we going to see all these wonderful views if we're doing an inside arena? Interesting with Joe, though. He's kind of coming out and he's speaking against Trump and Ovala having endorsed him for the presidency. I know this isn't him. going against Trump and any regard to this. It's him more talking about the physical act of fighting.

You've trained for a very... But he has, but he has recently. He has, I mean, this is the dance Joe Rogan's been doing for a little while now. Because I saw this week, this week, or maybe it was last week where he was responding to this deal Trump has reached with the IRS that basically says you can never again audit the Trump family taxes, which... Good deal if you can get it. Yeah. I'd love... Can I get one of those?

Because that's basically just being like, uh, me and my descendants would like to never again pay taxes or have anybody look to see if we are paying taxes. Same with my descendants. Uh, yeah. And, and,

and, and I heard Rogan being like, that's nuts. That's a crazy thing. And you're like, yes, Joe, it is nuts. But also why do I feel like as soon as you're in the room with the guy again,

you're going to be grinning and shaking hands and really glad to be like there's, that criticism is not going to carry over face to face. but the criticism that he's launched here you know that is these are valid concerns

for the fighters especially because it's like we've we've seen when you do MMA stuff outside it just does get a little bit more unpredictable what was that event themes to do

in Hawaii the wild one the rumble on the rock was it yeah used to rain and she could just go fucking crazy well I mean especially like June

you could be dealing with such a range of weather events, right? Like, you could, it could be, um, really hot and humid. It could be rainy, you know, you could have just like thunderstorms coming through. Uh, and plus the bugs like, especially DC and June, it's going to be hot. It's going to be human. Now, you could make the, the case as people have like, hey, both fighters are competing

in the same, same situation. We're both in the same environment. If it's, if it's raining on the pitch, Pizzi, it's raining for both teams. So we could deal I mean, the Thrilla Manila when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought for the third time

in an extremely hot arena in the Philippines and kill the both of them. Yeah, and it definitely affected the way the fight went, but it also was something like, hey, we're both dealing with it. So like maybe you can make an argument there, like, all right, everybody's doing with the same

condition. So, I mean, you can flash forward right now and no, there's no way you won't hear at least one fighter on the mic afterwards or in a social media post the week afterwards. It'll probably start with, I'm not one to make excuses. Yeah. But, you know, that reminds me of Abu Dhabi. When I went there from my fighting, it was Habib v. Justin Gehchi.

And we got to the arena, the arena, the red hot chili peppers were playing in this arena beforehand. And everyone's, they were asking me, Casey, and Esther, if we wanted to go. And I don't think we did. We didn't. but they were like, oh yeah, there's a chance the air conditioning machine still isn't going to be working. Like, by the time the chili peppers take the stage, we're like, oh, well, definitely not now.

The next day, the next day we find out, like, they just got the air conditioning on, like a few hours before the event. But I can remember exactly as you're saying here, as the fighters are coming back, we're like, the first one to say it is going to like break the seal. The first one that says it, it's going to be every single person. And funnily enough, it was the first fight. There was some crazy results.

And everybody was like, I have never fought in that dead. You're in the middle of the Middle East. Like, you know, it's crazy. It's over, in my currency, it's like over 40 degrees of heat, no wind whatsoever. And just sun beating down. Well, obviously they had a tent. But the tent kind of boiled the people inside of it nearly. You know what I mean?

This tarpaulin tent. So we have seen this before, but there was not issues. that they were very worried about as well. Like, do you think this could, we will see this? Do you think not watching the broadcast will be aware of this outside of fighter saying after the fact, whoa, holy shit, there's a lot of insects in here. Yeah, well, I mean, hey, if you're,

there's a situation where you have two fighters or on the ground, somebody's in somebody else's guard, and we can see the dude's sweaty back dotted with mosquitoes, then yeah, that's going to be very easy to notice. I hope they come up with a good plan for dealing, because I can't imagine dealing with that on top of a very, anything else if you're fighting. I remember once playing a high school football game and a bug flew into my eye, like directly into my eye. You could see it on films the next morning, like the

exact moment when I went, oh, God. And I remember like getting a home that night and like looking in the bathroom mirror and being like, yep, there's a dead bug right there on my eyeball. And I finally got it out then. But it was, I remember it being a thing of like sitting around for films the next morning and the coach being like, what are you doing here? What are you doing on this play? That's not your assignment. What are you doing? And, you know, wishing I could be like, coach, this is going to sound dumb. But in fairness, there was a bug in my eye.

The dog ate my homeowner. This entire, this entire damn time, there was a bug in my eye. So if you're going out there, I understand Joe Rogan's point here, especially, it's like, we're fighting for a world title. And we're doing it out here where hot, humid, maybe raining, maybe bugs, all this other kind of stuff like to deal with on top of the other guy out there trying to knock your head off. it doesn't necessarily fill you with confidence that you're going to find out who is the better fighter. It might just be who doesn't get a bug in their mouth when they're trying to concentrate. Like, there's a lot of variables introduced out there.

And we know this is a sign, I guess, of how much the UFC wanted to make this happen, how much Dana White wanted to make it happen. Because we've heard Dana go off on this before about, like, when other venues that might have seemed fun or different or novel have been suggested, to him if they're outdoors, he kind of shoots it down right away. He's just like, don't want to fight outdoors.

The USC is kind of breaking all their rules for this one, because not only are we doing it outdoors in this sort of unpredictable environment. On a Sunday, on a Sunday. We're doing it on a Sunday. Sabbath is nothing sacred anymore. That's what I was saying as I look at this day, of course.

But yeah, it is, there's a lot of forests here. And as we know, like the UFC are awesome up at like they are unbelievable but this is this is something completely different like i believe they're capable of pulling this off and making it look great because that's what they do week in week out but i can remember even speaking to people around the ufc about the possibilities of coming back to

dublin and they're like no we we have certain things that we need an arena to have just just for our broadcasts so we know where to go and everything's like that because it's not like you have a four-week lead into these events they need to arrive and get shit done immediately so this is This is going to be in all hands on deck, big operation. They were saying, I think it was the Pat McAvey interview that Dana was doing, or perhaps it was the Rolling Stone. I can't remember, like you, I was going through all of these interviews and pretty much listening to the same interview over and over again.

But at one stage he said the executive producer, Craig Masary, is staying in D.C. to make sure this is happening. He also mentioned there, at one stage, someone started shooting. I believe that was a McAfee one. Like he said, that was one of the obstacles to one of the days work where a guy showed up and started shooting and they had to lock all the staff away. So this is a,

it feels like a motion picture or like at least a very, very good book could be just written about getting this fucking event on the road at all. Yeah. And I mean, that's the other thing. Like I've seen this point brought up before too because in America, we are hearing a lot about how it, it is absolutely necessary for us to have a,

uh, secure ballroom that it's kind of amazing. Our republic has endured for as long. it has without a just a military bunker of a ballroom. And then we turn right around and we're like, but we're going to do a UFC fight outside like on the lawn. And especially give it like I would I would assume that there has to be a lot of attention going into security for this one, given what has happened in America over the last series of months, that the whole ballroom thing was accelerated, that the conversation was

accelerated after a apparent assassination attempt at the White House correspondence dinner. And now you're going to turn around and tell people, hey, the president will be sitting outside on the lawn on this date for these hours. And like that's, I'm sure for like the Secret Service, that's got to be a security nightmare to deal with. And so this is like, the eyes of the world in many ways will be on this, I think, in a way that has never really happened for the UFC before. You know, we're used to this being a sport that even when you get a really big fight, it's still mostly us, the fight heads, the fight nerds who get really into it and will bring in some section of the general sports fan crowd when you get a big event.

And this is going to be one where I think there's a lot of people right now who are sitting around being like, I'm not going to watch this, you know, that. because they hate the Trump administration or whatever. But one, it's on and when somebody's being like, holy shoot, are you watching this thing? Especially if it's on CBS, if it's on something that's like easily turned on, there's going to be a lot of people who just out of curiosity go, all right, let's see. Let's at least tune in for a minute and see what this thing is. And so you do, you really have to nail it. Yeah.

You know, both from a production standpoint and just like an overall event standpoint. Yeah. It's like it's an enormous amount of pressure on all the reduction people, honestly. Especially being used to everything. It's like putting a chef in a new kitchen and he has all his knives in a certain area. And you're just like, where are the fuck? And that's what they like about the apex, right? It's that the apex is their, it's their custom built kitchen.

Not only do they know where everything is, they got a chance to say, please put it here. And so like they've, they've gotten used to that. I remember having this conversation, uh, not too long ago for a story I did and asking them like, sort of like, what was the worst arena? And those stand out for them. And those arenas, the challenge is presented by those arenas is pretty minimal. Yeah. Compared to the challenge presented by this one.

Oh, of course. There's no doubt about that. Of course, we need to speak about the Dana White Media Tour. It's been clipped a bits. I mean, there's been several different parts of this, these interviews being put out across. The biggest one I've seen has been the WMBA comparison in terms of pay. There's also been lines about Anderson Silva. There's been the, we've done more.

boxing events and match room this year they haven't and you wrote about it and you've you've put it so well and in there kind of summing up this feeling of all of these great fighters but but dana white is the one uh being put forward and we've seen him on the cover of time magazine massive massive spots he's been in my question is are we talking about out of both sides of our mouth a bit if we're kind of criticizing the guy for not not showing enthusiasm like not putting himself out there, not showing the same zeal and enthusiasm he had previously. And now he definitely appears to be very interested in this one. Does he deserve some credit for doing all of this?

Or do you think it's kind of disguising what is great about this card, which is the fighters for us, of course? Well, it does seem very self-serving. Like the thing that he is out there promoting, at least right now, at least at this stage of it, is the UFC brand himself, as. as the leader of that brand and the Trump administration. Like those are the things they end up talking about. The fighters who he's supposed to be promoting,

he is their promoter, he doesn't really seem that interested in. And that's the part that's still surprising to me because it's, that's at the end of the day, what you're going to be selling to people, right? Is that come see these guys fight. Nobody's ever bought a ticket to see Dana White.

And so I still think it's interesting to me is the question of like, is this what it takes to get him excited about it at this point? That you got to be talking about something other than the nuts and bolts of the sport. It's a chance for him to sort of like take a victory lap. I don't, that part to me, I don't look at it and be like, this is the level of enthusiastic promotion I've been looking for. Like, I've been looking for it for the fighters themselves. They're the ones who deserve it. Without the fighters, there is no sport. That's the thing that drives the interest in the sport.

And you have some great fighters on this one. And so I should talk about them a little more. It is, though, you know, like you said, where you're kind of like it's sort of listening to the same interview over again. Because anytime you go and talk to more mainstream outlets, their questions are going to tend to be kind of the same. And they're going to focus kind of on the broad strokes because they don't know the specifics and the details. of this sport. So it makes sense that that's sort of what they're asking about. But it does seem like, you know, when you're looking at how these, these media stuff

have played out, like, if you listen to the New Yorker podcast, you listen to the NPR interview, I don't know if you came away with anything new or any insight into, like, who you are going to be watching on Sunday, June 14th, you know? And yeah, and it was interesting even when they had Ilya over, like, they put him on that politics show. And they just kept on asking about his politics. He's like, I don't know what to tell you, mate. Like, I'm not, I don't do that thing. The thing that I do, let's talk about that. Like, and you can tell I really love speaking about fighting. Like, he can tell he's, you know, it's without a doubt his passion and life. He is, he speaks about, like, poetry. Like,

like, Ben would speak about poetry. Like, this is, this is what moves him. This is what makes him feel certain ways. Even when he's up on the dais with Trump, he's trying to talk about fighting. Like, he's like, I don't care. Like, I'm talking about, do you know what I'm going to do to this guy who's standing beside you? Like, that's what it's all about. I just don't know if he's serving that kind of purpose to put him on and ask him about his politics. He doesn't want to get into that shit. I also wonder in some of these interviews, if Dana White was expecting to be asked to defend like the Trump administration as much as he ended up being, because it's, There's a moment in that New Yorker interview with David Remnick from the New Yorker where he says something like, I don't want to get into the Trump stuff. Like David Remnick says this, David and White, like I don't want to get into this because then that's all we'll talk about. But and he starts asked, and Dana being sort of a Trump loyalist and you know anybody who's in the Trump orbit at this point knows, not only are you expected to defend him at every turn. Like you are expected to never admit that there has ever, that the man's ever made a single mistake. That it's all been perfect. It's all going amazing.

And when faced with any other kind of criticism, you're expected to refute it and refute it aggressively. Like when Steve Inski asks him like, well, look at these polls, young men, your demographics say that they disapprove of Trump. And Dana White's just like, I don't believe in polls. David Remnick says like, how about this racist stuff he's posted? And Dana is like, first of all, haven't seen it. Professed ignorance. Don't know about it. But also he's not.

He's not racist. And bizarrely making the choice to bring up Michael. Jackson. And that, I thought it came to me. When he brought up, he brought up the Michael movie and everything. And I was just like, especially like when I heard Dana White brings up, or they talk about

Michael Jackson in this. And I was like, did David Remnick ask him? No, Dana could have brought up anybody. He was trying to make a point of like, hey, would he be friends with this black pop star if he were racist? And the one you bring up is Michael Jackson. You're like, but you got to, you got to know what's

coming next. And he seemed surprised. He said there were abuse allegations against Michael Jackson. And you could see it kind of break David Remnick's brain for a moment where he was like, yes, against children. It was terrible. And, you know, that kind of stuff made me go, were they not ready for this?

Were they not? Because I would have thought, hey, man, you're going to sit down with the New Yorker. They're going to ask you some stuff about this. They're going to ask you about some of the things that are widely known criticisms of Trump, like personally and politically. And if you're going to launch into a defense, you should probably have thought about it beforehand and have it ready. And instead bringing up Michael Jackson at that point seems like, oh, you're just flying by the seat of your pants here. You did not have a plan for how you're

going to deal with this at all, which is surprising to me. Well, kind of flying by the seat of his pants, even on the MMA side, he was asked about Anderson Silva and he referenced, well, I think we have a clip. Do we have a clip of this, Jordan? You don't know it's over until you actually get in there and you can't pull the trigger the way you used to and right and then you know you get beat and then even I mean some of the guys I mean Anderson Silva yeah whom I've you know he was always a unique individual to deal with but he lost like eight or nine or ten in a row something like that and that guy won't talk to me to this day yeah because I I said it's over yeah and he was in his 40s his thing was who were you to

tell me that I'm doing, that I'm done doing what I love to do. I mean, what do you say, what do you say to a guy like that? Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's over. It's, you know, it's over. Obviously, they could go fight. And he did. He, he went and fought a boxing match and he fought a bunch of other fights. He can still fight. Sure. You just can't do it here. Dana White there speaking about Anderson Silver three in a row. Anderson Silver. Three. Yeah, that's it.

He made it seem like Anderson Silva just absolutely turned into garbage and was getting his ass beat for years. Well, not for nothing, Ben. Years at a time. We've seen that with BJ Penn lost countless fights. Right. We can't book him. We saw it with Tony Ferguson. Can you think of a reason maybe he wouldn't want to bring up BJ Penn as the example right now?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, of course. But I mean, see, this is the kind of stuff where though, because Dana White has been around the sport long enough and has observed the sport closely enough in his position that he does have some good insights on this sport and the way it works. Because just because of how many fighters he's seen come and go in his time. And one of the, you know, there are still Dana White insights into the fight game that I think about. And I'm like, he's right about that. And he put it well. One of them was that this is the kind of sport where you show up one night.

and you're old. Absolutely. You get old overnight and that's that it doesn't happen over the course of a season like it does in other sports. It's just one day you get in there and we all realize and you are someone as a last to realize that you got old. And so it's like there is a valid observation in there. That's a terrible exaggeration to make though when a guy lost three in a row and you go eight or nine or ten in a row. Like how do you not know that you, you know, you probably profited from this man's stuff. Um, but it was also like, there's also that he, he is sort of talking about why, like, the cruelty of this sport is part of what makes it so fascinating to us.

The brutality. It is such a higher wire act like personally and physically and, and, and, and spiritually and professionally. That is one of the things that is appealing to us is that we know the stakes are always so high for these people. There's no such thing. as a cage fight on TV against another human being that is low stakes, whether you're fighting for a title or you're just fighting for self-respect

and trying not to get your face rearranged. So, like, that is that at its core, he's still making a good observation. And an observation we've all made about how difficult it is, if you're the kind of person who gets to an Anderson civil level in the first place, you're probably also going to be the kind of person who does not believe anyone else when they tell you it's time to go. No. You know, but then Anderson, his post-UFC career has proven that he can still do some stuff, man.

He still had some success and made some money. Knocked out Tito Ortiz in one of the feel-good moments of the combat sports decade. So that's his job as junior. It was crazy as well. Like, I mean, that winning that fight, the guy like 20, like 15 years younger, that was insane. But listen. When he knocked out Tito Ortiz, face planted Tito Ortiz with that left hook, I woke up my kids shouting. They were coming out of

and being like, was the house on fire? What? And I was just like, nope. But Anderson Silva done it. You know? Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a feel good moment for sure.

But listen, Anderson doesn't need us to fight for him. He came out himself and, uh, interesting words he chose here. All of it. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That's what I'm doing for the laughing face. Uh, the baldy, I don't understand a lot of this. The baldy talking, um,

I've been out of the organization for many years, but by the way, neither the current fighters nor the bald he can forget my deeds. In the end, the ball guy is connected that with me. I didn't have a me, me, me. And General would get in the fight and I saved the event more than once he did. And just for the record, the bald one.

A lot of emphasis on the baldness of down here. Anderson Silva knows he is bald, right? He got it, got it. Like, ever since I've seen him, he was bald. Like, ever since, when he was in pride, he was bald. Before he got to the UFC is bald. Maybe, and maybe that's a purely aesthetic choice. Maybe Anderson Silva, if he wanted to, could grow a rich full head of hair.

You know, we saw Dana White was one of the many guys where he went. I'm going full balled because it's headed that way anyway. And this is better than clinging to some scraps. It was. And maybe that's, yeah, it was better choice. I don't know about Anderson's soap, but it is, it is interesting to be a bald man yourself and to keep harpen on bald. stuff here. No one, like not one person said, let me just throw the eyes over that real quick, you know, you're working in a second language, let me, let me help you out here. Yeah,

it's unbelievable. Fair play, Anderson. It's, um, do you think that's, do you think fight week, we will hear more from the fourers, do you expect this to be Dana out front for the duration, like, or do you think normal fight week festivities will kick in on fight week? I would, I would hope. I would think you'd have to. I, if I were guessing, I would say, The strategy was probably get Dana White out there on as many different platforms as you possibly can a few weeks out to do some table setting for this thing and probably timing it because they know once that structure starts going up, once people start seeing it, they're going to be talking about it. And you want to be the ones leading that conversation and have Dana White set the stage for you a little bit and maybe even take some of the slings and arrows for the Trump administration in this by getting out there and to talk. talking about it and being the guy to take on some of these criticisms of it. And then as you, once you get the fighters in town, once you lead into the fight week festivities,

to start talking about the fighters, I hope that you get to the stage where you start talking about the fighters and these specific fights. Because I think that that is what the sport is, man. Like, so what, let's talk about and deal with what the sport actually is and not all this other stuff around it, especially when you do have fighters that, I think, you know, Alex Pereira and Ilya and Ilya especially, those guys have real star power. They're super just like natural innate star power.

They have exciting fighting styles. They have interesting personal stories. Even have other guys like Sean O'Malley, where people are going to get excited to have Sean O'Malley around. All that kind of stuff. Like you have stories you can tell and stuff you can get people excited about here. You just got to focus the camera away from the big wigs making all the money and making all the decisions. Yeah.

It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. And yeah, I'm excited to see it all, really. I'm looking forward to the spectacle of it. I'm looking forward to everything. Even like the criticism that comes along, but I'm looking forward to everything. Like what happens? What impact does this have on the sport?

As I said, I'm worried about that. But let's hope we can get another one of those monkey claws, and we can make a wish for everything to come off. Well, listen, if he wasn't, I don't know if you're aware, PTC, normally when you start making wishes on the Monkey Paul to try to counteract the unintended consequences of earlier wishes, it kind of just snowballs, man.

Look, I haven't got one yet. You know what I mean? I haven't had the experience you've had of leading us to the UFC White House event, but who knows? In the future, I may get one. If you were concerned about the lack of talking about Ilya to be sure, I don't think he dropped any bars about UFC Macau, did he? Don't think that came up at all because we are getting that on Saturday.

It is nice and early bent. You love a morning card, don't you? You don't really, you can't. Will you tune in? Because this is very fucking early for you. I think this starts at, I think this starts at 2 a.m. your time. Are you three hours before Eastern time?

I'm two hours. I'm in the mountain time zone, the one true time zone. So I'm two hours ahead or two hours behind. But you're an early rise. You've professed this on the show. Not that early, Pete, see. But six a.m.

You're ready for main card. Coffee. What do you think? You know, I like a leisurely Saturday morning. I also like, as much as I like a early card, I do like that,

but I also like, if I can wait until, I don't have to wait necessarily until the entire card's over, but wait until it's getting close to over to where I can skip through the filler because there was so much filler on these fight night events, like where I could just skip to just the fight starting.

And especially one of the things I like about it is that if I wake up, It's not like a chore to avoid spoilers or anything. I'll just wake up. And as long as I don't, you know, look at my email or open Twitter, I can just pour my coffee, sit down, watch the fights. It's all happening live for me. So and, but you know, I, the sleep schedule, Petsy, sleep schedule is very important over here. I'm not getting up at 3 a.m.

to watch some prelims from my cow and mess up the sleep schedule. I can't not watch it live. Like, I've tried, I've made it, I've profess that. I'm no longer staying up for, and look, sometimes I won't. Like occasionally, I'll just be like, I can't do the apex thing tonight. Usually there's this guilt inside of me because I've been doing this for nearly 20 years now. Like just, even before that, actually, because like just as a fan, right? Well, the events were a lot more sporadic back then.

I will highlight that. But I've just been doing this for so long. I can't help myself. I just, I just need to do it. I don't know what I do. Elaine's always saying to be like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, you know, do you have to cover this on Monday? I'm like, no, probably won't be asked about it.

See, now that seems like something that's worth taking. going to look at within yourself, doing a little personal inventory and asking what that is about that, that that sense of guilt. I feel like that's probably being, shut the fuck up and watch the fights. Exactly. That's what I do. No one talks to me. I just sit there going through the motion. It's not, it's not a brilliant card this weekend. It's not, you know, your dong's song v. Davidson Figurado is very good. I'm kind of got, yeah, doesn't that feel like that's a fight kind of set up for for song to look pretty good in. Yeah, but I don't think it's that simple at this point.

I don't think it's that simple, you know, with Figurato, because he's a tricky motherfucker. And Koy Asakura, who had some great runs at Ryzen, I'm excited for him against Cameron Smotherman. And I'm not going to like you. I know you hate, you've talked about your scale of heavy weights, you know, your tears. Pavlovich v. Tashara has the markings of a memorable heavyweight boy for me.

Maybe for the wrong reasons, but it's, it's got all the ingredients there. You've got a small knockout of this Russian guy against a long, really unchallenged Brazilian guy at this point. Did you call Sergei Pavlovich small? Small compared in comparison to Talas and to share it. I'm going to look up the numbers on the guy right now. He's a six for four. I feel, yeah, if he walked in the room right now, you'd be like, can I get you anything?

You'd be calling him Mr. Pavlovich. Like, yeah. Big search. It's like six three, six four. Yeah. So, but you're right in that one is that it does have the potential to be a memorable heavyweight fight. I think it feels totally like the kind where if we get out of there inside a one round, we had a great time. If we hear the words round three, it was a disaster.

But perhaps a memorable one just in the wrong way. Yo, can you remember Mingyang Zang's last fight? It was against Johnny Walker. I remember I heard you speaking about this in the co-main event with Chad. Interesting. They keep on kind of giving this guy on paper the way they've built him,

like fights where you're like, oh yeah, no, he should probably win that. I'm very worried about him via Alonzo Menafeld based on how the Walker fight went. Because Alonzo, sometimes he's just not fucking around,

you know? He's just not fucking around. And I just feel like if Zhang drops another fight, like Walker and Menafel back to back, What do you do with this guy at that stage? Yeah, it does kind of, this matchup feels like the UFC after that Johnny Walker fight went, okay, wait, is this guy good though?

What's like, I don't know if he's good. Get Alonzo on the phone. Let's find out. Yeah, like Alonza will go find out for you. He'll go find out if you're good. And especially, you know, I was reading Drake Riggs's preview for us and he was pointed out where he was just like, Zhang only wins in the first round. That's all, you know.

And you always got to be mindful of that. When you see that on a guy's record, it either means he is a once in a generation wrecking ball or he has faced a lot of competition that allowed him to look pretty good. He has been put in a position to be successful in a lot of these fights and might actually be a paper tiger to some extent. So I'll be interested to see how this one plays out. Because you're right, if he goes out there and he loses to Alonzo Menoviel, I feel like the UFC will be like,

damn it, we just, we want a fighter from the region to be good, to be somebody we can put on a card like this, like UFC Macau, but he's not it, maybe. Like, Metafel beat Omarcy. It was like a highly, highly, highly touted prospect coming out of France. Like, people were fucking going wild about this dude. Ah, man, I don't know. I think if you're a live betting guy,

the heed what Ben just said there only in the first round. If you hear round two, have the money in the wallet and ready to put down. Have it all there, have the bet on the table. Just make sure you have a look.

It is not the only thing that's happening this weekend. And there's many sports happening this. This is the Champions League. We may touch on that later. Game 7, we may touch on that later. But in terms of combat sports, Ben, it is fucking...

There is so many little weird fights going on that have big, could have potentially big ramifications. Holly Holme being one of them against Stephanie Han. First fight was stopped after a clash of heads. She was competitive in that fight. Han a massive, massive favorite going into this again. But Holly Holm was on with Ariel on Wednesday, I believe it was.

I really believe that this could open the door to with Katie Taylor for you. And everyone and their fucking cousin is telling me that she's fighting in Gropark. It is happening. The mythical Crow Park event is happening in late September, early October. Come on. not falling for it again but there's also the Rhonda Rosie for you while you home

Rhonda has said she would clean her clock but she's retired bomb on she'd love to do it but babies man totally yeah it's like how you'll go see like

a major league baseball game here in America and there'll be some guy six Mikalob Ultras deep behind you talking about how he totally would have gone pro but uh torres torus rotator cuff i'd still get out here today if they'd let me but oh my back's a little sick like yeah we we all would do a bunch of stuff that we're definitely not going to do so come on this i i understand that ronda rousey the whole ronairousey mystique she got to say stuff like that she can't be like yeah holly would still probably kick my asses now why she said that you know what

From being honest, I just don't want to fucking do that again, you know? That was horrendous. That didn't have much fun the first time. Well, I've spiraled out of control. You know, it was horrendous what happened there. Oh, my God. You got to respect the hell out of the career Holly Holie home continues to have, though, just because, like, you know, I remember when she kind of first showed up in MMA and I remember being that Greg Jackson. and so she was still fairly new to like her transition into MMA,

but it had a few fights. And I remember talking to Julie Kedzi about her where she was just like, yeah, you get on the mat with Holly now. And all of a sudden she's taking you down. She's, she's beating you up on the mat. And I'm like, damn,

didn't it used to be the other way just like three weeks ago? Yeah. What the hell happened? Like she was just picking it up so fast. And to be now 44 years old and still out here being in these kind of fights. still just like in great shape showing up you you always know you can expect like a certain baseline level from Holly home like that shows you that somebody was really just about that light yeah you know they weren't just like showing up here trying to make some money flashing the pan

get out like that's somebody who was just born to be a fighter and so even keel every time she speaks I'm like this is a very composed person she's clearly so disciplined like you know um I just think she's a great ambassador of combat sports in general. I would love the idea of a win here for. She's like a four or five to one underdog against Stephanie. A very difficult fight, but I don't think she didn't look at the races in the first one. So very, very interested,

and especially with the ramifications, I am intrigued by that. Darren Till's BKFC debut, could we finally see him and Mike Perry? Could this finally happen? He's fighting Aaron Chalmers, who was the star of our equivalent of Jersey Shore. Now, he's fought a lot, Aaron,

in fairness to him he fought in Bama for a long time, fought an MMA, then he went to BKFC, I think he fought Floyd Mayweather in an exhibition match at some point as well, but I don't expect him to challenge Darren in the slightest. There was a bit of a back and forth with Darren and notoriously hard as fuck Welshman, John Phillips, who lost to Hamza At Chimoyaf, but who was just known to be this murderous puncher. A guy I know very well, Chris Fields fought him,

and was out class in John Phillips, and then just eat one of his big fucking mitts and that was the end of it. And he said, I'd never been hit like that before. There's legendary stories about him sparring. They're jawing back and forth. Darren's saying, you're a nobody, mate. But I was like, I would fucking,

I would fucking love to see that, please. If I could please have the Wild Welshman find this crazy scouser, I would be a BKFC fan for a night. Okay, you mentioned us that you said our version of the Jersey Swart. What was that show called? Jordie Shore. What is that a reference? Jordies are people from Newcastle.

Okay. So you're a joie, clever. Yeah, yeah. Well, not our UK's version. So they would, the Geordy Shore. I think, Jordy Shore was just Newcastle.

There was no shore element. It was just the city of Newcastle. There was no, as, don't quote me on that. Maybe they might have a coastline. I'm sorry, my townside friends. I'm not very good with the geography up there. But every time I watched this show,

I think they do. I think they do have a coastline. Yeah, I think there is an island off Newtok. That's a little famous. But that wasn't featured in the show is what I'm trying to say. Okay? Maybe the later seasons they went to Ibifa, as the British people say.

I bea. That's a betha to anyone who's asking. But they, you know, they just were getting sheer-faced in Newcastle. That's basically what I'm trying to tell you. Okay. Well, I mean, two things about that. One is that I actually saw a couple episodes of this show. I was on vacation.

I was in Scotland. and I was up late at night. I had maybe a couple few soda pops and just like in an Airbnb flipping through the channels that were available. And I came across this show and it was very typical. You know, people were throwing drinks on each other and like acting out in a nightclub or a restaurant or something. And I was just like, I remember it made me sad because I was like, this is America's export. Like stuff like this. We've taught the rest of the world how to.

make these god-awful shows. The other thing, though, is that recently a friend of mine got me to watch the 1971 film starring Michael Kane, Get Carter. Oh. Which, I don't know if you're familiar with it. I think I've seen it, but I just saw it when I was a teenager and my brain. It's set primarily in Newcastle. And it's weird because when you're watching it, it's like this guy who is from Newcastle,

but has become a London mob figure. And he's going back to Newcastle to try to find out what happened. his brother has just died and he wants to find out like who killed his brother. And the entire thing is people just being like, you're not going up north or you. No, don't go up there. It's terrible, man. It's just awful. Don't go up there.

Still to this day, London's attitude. And when he's there, the whole movie goes to great lengths to try to make Newcastle look like a shithole that nobody should ever be in. And yet I watched the movie and I came away and I was like, I kind of want to go check out Newcastle and see what's going on a Newcastle. and see what's going on in Newcastle, even though the entire movie, there it is. Yeah, sorry, right on the coast.

My bad. The entire movie was trying to like disoad me from it, but I was just like, you know what? I think it was a little bit of reverse psychology. It worked on me. It's also the kind, like if you're people who are going to go and look up and watch Get Carter now,

there was a kind of movie they made in the 1970s that they only made in the 1970s and this is that kind of movie. Bizarre. a plot that just sets you up for a lot of things. It is not going to pay off. Just a main character who is a terrible person and is never redeemed. Weird sex scenes that seem like they were just like, we're not sure what to do here.

Let's throw in a sex scene. Get Carter is the name of this, you said, yeah. Elaine, we've got our movie for tonight, darling. I'm going to tell you this right now. She's not going to care for it, Pizzi. He's not going to care for it. Bivel is fighting this weekend. He's like a minus 2,500.

There's Foster V4, the matchroom card. There's two things I want to ask you about, though. Did you know Greg Hardy was fighting this weekend, and did you see how much he missed weight by? And do we have the picture, if we do, Jordan, please. Yeah. 52 pounds. 26 pounds.

Yeah, he missed by 26 pounds. And you look at the picture of the man right there, there was some room to cut. Yeah. It's not as if he was sucked down to where just you couldn't possibly shave another ounce off of that man. I did not know he was fighting at all until I heard that he missed weight by so much. And I was just like, that's a great way just to let everyone know that you do not give a shit.

He does not. He is never given a fuck. You do not respect yourself. He's blasting. Or your opponent or the sport. Never gave a fuck. Honestly. Let's be honest.

Do your thing, DACO. I'm with your brother, please. El Grande Americanos. Ariel, not just on the show has text me independently to be like, you've got to watch this man, AAA. The Undertaker's doing this. He sent me pictures of this brawl they had. I'm like, I'm not a big pro wrestling guy.

And you are more of a pro wrestling guy than I am, I think, I think, Ben. You've definitely attended more events. Are you up to speed with the El Grande Americanos situation? You know, I haven't, I haven't followed it that much lately, but I do remember, like, I've seen him show up at some, like, when I've been watching. Yeah, I watched a role. He was there. Yeah, definitely. Like, I think the, I think the first time I saw him was in, like, not this past year, but the year before was WrestleMania.

And so it was just sort of like, oh, okay, I see what we're doing here with this bit. And it didn't seem, at the time, like, something that they were planning to have a long run. Yes. It just seemed like, okay, this is going to be like a little blip. But you could see even that where you're like, it is, there is something to it in the pro wrestling sense where you're like, this does create a reaction in people. Yeah. You know, like, you got to feel some kind of a way about it. And like there is like a humor to it that you, that is at times like kind of uncomfortable, but is also like it, there's a genuine feeling people have about it.

it, which I'm sure once you, if you're in the wrestling business and you realize, like, oh, they give a shit about this, well, let's see what we can do with it, you know? So there's like a German guy playing one of the El Grande Americanals and all of the, the Mexican people apparently love this dude. Like, he is honoring the tradition. And then we have the guy we saw, the American dude, uh, dressed up as a luchador. He's the, the, the, the, he's his enemy or whatever. So people are losing their minds about it.

I'm going to try and watch it this weekend. I, I don't know. I'm going to read that piece on Uncrowned. that explains the whole genesis of this beef. I need to read that to really wet my appetite. Make sure you guys do too. But I was wondering, we're all against AI in the written world. We don't really want to do it.

But there was one image on the internet this week, Ben, that I think spoke to our hearts. And it was about a certain man named Nasrudein Imovov. And, you know, someone just wanted a visual representation of, you know, what it would look like if he did have that raven. we have that image here I believe look at that changes him look at that look at the presence he suddenly

has yeah I mean tell me that's not a guy now you look at that and you'd be like tell me more put him in the title for you right now want to want to know what this guy's deal is that is that's exactly yeah that's what it is that is it is AI but I'm telling you

maybe Dana's onto something because that fucking worked on me you fucking put up that poster that besides Sean Strickland on a poster fucking yeah. He is a middleway contender. And you know what? I think he's going to win very quickly with the help of that Raven. That's what I'd be saying. So please. A. I can do good things. Ben, you have a Paris and your man hat and you have been to Paris. You've seen PSG play football. They're in the Champions League final this weekend against Arsenal who have won the Premier League

in England. I was there to watch their celebrations as my father's team, their biggest rivals, the Lowly Spurs and Jordan's team, I might say, producer George. Jordan survived another year in the Premier League on the last day of the season. And people were getting on and the Arsenal fans attitude, you know, on the trams afterwards, you know, they had a lot of things to say. One of them said, can I say the C word on this, Jordan? I didn't know there were any limits on. Okay.

Well, yeah, so this guy, this guy in the national jersey gets on, he goes, speaking about the spurs fans celebrating, staying up in the league, they're like, did you see those cats crying like they fucking want something? And I was like, well. Wow, that's not bad. That's a pretty good impression. I was like, Dad, just don't look at him, okay? Because I cannot handle whatever that fucking guy is bringing to the table.

He's about six for four, completely bald. Seed like he had at least three bags of cocaine and about 15 beers on him. Can't beat that guy in a fight. You can't, I don't think you can win a fight against the man. I can't. I know that much. So that's made an impression on me. So I'm also for PSG this weekend.

I must say, will you watch it? Oh yeah, I'm absolutely going to watch it. I want to tell you, you know, over on the CME, me and Chad Dunn is have a betting segment called $20, we never want to see again that we do every Friday on our power hour. And I will tell you that one of the things, we consider ourselves doing a public service because we help remind people, whatever you see, you see all these commercials for these online sports books.

It's not as easy as you think. we make sports betting look hard. So we are kind of doing everybody a favor. But last year, I did put money on PSG to win the Champions League because after I saw them, I saw them in Le Classique when they beat Marseille and I was like, this is a team of destiny. Watched it. They're going to win it all.

And so I was like, yeah, no, they're totally doing it. This year, I did it again. I put five bucks down. I got five bucks down on PSG tomorrow to win it all. I put it back when they were, I believe, plus 320. So I got five to make 21. I'm all in on PSG. Tough luck Arsenal fans.

This is not your year. You're going to have to be content with that EPL title because I say C. Paris. I know exactly what you're saying. You are Paris. I believe that's what you said. Don't Jesse would be? I don't know what you said.

yeah I love them Carza Kelly that Fartz Kelly whatever he says is named that Georgian do it on the wing he's like my

favorite player in the world right now I think he's unbelievable very very excited to see but the problem

is Arsenal are so systematic that you're playing this amazing flair attacking team against like this sponge that just soaks

everything up and then scores a goal from a set piece and then just sits back for the game so that would be a nice if Arsenal go ahead

in this game I think it's a bit of a nightmare for everyone. The viewing public, I'm going to say. It's going to be a nightmare. Best little. People who watched last year's final remember, not only can PSG go out there and beat you in a big game like this,

they can embarrass you. They can. They really fucking can. When they start going, my God, they're absolutely unbelievable to watch. Game seven. Are you, I know you're not a basketball man. That's a game seven of what? Game seven of the Western Conference finals. The San Antonio's conference of what?

Of the NBA? Oh, the National Basketball Association. Okay, I stayed up till 4 o'clock in the morning watching this last night because I'm like, I need to have a common thing to speak when we're American friends about. And then you just go and poo-poo it like this. I thought we'd have a good 15 minutes on this. Wemby. Ah. Huh?

Very tall. You don't need to stay up and watch the whole thing. Petsy, set an alarm for when the last two minutes are going to come on. This is an aunt Devon's thing. Aunt Devons always says the fucking last two minutes of the game takes an hour to watch. Just fucking wait for that. Yeah. I mean, he's right.

You kind of feel the emotion in the room then. You kind of feel it in your bones. I'll tell you what, I overheard a conversation recently. This is this area I take to walk my dog near my house. And since I wake up early and go, it's me and a bunch of like 80 year old men who are out there walking at this hour. And I heard these two old men. At first I thought they were arguing and I was paying attention because I was like, oh, am I going to see a little pan fight?

A chariiatric looking bunch of. Because I heard one of the guys say the other where he's like, well, you know, no, the game. to watch tonight is the Oklahoma Thunder versus and the other guy was like, no, no, no, no, no. The game to watch tonight is the college softball world series, Nebraska versus, you know, and I was just like, whoa, that guy has some, we're a battle of interest here right now. And then I heard the first dude's mumble something and the other guy was like, don't you whatever me? And then they both laughed and I realized, oh, they're dear, dear friends. That's how they can speak to each other this way.

What is soft, but does that mean baseball? No, it means softball It's a different game What do you mean it's a fucking It's the same Every time someone says softball to me I think baseball You're playing baseball

They pitch it underhand It's a different ball It's a much larger And softer ball It doesn't fly as far They pitch it underhand In all other ways It works pretty much like baseball

But here in America Especially at like the scholastic And collegiate level It's like essentially Women's baseball I was just gonna say I think a good fucking whale at this game. I think I'd be of an absolute beast.

Well, it is the kind of game where if you want to play in a rec league version as an old man and you want to drink beer the whole time, you go out and you play on a softball league. Maybe it was wrong about baseball. I mean, or softball. This sounds fucking great, actually.

I mean, who knows? Maybe it's in my future. Well, that's pretty... You will see more torn ACLs and quadriceps and rec league softball than any other sport because it is the sport for people who are out of shape, but still want to get out there and pretend to do sports and also be half drunk when they do it. So a lot of injuries, a lot of injuries in Reckleague soft. Sounds completely my speed

if I'm being honest. Completely. It's a fucking show what. It's a great sport in weekend. The Champions League, Game 7, all of these smatterings of combat that we have everywhere, the El Grande Americanos, which I will definitely try and watch. I'll probably won't get around seeing Greg Hardy, whatever happens there. I just don't, don't imagine I will. I'm sorry, Alan Murphy. But, um, Enjoy it this weekend, guys, because we're going to come in thick and fast for the old White House chats for the next two weeks. I know we had quite a big one today, but I can imagine there's going to be more. I can imagine there's going to be a lot more. So get ready for that.

Do we have any super chats, Jordan, before we see. Oh. Yeah, I thought you were going to forget it. I felt like you were on the road to forgetting it. This is teasing their bullocks. What we doing about GC messing up ad dova fight, Jordan, I'm going to need an explain there here. I don't really understand what's going on there. Road to the UFC.

Ben, you're the road to the UFC expert around here. Yeah, love it, love it, love it. Yeah, we're gonna tell Jesse all about that. I definitely know what is being referenced here and

it is too emotionally charged for me to discuss that this time. Listen, we've all talked about it with GC it's, you know, we're gonna bounce back from this. We're handling it in-house. We're handling it in-house. So, there you go.

Interesting and meaningful fights with good stories are overshadowed by an 80-year-old pizza salesman will never be mainstream with stuff like this. Is this the most mainstream it's ever been, though, at the same, like, at the same time? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I guess it is. And Dan is on the cover of Time fucking Magazine here.

You know what I mean? I thought I wanted that until I got it is how I feel about it, I guess. It's kind of like, you know, you ever had this experience where, especially if you're, like, when you were an angsty young man and you had a band you really liked and it felt like kind of, I mean, this is, I hate to tell anybody this about my stuff, especially, I can't wait. I was a, I was a young man. I grew up in Southern California in the 90s. And so I can remember being in high school and my friend showing up with this CD and he's like,

have you heard this band, Blink 182? There's this album, Cheshire Cat. We listened to it and in my friend's car driving all over the place. We were like, hell yeah, this is awesome. And then Blink 12 got big and we were like, oh, shit. You know, kind of almost feels like somebody you know almost got big. And you're just like, oh, that's awesome. And then you watch them get bigger and, uh, frankly sell out and suck.

And then you go, oh, wait, this isn't. I thought I wanted this until we got it. And now I wish we had never gotten it. That's kind of what it feels like now. So we're all very excited, this basically what Ben saying. And we can't wait to see it. Um, did we answer? Was that a question?

Do we answer that question? Yeah, cool. Thank you. Thank you. The main question about if it's raining at the White House card is will Dana say, shut the fuck up and watch the fight. Who timing was impeccable there? Who are we expecting to be?

Like, I got a friend. Now, well, we've got to, a person reach out to me and they said, I applied to see on which these. these tickets would cost me. And this is what I was sent. And it was, we may have shown on the show, uh, 1.5 million for four tickets for this event. And then you also get tickets for the McGregor fight. Like, who is going to be there? Just whoever is the most money. Like, is that, well, the thing is the UFC is where I, you know, I talked about how I reached out to the UFC and they're like, we are not selling tickets to attend this event. But it is like they get a certain number of

tickets to give away to their VIPs. And is it possible that? And is it possible that? that if you gave them $1.5 million, they might then suddenly look at their VIP list and find that you deserve a spot on it. Like that seems plausible. You could imagine them doing stuff like that. From what we've been told, it's like, I think Trump gets like a thousand tickets. The TKO gets a couple hundred, you know, there's going to be a bunch given out to the troops. I saw something circulated. I couldn't verify if this was real or not, but something's circulating about how they're choosing among the troops.

troops. One of them was they wanted to make sure all the troops that they were choosing were in good shape met the like physical standards. So it's just like, I think they're concerned with the visuals of that. But the other thing I saw in it said that it would be standing room only for the troops, which if, if true, that's going to suck, man. That's what I need to be in good shape. If you're out there, if you're out there in uniform, in the heat in June in Washington, D.C.,

and you're going to stand for several hours. I mean, I know this guy card isn't as long, at least doesn't have as many fights, but it's probably going to be a lot of extracurriculars. You're probably going to be standing out there for a while. That doesn't sound about something tells me that the VIPs are going to get chairs. Swatting away the nuts. Just, let's get these fights going.

She only used to look cool. Do you remember what you used to do the, salute to the troops they called them? Those events, fight for the troops. Yeah. And everyone would be in their camo and shit. Like it would be almost look like a pro wrestling event or something.

Another street fighter level, actually. It was crazy. And they would do those sometimes like in like, like basically like in the, like a military like building and so it just it did seem like you just sort of rolled into the barracks put up a cage and everybody was like hell yeah it was pretty let's go out here and check this out those are the good old days yeah got on else there jordan arsenal for the win look of course support your team your team who are horrible to watch all year no i mean look great win great win

wait a long time for that one arsenal and i did enjoy the scenes of you around the the emirates Jordan, what did you think as a spurs fan of Arsenal winning the league? Look, that would have warmed their hearts to hear that, Jordan. It would have warmed their hearts. Man of the people, let's see if PSG can do it because I don't want that man getting on the train and saying what he said again, okay? To those poor sports, I'll tell you what, I've been in London many times, over 20 times I'd say in my life.

Never saw that many Arsenal jersey in my fucking life. All you just buying some Arsenal jerseysies? Come on. that's all. I mean, I remember living in New York City when the Giants won the Super Bowl and the next day, I was like, where did you guys get these Giants hats? None of you had these Giants hats. You guys had Jets hats a couple weeks ago. Now suddenly everybody got a Giants hat, huh?

I see. The only man who constantly wears a Jets hat is on Air Jordan. Loves them. Not right, Jordan? You love them. You liked that kid in the video you sent me where to like, how's his feelings? like, I just can't fucking, why have I done this?

Why am I doing here? That's Jordan on the jet. And then Spurs as well. Do you have any actual successful games that you follow? The Knicks. The Knicks are my PSG. Ben commented on me wearing the Knicks hat

in my recent trip to London. And I say fair play. You know what I mean? I deserve that. They're in a good moment. I didn't say anything critical. I knew what you said. I knew what you were saying.

I see that Knicks hat piece. I was like, I know what you're fucking saying. And I went back. Do you know what? That's how offended it. I was like, wow, I'm going to go back and figure out when I bought this. I bought this when they crashed out of the playoffs in 2024.

I was in New Jersey for UFC 302. They had crashed out to correct with what I'm wrong, that fucking Halliburton guy and the Pacers. Is that correct? Jordan? Yeah. Yeah. That's when I bought it because they were selling them cheap. They're on fucking sales.

I was like, give me one of those things. I was in New York. But alas. That was when the fandom began. So I'll have none of that, okay? I'll have none of that, Ben. I'll have none of that, please. Thank you.

Go, Nix. Happy for you and happy for the Knickerbom. Huge for me and the Knicks. You know, been on such a journey. Ariel keeps talking about his journey with the Nix, me and the Nix. That's what most people want to hear about. The last two years, the toil, the torment,

also Jordan's Nix. Fair play. I'm going to keep talking, so we better just end the show. We love you all so much. We're hoping to have Chuck Menonel, Mr. Mendenhall, too important. It just rings in today.

He's like, nah, do you know what? Fuck the show. That's what Chuck said today. It was crazy. I mean, he never spoke like that to me before, but I mean, he is Chuck Mendenhall. I thought I heard waves crashing in the background when we called too. I remember what that was about. We'll find out next week on The Crack.

Thanks for joining us. We love you so much. Maw.