The Ariel Helwani Show - Jon Jones demands UFC release, Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano press conference livestream & reaction | The Boys in the Back

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

The Boys in the Back tackle major MMA stories, including Jon Jones asking for his UFC release (02:11), Ilia Topuria claiming Islam Makhachev ducked him (43:29), Khamzat Chimaev vs. Sean Strickland potentially happening in May (1:07:18), and more. Plus, watch alongside the Boys as they livestream the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano press conference and react in real time (1:10:08). Finally, the Boys answer your Super Chats (2:21:58).

But boys in the back Boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, boys, boys. What is good! How we do it? We're back with another Tuesday special edition of the Boys in the Back. Ariel Hawani out in Los Angeles. I was about to say Las Vegas for the

Ronda Rousey Gina Carrano Netflix presser, which we will be going to live later in the program. We'll give you a sneak peek of that in just a second. I am one-third of the boys in the back. Connor Burks. Join alongside me as always The man

The myth The legend Mr. New York, Rick I was chuckling off the top there Yeah, why were you laughing? You know, we all have access to the YouTube channel And everything like that

Sometimes when the show's starting I like to get in on my personal YouTube channel I'd be like yo, it's good How's everybody doing? Like how are we feeling? I was on the Hijuana YouTube channel So it looked like I was Hualani

And I was like, yo, what's good? Hollywood No, we Hwani's not here He's in Los Angeles In fact, we have eyes on Mr. Ariel Hawani. You would take a peek at him? Let's take a look at this presser. Yo, there he is.

Doing a little bit of rehearsal here. Who's to check? Who's to check? Getting ready. Who's to check? But stick with us. We're going to be watching this live. You're going to see that stream. You're going to see the press conference on our feed, and we're going to react to it alongside.

Can we actually go back to that real quick? Just because the screen behind him has to be absolutely ginormous. Yeah. Like, he's as big as the font for Saturday, May 16. It's absolutely insane. The Intuit dome does it better than, better than anyone else. Yeah. So I can't wait to see how it looks.

It's going to be very impressive. So they're outside, which is crazy. Oh, shit. They're outside the Intuit. Yeah. Wow, I cannot wait to see what this looks like. I can't wait to see if there's, you know, some shit talking going on between Rhonda and Gina and Francis and Jake, you know, Felipe Lenz.

We'll see how he plays into it. Maybe a little Rhonda, Hawaiian. Yeah, we'll see. Who's the check? Who's the check? We'll get to that later in the program. Before that, much news and notes to discuss. Are we going to be seeing Hamza Tchamaya versus Sean Strickland at some point this year?

We got some clues on that. We'll touch on that. Ilya Tuporio with some strong words for Islam Makashchev. Islam Makashv firing back. The manager is getting involved. The drama is very, very high between those. But let's start with John Jones, who took to Twitter yesterday and requested his release from the UFC and essentially a formal letter after Dana White had a lot of comments to say on Saturday night after UFC 326.

But I wanted to sort of create the path of how we got to this point of John Jones going on Twitter and formally, formally asking for his release from the UFC. So I want to go back to last week when John Jones was at a baby shower media conference. We don't know what it is. We have no idea where he was at. But John Jones had this to say about the potential of. him fighting at the White House in front of a massive audience and the clip went viral. Take a look. I'm in negotiations with the U.S.C. about this White House thing as well. All right. Very, very, very, very proud of American.

Right American. I can not win to represent one more time. All right. Let's take some photo. All right. So, like, he seems, he seems hyped up. He seems. optimistic. Happy. And we've seen all the way back to the Espe's last year, summer of last year, he announced that he was coming out of retirement on the red carpet because he wanted the opportunity to potentially fight at the White House. This is something we know that he wants. This is a crown jewel for him, something that he's looking forward to. Friday night, this is when we're going into the UFC 326 card, the Friday before, we already knew that they

were going to announce the White House card. John Jones goes on Instagram live and has asked about the potential of him fighting on that card. Here's what he had to say. Okay. John, are you going to be fighting on the way? Everybody's asking. Are you going to be fighting on this White House card? He didn't quite answer, but it seemed like he was about to give a positive update.

He gave a smile. He gave the point. Obviously, that's just some marketing from John Jones. But at this point, last week, everybody who was asking me about the White House card, what's your prediction? What do you think is going to happen? I felt fairly confident in saying that I thought it was going to be Alex Brewer versus John Jones. Same.

And it had been one I thought all along. I thought it was a long shot for Connor McGregor to get there just because it's so much time. And it just seems like, you know, him fighting in the UFC becomes harder and harder to conceive of, harder and harder to recognize that possibility. And so, and again, now he's not on the White House and we're aiming at July. We'll see how negotiations go. And Connor McGregor kind of went out for me. So at that point, like late last year, I started thinking that when these things all happen,

if somebody gets heard, if they can't. come to terms with somebody, the easiest fight you're going to be able to make is John Jones versus Alex Perreira. For one, you already know what John Jones price is, right? You already know how much you're going to have to pay him because you offered him that you offered him to fight Tom Aspinall. And for two, Alex Pereira gets an opportunity to come up in wait, make his heavyweight debut and fight against what most sane people would consider the goat of MMA. It's very easy to make this fight as long as you could kind of come to contractual terms. And so I thought this would be the easy direction that they would go.

Superstar and Alex Breyer are going for at least an interim heavyweight belt against one of the greatest of all time, massive superstar and himself. Biggest American star we have in the sport. Yep. Makes sense. Main event. White House card, I don't think anybody would be complaining at that point. Obviously, you know, Friday night, we get the, oh, fight dropped out, rumors start spilling out. What's it going to be? Everything like that. Saturday night, we get the announcement during UFC 326 on the main card. announcement is, Elliot Toporia versus Justin Gaci, Alex Breyer versus Cyril Gond. John Jones is nowhere to be found on the card. There you can see the Freedom 250 fights right there.

John Jones is not on the card. Pereira will be fighting gone for the interim heavyweight championship. At the press conference, after UFC 326, Dana White, of course, is asked about no John Jones on the card. Here's what he had to say in regards to that. Okay. There is speculation, of course, that it's John Jones. No, it's not. Was John...

Never, ever, ever, ever. which I told you guys a hundred thousand times was John Jones even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House. I went first of all, I've told you why he wouldn't. I wouldn't do it. And number two, some guy with, you know, meta glasses on filmed him talking about his hips, that his hips are so bad. And I don't know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. John Jones is, he retired because of his hips.

He's got arthritis in his hips. Apparently he's been, you know, doctors say he should have hip replacement. So, add that on top of all the other reasons that I wouldn't. The John Jones thing is bullshit. I'm not saying they weren't talking to John Jones and that John Jones wasn't interested in the fight. And it was even crazier is John Jones came out and was like, I'm in negotiations right now for the White House fight after an eye already sent a text to his lawyer saying, never going to happen ever.

Is it fair to say that John Jones is retired and this is the end of his time? Yes, very fair. All right, so, I mean, borderline harsh words there from Dana White in regards to John Jones's career. First and foremost, never, ever, ever was going to be John Jones on the White House card.

Then he says, you know, we talked to him, we talk to everybody, we discussed things with him, but it was never, ever going to be him. I don't know why you would even talk to him if it was never going to be him. And to Dana's point, he has said essentially this entire buildup, it's not going to be John Jones. I don't trust John Jones. We're not going to make this happen. It can't be him. It's never ever going to be him.

But now all the reports are pointing towards the fact that not only did they talk to him, they also negotiated the potential of him being on this White House card and they weren't able to come to an agreement. I just don't understand why you would say he was never, ever going to be on it, but we talked to him at the same time. Now, granted, there's people, that are going to, you know, say there's degrees to this. And it's like, we were talking to him, but it wasn't serious. But why bother talking to him? If he was never, ever, ever, ever going to be on the card, why are you wasting people's time?

Why are you wasting the energy? Why are you wasting the breath? Clearly somebody is lying here. I would point to Dana White, just, you know, amateur sleuth. That would be my assumption. And from what we hear, you know, Ariel kind of talked about some of the talks that he had heard. And John Jones was made offers to fight. Now, granted, we must acknowledge.

And this is where, like, what Dana White's saying might have some truth that he's trying to manipulate a little bit, which is, it sounds like a lot of fighters didn't really know if they were on or off this card, right? Even the ones that ended up on this card, they had been talking to other options. They had been weighing things. They had been putting together different game plans, different things. And then people didn't really find out until they found out, right? That is how it happened. Kyle Dawkins says that he didn't find out until the night that it was announced. Diego Lopez said in an interview afterward that he didn't find out until.

the promo was running for it. So it felt like there were a lot of people at play. Justin Gagey, sitting with Dustin Porreier on the UFC 326 pre-show was just like, no, I don't know anything. I'm not on the card. Yep. You know, it's just like it felt like things were evolving quickly. And I think that's why it felt like John Jones was confident just the night before.

Things were evolving quickly, but also the UFC didn't decide. The UFC had their options laid out, but they ultimately decided much closer to the time that that announcement happened, and then they announced it. And so that's where Dana might have some truth in what he's saying, which is like, look, they were talking to John. He might have been an option, but he was never going to be the option. I just, again, I don't know why you'd even talk to him in the first place if he was never going to be the option.

But we have heard that there were more than just like preliminary feeling conversations, right? Ariel was saying that they've got to the, they got to numbers. They got to the actual numbers of what was going on. And quite frankly, Alex versus John made the most sense. The only thing I want to add to the conversation about Dana. when he's like, John Jones got a bad hip, the arthritis, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, he can either fight or he can't, right? If you were talking to him, it means you weren't that concerned about the hip.

Then all of a sudden, now that he's not fighting, it's like, ah, the hip, the hip, the hip. To the point that if you're going to keep beating that drum, it kind of opens yourself up for things like we saw from, oh, I don't know, MVP co-founder, Nakeesa Bedarian, where he goes on Twitter and says, U.S.C. should release John Jones. He's done. Bad hip. Let him go make a few more dollars. elsewhere with his bad hip. Only fair for a guy who has given his whole career to one organization, but now clear,

he's not fit enough to compete for them. So if Dana's going to keep beating the drum of like, we don't want this guy with the bad hip, it sounds like Nekisa is willing to take their scraps. Nekisa's willing to take John Jones. Absolutely. Incredible play by Nekisa Baderi. And as we're going to see the press conference later from MVP, they're working on an all-MMA card on Netflix in just a couple of months.

I think they would be happy to go to the table and negotiate with John Jones, especially when they have a Netflix budget behind that card. Yeah, obviously they just announced a fight for Francis Ngano. It's very clear that they're willing to pay what maybe the UFC is not willing to pay at this point. You think there's... Filippe Lenz is locked in. There's no chance they would ever take him off the card.

No, he's locked in, come on. With John Jones, you mean? Oh, okay, you're being sarcastic. No, Felipe Lent. If they got a better option, I think Felipe Lins would be off the card. He ended his UFC career. a four-fight winning streak. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He can go back if he wants. No, but I love Nekisa weighing in because, to your point, and we'll get to this later on when we read John's tweets about the release, it's just like, all right, if he can't fight, then why keep him around at all? If you, look, if your justification is he wants too much money, cool, like, understandable. You're a business. If you and I are doing a business transaction, and I say I have this thing, and I say it's worth $100 and you say it's worth 80, we're just, we're just not going to make a deal.

That's fine. That's no problem. That's just business. But if you tell me your hip is no good, I have no use for you, I'm at it. What do I need to be here for? If you're not going to use me, if you think that I'm too injured to fight and you can't have a fight for me, I'm gone. Let me go.

What I don't understand is if everyone is saying that they were in negotiation, they were in discussions, and they just couldn't come to an agreement on the amount of money that he wanted to get paid to fight on the White House card, why not just say that to your point as if you're Dana White? Why not just come out and be like, look, man, we try to get John Jones on the on the card and we just couldn't come to a financial agreement? I really can't answer that question because I do think it would be met pretty fairly and people would understand it as a justification. People are thinking it anyway. I do wonder though, I mean, yes, because we have people like Ariel and others reporting that John Jones was in

conversations. The only assumption I can make is that in the environment right now where fighter pay seems to be a huge topic of conversation, maybe you don't want to add more fuel to that fire, right? Maybe you don't want to throw a match into a powder keg that's already ready to explode and be like, we don't want to pay John Jones. So you find another justification, which is like, I hate John Jones. You heard me talk about how much I hate John Jones. He was never going to be on this card. Fuck John Jones. And by the way, old motherfucker has a bad hip. You can't even fight. Like, that's probably what the logic is. But I think if he just said John was asking for too much, I think the fan base is more kind of like accustomed to that and leans more toward like

John Jones is greedy. Fuck John Jones. Like when he was talking about the 30 million that he got offered for Aspenall, it was innumerable. The amount of fans that came out and were like, greedy ass John Jones, 30 million. Oh my God, are you crazy? Like, I think it would have been fine if Dana said that, I don't really have a great reason why he did other than my assumption is, let's not talk about anybody's pay at all right now. All right, let's go back to Sunday. John Jones sees the comments from Dana White at the press conference and takes to Twitter a very long rant, several tweets. He starts, I'm released from the UFC. Let's go. If I would prove him wrong, would I be wrong? Obviously referring to the fact that they were never in

negotiations. Yeah. Or would be a bigger man be remaining silent. I'll be the fall guy. Sure. Make this make sense. So all of this negotiation, negotiating was complete bullshit. Is that what you want me to agree to publicly?

Man, how fucking painful. Laying in my bed, wrapping my head around this perception. All I can think is how fucking painful. And then the other half of me is like, what is it really, though? You got deep here. He got very deep and to the point where he says laying in my bed thinking about that, he actually went on Instagram live from his bed. And here's John Jones laying in his bed after finding out these comments from Dana White.

5K people watching one in a suit. I'm so pissed off. And that's it. John Jones is so pissed off laying in his bed. It's very understandable why he'd be so pissed off, right? and we've kind of laid out all the different points of it, right? A, UFC doesn't think he's worth that amount of money. And we heard Ariel talking about it yesterday.

He talked about it with Tom. He talked about it earlier in the show. 30 million was not the number anymore, right? That was the Tom Aspenov fight. That's not the number anymore. I believe Ariel said it was closer to the Connor band made so that we're talking to $15 million range, right? If you're John, maybe you're like,

umward 25, umward 20, whatever number he can. kind of, you know, tried to leverage out of them. Or maybe he was standing pad at 30. Who knows? I don't know what that number was. You know, only him and Malky and the UFC would actually know that. But it's totally understandable if you're John Jones to be thinking, if Connor Ben's worth $15 million, you offered me $30 million.

I'm somewhere in the range of that $30 million. It doesn't make any sense that I'd, A, take less for what's perceivably a bigger, like. Not perceivably. Alex Pere at the White House is a bigger. is a bigger fight. We love Tom Aspinall here, but Alex Pereira, the star power that he has within this organization against a guy like John Jones going for this history of moving up to heavyweight at the White House rather than John, let's say John Jones, Tom Asperon at MSG. Yeah. It is not even close. Yeah. The magnitude of those fights.

The only difference being in that era, let's say John and Tom had happened at that time, right? Let's say it was John and Tom instead of Stipe and John. that would have been pay-per-view, right? And so there would have been more upside, but there also would have been more opportunity for UFC to make their nutback and say, okay, we'll give you the money, John, right? Or at any other point, pre-Parrowment,

they would have been able to profit share on those pay-per-views with John Jones. This White House card, they're going to take probably a loss in terms of all the production costs and all the things that they're getting. There's not going to probably be a gate. I don't know how they're handling that yet.

they haven't really talked about the details, but they're building some kind of stadium to house people. They're probably going to take a loss in that regard. We heard Mark Shapiro talk about like $60 million, or maybe that was a report from SBJ, talking about how they're standing to lose $60 million. That becomes a little more justifiable for me, for them to potentially say to John, okay, it can't be 30, right? It can't be 30 this time because we're going to be taking a haircut on this event. Last time, we could have paid it.

this time we're taking a haircut on it. Can we get to 25? Can we get to 20? Whatever that number is, they were too far away from John. They have, potentially, like as Ariel said, it's closer to that Connor Ben number.

They have what they offered them for this fight, and it's a bigger fight. It's no doubt a bigger fight. And so I understand why John Jones would be frustrated. Then you compound that with, if you're Dana White, did you even need to, like, bury John Jones further? Do you need to go to that press conference

and be like, I was never going to have John Jones on the card. Couldn't it have just been, it wasn't John and Alex. Sorry, like, we tried to make it and we couldn't get it done. Like, you didn't need to. Never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, ever. Why? John Jones.

Never ever John Jones. And then thirdly, in that, then you're also talking about, like, you know, the arthritis, the hips, the blah, blah, blah. All of it just felt unnecessary and just felt like, if you wanted to have a stronger like to stand on and if you ever wanted to return to a John Jones conversation you just don't need to do that

there's there's part of me that that feels for John Jones here the fact that he's not getting you know this this fight opportunity at the White House Dana you know publicly shitting on him everything like that after after UFC 326 but then there is like the flip side of me and like

the UFC has looked out for him throughout throughout like a tumultuous career he He beats Cyrilgan. He fights, he gets to fight Steppe Miochich when there's an interim champion right below in Tom Aspinall, gets to just hold on to the belt while Tom Aspinall has to defend the interim belt against Curtis Blades, gets offered the $30 million for Tom Aspenol, decides to retire. And now this is a fight that was legacy making for him, that he wanted to, you know, like, he's always, this is why he came out of retirement was to fight at the White House. I understand.

getting your value, but why not come to an agreement so you're able to do this? There's definitely truth in what you're saying, which is the UFC has been beneficial to John Jones, right? They have given him a platform that he turned himself into a star, became the greatest in our sport, and that doesn't happen without the UFC. The UFC is the proving ground for that. When you enter the UFC and do what John Jones did, that is how you become that. Right. If it's about the money, why not take the Tom Aspinall fight?

And that's a great justification too. The only part I push back on is like the UFC stood by him in tough times, but it financially benefited the UFC to do so, right? It's not out of the goodness of their heart, as we can see. Dana White doesn't really have much affinity for John Jones. He respects him. He calls him the goat, but he takes his opportunities to kind of take shots at John Jones. John Jones did not make a fraction of what he should have made.

I agree with you. And that is the part where UFC stood by him, but it was out of convenience. It was because he was going to be profitable for them and continue to make them money. And so now they're in a situation because even if you go on the high end of John Jones career earnings, it might be $30 million total, right? Like just in terms of UFC salary. I'm not talking like undisclosed bonuses, blah, blah, blah, blah. Endorsements, all that stuff.

I'm not talking all the outside of the cage stuff. but like his actual contracts there's actual payments from the UFC maybe one day he'll talk about it but like I wouldn't be shocked if it's less than 30 million

and he's like I'm owed this like give me this opportunity because this is the most money I'm gonna make the fact that he turned it down though he got it they offered it to him

and he turned it down for Tom Aspinall I think he will regret that I think that was a massive mistake on his part but at the end of the day if he was right 30 million then I understand why

he'd be like, I'm still worth 30 million. And this is a bigger fight. So how could I not be worth 30 million? They were just far apart on the negotiation. And I don't have a problem with UFC in this new era where it seems like this is the MO for them being like we don't want to pay that. Okay. So with everything we just laid out, John Jones takes to Twitter yesterday and puts out this statement in regards to his career. Hey, everyone, I wanted to address Dana White's comrades from this past weekend because the truth matters to me and the fans.

Dana, you were heated about why I'm not on the White House card, but let's clear something up. My team and I were actually negotiating with the UFC for that fight. Real negotiations. I even came down for my original number, and what I was offered in return, I was low-balled. Yes, I have arthritis in my hip, and it's painful, but that doesn't mean I cannot fight. So let me get this straight. If I had accepted the low-ball offer, suddenly my hip would have been fine, and I'd be on the White House card. That doesn't make much sense.

I even received stem cell treatment last week to go get ready for the White House car. and training camp was scheduled to start today. I was preparing to be ready. I understand business deals fall through sometimes, but going out publicly and saying things that aren't true is not right. After everything I've given to the UFC, the years, the title defenses, the fights, hearing that I'm done is disappointing, especially when as recently as Friday,

UFC was calling me trying to get me on that White House card for a much lower number. If the UFC truly feels like I'm done, then I respectfully ask to be released from my contract today. No more spends, no more games. Thank you to the real fans who know what's up. Bones out. It's a very solid argument, right? It's very hard to pick apart anything John Jones is saying there. One, the negotiations were real.

Why are you lying and saying they're not? Two, I came down from my number and then you came down significantly lower. We didn't agree. Three, why are you talking about this hip that was fine enough for you to negotiate with me and I was getting ready to compete? It's hard to argue with anything he's saying here. And then it comes down to the brass tax, which is, If you don't want me, let me go.

And that's the most important part of all this, right? We talk about the drama. We talk about Tom Aspinall signing with Eddie Hearn for representation, right? And we're picturing a world where it's like, Tom Aspinall has leverage now. Can he get out of his deal? Is he going to get paid by the UFC? The problem with all these is the UFC has all the leverage, and it's because they have a contract. They have a contract with John Jones.

They have a contract with Tom. They have a contract with Dillio. They have a contract with everybody on their roster. They have a contract with Connor, where their payment is in there, right? How much they're getting paid is in there. And we know that the UFC renegotiates for big fights. That's not new. That's something that's been happening forever.

But they're not obligated to. And so if John Jones is like paying me more than my contract value, there's no impetus upon the UFC to say, yes, we will do that. They can just say, we're going to pay you whatever you're contracted. Hey, we'll give you this much more, right? It sounds like they came up to $15 million. But. And to put that into perspective quickly, just if he's asking for 30 million, 15 million is so much fucking money for a fight.

But if he's asking for 30 million, they are low-balling him. They're offering him 50% of what he's asking for. It's not like he's asking for 30 million and they were like, we'll do 24 million. And, you know, it's something more agreeable. If they're really offering him 15 million on a $30 million ask, you are low-balling him. Yeah. And he believes he's worth more, which he is. quite frankly he just is the objective truth of all these numbers that have been talked about regarding

john jones he's worth every dime of it they make they make that money in in multiples they exponentially make more than what he is being paid if it's john jones alex perera main event elia de borea justic gaiji co-main event i don't think anyone's saying a word about no they're loving it oh and we're getting dea leopis steve garcia yeah look at that cow doug is on the card what an opportunity for everything but comes rosier. The John Jones rose color glasses. John O'Malley-Avon's a hobby, Little America versus Canada?

Ah, and they got Iron Mike on there. Did him a solid. But the returning to the contracts, right? We've seen it before where they try to hold a fighter in their contract, offering them fights, but fights that they know they're either not going to take or, you know, are tough fights or whatever. They try to manipulate the scenario so that basically the future, The path for John Jones is a few things.

One, he can just fight for less. That's always an option. He can just fight for less and the UFC will probably give him fights. Two, he can get released. That feels like the unlikeliest option because if you're the UFC, there's no reason to release John Jones, even if he's retired or whatever. He's still under contract with you.

And more importantly, he can't go fight elsewhere, right? The last thing they want to do is have him saunter over to MVP or even PFL or somebody else and fight for them. The third option is this kind of middle ground where it's like you can fight out your contract for less money or try to game the system, but then you get into a negotiation period. It's more akin to Francis Inganu, which is Francis Ngano captured that heavyweight title against Cyril Ghan, or sorry, defended his heavyweight title against Cyril Ghan, right?

Yes, he was the champion. Yes, correct. He defended his title against Cyril Gond, blows at his knee. get surgery, but at the time that that surgery was happening, it was the final fight on his deal, and he was waiting for that sunset period, he was waiting for that sunset period to enact, and then the negotiation period

where they were going to have an opportunity to match, I believe they waived that, I believe they ended up waiving that, because it became clear at a certain point that Francis Nganyu was not returning, but that then becomes the game, right? The game becomes a waiting game. You're not instantaneously released,

nor are you happy and getting paid what you want, But there's that middle ground, which I think might be John Jones future, which is like, maybe you try to fight it out, but maybe you don't, and you're hoping that there's an opportunity where your contract expires. It's murky territory, and it's kind of hard to imagine a world where John Jones can win this battle, you know? And how does it feel if you're an up-and-coming UFC fighter, if you're a current UFC champion, that you're seeing John Jones treated like this? And then to the point where he's like, I want to be released. Like, you guys are dragging me through the mud at this point. You wouldn't come to the money that I was trying to get to. Now I want to be released. You have Connor McGregor just a couple days earlier being like, no one will give me a fight.

I am begging you people to give me a fight, please God. They also manipulate the system with me. They're never going to put me on the major cards. They want that double economic hit by putting me on the 201s, the 3-0-1s right after the major cards, to keep the money train rolling for us. Like, how do you feel when two of the biggest stars to ever grace the sport, two of the guys that have done the most for this company.

2016, Connor McGregor took this sport to a new level. John Jones, over the course of a decade, was a long-standing champion for this company. How do you feel if you're an Alexander Volcanozky? They'll throw me out in the mud, man. How do you feel if you're the current reigning UFC heavyweight champion? And you're thinking about your own future, and you just got new representation,

and you're thinking about, what am I worth? The good news is we got that answer because Ariel asked them. Let's hear that reaction right now from Tom Aspinot yesterday on the show. Wow. Well, my reaction to that, and this is going to probably be crazy to a lot of people listening, but why is the UFC not giving John the respect he deserves financially? That's crazy to me. Do you feel like there's a growing sentiment?

For John? No, that the fighters in the UFC aren't getting what they're owed. Well, if anyone should be getting paid a lot in this sport, it should be John Jones for the stuff that he's done. And that's me. That's me saying that. After the history that I've had with John Jones, if anybody should be getting money in this sport is John Jones. Are you surprised they're not giving it to him? Well, they offered him $30 million to fight me, so why have they not offered it again?

I don't understand. So Tom Aspinall essentially saying what we're saying, especially what you're saying, especially what you're saying. If it was 30 million against me, why is it not 30 million against Alex Pereira at the White House? And you have this guy in Tom Aspinall who had a long saga with John Jones, essentially begging him to fight him. It was the topic of the year in 2025 up until he fought against Sierra O'Gona. He's going to events with ducks in his hands. He's making YouTube videos. He's seeking them out at public events and we're getting the hand on the shoulder and the brush away and everything like that.

It became this essentially soap opera for us. And it kind of felt like John Jones did Tom Aspinall dirty by dragging it out, not accepting the fight for the $30 million offer and putting him on the sidelines up until UFC 321 last year. But you still have Tom Aspinall being like, bro, they should be paying him. For everything that he's done for the sport, they should be paying him. And you make a great point, right? He was engaged in that saga with John Jones and then John Jones left him at the altar. A lot of the problem of that drama at the beginning, right? At the beginning was the framing.

And I had said this, I had been beating this drum all along, which is the UFC is actually the one holding up the fight. It was not John Jones dragging out the fight. And the reason and the method with which the UFC dragged that out was they did not want to pay John Jones. They did not want to give him the $30 million. This went on and on and on. It wasn't John Jones. It was the UFC that held up this fight. The saga wouldn't have extended this long if it was John Jones because John Jones had, if you pay me, I will fight.

it got extended, it dragged, it dragged, they never wanted to pay them. Then they finally did actually have the money and say, we're going to pay you, let's make this fight, and then John Jones leaves him at the altar. It hurt him, it hurt the UFC, and it hurt Tom Aspinall. It ended up in a bad spot, and that was John Jones doing. But to that point, up to that point, before they said, we've got the money, let's do it,

it was actually the UFC that was dragging it out. And so Tom Aspinall has the wherewithal to understand if John Jones can't make $30 million, what hope in a snowball's chance in hell do I have of making any money in this sport? John Jones against Alex Pereira at the White House.

Yeah. If that ain't a $30 million fight, what one of my fights is? What one of my fights is worth $5 million, if that's the case, right? Me versus Volkov 2? Yeah. At the O2?

That's probably not getting $30 million, eh? It's more and more, not just Tom Aspinall, I'm seeing the realization from a lot of these fighters, just looking around and being like, damn, like they don't value him. They don't value Connor. They don't value John.

They don't value Ronda Rousey. They don't value Francis and Ghanu. But damn, they value Connor Ben. But damn, they value Connor Ben. And that's the crazy thing. When John was asking for $30 million, there wasn't really much, like, response. It was just people being like, damn, 30 million, right?

But like, none of the fuck. You didn't see any of the fighters come out and be like, what the fuck is this, right? Nobody. Because I think they would all think that that would, A, he would deserve it and be the rising tides. That's it. Every single one of them thought, John Jones is the fucking goat. He should be getting paid $300 million. Of course he should be getting paid $300 million.

So you didn't hear any peeps like that. But then Connor Ben, who most of them didn't even know who he was, you know, we had Sean O'Malley being like Connor who like comes in and gets $15 million first up, right off rip and Ariel has gone in to talk about that. Maybe this is a deal

where he's getting up front money for a longer term contract. But regardless of that the way it's messaged is Connor Ben is making $15 million for this first fight. Or a co-main on a non-ZUFA box. Co-main on a on a ring card. On a ring card where Zufo boxing is co-promoting.

And people start to go, well shit. right because they don't think he deserves it they don't think that he's worth that it it then inevitably has that existential question which is what am i worth right if he's worth that what am i worth and when you hear tom aspinall when you hear others going how could you not pay john john jones 30 million dollars 30 million dollars is is a pittance is is nothing for somebody who is the goat of this sport and asking to fight in the biggest fight that you're going to have this year maybe for the decade, right? You identify with it as a fighter in the UFC.

And then you even have people outside the UFC, right? Like Francis and Gano, who we're going to see in this press conference later today, who in order to get the money that he deserved, in order to get the payments that he was worth, he had to leave. He had to leave the UFC. Well, it's funny you mentioned, Francis Ngano, who had a saga of his own with the UFC and also had a saga of his own with John Jones. So he knows both quite well. He took to Twitter quote tweeting John Jones's tweet yesterday requesting his release and he said watching this story unfold yesterday was very interesting. I have lots to say but for now Johnny boy if you manage to get your freedom then let me know. You deserve that 30 million plus

after everything you've done for the sport and they should be rolling out the red carpet for you. This coming from a man who is getting ready to fight on Netflix in just two months against someone who frankly is not his caliber for more money than he ever made in the UFC. Do you think think he's getting more than $15 million. Would you be shocked? How about that? I'll put it that way. Would you be shocked if Francis Ngano was making more than $15 million? I wouldn't be shocked, but I don't think he is for this. I don't know. I don't know if he is. I don't know if he'll talk about it, right? He fought that Zero Gone fight at UFC 270 for $600,000. Yeah. I know he's making more than $600,000. And that's the key. And so, yeah, I don't think there's anybody who would disagree that

John is not worth the money, right? And this is going to be the thing that I think continues to come up. As we have, as more of these cards get filled out, as more fighters start to look around the sport and say, hey, I'm headlining your cards. Like, why am I not getting paid? We had shown O'Malley on the show yesterday. And Ariel asked him if he had like talked to anybody at the UFC about his contract, because he was one of the first people that came out and was like, Connor Ben's making $15 million. He said he hadn't yet, but he plans to before the White House card. We'll see. Are these guys going to be able to get paid?

Are they going to be able to leverage it? All right. I have a couple questions for you before we move on from this topic. Yes. Number one? Yes. Do we see John Jones fight in the UFC again? No.

Number two, do we see John Jones fight in MMA again? Yes. Okay. Interesting. Where? Don't know. Okay. Whoever, whenever he becomes a free agent,

which I think is inevitable at this point, I just don't think, And this is not me trying to be like anti-UFC. I am not saying, I have said it and I will repeat it. If the UFC has determined that John Jones is too expensive for their business model, that's fine by me. I don't care. I don't care to dissect that justification. If that's their justification, I'm perfectly okay with it.

Now, as a fan of the sport, as somebody who likes to watch the best fights, does that bother me? Sure, I want to see John Jones fighting the UFC. not elsewhere because I think that's where the best fights are, right? We're going to see Francis Ngano who fight Felipe Linz. That's not a fight that I'm compelled by in a major way. I would rather see Francis Ngano fighting Tom Aspinall and John Jones and whoever else. But if that's the UFC's justification is we can't align. We can't pay him what he's asking for and we don't want to.

I'm okay with that. But in that scenario, you then have to let him go. You can't just have him sitting there on your books rotting away because of some vendon. Anytime like an Ngano gets brought up, it's always the discussion around it. Oh, did he fumble the bag? Did he do you go out here? Did John Jones fumble? Doesn't get the 30 million against Tom Aspinall, doesn't end up getting the White House fight,

and it now likely will be released from the UFC at some point. Maybe he's fought his last fight at UFC 309 against Lepe Miotich. Did he fumble? He did not fumble the White House thing. He fumbled by not taking the, when the 30 million was on the table against Tom Aspinall and not taking it, he fumbled. That was the fumble. And I would rarely say that any of these fighters fumble

more often than not, it's the UFC using their leverage to force them into deals that are less than what their true value is. John Jones, when they came to the table with the number that he asked for and then he said, I changed my mind, that was a fumble in my opinion.

Because that's as much as you're going to get on the open market, right? When John Jones is out there, he's going to be making that type of money, potentially. I was going to say, I think 30 million will be difficult to come by. And maybe so, right? But, no, I think he'd be okay.

I think you'd be able to get it. I think you could maybe get there, but I don't think there's going to be countless offers for that. Probably not, but I think somebody would come to the table with that. Either way, if you can get that number and you get to do it in the UFC

and you get to fight for the title, you get to fight Tom Aspinall for a legacy fight, it felt like that was a mistake. That was a misstep by John because now as we see, next time he came to the table, that number was less.

That number was half. That number is gone. And so I do think that was a fumble. But like, did John Jones make all these missteps? No, I don't think he made any missteps in this negotiation for the White House. He gave them a number that was lower than 30, and they just said, we don't pay people that anymore. And by the way, we heard Ronda Rousey say the exact same thing. She wanted this fight to be in the UFC, and they basically told her there's no pay-per-view.

We don't pay that anymore. So it's not a surprise. We got a bit of breaking news here on the program. Oh, what do we got? Maybe he's troubleshoot. Maybe he's assessing. No, it's all good. It's all good.

Raff 07. We get in a major announcement taking place March 28th, 8 p.m. on Fox Nation. Co-main event. What? Kobe Covington. Okay. Versus? Yeah.

Dylan Dennis. Oh. What are the thoughts here? What are the thoughts? I need a second. I need a second to react. Okay. Now, reminder, this is the co-main event, Covington versus Danis, to the rematch in the main event,

Armin Saruk in Georgi Opolis. It's not a bad raf card. The press conference will be better than the match, I think. That's where I'm at, basically. You essentially think because, like, Danes' is BJJ specialist, Colby wrestling. It's just going to be a walk in the park. Yeah, I think Colby's just going to really, like, do what he wants on the wrestling mat. I have long said that I think Dylan Dennis kind of like is underrated.

People just think he's like a piece of shit, like he sucks at fighting, when in reality he's an incredibly gifted grappler and is like actually a good fighter. He was, you know, undefeated at MMA before the injuries and everything kind of derailed. Dylan is a good fighter, but he's not a wrestler. He's a jiu-jitsu guy. And so I don't think he'll be very competitive in a straight amateur wrestling match with Kobe Covington. But the press conference should be interesting. Like Colby's obviously going to talk that good shit. Dylan can be kind of funny at times when he's really trying. And so I think it's a

I think it's an interesting move. I would have much rather seen Colby versus Boe because it seemed like that had some heat. But at the same time, I don't think, I think Bo is going to be in bubble wrap until the White House card. That White House card. Here's the only question that matters. Will you watch? Will you tune in live on Fox Nation on March 28th? No. I'm still going to see the highlights on Twitter. I will be streaming it live from the Key Bank Center.

Is that what it's called? Yeah. Seattle? What is it called now? Find it Pledge of Lagerina. That's it. Because we'll be at UFC Seattle. So I'll be in the nosebleeds streaming Raff 08 while I'm watching UFC Seattle live.

I still, like, amateur wrestling is still a blind spot for me. I just don't like, I don't enjoy it. that much. I don't love it. Raff is doing a good job of trying to bring all kind of combat sports fans into the 10. I think they announce fights quickly. They act on things that people want to see, right? This rematch between Armin and Giorgio makes a lot of sense.

It's smart to capitalize on it. It was the thing that went viral for them. I think they make a lot of really good moves. They bring in good talent to talk about these fights, do commentary, do interviews. But at the end of the day, the product is still amateur wrestling, and I am just not a consumer of amateur wrestling. And so if I can just see the highlights of what's the most important part, I'm probably going to go that direction. Let's go back to the White House card.

Saturday night, Dana White was asked about, you know, what was the fight that fell out? How did this fight come to be? Ilya versus Gaichi. Here's what he had to say about all the makings of the main event. There's a lot of reporting out of Spain today saying that it was going to be. going to be Ilya, Tuporia, and Islam Makachev, and that fight fell apart on Friday. Well, Justin Gaiti also said, like, he was told Thursday he wasn't on the card, and then on Friday he was.

That is true. So what happened with Islam, I guess? Because you know how fans are a lot of them. That's not true, I said. Sure. It was never Islam versus... Ilya. Yeah.

So anyone who thinks Islam ducked this fight or anything like that, it's all incorrect. Don't worry about what fights were being made. We announce which ones are made and which ones will be happening. I told you there were some weird circumstances. The reason that fight fell out, and it wasn't up on stage with Mick Hunter and Sean, it was that power slap that the fight fell apart that night. And then all the boys went back to the office and literally were there to 9 in the morning. And that's how Gaichi ended up on the card.

When can we expect to see Islamakachat back? Antoporia wasn't originally supposed to be on the card either. So he got the call. all too. Gotcha. When can we expect to see Islam Aikachab back? I don't know.

He's got some hand issues. I know that. I don't know how serious the hand issues are or how long that will keep him out. But yeah, he's injured. So he says it was never going to be. He said never for something else too,

which is like John Jones never, ever ever yet in negotiation. Never ever negotiated. And now since then, it's been nothing but reports. And John Jones himself saying, you are lying on my name. There were negotiations.

There were real negotiations. Actually, one half of that main event, Elia Tuporia took to Twitter today and said, once again, Islam comes up with an excuse. This time it's an injury. I always knew I would be part of the White House event. Even when the UFC told me at one point that they wouldn't count on me for the event,

I knew it was part of the negotiation. When they finally told me I would be on the White House card, they mentioned Islam, and I didn't hesitate for a second to accept the fight. Even though the fight hadn't been a fight, officially confirmed yet the White House card was going to be announced the next day. When I woke, I found out that Islam had gotten injured. And then Justin Gaichi appeared. Once again, someone else who will pay for Islam's escape. Both of their managers is a bitch and also ugly as hell. Justin, see you at the White House. I'm not someone who humiliates people. It will be quick. When you wake up,

everything will already be over. Powerful words there from, from Iliate to pour you. Quite the wordsmith when he when he gets on Twitter the end was kind of kind of reminiscent of one tweet by McGregor back in the day against Choseh Oh it sure was

Wake up Jose It's all over By that from December 1st 2015 The aura of this guy in 2015 Just hard to comprehend Off the fucking charts Hard to comprehend

I will say I saw some people being like man He's just a clone He's just a copycat I don't think that that's the case If he had posted a picture of him looking over his phone, I'd be like, all right, man, you're stealing his whole flow. But this, I think, like, you waking up like it's already over is something that people just say in the fight game. I have a few thoughts. Let me talk about the Ilya Connor thing first. One,

being a clone of the most successful MMA fighter of all time. And pulling it off? And doing it is not a bad thing. Two, being just the clone of Connor would be pretty disrespectful to a guy who has won two titles and knocked out everybody cold, including, like, guys who don't get knocked out in absolute fucking legends of the sport. And then three, who the fuck cares? Like, even if he is doing Connor McGregor shit, when he steps in the cage, he's taking the head off of some of the best fighters in the world. Like, I don't give a fuck. I truly do not give a fuck. Like, how last week it was like, ah, it's your favorite fighters, favorite fighters, Max Holloway and Charles Olivera. This is not Elliott-Tepore. Illiottiott is the guy that knocks out your favorite fighters.

That's how you sell this guy. Plus, like, this is just bars. Once again, someone else who will pay for Islam's escape. Justin, I'll see it at the White House. Okay, but... I'm not someone who humiliates people. It will be quick. When you wake up, everything will already be open.

It's cold. It's super cold. But what did Islam escape from? There was no negotiations with Islam. None is what Dana said. Never. There was no negotiations except for right here, Ilya, when he says,

when they finally told me, I'll be on the White House card. they mention Islam and I did not hesitate for a second to accept the fight. They sure did. It was never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never, ever, never, ever, never going to be Islam. Is it possible that Dana just doesn't know what the word negotiate means? I just don't understand. Why would you not just come out?

Because he ends it with when I believe it was Mike Bond asking the questions and he's just like, when are we going to see Islam next? And he's just like, I don't know, his hands injured. Why not just say that off rip? Yeah, we tried to get Elia Islam, his hands injured. I feel like the fans would be much more forgiving and much more accepting of this card. If you'd come out and you'd said, look, man, we really fucking tried for John Jones. It would have been a massive fight.

We just couldn't come to a financial agreement. We're already paying $60 million for this card. We're not really going to recoup anything from it because how much we're paying for this place. And the fact that we can't sell any tickets and we're not selling any pay-per-views. We couldn't come to a financial agreement. We tried to get Islam versus Elia. We tried to get him that triple chance, the triple champ opportunity. We tried to make this super mega fight pound for pound number one versus number two.

Islam got injured, man. His hand is not right. He's not going to be able to fight in June. Don't worry about what fights are being made. You don't fucking worry about the fights that are being made. You worry about the fights that got announced. All right? Here's my one.

And I just literally thought of this just now. And this actually makes a lot of sense. You tell me if you agree. The only reason I can think of that there's all this like weird, like even the way that Dana was like, once we get past that January event, we're going to lock in on the White House and we're going to go in the war room and we're going to make the fights. By the way, he said in court that he doesn't make the fights. But under oath.

Under oath. All that stuff coupled with like we know from reporting and from the fighters themselves that Aaliyah was talked to, Islam was talked to, John was talked to, all these people were talked to. We know this from the reporting. And we know this. The fighters themselves have come out and said it. The only reason I can think of. There's only one reason I can think of that Dana, white is being cagey about this. And that would be if he wasn't and the UFC and the fighters

weren't the only ones who had to say in this card. Meaning if the administration, if Trump and the government had some kind of control or say and they found it more difficult, the UFC, that is, or TKO, found it more difficult based on whatever parameters they've set, stipulations they've set who they want, who they don't want to make these fights. And instead of Dana White going, yeah, blame the government. They wanted us to do this or didn't want us to do this or didn't want us to do this rather than, you know, potentially burn a political bridge or throw the government under the bus or throw Trump under the bus, you just take the heat.

You just take, accept that like there's not going to be an explanation and you just like do this, you know, talking out of both sides of your mouth bullshit that Dana White's doing. That's the only reasonable answer I could come up with, but it makes sense to me that like, maybe they're giving cover to what was a difficult thing to put together and why there were 10 offers out. That's a valid point and a valid theory on how it came to be. This is obviously a sensitive venue that you're working with. This is the White House. This is where the president of the United States lives and works on the daily and is a representation for the United States of America, a country that is in. involving itself in a war and obviously has enemies of its own that have a lot of very good

fighters that are currently in the UFC. One of my favorite parts of Ilya's note is the stray that Ali catches. Obviously, Ali Abdel Aziz, the manager for both Justin Gachi and Ilya Ther Dibuya. No, Islam Mahesh. I'm sorry, both Justin Gachi and Islam Makashv. Both their manager is a bitch and also ugly as hell. Just really going for the throat. And then Islam Mokoshev doesn't take long to respond just a couple of hours. He says, we both know who chickened out here. You can cover your cowardice with nasty tweets, but don't worry, one day you will get what you asked for. And by the way, your fat-ass manager doesn't have to ask for billions to fight me.

We'll do it for free. So now we got Malki catching. Catching another stray. Catching strays there who responds himself to this. That may have been Ali responding that we don't know where it was Islam. Malki says, damn, Rob, lost 40 pounds. Is Ali called me fat? That's very funny by Malki.

Two things. Lost the weight. Why am I still getting called fat? Direct shot it. This wasn't Islam writing this tweet. This was Ali. Yeah, he's calling it Ali. Very funny response by Malki.

Reading the tea leaves on Islam's tweet, to me that makes me think that Islam is under the impression that Ilya asked for more money to fight him than he asked for to fight Justin Gachie, right? And ultimately the UFC may be. can pay Gaichi less and can pay Ilya less for that fight than they would if they had Islam Makachev in it. That's what I'm reading from his tweet, right? Because he says, no, you're the, we know who the chicken is. You coward out.

You chickened out. You're the coward. And also, your fat manager doesn't have to ask for billion. So now he's thinking about Ilya's purse. He's thinking about Ilya overextended in terms of making this fight. So that's my read on it. And that's an understandable justification, right? the UFC can get Justin versus Ilya done for probably cheaper than they can get Islam versus

Ilia. But then why are we hearing about Islam's hand? If Islam's like, yo, you chickened out. Is his hand fucking hurt or not? Right? Like, Islam didn't say my hands hurt. I can't do it. Let's do it next time.

He said, you cichined out and you wanted too much money. And so I'm like, again, is Dana White just making up things about hands and blah, blah, blah. I don't know what's going on. Right, because Ilius says that he got, he gets the call on and it's just like, oh, Islam Islam must do it. That's why he's not fighting. I feel like this happens all the time in combat sports. The drama surrounding this is it's always somebody's lying.

We just don't know who. Somebody's lying when it comes to all this. Whether it's the John Jones stuff, whether back in the day it was the Francis stuff, the Tom Aspinall stuff, the Islam stuff, somebody's lying. I just don't know who it is. I think it's Dana White. If I had to choose someone... If I'm picking somebody...

If I had to choose someone, it kind of feels like it's a good, Oh, you're doing. There's also a reality, which is like, the information you're getting from the UFC might be different from, you know, representative to representative, right? They might be telling Ilya one thing and Islam one thing. And they're playing everybody against each other. That's just how this goes in the negotiation.

This White House one felt very widespread, though. Like, it's not unlike the UFC to negotiate with somebody for a fight, but I have a backup ready that they're negotiating with. And if that other person doesn't want to do it asked for too much money, then they just go, all right, we're going with this person. But it seems to have happened so many different times and places and things to the point that Ilya didn't even think he was on the car. No, sorry.

Ilya wasn't being slated for this card, but knew due to some divine intervention and premonition that he was going to be on the card anyway because he's fucking Iliot Teporia. Of course he does. Things just seem to work out for him. It seems to always go that way for Ilya toporia. But it seems messy. It seems messier than it needed to be. and the only thing I can surmise or put forward is I think that maybe that had to do with

it was more there was more cooks in the kitchen for this one than there had been previously meaning it's not just the UFC and the fighters now they've also got a third party to be concerned about and think about in the in Trump the White House and that entire administration so messy messy business but ilion Islam still seem to want to fight each other at some point yeah I don't think that anyone is is actively ducking I think it all comes down to negotiations or injuries or something like that. We know that Islam Makashev is willing to fight anyone. We know that Elia Thorei is willing to fight anyone. Islam does say in the tweet, one day you will get what you asked for. Yeah. It's now been proven. Elia is willing to do the fight at 155. Elia is willing to do the fight at 170. Oh, Elia will do it. Whatever. You'd name it. He'll do it. Do you think we one day see this fight? No. No. You say no. You say we never see this fight. it's possible

we might but I don't think it's likely and the reason being if I think if Armand's Ruki and gets the next shot at Ilya he'll beat him and I think that fight becomes less interesting now and Armin versus Islam

might be the more interesting fight at that point okay the rematch of that one let's say Ilya does get by Armand and Islam gets by Ian Gary or Michael Morales give Ilya to Porio whatever the fuck he wants, basically. Like, that's my attitude. What more could this guy possibly do for the organization?

He's, he talks good shit. He looks like a million bucks. He walks around with the swagger of a champion. He goes into the cage and kills people. Like, what, there's not a thing more that Ilya Tuporia could do. I don't think there's, he's made any missteps in his entire UFC career. There's really not more you could ask from him. So, yeah, give him.

If he beats Justin Gachi and he wants Islam Makachev next, it's not the fight I want the most, but I say you give it to him. You give him whatever he wants. Right. At some point you just got a strike when the iron's high.

You can't just like, we can't get to a point, you know? Like even if we saw Jones versus Francis now, it's like, all right, like this, I'm very interested in this. I want to see it, but man, it feels like it's about three, four years.

I'll give you a more important question, which I think is the question on everybody's mind now and the question that will continue to be on everybody's minds and color of this conversation. will the UFC pay for Iliot Soporia versus Islam Makachev? Yeah.

That is more of a question to me than if both of those guys are willing to do it. I imagine the star power will just continue to rise as both of them continue to win. And yeah, the paycheck is, I mean, the check that you're going to have to write just keeps getting bigger and bigger. That's the question. Will they pay those guys with their worth to fight that fight? Because this is now another time, right? Ariel told us about the time that ahead of, what was the

sorry, what was the International Fight Week number last year? UFC 317. So ahead of UFC 317, they did not have an agreement in place with Ilya and he got more money to make that fight happen and then he goes out there and demolishes Charles Olivera. Now we hear this negotiations where Malky's on the phone with the, you know, after the negotiations were over,

Malky took to Twitter, talked about how you'll never believe the story, It took all night to do the negotiations. This is now time number two in the last year that Ilya and his representation were able to negotiate for more money from the UFC to get the fight done. You have to imagine another win under his belt, win at the White House, beat Justin Gaci. That price is going to continue to go up and up and up and up. Is the UFC going to pay for him to fight Islam Makachev? Only time we'll tell.

One last thing I want to say on the White House card. I got a bit of breaking news last night. My brother. My brother, for those that do not know, my brother is active duty Marine right now. And he texted me last night. He said, you're going to be at the White House card? I said, no, motherfucker.

No one's going to be at the White House card. He's like, well, we're going to see about that. He's like, they've approached us, haven't given us major details, but I'm sure that I will be involved in it. Now, when I say active duty marine, he is a professional. professional clarinetist in the president's own Marine Corps band. So yeah, who knows? Watch party with,

you know, we get, we get some inside scoop from him. He pulls up the phone. We get, we have him on Zoom. I thought when you said, I thought it was going this direction. I thought when you said nobody's going to be their motherfucker that he was going to say, I am. Yeah. That's what I was actually praying. Because like when he first texted me, I was just like, oh, what do you know? Like, now that it's a are you guys starting to get like, you know, your duties and everything like that. Assignments. But yeah, no, we'll see. That would be absolutely hilarious if we had someone on the inside at the U.S.

U.S.U.S. White House Guard. That's going to be great. They didn't announce that on the broadcast for some reason. They didn't say that your brother was going to be. Starring the president's own Marine Corps band. Maybe someone will walk out to them. The live orchestra. I feel like that.

John Strickland wouldn't be back. Actually. The live works. Sean Strickland. Jesus, Sean O'Malley. What about Michael Chandler? Michael Chandler? Well, I was going to say the live orchestra

playing Lupe Fiasco superstar. Your brother is involved in the walkouts for the... It would be hilarious. Quick update for everybody who's watching this. We teased earlier in the show that we are going to go live to the MVP MMA, the Rousey versus Carrano Press Conference. As soon as it starts, it was supposed to start at 3 Eastern, 12 Pacific. It's a little bit delayed.

As soon as that does kick off, just stay on this channel. Let's cut to it actually right now. We can just see the dais here. We can see the dais, but I can confirm. We have the screens up here. We've been monitoring this the whole time. This is obviously supposed to start a three. Can't confirm.

Ronda Rousey is in the building. Has come out on stage. I saw her. They're prepping her, everything like that. Hawani, obviously hosting this. We will have the live feed. We will watch it along with you and live stream it. Hopefully some drama, some fireworks will go down in Los Angeles

at the Indie. to a dome. Momentarily, we don't have a T.A. You know how these things work. The press conference, Fighter X is late. I don't want to speculate. I think Felipe Lenz is holding us holding us old.

We cannot start the show until Felipe Lenz. And he brings the drama. So as soon as that is ready, we will cut to it. But we'll keep doing some topics as we go. Oh, yeah. There's still much to discuss here on the program.

We know about Ilya Taboria fighting at the White House, the 155 belt. Hopefully we'll find out soon about Islam Makashev, who he'll be fighting against and win for the 170 belt. How about that 185 belt? Hamzot Shemaiah. Hasn't fought since August, UFC 319 against Trigkees 2 Plus C, where he won that belt. We got a little cryptic tweet.

We got a little crumb Russian journalist and host of the Hustle Show, Adam Zubaird, a well-respected name in the sport, very close relationship to a lot of these Russian fighters, especially Hamzot. He tweets out, whoever's managing Sean's schedule, referring to Sean Strickland, needs to cancel all his podcast recordings after May 9th. That's a Saturday, by the way, because you can't talk into a mic with a wired shut jaw. May 9th has been rumored.

We got an announcement, Alexander Volkov versus Waldo Cortez-A-Costin. You know they ain't putting salsa boy on a fight night. He's got to be on a pay-per-view. We'll be going down on May 9th. It's rumored to be in Newark, New Jersey, just across the river from us. John Strickland, Hamza-Thermaev,

185 pound belt May 9th I'm in New Jersey I'm fucking in I love it it sucks for Naserdinimov

right and by the way like obviously this is not an official announcement this is not a report Adam you know

is hinting at he is suggesting that there's going to be some kind of movement there but this is not you know fait accompli

this is not a done deal and so we have to wait for that it makes a lot of sense that they be targeting that. Hamzaa Shamaev back in the United States. I love that idea. I love the idea of him fighting Sean Strickland on on U.S. soil. It's the fight to make. Like, as we've all said all along, I don't think there's a person among us who's not said Nasredini Imovov's resume is incredible and better. It's just better than everybody else at middleweight. And he deserves to be

fighting for the title. Again, deserves. Deserves is not a real thing in MMA. But he has the best case to be fighting for the title, no doubt. But the one that's going to be the most interesting for fans, the one that people are going to get most excited about is going to be Sean Strickland versus Hamza Shamaev. They don't like each other already. They've had training sessions together and they've talked about, you know, they've both taken their turns talking about what has happened in those training sessions. Sean Strickland is not afraid to poke the bear when it comes to Hamzaa Shamaev.

He's not afraid to push the buttons with anybody, I guess. But Hamzad is the type of. of guy that people don't often do that. You don't see people really like pressing those buttons often because he has such a hair trigger. You see Ian Gary even like do a little bit of a of a poke and Humzat's ready to rip his head off backstage. Most people stay away from that.

Sean Strickland is not going to stay away from that. He never has. He never will. And so it could be quite an exciting build. Do I think it's going to be a competitive fight? No, not particularly. The way he was able to defensively grapple against Anthony Hernandez doesn't change your opinion.

Different fucking level. Different fucking level, man. He won like eight straight fights. Yeah, he's not Hamzot. Just, I am definitely a Hamzot Glazer, no doubt.

But when you hear, you're all glazer team. I'm D1. Yeah. I'm an all American glazer. But when you hear people who have grappled with Hamzat talk about Hamzaat,

it's impossible to ignore the fact that he's just different than everybody else. Like, he is not like everybody else. The strength, the size, the technique. He made Drickus DuPlessy look like he's never grappled the day in his life. He just tossed him around. He's a freak.

All due respect to Fluffy Hernandez, who's great, it's not always the wrestling itself that gets people when it comes to Fluffy. He's a good wrestler, but it's the pace. It's the relentlessness. By the time he shot for that takedown, you're already so worn out because he's just on you. He's just in your face that that's why it becomes easier for him. Hamzat's just shooting a double from across the cage and you better try to stop him. If you don't, you're going for a ride and he might break your jaw if he gets a hold of you.

So yeah, I'm not, I knew Sean Strickland was that good defensively. I didn't come away thinking any different about Sean Strickland because I knew he was that good defensively. I was more impressed that he was able to neutralize Fluffy. but I wasn't shocked and so I don't think any more of the matchup I think Hamzat still can pretty much do what he wants to somebody like Strickland because I don't think Strickland has the

puts the fear into him and has the weapons to make Hamza fear that he's going to get finished so he's just going to come in there and try to finish him but the press conference is going to be fucking fireworks press conference is going to be incredible and to your point

Nasser D. Nemov has a resume that is much more deserving of getting the title shot Sean Strickland has gotten two you know, obviously against DDP when he lost the belt, then he gets, you know, beats Paolo Costa, fights him again, is, you know, unsuccessful in his attempt to get his belt back. Now there's a chance that he beats Fluffy and then gets another title shot here against Tom Dotschmaev. That's not the way the UFC is operated as of late. That is just not how they work. The imov shot, you mean?

Exactly, yes. Diego Lopez doesn't get a rematch in a deserving world against Alexander Volkowski. None of these things are surprising. You have Lorone Murphy and Mosar of Lov, who are undefeated in the UFC on nine fight winning streaks that are much, much, much more deserving the Ron Murphy coming off the knockout of the year last year against Aaron Pico. It just doesn't operate like that. When I saw Sean Strickland, who had been, you know, nipping at the heels, talking all this shit about Hamzaa Tremaya of all week, stuff the takedowns like he did against Fluffy Hernandez and then finish him in the third round as soon as that went final. I was like, I think Sean Strickland's getting the title shot. I have not wavered on that sense. And obviously, like you said, this isn't

an official report. This hasn't officially been announced. But Adam Zubair, just just taking a look through his Instagram and the guest that he gets on his program. He is a trusted person in this, and he's close within this inner circle. He's got pictures with Islam, with Abib, several pictures with Hamzad. Like, he is of this team, and he's going to know better than most people on this subject. So it feels like it's trending towards that, and to your point to shit talking is going to be fantastic. Let's go through a couple of the tweets. This is just them on Twitter, not just,

Sean Strickland at the press conference is everything. Sean Strickon says, keep running, you Chechen, whore. I know the score. You know the score. Again, referencing their training. Like, they keep, they both keep talking about it as if they won,

which is interesting because, like, the last time I remember something like this was, was this during the ESPN era? Because then you'll remember this as well. You tell me, Kamara Usman versus Gilbert Burns. Yes, this was during the ESPN era for sure. They kept talking about, like,

man, I've heard some stories. Gorries, Gilbert might have been getting Kamaru in the room. Like, that was the thing that was, like, kind of developing. They kept talking about that. It reminds me of that. It reminds me of, like, just the idea of, like, they both think that they were the one that won that, and they're just going to keep pushing it out there.

Yeah. Let's continue through a few more of these tweets. We do see how Wani on the day is. Are we getting ready? Yeah. Once he gets wrapped and ready to go, we'll toss out to him. Hamzachamai says, see you soon, boy. Shout out to the Yolo Romero line.

This after. after Strickland beats Fluffy, says, Hum's not going to be able to do anything to me. He says, Habibi, calm down. I destroyed the guy who beat you twice, referring to Dreykis 2 Plus E. He did.

American bitch laughing emoji. We keep rolling along. Next Raff, I will make American boy humble again. Colby Clown. Let's go. Aren't you injured? No, I'm waiting for Strickland.

All signs porting to that. It will be very interesting to see how that plays out. Let's go to Englewood, California. Hawaii is live. recent memory. Hello again everyone. I'm Mario Hawani. It is an absolute honor and privilege for me to be up here once again. And I have to say it's actually quite surreal. And I feel like I've said this before a few of these MVP press conferences. I can't believe that we're actually here doing all of this. And if you would have told me six months ago, I would have not believed you. And I have a feeling everyone at home

feels the exact same way. But that's what we've come to expect from the MVP guys. So let's do it one more time, my friends. We are here, as I said, for a very significant event. We are a little over three months away from said event. May 16th, 2026. That is the date that you want to circle on your calendar. And I want to explain to everyone very quickly why this is so significant. This will mark the first mixed martial arts event in MVP's history. The promotion is a little less than five years old. Historically, when a boxing starts off, they're not crossing over

into the world of MMA this early. Is Mike all right? But that's what Jake Paul and Akisa Bidarian are doing on May 16th of this year. So that's significant point number one. Number two, this will mark the very first MMA

live on the biggest streaming platform in the world. Netflix 320 million subscribers around the world. No pay-per-view attached to it. If you're a subscriber, you're getting this card on May 16th.

As you know, Netflix entered the world of combat sports about to... About two years ago with the... Descend upon Aria. Critically acclaimed Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson event. They've had several... What do you think? Ronda goes for the throw? I think...

I think someone does something jump. I'm... Like I am... I think Felipe Lenzy about this fucking pop off. ...to see this end. associated with the sport we love so very much. And point number three, and perhaps the most important of the mall, the main event on May 16th, right here at the Intuit Dome,

features two pioneers, two trailblazers. Those words get thrown around a lot in sports, but that's a fact. This is a dream fight, a fight that most of us never even dared to dream about, because let's be honest, they fought in different eras. Back in 2007, on the very first, MMA card on premium cable. A young woman named Gina Carrano stole the show alongside

her opponent, Julie Ketze. A year later, she was a massive part of the very first MMA card on broadcast television. She was one of the faces of this sport. One of the most beloved athletes in the history of the sport. That all culminated in a massive superfight

in August of 2009. After that, as quickly as she arrived, she left going on to have an incredibly successful career, in the world of television and film. Shortly thereafter, an Olympic bronze medalist named Rhonda Rousey came along and took that baton and took the sport and women's MMA

to a whole other level. She was a part of the very first women's MMA fight in UFC history, not too far from here in Anaheim, California. That was back in February of 2013. And if I'm being 100% honest, I at that point, had never seen anything quite like the superstar that she became.

I remember being in Brazil in August of 2015. And I thought his intro was on the show were long. And seeing young women cry at the sight of her. Tina gallery over here. Are they here? Are they really here? And of course, in 2016, she left the sport, had a great career in the world of professional wrestling.

And now here she is back. Who would have thought in the year 2026 we'd be talking about these two megastars, these two pioneers going toe to toe in a five-round professional bout being contested at 145 pounds. It is all going down, like I said, on May 16th of this year,

2026. Tickets are on sale right now over at Ticketmaster.com. You want to be here in this great venue. One of the biggest events to be held in this venue so far. I know it's new, but this is going to be a massive deal. And if you're not able to come, check us out on

Netflix. We're going to talk to all the particulars, those two ladies that I just mentioned, plus two men who were just added to the card. More fights are going to be added. Fear not. But first, I think I need some muscle up here. So let us welcome the MVP event models.

We've got Hafa and Delia here to back me up in case anything gets a little too crazy. They're the muscle? The muscle. Some support, dare I say. There they are all. All right. They're pretty boss. I guess they could handle business.

Oh, they know so the boss. All right. As I said. It's not just about the two women. We've got another big fight on this card. It was just announced about 24 hours ago. Everyone talking about it since, we're going to get a chance to talk to the two men

who have just been added to this card, two very big men. First, let us say hello to the pride of Brazil, the 2018 NFL tournament champion. He then went over to the UFC with a four-fight losing streak, to be winning streak, and then crossed over and has not fought since. We have not seen him since 24, but he is now back

taking on a massive, massive challenge in the form of his opponent. Curious as to why he's taking this, how this all came about. Let us say hello. Please give a warm Englewood welcome to the one and only Philippe Lins.

Oh, fucking massive pop. Roll the PL, baby. There he is. Oh, swagged out. Denim and a blazer. A little walkouts on. You can feel the aura. Hello, Philippe, good to speak to my friend.

His opponent really needs no introduction, but I'm going to try to give him one anyway. He is currently the lineal MMA heavyweight champion of the world, the former UFC heavyweight champion, who we have not seen in the octagon for a bit, but he has still been quite active. Disrespective. About two years ago, he crossed over

the world of boxing. He went toe to toe with at the time, the champion, the one and only Tyson Fury, and I still believe till this day, he won that fight. He then fought, of course, Anthony Joshua, and in about October of 2024, about

a year and a half or so ago, he last fought in his last MPA fight. He came to the NFL's super fight champion when he defeated Henan Faheda. This will be his first fight since. This one kind of came out of nowhere, but we found out about it yesterday.

He is in fact here. He is the man who is hailing from Cameroon, from France. Le Predator, the one and only. Francis Enganou. All right. Yeah, a little bigger pop for Frannie. There you comes.

Always looking good in a suit. Six suit. He always goes collar open. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no tie. Collar open. Three-piece collar open is the Francis standard. Someone said, Felipe Lenz, Frank's brother?

We got us to check. That is, in my opinion. Still to the day, the baddest man on the planet. I think just a matter of moment. They can't hear area. But we got to say hello to the main event. And let's say hello to one half of the main event.

I don't think they can't hear. I don't think they'll compete in a pro-MMA fight back in 2009. I'll be honest. One of my favorite fighters of all time. And then she left and went on to a great career in the world of TV and Hollywood. But she is now here. She is back. it is actually happening.

As I said, you could have said that on that. Brought women's MMAids brought women's MMA to broadcast television at one time one of the biggest stars in the history

of this sport regardless of gender. Please, welcome back to mixed martial arts the inimitable, who walks first? The legend, the pioneer, the trailblazer,

the one and only. Gina, conviction, Carrano! Oh! This is the A-side? How's his A-side? Viewers in the chat are saying they're confused about who the fighter is while mocking the Netflix production quality and joking about the storyline. That's not the one that I just had.

I had one that said, Ariel Hawani looks like a villain up there. But by the way, this is not the Netflix production. This is we sent the camera. Oh, shit. Look at that. A little handshake from Gina and Ariel. Does Rhonda shake? Ariel's hand. Gina pulling up with the hair done?

Gina Carrano. Listen. Shout out. That is unbelievable. We will get to her in a moment. but we have to say hello it is a little bit surreal and she's on a stage for a fight

fucking right it's crazy about she brought women's MMA to the UFC and we all know the story by now they always said women were never fighting the octagon you've heard it but it started well before that bronze medalist the Olympic Games in judo crosses over to the world

of mixed martial arts and is fighting local shows strike force and is submitting every single opponent in a matter of seconds with that arm bar an absolute tour to force I'm just coming out. Brings MMA, women's MMA to the UFC,

headlines that first show in 20th. Browdy. On one of the greatest runs in the history of the sport. Is she going to come out hot though? Or is she going to just like walk out? She leaves the sport in 2016. Not,

she signs with W&W. It has a tremendous career. No, stop. Most of us thought that at that point she was growing her family. She was doing her things. She's an author, all that stuff and more.

And then out of nowhere, we start seeing the training footage. We start seeing all the clips. And we start thinking to ourselves, Holy smoke. Is this actually happening? But against two, against her. And so it is actually happening on May 16th of 2026.

The return to MMA by one of the greatest stars in the history of the sport. A surefire Hall of Famer in multiple sports, she is actually coming back. Please say hello to the former UFC women's bantamweight champion, the rowdy one. Ronda Rousey! Shut out. There we go.

He comes. She always does walk with purpose. A little touch for Francis. Oh, Aria forced the issue. Who could have predicted all of this a few short months ago. I can't wait to get into it.

And I do want to let the media and attendance know that we'll be fielding questions from all of you, so have no fear. You will get your chance as well. I would love to start with Gina. Oh, what? Okay. You deserve it. You deserve it. Okay.

You were here first. Welcome back. It's so great to see you. Oh, you were here first. Nice to see you again. And I ask you why. Why are you coming back? What's the motivation? Well, obviously the motivation is Rhonda personally asked me. And she was quite the charmer. She asked me politely. She thanked me for so much. and she just, she inspired me. And other jobs kind of came up during this, but nothing was as important as this.

And to share this moment with her and to be the one that she would come back for, she's my one as well. So it's just, it's, hey, we get to live once. And this makes me feel so alive, and so I'm just super grateful for the opportunity. How long was that process from her saying, hey, are you interested?

Yeah. To you then saying, yeah, I actually wanted to do. Gina is always been very... I mean, that was about a year. I think I first got confronted with it from Dana White, December, 2024. That's interesting. Yeah, White came to. So about a year we've been talking about it.

And when you say confronted, what does that mean? Like, they offered it to you, they talked to you about it? Dana gave me a call and he said, Rhonda's pregnant. I think she was a nine months pregnant, right? And she wants to fight. And the only one she wants to fight is you. And at that time, I was extremely, I wasn't, I was extremely sick in my body, had had a couple, a couple of tough, rough years like I think a lot of us did have.

And at that time, I was like, you know what, absolutely. And then it just became more and more real as 25, you know, 2025 went on. And it is pretty incredible and surreal to be here today. It's healing, it's exciting, it's, it's everything I could. could have hoped for. I didn't know I needed this so bad. Well, it is amazing to see you back here. On behalf of the whole MMA community, Rhonda, it's great to see you back as well. It is surreal in its own right.

And I'm wondering, when you decided to leave pro wrestling, was this the plan for you, or did it crystallize in a different way? No, I never thought I would come back. It didn't cross my mind at all. I think it kind of started with my now coach, Ricky, who was originally my mortal enemy. He was coaching against me on the Ultimate Fighter. And he was also coaching my husband, Travis Brown, and he convinced me to give him a chance.

And we became friends over the years. And he asked me to help him get his black belt in judo. And I had put a lot of walls around my heart when it came to martial arts and everything like that. I was forced to retire over some neurological issues that I didn't really have any clarity about. And it just hurt to be around it. And when he asked me to teach him, I was like, okay, fine. You know, he would come to my house and add some to Tommy in the garage.

And once I started getting deep into it again and explaining things and getting back to it and made me fall in love with martial arts again, it kind of reminded me. me of the joy that it gave me from the very beginning and why I love it so much. And I really am a master of it. And I understand it so deeply in to be able to teach it to somebody who would understand it on that level. It just reminded me why I loved it again. And then I got to be pregnant and I was about three months pregnant when my husband caught me doing suplexes in the garage and he was like, girl, you got to give it a little arrest. I'm like, okay. And And I was, yeah, nine months pregnant when I saw an interview of Gina, who I always said I'd only come back for her, but I also was like, man, I hope she doesn't say anything because I just don't have it, you know, have that love for it in me anymore.

But once I found that love again and I saw her not doing well, I was like, you know what? We both need to reclaim our bodily identity together, rewrite our own endings together. And so then I reached out to her and it's been such a journey to get here and so many obstacles and so many people tried to get in between us

and to insert their own agenda. And we went from barely knowing each other and respecting each other to being like, you know what, we're going to fight to fight each other. I told that I will train you to fight me if I have to. Luckily, it didn't have to do that. But yeah, we went from, because of this, I had to get her number and talk to her.

Because of this, I had to meet up with her and find a way to make the contract work out. And I thought it was just about me and, you know, finding my love for the sport and just about her, you know, getting back to finding that fire and that light in her eyes. that we all fell in love with, but it's become much more than that. Now it's become about changing the entire landscape of the sport and challenging the monolith that the UFC has become. And I mean, of course, I just wanted to do something fun and I ended up having to change the world.

But, you know, that's the way that we do it. And I'm so happy that we're here. and I'm so grateful that Gina trusted me. When it wasn't going to work out with the UFC, I told her, I was like, we can do this on our own. We don't need them. We don't need anyone. And she said, I'm going to follow your lead.

I'm going to trust you. And that's what led us to MVP and to Netflix and to us sitting here in front of the Intuit Dome, about to put on the most viewed MMA fight of all time. Rhonda really like him in that. Opposition to the U.S. But I asked, why did it not work out with the UFC? you were so synonymous with the UFC for so long.

And so to see you associated with another MMA brand at this point is surreal in its own right. And so could you tell us why it did not work out and why you feel the way you feel about the landscape? Well, I knew that we could promote this on our own and probably be the most lucrative way to go about it for us. But I have such love and respect for Dana that I wanted to bring this to him first. And I said, you know, I can do this on my own, but I would rather fight for you than to fight for me, just make it make sense for me. And, you know, originally we were going to do it New Year's

and it was going to be under the last fight under the pay-per-view model, and he offered me the best pay-per-view structure ever, and I was so grateful. But then, you know, Gina said she needed more time to get in the best shape possible and that she wanted me to fight the best version of herself. And I think that was fate. It was meant to be. It was meant to push us onto the other side.

And once they've moved into the streaming model, it's just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore. Dana is legally beholden to the shareholders and to maximize shareholder value. And unfortunately, now that they've taken the reins of the company away from him, it's barely recognizable now. And they need to be safe from Dana. and luckily I'm here to be their hero. I'd like to ask my friend Francis, a couple of questions.

Francis, great to see you again. Good to see you. Bonapremid, as they say. Damn, far away. So far. What a busy few days for you. Then again, that poster must be massive behind them,

like the screen with the poster on it. So they have to fill that stage. This huge card. Well, it was just the news that came out of Friday. I think, uh, This was an ongoing process for a couple months. I think we've been in this position since probably January. I find out that I would not be having another fight.

Okay. The PFR. So then I started to look at another option. Then right away, I mean, two or three weeks ago, I was reached out by Nickyster to give me an offer. Originally, he was a very, he was a big name. I mean, no disrespect to flip, flip names, which is even more dangerous. But originally he was Rico.

So he called me and like, okay, what do you think about Biden Rico? He said me. I'm like, damn, that sounds good. I never thought about it, but I think this is a good opportunity. But long story short, on Friday, two weeks ago, and then, Rico gets signed for the Yusik fight, so that wasn't the option. And then we were looking for another, for a replacement, and then Flip came out to be the best option.

There was a couple name, but among them, Flipe was the best option, so they chose him. Could I ask, we last saw you in October of 2024. That was your last fight. Yes. At this point, you're a constant. talking point for a lot of people in this sport because you were one of the few to dare to fight out the contract and test the waters. Seems like you did well. What's the motivation? Why are you still doing this at this stage of your career?

I'm not done. What do you mean like this stage of my career? I still have a lot of time in front of me and I say enjoy this. I mean, look, it's been like, I'm in a better shape that I've ever been, even like why fighting for the past nine months? I was in the gym every day just because I enjoy it. You know, so far it's still my job. Of course, I still do some stuff on the side, but this is my primary job. I just wake up, get excited to go to the gym, do what I want to do, and then

look around if I have a fight. That's also a privilege of being a free man. You go out there, do whatever please you, and then if there is an opportunity to fight, you fight. If there's not, you do your business, do your living, and keep off moving. You know, the good

thing is like when you have to do it, because you want to do it because you like to do it. I think that's when the real pleasure of fighting begins. You don't feel like you're obliged. You're forced to fight. You have to. It's better to fight when you want to fight. And that's the position that I am in right now.

And I think in this position, in this rhythm, I can keep going for a couple more years. Love it. Want to ask your opponent, Philippe, a question or two. Philippe, we haven't seen you since you left the UFC on that four-flight. winning streak. I want to get that right on that winning streak. Why haven't we seen you since then?

Yeah, I take two years off. And I'm asked to God to give me another opportunity. And he sent this big opportunity to me, fight on the first MMA event on Netflix, with so many legends here, Ronda Rao, Regina Karano, France Senegal, is the big jazz opportunity of my entire my career. We're going to make a history and be a part of this is amazing. I'm feeling blessed.

Amazing. Your reaction found out that they wanted to match you up against the big man. Francis and Gunner. Was it yes right away? Yes, it was right away. When my manager called me and said, you're going to find

Francine gun live on Netflix. Yeah, I'm on. We have a deal. Send a contract. I love it. Now here you are. It's a big opportune, guys. It is massive.

The biggest MMA card in the history of the sport, no doubt about it, as far as the platform and the viewership. The selfish journalist of me wants to ask them a million more questions, but I do want to be fair to my fellow media members, so we'll open it up to questions right here and now. Doug Vasquez from Sports Illustrated questions for Rhonda. Rhonda, you mentioned the love and admiration and respect. Try to get closer to the microphone, hard to hear you.

Sure. Sorry about that. Doug Vasquez Sports Illustrated. Ronnie, you mentioned Dana White, all the love and respect you had for him. Ultimately, you couldn't make a deal. Did those failed negotiations lead to some bitterness that led you to publicly criticize them yesterday on social media? No, not at all. He was the one that when they weren't able to offer me a respectable deal under the streaming model,

he was the one that was like I want you to make as much money as possible don't stay here and take less for me he gave me his blessing to go out go out and do it on my own and if anyone's been his apprentice on how to be a promoter it's been me and

after after I let him know before anybody else that I had gone to Netflix and I didn't want him to be upset with me. And he was like, I could never, I could never be upset with you. I love you so much. I want you to do great. I want this to be successful.

You know, he's always been my friend first before anything else. And I think that most of my criticisms of the UFC now is because Dana isn't the owner and he isn't calling the shots and he isn't running things the way that he wants because he's an employee of the company. me now. He's not an owner. And I think it was a big mistake of theirs to not let him just run things the way that he always has. Do you think he was upset when he saw your comments yesterday on social media? You mentioned that he wasn't upset

with you for D. Rhonda really like pointing to... Oh, he knows the White House card sucks. He knows that they were pushing this for over a year and it fell extremely short of expectations. I mean, He was so upset about it. He was talking about a fight falling out the day before. You know, I can guarantee you he's not happy with it either. He keeps her eye on everything, huh? He's the one that taught me through example to speak my mind.

And then one question for Francis. Francis, with all the success that Jake and Nikisa and MVP of promoting these big boxing events, when we look back five years from now and look at this card, do you think that this will be the card that finally created some competition for the have said? Absolutely not. Because if I remember where five years ago, exactly, the MVP promotion wasn't there yet or was just getting started, you know, so nobody would have could have believed that. But again, with the landscape of the sport today, there have been a great opportunity. And even last year, I wouldn't have imagined that. But when I received a call the other day,

And then I'm like, I was confused for a second. Then I'm like, wait a minute. So it's a MVP. Then it's going to be Ronda again Gina. It's going to be me against Rico. And then it's going to be live on Netflix. I'm like, damn. So this is it.

I wasn't expecting this at all. I didn't see this coming at all. But managed to be like the right plan. As I just said, with the landscape, with everything that's going right now, out there right now, there is a great opportunity here. And I think so many other fighters should be looking at those opportunities, not get stuck, because at the end of the day, we are independent contractor.

We are not employee, we are not working for anybody, we sign contract, we find, we move on, we fight, we move on. That's it, that's the deal. That's what called independent contractor. We have no guarantee if we don't fight, we don't get paid, and then we shouldn't be stay or be entitled by anybody so-called promoter. Thank you very much. Yes, sir.

Jorge Alonzo, brovival.com. This is for Gina. Gina, back in 2009, you fought cyborg. That was the biggest women's fight in history. Now, 26, this is going to be the biggest fight in women's history. What are your emotions? What are your thoughts?

You know, it's interesting when I was fighting back in 2009, I felt like I was surviving. and there was nobody in front of me to look at to be like that's who I want to be like so it was just breaking down barriers and seeing how far you could get so it was not a plan to do what I did but now it's there's a peace

and there's a calm like I feel like I should be here I feel like I'm home I'm around mixed martial artists who are some of the best people in the world and I just feel I feel more calm than I've ever felt for a fight, which is, if you knew me back then, I got really, really nervous. But today I feel like I'm exactly where I should be.

And for Rhonda, you talked about changing the landscape of MMA, the financial aspect, being the savior. The UFC White House card came out. John Jones had some financial issues with the UFC. What are your thoughts on that situation? I mean, it's, it used to be that U.S. was the best place that you could come in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly. And now it's no longer, it's one of the worst places to go. It's why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It's why their champions like Valentina are selling pictures of their titties on only fans. You know, like these people are, a lot of them at the ground level, they can't even

they can't support their families. They're living poverty level fighting full-time. And this company just got $7.7 billion. Like, there's no reason that they can't afford to pay their athletes, at least a living wage, and not even that, to least be able to match what these athletes are making in other sports. Why are you going, why would they expect to get the best athletes and these best aspiring kids that want to be something into MMA. Why not go into football? Why not go into boxing?

Why not go into anything else? And so they're bleeding talent because of their short-term greed. They're thinking about the next quarter. They're thinking about the shareholders and they're not thinking about their responsibility to be stewards of the future of the sport. And for Francis,

you had your issues with the UFC. with the financial issues as well, you're seeing John Jones go through the same things. A lot of questions about, like, UFC. You have a message for him, and what are your thoughts on the situation? You know, I think three or four years ago, I was saying this out loud, and I was to say this, not only to John Jones, but everyone that out there and who's probably in the same situation, because I think most of them are in the same situation. we are not a employee, we are independent contractor,

and then we should be able to get what we deserve, and if we don't get, we will be able to have a right to walk away and go look other options. Because the thing now is that there is always like contract tying people up, and then they can get free, and then you want to set free, and then the muscles you up, you know, and low-ball you. but I'm happy I'm out of that. That's all what I can say.

Francis talking about them keeping them in the contracts. How are you viewing the state of your MMA career? Is this a one and done? Is this a, you know, let me see how I feel on May 17th the next day. Are you fully back? You know, I don't ever think I, I never answered that question. I never did. I never actually said I was retired.

It's just something that I just don't think you know whatever I ever. Like what I'm going to do. You can never predict that. I never rule anything off the table, which is probably why I'm sitting right here right now. And for you, Rhonda, are there more fights in your future? I mean, I guess it depends on how this one goes. But, man, I really want some more babies. Oh, more kids maybe for Rhonda.

It's getting to the point in my life where I can't really be taking any more detours. and I really want to be fully present for my, you know, my husband and my kids. And it gets to a point when it's like, when are you going to be impressed enough with yourself to spend some time with your family, you know? And unfortunately, I've been able to integrate, you know, home life and everything with this camp. But I feel like this is me trying to rewrite my ending with Gina. And maybe it's like a Lord of the Rings ending that keeps going on and on and on. Wait, was that hate or?

It's a grand finale. Yeah, she's with me. Takes too long. I promise my husband, this was definitely the last one. Is that Lord of the Rings date? Yeah, I hope so. I'm Team Gina. I'm team, Gina.

He's very passionate about the business. Jake. Goes on and on and on. Too much walking. I mean, I told him, he definitely would like some more fights out of me, but I told him, I can't be your Connor, but I'll be your Dana. And he said, we'll see how this goes first. But when I'm running sprints, I like to look at the horizon at my feet.

Fair enough. Well said. Back to the media list. Try to keep it to one or two because there's a bunch of people in line. Go ahead. Gabriel Gonzalez for Kajside Press. A question for Rhonda. You talk about the mutual respect with Gina. What would you say is the impact that she had on the sport when you watched her compete and the impact she had maybe for your own career? I mean, I would not have known that women's MMA existed if it wasn't for her. I was training for the 08 Olympics. when I saw her fight Julie Kedzie and saw the awe and admiration and respect that she commanded from everybody in the room. She stole the show, and I was so envious of her. I saw her fight, and I was like, I could totally kick her ass, you know, but I was also

so in awe and enthralled with her. And she planted that seed in my mind where, you know, I was training for Olympics. I would try to listen to music and think about, ooh, I'm going to win the Olympics, and my Olympic matches and all of this, and doing judicious. and it just kept creeping to my mind, I would think of winning MMA and winning MMA matches. And she planted that seed. And my mom has a saying that you can't unhave a thought. And it's because of her that she changed my whole life.

And she already was changing the world of sports and went and moved on to bigger and better things for herself. But I was able to change the world because of her. And not even just that, but after MMA and the way that things ended, it was just, it was really heartbreaking for me. And she inspired me all over again to pick myself back up and to come back to fight for me and not for anyone else and to go after the fight that I always wanted and not what anybody else wanted. And to be honest, like, this is the biggest fight in MMA right now. There are no two people in the sport with more international name recognition than me and Gina, except for Connor, but no one's going to sanction that. So, like, this isn't a charity card. This isn't a throwback nostalgia card.

This is the biggest fight in the sport right now, and it needed to happen now. This is fate between us. We have been on a collision course ever since I sat. on a couch watching her on TV just in complete awe of what this woman was doing. And yeah, I couldn't be more grateful. You know, it started out that I wanted to do this to help you, but God damn it, I still owe you because you've helped me so much all over again. So I don't know, I don't know if we'll ever be even, but, you know,

I think that I want what succeeds me to exceed me, and I want to prove to her that what she created is something greater than she ever would have dreamed of. And the way that I can show that respect to her is to beat the ever-living crap out of her and then say thank you. Same question to Gina. On a spin today, huh? And you see Rhonda as an area to pick upton and run with it. What impact do you feel she had on the sport and maybe just for yourself seeing her and what she did after you stepped away from MMA? Well, there's an interview.

from a long time ago and I hope somebody digs it up somewhere and I said that the the women that I'm inspiring now aren't going to re-inspire me later and I didn't know how prophetic those words would be and it has totally come full circle to exactly that I mean Rhonda there's only I mean nobody they've tried to get me to come out of retirement or you know there's nobody I would have come out for except for her. And when we were having kind of a tough time getting it done, because I have walked away before, Rhonda was like, she got on the phone with me.

She's like, let's sit down and talk about it. And I call her a little wolf because she's like wagging her tail and she's charming. And at the same time, she wants to like rip my arm off and shove it up my ass. So I'm like, okay. I got to keep both of those sides of her and mine. But, oh, God, did I just say that? Oh, no. Oh, you did.

You did. I don't be viral. But, no, she's completely inspired me, and this has just been, I didn't realize how badly I needed it. I don't care about the time off. I've had a lot of extreme things happen. And I feel, I mean, I used to get really nervous for stuff like this, and I feel freaking great right now. It's got good energy for this fight, and I agree with Rhonda.

This is the biggest fight going on right now. And it's a complete honor. You're crushing it, Gina. You're crushing it. Oh, you're going to use a crush her now? Oh, you know. Let's go back to the media. Here you go.

Hi, Christina, it's no queen L.A. I have a question for all of the fighters. What's one thing people don't know about you? And whoever wants to go first? Uh-oh. Maybe we'll start with Francis. Yeah, I'll direct the draft. go first.

Okay, fair enough. Uh-oh. Let's start with you. Francis's got to think of something. He's like, fuck. Okay. I actually moved up to Montana. I live on a farm.

Um, I got married. Whoa. People don't know these things. She's just spilling it. First and last love, Kevin Ross. Hey, shout out to Kevin Rob. Yeah. She's spilling.

That's probably what people don't know. So now you all know. I'm married. muzzle tov well done ronda oh god okay i have six sea monkey tanks damn has sea monkeys in it and there's only two sea monkeys there's just got a bunch of sea monkey tanks is no sea monkey case my sea monkeys have babies again and i don't kill them and i move them over into the sea monkey nursery um ronda rousey sea monkey collector i'm a nerd man i

Okay, we've covered it all. From fighter pay to the state of the sport to sea monkeys. Francis? Okay. I think right here I'll go with the very general one because I have so secret stuff. But let's just say I don't give a damn about BS. What people think talk too much, BS. I don't just give a damn.

That's what actually they don't know. What about you, Philipp? I have a new baby or a new girl with 10 months years old. Oh, congratulations. Felipe Lenz, mom. I'm a father of two girls. I'm going to have a work on this girl. Parabins. Thank you.

Would you like your young girls to follow in the footsteps of these great fighters and compete one day? I'm going to let her. choose what she's gonna do both of hers both of my daughters okay yeah Philip is actually doing good here honestly in Portuguese perhaps because I know there's a lot of people who watch Netflix in Brazil so any message for them Fala personal of Netflix Brazil Felipe Linz here I want to make a braise for all-vue here in those who are who are on the streams of YouTube, the Netflix and the MVP

I'd want to make a brazen for all of you guys to my family, for tawcating for me in this day, for that we can come with this victory to us in this great challenge that I have in the front. Abraccio, a braise for all right, let's go back to the media. Good afternoon, Adriana Noriega with Fox Deportes and ABAN sports.

My question is for Rhonda and Gina. As we celebrate Women's History Month, we look up here and we see one of the most historic women's card headlined by two legendary fighters of this sport. So I want to see how you come into this fight. Does the fighter inside of you look at this fight as the biggest rivalry or as the biggest celebration of the two biggest pioneers of the sport? I think it can be both.

Why not? I mean, fighting is what I celebrate. I've been asked about Ronda for the last success. years. Are you going to fight Rhonda? Are you going to fight Rhonda? And it's so easy to tell these people, oh yeah, yeah, I would, you know, I would. And then to be able to do it. So putting words to action is, I think, one of the best things you could do in life. And for it to be Ronda and for it to be, I mean, this is just, it's epic. It's just absolutely epic. I have been a part of so many firsts in my life.

And I'm just so blessed and fortunate that it is with Rhonda. And yeah, no, I'm definitely coming to win. So make no mistake about that. It's competitive. And it's also everything else. First women's MMA fight on premium cable. First women's MMA fight on broadcast television. First women's MMA main event.

and now first MMA fight on Netflix. And first women's MMA fight to go five minute rounds with Cyborg. That too. So this will be my second fight.

A lot of first thing. And that was like, you know, obviously a cheating roided up bitch that totally... Damn. Ronda. So it's too nice to say it,

but I want to say it. Fuck her and you're the best. I saw Cyborg in that NGP stream chat. I'm going over to see. The fastball. I feel like the fastball is at like 105 right now. actually somehow got even faster.

I'm not sure. Cyborg is active in the MVP chat. We've had so many boring press conferences that you forgot how interesting it could be. I actually don't go to the press conferences. We missed you, Rhonda. We missed you. I miss you.

We all miss you. Oh shit. I think a lot of the media here. What does she say? All right, here we go. I'm waiting for Cyborg to respond. No mama's boxing. My question is for Rhonda.

Yeah, it should have been a better name. You dominated in multiple. arenas, not just the fight scene, but also film. She says no, I'm in Arizona right now. What motivates you now compared to when you first started? I mean, this is a really unique fight,

I think, in that it's entirely self-motivated. You know, this is for me. I think my last two fights, I felt like I had to be there for other people, and it got away from me. And this is me really, really reclaiming them. Damn, she is not responding. Of course, you know, it kind of becomes,

more about everybody else because because of this the grandiosity of this event. An hour ago, everybody that's become a part of it. She said, excited to see two legends of WMMA return. But deep down, she is active in the... I know. MVP stream. The only fight that I wanted... Oh, she's

saying other things not responding to it. Fire me and fight that fire back in me again. Yeah. Just one more quick question that they asked me to ask. If you could describe, Dana, one word is one word. Wait, hold for sound. Yeah. Yeah. The airplane

What was that? 747's going by Oh yeah If you could describe Dana White in one word What would it be? Dana White If I could describe him

In one word Bold I would say Come on I think he's loyal To a fault That was more than one word But three

That's a lot of words That was more than one word Who's to check? Okay One word? God Loyal I wish Ariel said that

Loyal Yeah Just, yeah, more descriptive term of life. He's very loyal. All right, Gilbert, casuals, MMA. Got two questions. Question for Francis. Not too long ago, there were rumblings

that you were potentially going to fight the man over there, Jake Paul in boxing that fell through. But now they're your MVP, there's MMA. Are you interested in fighting Jake Paul and Jake with a head knot? You want to do it? No, I'm not interested in fighting Jake Paul. Never mind, Jake. I'm not done.

I'm interested in beating his ass. Whoa, that's... No fighting him. Okay, just beating his ass. Interesting. Yes. Last question for Rhonda and Gina. The last two big blockbuster fights we saw you guys in, Gina, you were fighting Michael Fastbender and Haywire.

Rhonda, you were beating Michelle Ryder. He gets his ass and fast and furious. Are we going to see a barn burner like that? 30-second flying arm bar, switch kick, head kick, K-O., 30 seconds. Or are we going to see Max, Charles Oliver, Listen, the great thing about fighting and it not being scripted is that you really have to tune in to find out. So I don't know. I'm prepared for every, every, what's it called?

Eventuality? Every possibility. Thank you, God. But you never know. That's the beautiful thing about M.A. You never know what's going to happen. I think it's going to be fast and furious, no pun intended, because they're both in the franchise. But, you know, I know that with everybody on this stage,

that's a unique question, I like you. You're not going to be disappointed. There's a lot of fights that I see headlining these days that if they were happening in a bar for free, I would walk away. For me, I think that energies make fights, and you really cannot. Not, one second. Airplane. Until you're in front of someone. Right by LAX or what?

It must be pretty close, yeah. You feel the energy and see how they move. I move a little bit different. I know who she's been training with and everything. Yeah, I don't see it going the full length, but we prepare for the full length. And yeah, I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be pretty surprising, actually. Thank you. We'll wrap up the.

media questions with a question from this young whippersnapper. Oh, who we got on the scene here. Oh, Jake. Oh, fucking Jake. Paul from Jake Paul.com. My question is for... Real website? I would like to say first, I want the winner of this fight,

but Philippe Francis has said he can knock me out and is going to knock me out. What do you think is going to happen in your guys' fight and do you think you can knock out Francis Ngano? First of all, Francis Naganu, you know, is going to knock you guys. is one of the great test heavyweights of all time. This fight is going to be the big Jets challenge I'm going to face on my entire MME career. All respect to Francis, but one victory over him is going to put in my name on the MMA history forever, so it's a masterpiece.

And all respect to him again, to his history on the sport. But May 16, live on Netflix, I'm going to shock the world. Yeah, I believe spin today. I love it. I know he hasn't fought that off. You have another one? Yeah, and Francis, how do you think the fight is going to go? Hasn't lost since 2018 in him, man.

Well, I think I'll win, you know, again, it brings more, more challenge than what originally is supposed to be. But I think I have to ask him to answer him. He has a good round game. He thinks he's a good round game. I went back and watched his last fight, even at the UFC, who was just a win, and then his last fight was a win.

So he proved to be very well-rounded. So I don't know. Whatever comes to me as an opportunity, I will take him. If he gives me his neck, I don't know, his hand or something, I'll just grab it and finish the fight. Thank you guys. By the way, Jake, do you share that sentiment?

Do you want to fight him? He said he wants to beat your ass. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm down. I've always been down. You were the option before Anthony Joshua, and you ran like a duck. And I bet you didn't think I would last longer than you did with Anthony either. So you just know that you get worked in boxing.

and I would love to see it someday. No, I think you were just being a small boy, like not understanding, being a little disrespectful, and that's why I want to kick your ass now. I really didn't want to fight you, but now I want to beat you. So there's a difference. Let's do it.

And that's why I hold the statement that I want to just beat you up. Hey, I got you. And could I ask since you're here, I mean, for you, as a long-time MMA fan, Jake, to put together a fight like this, I know you and your brother have been watching MMA for many years when they were coming onto the scene you were watching. I believe you said that you did a little bit of judo because you were inspired by Ron does it all come to fruition like this on a platform. This is his.

This is his brand. For all the things you've done, what does this mean? On Netflix. Yeah, it's very surreal. And this is the MVP way, you know, just four and a half years into building this company with Nikisa. And we're doing the first ever MMA event live on Netflix with MMA legends. and their future is looking very bright. The MMA is in a weird position right now,

and it's the Wild West, and I believe we have a massive opportunity here to disrupt the whole space, and to put fighters first, get them to the pay that they deserve, the platform that they deserve, because I believe the UFC is dying, and MVP is here to take over.

Whoa. Thank you, Jake. Appreciate it. All right, in a matter of moments, we're going to wrap up. This press conference have face-offs as well. I think to just say my takeaway is I think when we heard you speak when this came out when we heard you speak a little bit Gina I think some people thought like oh you guys are friends that this will be a fun little nostalgic fight

I feel the fire radiating out of you and I feel like you're coming to beat her despite the fact that you respect her and I feel it from you I feel the motivation I feel piercing through my soul as I'm looking at you right now you seem so motivated to be back I feel like this is what people wanted to see so it's just amazing to see the two of you up here in this form in this spirit, in this mood, and then to add to that, Francis and Philippe as well, and this is not going to be just a two-fight card. Many more fights will be announced in the coming

days and weeks, cannot wait for those announcements, but to repeat two of the greatest of all time, two pioneers, two trailblazers, are coming your way on May the 16th, live and exclusively on Netflix, the biggest platform in the world

airing its very first mixed martial arts event. Historic doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. Thank you so much to everyone up here. We're going to ask all the fighters to go to your respective corners to do the face-offs. We're going to call some other people up,

but this has been amazing, and I appreciate all the media. Sorry we couldn't get to everyone in attendance, but you'll have other opportunities to speak to all these fighters over the coming weeks. Great to see you. Great to see you.

A reminder that tickets are on sale right now. at Ticketmaster.com. Let's keep it. May 16th, Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers. Big win yesterday against the Knicks. Over 500, but an even bigger event is coming. The Clippers. In a little over two months' time.

You know. Okay, while we wait for the face off. Welcome back to the stage, the MVP event models. Rafael and Delia. shout out to them all right Raphael hi Delia

and we will also welcome to the stage the co-founders of Mikeisa Badarian and Jake Paul shout out well they head out there

speaking to to Ticketmaster.com if you get your tickets well you're asking me did I get my tickets I'm trying to link this to game time and then I was like no you have to use Ticketmaster.com

UFC veteran the pride of Brazil Philippe Lins. And his opponent, let's go Philippe. The predator, the former UFC heavyweight champion,

the lineal MMA heavyweight champion. The MMA fighter, turn boxer. Now back to mixed martial arts. Cameroon and France's own Fonsei Senganu. Philippe Lenz, knocked out four times in his career.

Boy, Francis is pretty big, huh? He's pretty big. Last loss in M.A. for Philippe Lens. First arm Kio to Tanner Bozer. Okay. Boser the dozer. Oh, I like this.

For Francis. God, Francis is big as shit. He's a massive man. They're going to do what Jake and Francis face up? Did we get a line for this? I guess Jake's just going to chill in the back there. I like what Philippe brought here. Yeah, I mean, everything was very cordial.

He was very respectful. He knows he has a huge opportunity in front of them. Yeah. What you hope to hear. Of course, he hasn't fought in two years. For the first time in front of the public, two Trailblazers, two pioneers. Please welcome back

the one and only Gina Carrano and Ronda Rousey. We're getting Jake for this one. There we go. Someone said Francis is minus 650. Hmm. All right, here's the face off. Jake in the middle.

Gina kind of smiling. Rhonda with that usual intensity. You're kind of leaning in. They're clapping it up. Rhonda knows how to sell a face off. She always has. She's she can put that mean face on for sure. Does it well.

All right. We're going to bring back everyone to the stage now. Jake Paul Nickyse Badarian, Francis. Squad. Squad pick. Let's go. And of course, Gina Carrano and Ronda Rousey, the four fighters competing on this card. Many more to come the two men who made this all possible.

Team Francis Bonds in. Boxing to Netflix and now are bringing mixed martial arts to the biggest streaming platform in the world. A Gina Felipe Parley is going to feed families. Saturday, May 16th, right here in Inglewood, California. The Intuit Dome.

Don't miss it. Once again, tickets on sale at tigabaster.com. Thank you to everyone in attendance. Thank you to everyone watching at home. We will see you in May. All right. That was the MVP press conference

from the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California, you saw our guy, Elwani, the host. Shout out to Ariel. Did a great job. Throwing the mic back on. Oh, we're dipping up Felipe Lens. We're hugging the Netflix girls. All is well.

All is right for big Alwani out there, man. Congratulations. Killed it. Did a great job. Yeah, did a really good job. Yeah, nothing too surprising there. I'm thinking it's going to heat up a little bit more as we get closer. And I think we're going to get more recognizable names as the card gets

announced for the remaining MMA fights on the card, I think it's going to build out nicely. I think the press conferences are going to be fun as we lead up to it. They're setting the bar very high because Ronda and Gina both, but Ronda in particular keeps talking about this is going to be the most watched MMA event. This is going to be the most watched MMA event. And so they are really setting the bar high. Now, granted, they have the power of Netflix and Jake Paul and MVP to promote, and Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano and Francis

and Ghanu. I need you said, some other big names might be added, but they're shooting their shot. They are calling their shot right ahead of the White House card. And, you know, I said something to the effect of that this is going to be a bigger fight

viewership-wise, and then people were like, you're an idiot. More people will watch this than the White House card. That's what I thought, but then the internet told me I was a fucking idiot, and so now I'm like questioning it. not going to change my opinion on that. I think more people watch this on Netflix, the accessibility. You have Ronda Rousey, you have Juni Corona, you now have Francis and Gano. I imagine they're not

going to fill it up with a bunch of nobodies beyond this. And I think the viewership is going to be pretty big. And they don't have Connor or John. They don't have Connor or John on the White House. Iliot-Tepori is a star. Alex Perr is a star, but they're not Connor McGregor or John Jones. And they're not Ronda Rousey, right? If Ronda Rousey was headlining the White House, it would get people who don't normally tune in to tune in. So we're going to find out whether Netflix as an entity combined with the power of, you know, Ronda Rousey and MVP and others can bring it in, or if the White House, the interest of it being at the White House alone with a great fight

between Iliot Soporia and Justin Gichi, but not a mega fight. And a great fight between Alex Perr and Cyril Gham, but not a mega fight, are going to be enough to kind of like outdraw. It's going to be interesting to see. My biggest takeaway is Ronda Rousey hasn't lost a step. I'll tell you that. Like when it comes to just speaking her mind and letting people know what's what,

she's still exactly who she always was. Also, she is respectful of these people that she's going against. Dana White being one of them, Gina Carrano being another one, but she also is not afraid to shit on them. Oh yeah, I'm going to beat her ass. Oh yeah, Dana knows that the White House card sucks. The UFC is the worst place to be for fighters now at this point. Like she's,

she's friendly. She's cordial with him. And she's almost giving Dana White a bit of an out when it comes to talk to him. She's just like, he's just kind of a pawn now. He's just beholden to the shareholders. He's not making these decisions like he was anymore. I found it very interesting how she turned it into a Dana White isn't who I'm going at. It is the UFC structure that has handcuffed Dana White. That is not allowed Dana White to do what Dana White did. In the era that I fought, Ronda, not me or Jackman, in the era that Ronda fought, Dana White, the Fertitas, ran that business and did what they needed to do. And she felt, you know, indebted to Dana White. She feels like he is responsible for a lot of her success alongside her. They were, they were,

she learned from him, she said. And so now in this new era where it's stock prices, shareholders, Mark Shapiro on conference calls, Ari Emanuel, Nick Kahn, she feels like when she's saying UFC is not what it used to be, it's not necessarily. necessarily Dana, that's not what it used to be. It is this system, this entire UFC structure is not what I want or what I remember. And it is leading to your biggest stars not being able to fight on the platform. It's, it's going to be fascinating to watch how the rest of this year and the paramount deal as a whole unfolds over the course of the next seven years. Just with all these fighters kind of starting to speak up a little bit more. Now you're seeing

them fighting in different places, Netflix getting involved, MDP getting involved. There seems to be some turmoil between the top stars and the organization itself, Zufa boxing, getting involved and paying, who knows what, Eddie Hearn getting involved now with the Matchroom Talent Agency. I'm very curious to see how this all plays out over the course of this deal. I'm very curious to see how this plays out. I'm very curious to see what this event does, if it is very successful, what it does in MMA, right? If it gives now a potential option for some fighters who have, you know, fulfilled their contract and now they have another place that they might be able to go. There's PFL. If this is

successful, maybe MVP does another MMA event. Maybe Ronda Rousey comes back. Maybe, shit, I mean, can't lie, I wouldn't mind seeing Ronda Rousey versus Chris Seiborg at this point after what she said about her in that press conference. I didn't see, I didn't ever see a reply in the chat from boy, Chris Seibor. She did not hold back how she felt about Chris Cyborg.

Gina Carrano didn't say anything to that effect at all. Like, there's fights for Rhonda that I want out there. Holly Home is signed to MVP. Holly Home versus Rhonda Rousey will be a massive fight

if they're able to do that next. So there's a lot of options, I still think, for Rhonda. And if Gina can spring the upset, you know, as Rhonda kind of laid out, you know, super successful pioneer MMA fighter. but super successful like TV and film star

you're now pairing with the entertainment network the biggest right I don't think there's anybody that would argue that Netflix is like the gold standard is the pinnacle of that kind of entertainment space they blow everyone out in terms of subscribers globally it's just not even like a conversation and so the opportunities that could be available to somebody like that if Gene is able to win or to Ronda

are massive and Francis Inganu right you could I could easily see dude a fucking film with Netflix about Francis and Ghanu's life story would be massive. Like if anybody really knows about like Francis coming from the salt minds and his actual story to what he was able to do and become and achieve

would be incredible. So yeah, there's a lot of synergy. He kept mentioning Rico, Rico, Rico, Rico. That Rico fight still isn't completely off the table. They're fighting within a week of each other in May. Like say Rico is unsuccessful in his attempt at going against Alexander Usik and winning

the WBC heavyweight belt, Francis walks through Felipe Lenz. Okay, well, you know, it didn't really work out. Next Netflix card, Francis versus Rico, I'm watching that still. This has got me excited and interesting. Okay, I'm going to ask you. Okay. Right now sitting here.

I want to hear it. Is there a chance we ever see Francis Ngano versus John Jones? I think there's definitely a chance, yeah. And if we do see Francis and Gano versus John Jones, would it happen in the UFC? No, no, no, no, absolutely not. I think with where John Jones stands with his contract with the UFC, and his relationship with the organization. And we know the history with Francis Ngano,

absolutely no chance. I think the odds of John Jones, Francis, and Gano outside the UFC fight are much higher now. I think they're decent. I think they're definitely decent with what went on this weekend. Dana White said point Blake, he's done. He's done. Yeah, we'll see about that.

Francis talked about it in the presser. Sometimes they hold you there for a bit. Francis was looking for that that Jake Paul boxing match says he wants to see that. Shit, I'll watch. We got some footage from behind the scenes

of them being cordial with each other. Jake pulling up. Here we go. Big hug for Nekisa. What's up, my man? Good to see you. Jake. A little bit lighter.

What's up, brother? I mean, they were talking some mad shit to each other on Twitter. I was like, oh, okay. At the end of the day, though, Jake Paul, I think Francis sees... What?

That's a good opportunity for Frank to hit that drop. What the fuck is that? I was going to say, Fight is a fight. At the end of the day, business. But fight is a fight, you know, business. At the end of the day, I don't think Francis looks at Jake Paul as like real opposition, right?

Francis looked at Jake Paul as a payday, an easy fight, beating up a, you know, he's not beating up babies. But beating up somebody who, you know, is coming at him incorrectly. and so he's also, Jake Paul is that to him, but he's also a promoter who's giving him this opportunity to fight on the first Netflix MMA card. So it's like, it's a very complicated kind of thing, but I don't think like Francis is like threatened slash intimidated by Jake Paul to the point that it would be like, I can't be around this guy.

He sees him as just like a payday. And somebody who's giving him a big opportunity in this regard. Nikisa and Jake are making this possible for a lot of these fighters that it just wasn't an option before. All right, so that was the press conference. Fantastic job by Hawanee. Big thank you to be Casey Leiden. Shout out of Casey.

On the live stream. That was directly from Casey's eyes to us. We weren't taking in some feed. That was uncrowned internal streaming. Thanks to everyone who helped to get that done. Really good stuff. One last thing I wanted to say on boxing, kind of crazy boxing matches.

Yeah. You see we got odds for Dana White versus Eddie Earn. Oh boy. The potential fight to happen. Eddie earned minus 300. The Dana White's 2 to 1 underdog odds. How would you cap this? Where's the value?

Okay, first of all, it's impossible to cap. We have no idea where they're at in their physical health and also their boxing prowess. We don't know how much they're training. We don't know what they're doing. What are we got age-wise? I think it's, Dana's like 56. Eddie's 56 G's, wow.

He's like 45, that's my guess. 46. Damn. Not bad, Connor. One year off. Oh, bad. So, yeah, I mean, 10-year-age difference, and the difference has been a 46-year-old

and a 56-year-old, 50s a lot. It's large. Eddie Hearn's also much bigger than him. And probably boxes more regularly. Eddie Hearn is like 6-5. He is not a small dude. I think it's fair to have him as a favorite. I think there's value on Eddie, if I'm being honest.

I think it's good to have him as favorite. But, you know, some of those pictures of Dana, he's jacked, man. I know, but. If I'm Eddie, just say it, right? Just throw that job out there. Flick it out there. Let that thing out there, man.

Just keep that thing going. Yeah, very interesting to see in a boxing match that I feel almost certain will never happen. No, let's just call it now. That shit will never in 10 million years happen. This is less real than Mux versus Zuck. It ain't happening. Me and Eddie Hearn is never, ever, ever going to happen. That's what Dana White's going to say at the press conference after UFC Vegas won whatever the fuck it is this weekend.

You feel like we covered it, man? What else you got? I mean the stray that Valentina's chef Oh my god Yo they did our champ dirty there They did our champ dirty

Who's they? It was Rhonda just Ronda It was just Ronda Ronda fucking I will not disrespect our champion like that My God I won't send me the link so I can block it forever

Man that was that was something I got to say It was a little bit surreal And a little bit invigorating to see to see that press conference It was just, like...

Do you think they were planning for more fighters to be up there? I mean, they had oceans between them. It's possible, but as I said, I think it was more probably, and we didn't get like the... Casey didn't zoom all the way out. But like, I think it was probably more just the scope and scale of what was behind them. It had to like fill that space. Because that poster had to be, what, 200 feet tall? Yeah, massive.

Massive, massive. I do wonder when they are going to announce the rest of it. I thought how Wani was about to do it. For a brief moment there, I did too. I thought they might like walk them out, like live there. But yeah, I feel confident that they're going to fill this card with recognizable names.

I'm hoping it's fights that MMA fans want to see. Yeah. Yeah. As long as they have enough draws that like the MMA fans are going to be like, okay, I'm watching. I honestly, I think Ronda, Gina and Francis Felipe is enough that people are going to be like, like, if you're an MMA fan, you're probably tuning into this, despite the fact that you might be like,

I don't want to see him fight Philippe wins. Like, you're probably going to tune in. You have to tune in. You got, you have Netflix. You're not going to have to pay anything extra. If you're watching the UFC Vegas 115. Yeah. Prelims, you're watching this, bro. Yeah. What's it going to hurt to pop it on? 100%. For real. But if they do add some of those fights, like you said, like, you know, obviously we've heard the name Mike Perry floated out there, right? If you can get like a Mike Perry or you can get somebody else who, has a little bit of a fan base and could be interesting in a fight for MMA fans. Yeah, Mike Perry would be perfect.

Mike Perry would be great for this. It'll be interesting to see what they do. It'll be interesting to see how else ends up on that card about two months away. Wow. Netflix, Ronda Rousey, Gina Carrano. We just got a first look at the face off. Exciting stuff. Exciting times in MMA.

Maybe not in the cage itself, but a lot of drama. The cage is still it's still pretty good. It's just not what it's. used to be. That's not what I want to hear, man. As a newer age fan, that doesn't want to hear. It's all right.

It's pretty good. I got faith. I got faith that we're just in a bit of a downturn. We're going to get Ilya Tepore and Alex Pereira fighting on the White House. Those two names, come on. Shugia Shana Malley too. Sean O'Malley. Also, 327 is an absolute banger.

Seattle's not bad either. We're going to be there. 327 in Seattle are very good. Are very good. Seattle is good. 327 is great. London's pretty good, too. We got fights to look forward

Yeah All right I think that's gonna about do it for us here Boys in the Back Tuesday Damn it Super Chats We're literally beating up babies

Oh who remembers the days When Dana White was all over John's dick calling him the goat And saying everyone was scared of him How the UFC narrative They push changes All the perception of people

It's crazy Francis is running from him He's a fucking terror Now it's like that old fuck With the bad hip That guy You talk about that guy whatever

suits the narrative at the moment is what it will be there is no loyalty in this game and that's why if you're John Jones you need to get as much money as you possibly can because there is no loyalty

they know Ronda Rousey in that presser was asked one word to describe Dana she said loyal maybe to Ronda Rousey I don't know that there's many that that applies to

to a fault John Jones 18 years of service 16 UFC championship victories John earned his way. The goat bones took a pay cut to fight at the White House. Pay him. Yeah.

Well, they weren't willing to pay them. It's not wrong. C-TMMA. It would have been nice. It would have been great. Would have been huge, but no dice. Will Edward be allowed in the Octagon after Tom retains his belt? P.S.

What contracts the better option to sign? A, UFC. Contract B, Shugn Mugnich. Oh, wow. Well, soon. Eddie will definitely be allowed into the octagon. We don't have any problems with Eddie. Yeah.

They're our days with signing fighters, and we got that shit done. Wait, he means like to fight Dana White, right? Oh, oh, yeah. Beating up babies. Yeah, no, Eddie will. I don't, I don't imagine that UFC and Dana are going to make life too hard for Eddie in terms of that. Like, they're not going to be like, you can't come in the building. Like, I think they're beyond games like that.

Your point? Was it you that said, all of this will happen? And then he'll have 15 cameras in front of him during an interview. interview the next day. He will not be afraid to tell about his experiences. I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to give him special treatment or anything, but I don't think they're going to make life difficult. The days of like, I'm here, it's so great. Look at me and Dana. Those are over, obviously. But I don't think they're going to be too, they're not going to inhibit Eddie from doing his job. The Paramount Plus UFC ad on the Joe Rogan podcast feature

fighter is John Jones staring across the octagon. Riddle me that, boys. Dana's answer to that? Yeah, it might be up to time to update some of the materials, right? You got to put Ilya or Alex or somebody on there. He's one of the sports biggest stars that I was walking around New York City all January and they had these Paramount Plus ads everywhere, every transition I went into. For the BMF as well. Yeah, and it was, yeah, there was a lot of BMF ads, but every ad was Connor McGregor. And I was like, what do they know he has and stuff in about five years?

Well, even worse than that, the modern UFC might not pay Connor McGregor or a job. John Jones to fight. That might be the reality that we're facing. But I think, you know, you just update the materials. Ilya Tupori is fighting. Alex Pereira is fighting. Yeah, and I really want to go back to that one thing that Ronda said essentially just like, Dana was like, oh yeah, like go get your money elsewhere. Like, just because I can't pay you that doesn't mean you shouldn't go get it. To me, that's just like, damn. Dana tried to get the most money possible and it just wasn't a number that Ronda could have agreed to. I agree with that, but it does feel very Ronda specific. This

like benevolent nice guy Dana who wants everybody to get all the money thereafter. His relationship with Ronda, I think, is where that stems from. Not necessarily that that's how they do business. John Jones ain't getting go get the most money you can make. I know Frank just made like a

face when you interrupted him. Yeah. It was all to the control room. Yeah. And he was like, I really thought he was done. Yeah, I wasn't done. Are you good now? Yeah. Go ahead. All right.

And then Iliate Toporia? Wow. I think the fact that Jones won at the White House, they would write back to negotiating a fight with Jones and Aspinall in which Jones wanted $30 million played a part in their decision to go with Gok. So he's saying they don't want to pay him because the next fight will be the 30 mil for Tom. That feels like a good problem to have if I'm being honest. We're also right here right now. You got to pay me for this fight. I don't know if I'm going to fight again after it.

Yeah. But there's worse problems to have than, oh, John Jones wants to fight Tom Aspinon now. Like that's the problem that has a solution, which is let's do it. So I don't think that's it. Now, Connor, that's a different one because you're going to have to pay him a shit ton of money for that July card. And then he's got one more. You're going to have to renegotiate. And it's like, boy, do we want to keep paying these Connor McGregor bills?

Because they're not going to be cheap. They are not going to be cheap. And by the way, 100% Nor should they. Connor McGregor should be Ariel said it yesterday when I was talking to Tom. If John's 30 mil,

what the fuck is Connor? 75 mil, 100 mil? It's not going to be cheap for the UFC to get them back. And if the UFC doesn't pay that and that sunset clause hits, there's someone out there that'll pay it. There's a lot of,

Francis made the sunset clause into a thing because he was able to successfully navigate the system. I don't know. from what I've heard, these are not in every contract. And so it will be interesting to see if he just has to get the two fights out.

And also, if anybody ever test the legality of that, right? If I am a fighter who's in disrepute with the UFC or in conflict with the UFC, right? And they're trying to bench me. Let's say I know that I have three fights that I'm never going to fulfill because they won't pay my

number. John Jones, for an example. if you took them to court, I wonder if that contract would hold up. I wonder if they would be as independent contractors able to justify not allowing them to go hit the free market. It would be interesting to see. But there's a long way to go before we get there. Nobody's taking that step yet. Philippe's actually related to Magnus Carlson. Oh, no way.

The fucking chess player? The greatest chess player of all time? Yeah, aren't they doing a chess thing on Netflix with Magnus Carlson? Magnus? Who's to check? Felipe Linz knocks out Francis Ingano and Magnus Carlson. Who's to check? Mate. Oh, who's to check, mate?

I know you all heard another beating up babies drop on Sunday from the Zupa Press conference Sunday night. I actually didn't, but if that's the case, I'd love to get on that and add it to the list we already have. Who the fuck is we? Beating up babies. That's all of them. Beating up babies. Bob Arum. is like beating up babies.

Beating up babies. We're literally beating up babies. Is that three different now? Yes. Beating up baby. We're literally beaten up babies. It's a great point. That's fucking illegal.

Beating up babies is illegal, that's for sure. I'm too hung over to deal with these people tonight. We're literally beating up babies. It wasn't too hung over to beat up the babies. There's one more. I thought Triple D stood for Dangerous Dakota Dutch, but it really is Genius. Oh, my dear fucking. Why did you read that?

It just popped up. Why did you fucking read that? Christ, Frank. Thanks for the $5. Personal stash 420. Jesus. They are saying in the chat, they got me.

Three Pete drop is insane goat drop. I actually agree. I think that might be the best when you hit all three in a row. Someone said there goes that $5. Nope. You sent it and you deleted it. Wow.

Good on you, Frank. We'll see in... Don't do me turny like that. We'll see an HR tomorrow morning. Hey, as long as the triple T's there. Jesus Christ. Fucking hell, this is off the rails. All right, it's really time to go.

Frankie, if you want to give me your OF, you can't even pass at any time. I know you're already subscribed. I've never seen Dan pick up his phone so quickly. When she said that, he whipped his phone up. I'm like, bro, at least excuse yourself. It just immediately went just like big OF across it. Instructional operations sends us $2.

He says, can GC dress like Green Arrow come fight? night. What fucking fight night? I don't know. Oh, I was just wearing a green hoodie. All right. I think it's going to do it for us. Um, tomorrow we are releasing our Gable Steveson doc the making of a superstar. That'll air at one o'clock. Area Hawani show live at 1.30. We'll react to the dock. Uh, we'll do a bit of on the nose. Yeah. News and notes, everything like that. And then we're back here. on Thursday. But until then, we'll see you guys tomorrow.

How about that? Juno Carano? Rhonda Rousey? Crazy. Peace and love. Peace and love. One o'clock tomorrow. See you then.

Thanks for watching. We love you.