The Ariel Helwani Show - Khamzat Chimaev is boring? UFC welterweight drama, Jake Paul vs. 'Tank' Davis | The Craic

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

On a special Thursday edition of The Craic, Petesy Carroll tackles the week’s biggest stories alongside Chuck Mindenhall and Ben Fowlkes.They kick things off by debating whether Khamzat Chimaev’s recent middleweight title victory over Dricus Du Plessis has fueled the perception that he’s becoming a boring fighter (2:15).Alongside Khamzat Chimaev in the main event, UFC 319 was also set to feature Bryan Battle vs. Nursulton Ruziboev. But Battle’s second consecutive weight miss led to the fight’s cancellation and his release from the promotion. The trio discuss what his cut says about how the UFC handles its roster (21:28).Another weight class heating up is the UFC welterweight division. Sean Brady is calling out Ian Machado Garry, while Garry is taking aim at Leon Edwards. The crew lay out how they’d match up the top of the division (27:04).Next, the guys react to the controversial announcement of Jake Paul vs. Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis as the latest Netflix boxing bout (39:10).Looking ahead to the weekend’s fights, the chaps preview the under-the-radar UFC Shanghai card, including the co-main event standout, Brian Ortega vs. Aljamain Sterling (53:59).To close the show, Petesy and company size up this weekend’s PFL card, headlined by Fabian Edwards vs. Dalton Rosta, whose trash talk has been going viral online (01:05:47).

Welcome back to the crack, everybody. Do not adjust your monitors. I know it's Thursday. We are all very aware that it is, in fact, Thursday, not Friday, but you lucky dogs, you've got a crack today. It is your usual injection of Friday magic, but this time it's on Thursday. Now, I said monitors at the start there, but I should also say, don't adjust your TV sets, because we are apparently live on the Yahoo Sports Network, and we are very excited about that. Now, now that we've gone big time, you know, we're on TV and everything, no big deal, whatever,

we're going to have to do some commercials. So, I mean, get used to it, guys. We are big time now, with being big time. comes commercials. That is the way this is going to have to go, but you will still have, as you always get, my beautiful crackheads, a lot of MMA talk from two brilliant minds, and they are with us today. Let's bring them in. Ben, folks, Chuck Mendenhall, we're all here, lads. How are you? Congratulations on making it to TV. How are you, Ben? You know, this really puts it in the face of the seventh grade teacher who told me that the only way I'd ever be on TV is on an

episode of cops where they're making sure I don't balk my head on the door as they they showed me inside so who's laughing now in your face yeah I'm doing great so it only took me like 45 years of living to make it onto TV but I'm pretty stoked to be here it's amazing somehow I've had the opposite somehow I've had the opposite Ben do you remember back when they had MMA live on ESPN for some reason I was cast on that all the way back in like 2010 or 11 and so this is like a full circle moment. I'm back on TV after all these years. I thought I was just going to keep going into podcasts and then wherever that heads, whatever dark tunnel that heads towards. But here we are back on TV. Who knew? That's, what a moment. What a moment. Look at all of us in this

amazing moment. Listen, crackheads. We are still your boys. Don't worry about that. We've got a lot of shit to talk about today. We have Hamza. Am I a little curse now they're on TV? I'm sorry, I dropped one. Okay. I'm probably going to drop several more. You know how I speak, guys. Okay. This is just the way it's going to go. The sensors will beep that out. Don't worry. Yeah, they'll beep it, you know, of course they will. 10 second delay, all that kind of stuff. Hamzat Shimaev, lads, I have not got to speak to you guys about this yet.

A lot of people saying his boring, he has returned to Russia. He has been embraced by Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadaof, who we've talked about before, back together at last. There they are. You know, a big deal. I think he's one of the big stars in the UFC at the moment,

so we're going to discuss what this kind of looks like. I will say, like, You know, and I said this on the post show with Ariel on Saturday, Sunday morning. You know, I was kind of blown away by the amount of people that were onto me all week. Like, it kind of felt like the first time in a long time where they had a fighter in a main event who was challenging for a title where everybody was really interested in. Like, my old friends who probably hadn't been watching that much since the McGregor days were really into them. They were waking up. They were going to watch the fight.

A lot of people in Europe in general were very excited about this. And I'm wondering, with all this talk, Chuck Mendenhall, this boring stuff, I mean, does this dampen the situation at all for Shemaya, who I feel is one of the biggest stars on the books of the promotion at the moment? I don't think so. I mean, and I didn't get a chance to hang with you guys and talk about it, but I didn't find it particularly boring, you know, it's like, that seems like the wrong word for what we watch. It's more like, you know, watching guy rendered helpless and you're like, this is so futile that it almost becomes its own piece of theater. Back in the day when Habib was, you know, kind of on his rise, he had that moment. I think it was against Abel Trujillo, and it stood for a long time. He had like 21 takedowns, if I recall.

It was like 21 takedowns. I was sitting there, case that, and I remember thinking it was just almost mesmerizing how he would just, as soon as he was corrected, as soon as it was up and I think, it was back in on his legs, dumping him down again. And it became like, you know, just such a sheer, like, demonstration of dominance that it became fascinating. to me, that's what this reminded me of. It was like that you're watching a guy who everything in his movement is telegraphed, you know exactly what he's going to do, but you had DDP who could not stop it. And to me, that's like, I don't know, because we know how hard that is. It's not easy. Even if a guy, if you're watching a guy who's known as a wrestler or whatever, you know, people prepare to keep the fight stander, they prepare to thwart thing, you know what I mean?

Like they're going to prepare. It just felt like nothing that DDP could do was going to get him through on that fight. So to me, it was just kind of more like that, just domination. And let's not forget, man, like, we're such a, I think the gambling and all that really plays a role into like how we view these things. But this is a guy in nine fights, he has six finishes. It's not like he's, you know, has nine straight finishes and all of them go the maximum. He never threatens to finish a guy anywhere in the fight, right? Like, this was probably the first time where it might have had that a little bit, but it was so dominant that, honestly, man, I was like, you've got to secure the title. You know, I had no problem with this performance.

Ben, what say you, sir? You've been a man who's known to wrestle a man on a mat, many occasions throughout your life. I mean, are you looking at this going, listen, mate, go for a choke, take his buck, do something. What were you thinking as we're watching this? You know, I think that the response to it shows you the gap between expectations and reality in the fight. Because I think the thing that made people turn against him here was that everybody came in with the Hamzat smash mentality. That he's, you know, you see him start the fight. He's kneeling down there. He's smiling in what can only be described as a malevolent fashion across the cage. You know he's going to come out there and get right after you.

And the way we've seen him fight in so many prior fights is that he's taking you down and he's just beating you while you're there. he is immediately looking for submissions and looking to finish the fight very early on. And so here was a little different approach because the first round, you know, he only needed one takedown in that first round. Got DDP down. DDP could not do anything about

it. Got him in the crucifix. It's just peppered him with punches. And I think that that was a little bit of a surprise to people because they were expecting a different Homsat. But you also have to remember this is a big one for him. This was the title fight. This is the one he's been waiting for. He goes out there.

he realizes early on, yep, I can take this guy down and I can keep him down. No problem. I just got to do this four more times and I'm the new middleweight champion. If people don't like that, I think if you're Hamzat, you go, okay, fine. They can not like this one. If I come out and go right back to Hamzat smash against the next guy, they'll forgive it. And I also think that, you know, Chuck, you mentioned that Habib fight with Abel Trujuri set the takedown record. And one of the things that I remember was a part of the conversation after that was people were going, the only way you set a takedown record like that is if you fight the full distance, you can't finish the guy and he keeps getting up. Because if you are so good on the ground, you're taking the guy down and then you're finishing him there or you're keeping him there. In order to take a guy down 21 times, you got to let him up 20. You know, so that, that I think is a little bit part of what we're seeing here. I also think that because he was so dominant, people are looking at it and going,

you seem like you could do anything to this man. why are you not finishing him then? Why are you not putting him away? Do you not respect our time? We've got to sit here. But I also think if your Kamsat, he's heard the same criticisms. He knows the game plan people are hoping for against him. Everybody says the guy starts fast.

If you can get through the first round, he will fade late in a fight. Now, it didn't happen here the way I think a lot of people thought it might just because DDP was not making him work in those first two rounds. He's not going to tire all on his own, especially with. and it's easy to kind of keep you there. You got to make him do more. But he did get less effective with his game plan as the fight went on. Like he was 100% on takedowns through the first three rounds.

You get into the fourth round, I think he went three of five. You get into the fifth round. I think he went three of six. And his control time goes down each round. The best moment of the fight for DEP happened to the last minute of the last round. So there is still that like a little bit of a drop off. He hears that. He's aware of that.

He's conscious of it. And so he's going out there being like, paste yourself, don't spend everything. The key here is get that belt. And once you do that, you know, then your calculation becomes a little different. I mean, can you imagine if he had taken some crazy shot down the stretch into the championship rounds? He's like, all right, let's play in cautious now. You know, it just wouldn't have made any sense for him. Like if you got the fight going the way you want it.

Now, maybe he could have tried some stuff, you know. There were a couple of times where it looked like he was in position. And it did look like he was maybe, you know, trying. to get like you know under the chin here or there he wasn't it wasn't like he was refusing to do that but i'm like i don't know like it's just one of those type of things when you watch that type of dominance man um yeah i don't know i lost my train of thought there boys i don't know this is tv this is tv this is tv so he didn't look for a submission he wasn't credited with any submission attempts which i thought was little because there was

definitely one where he's on his back he's looking he's looking to get under the chin he's looking for a choke a little bit. But he wasn't really committing to any of that stuff because clearly his job won was keep this guy down, stay on top, stay on top position. But you're right. He gave DDP just a little bit of an opening in the fifth round and DDB almost did something with it. Now, if he had been able to finish Hamzot there, he got his back, he went for the choke. If he'd been able to finish him, we would not be sitting around here right now being like, you know, good for Hamzot for taking some chances and trying to entertain us. We would have been like, you idiot, you slew it. That's right. That's right.

That's what I was going to mention. Thank you for picking that up, Ben. But I mean, like, that's what we, that's what I'm trying to say. Would you rather have the hate of a dominant fight in the end or, like, if he'd done something stupid down the stretch, you know what I mean? Like, that's what we'd be talking about. What an idiot he was, like to have blown the fight that he was cruising through. I told the TV people there, they've added that out that nobody will know.

That happened. No problem. I can do that. I was wondering, though, is this a condition based on how the UFC have talked about fighting for the last few years specifically. Martin Boudet is gone. He is a very successful heavyweight with 7 and 1 the UFC

and they're suddenly like, we're not winning in the right way. You're gone. We had Mohammed Makayev who in a time when we're crying out for flyweight contenders, this guy looked pretty much so dominant doing exactly what

Hamzat basically did in his title fight against DDP, wrestling people, there wasn't a finish, And there's also, like, Dana White's Contender Series that goes back to season one, Brendan Locknaine, and Locknaine goes against Bill Aljo, who's, Bill Aljo's fought in the UFC about 15 times now. But Brendan Locknaine puts on a clinic against him, fights a very exciting fight, but does not finish, and immediately afterwards, Dana's like, we actually want killers in the UFC?

We don't, this sports shit? No, not interested, okay? We don't want our fucking GSP in here. We want a killer. And I feel like this is kind of, he's conditioned, especially new fans of the sport, to think that being good at MMA is not good enough, Ben. Do you disagree or agree with me, Pizzi Carroll? I do think it's been the case for a long time that you can be the best in the world at this sport and it not really mean anything for you. We've seen, Demetrius Johnson's career is a good example where he was the, the, the best.

pound for pound best in the world, arguably, you know, for a long time. And it did not make him a star. It did not even make the UFC like him very much. So this is one of the only sports that works that way. I mean, if you're the best quarterback in the world, you are a star, no matter what. You know, if you're the best pitcher in baseball in the world, you're a star and you're a multimillionaire. And it doesn't quite work that way here. There's more that goes into the calculation. I also think, though, this is one fight. Hamzatjama, goes out, there has one fight that's a little bit of a letdown he he fought a smart fight he at no point except for you know that brief scare in the fifth round was he ever really in any danger

it's a way to guarantee your victory i think a lot of us if you were out there you had that much at stake and you realize early on oh i could just do this i don't need to risk anything i don't need to get hit you know he he only took like what like 30 something and strikes in the entire fight. I don't, I don't need to risk damage. Why would I to get the UFC title? Armist Rukin said something like that. He was basically like, why alter? Why alter anything? Keep doing what you're doing. I also think there's a fair question to be asked here, especially as we head toward 2026 and a new TV deal that does not include pay-per-views. That's no longer going to be part of the calculation. Even these guys who have it in their contracts now

that says if you're championed, you get a piece of the pay-per-views. If they're are no pay-per-views, then there is no piece of paper views. The UFC's going to be all on Paramount Plus, CBS, all that stuff, but they're not going to give you any of that money. So what does it matter if you are popular as a UFC champion? You're not getting a cut of viewership or broadcast revenue. You're not getting a cut of ticket sales. You know, merchandise isn't really going to be much of a thing. Sponsorships aren't going to be much of a thing, except for the people who already liked you before now and want to support you, even though you can't wear their logo into the cage. So what does being popular give you in terms

of cold, hard cash that you're going to be missing out on if they don't like it. As long as you keep that belt, they got to keep working with you. They got to keep getting you fights. You get your contracted money. You weren't going to get any more than that anyway. So what's the difference? Why do you care? Why is it now worth a risk to be a popular fighter who people want to see fight? Yeah. And well, we saw, as we mentioned at the top of the show, we've seen Shemoyev return home. And he is given Katteroff the belt here, as we can see at the airport.

For a long time, and I don't think this was ever confirmed, we believe that the reason why he was having such struggles with his visas and things like this were due to his appearances with Kateroff over the years. He's been to different ceremonies with him. We've seen him dancing in front of, you know, gatherings at Kateroff's house. We've talked about this as well. You know, recently, Ben, we were kind of saying, like, it is a difficult spot for fighters to be in. We've highlighted this before. You can't exactly, you know, say no. No, actually, rather not do that.

I'm just popping down to my local say hello to the lads. Thanks very much for the offer. Listen to the G-Wagon's lovely, but I prefer my Ford Focus. it's not one of those situations but because we've been in this situation before where we've thought that this was a problematic thing for

Shamoia's career to see him immediately show up in a situation like this as the newly crown champion is that problematic do you think for the UFC I mean it should be and it's funny because in the lead up to this fight it didn't seem like he really wanted to field these questions he was like

I don't really want these affiliations like this is you know whatever he just kind of was distanced himself and yet he is probably the most tied in politically in these uh in these ways than anybody else going right now right because first of all the visa as you mentioned um trump has to um kind of make that go away for him to be able to fight in chicago and then he returns what's the first thing you see is him uh with catarops so it's a bad look but it's not it's this fan base what i've realized over the course of time is it's it's not like other sports. You know, it's just, it's not, I don't really feel like it's, it's mostly

us going to talk about it, right? We're going to talk about stuff like this, but I don't know how many fans really care about these affiliations. And that's kind of been the case with Catarovins, specifically, because we've seen a lot of the fighters who've had affiliations. This one just seems much deeper in the, in some more personal sense, uh, than we've probably seen. But it really doesn't, I don't think it's a bad look. No matter how you look at it. If, you know, we used to always worry about what do other sports or other like kind of seasoned veterans of media like looking at this what do they see and you know you would think that you're the horror but somehow we've carved it out a space where people just don't treat it you know any differently you know what I mean like they they just see it and like ah well that's fighting and I feel like that's kind of still the space around all these really it also obviously like when the UFC became basically a you know a wing of the of the Trump administration and they're doing all these things I mean obviously they're not too worried about the you know polarizing the audience anyway you know so i don't know how however you want to look at that but i don't i don't think they worry about it

at all at this point ben what do you think like of a situation like this like sports watching and fighting in general like i mean people using sports to you know alter their public image internationally is it's been going on for years i mean you know i think i think The Kadirov one, I think, is a little bit worse than that. Because he does not really seem that concerned with public image. He's not a guy who's out there just being like, like, you don't get a whole lot of visit Chechnya ads, you know, that they're, it's not like what they're trying to do with like Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi or something like that. He seems like, what seems worse about it is the MMA team that they run sort of directly feeds into what you might call his personal. militia and it's a recruiting tool in that way and it's a training tool. It's like, hey, show up for

our MMA team. If you're one of the top 1% you can go pro, you can be like this guy, Hamz Achmaev, here's a cool car we gave him. If you're the bottom 99%, you can still join the militia will give you guns and you can go around and like terrorize gay people in Chechnya. Like that's the kind of stuff that they're doing and he's not really concerned whether anybody likes it. Like who it's a bad look for, honestly, is us. Because this association of his was enough to cause a visa issue for him before. And then the UFC is so ideologically aligned now with the Trump administration that they can just be like, hey, do us a favor. And the Trump administration is like, hey, yeah, we don't see the warlords as that big a thing, honestly. We're kind of like them, a lot of them.

So like, sure, that's no problem. Green light, he can come over here. I do think Hamzot is in a tough spot because some of those comments he made leading up to the fight seemed like the closest we've heard him come to being like I wish you guys would leave me out of this I just trying to train and fight this is a guy

where his most of his career took off when he was in Sweden he he seems like he would just like to do the fighting part and manage his own career and he's doing this stuff because you kind of have to or you're going to create problems for yourself and your family

back in Chechnya that doesn't like totally excuse it because you do the first order business as you take that belt and you go show it off for the dictator and accept his lavish gifts and all that and plus when you see these guys you see these pictures of these guys hanging out they seem to be having no fun exactly they just seem like like just no fun is being had you see all the like kind of like the hugs are just like oh this very reluctant thing that they're doing man they're like that not real hugs it's very strange every time they show them i i think that it just seems so oppressed just the look of it looks like that but it's yeah i think that he probably if he had his way would just steer clear of that he does not seem like super ideologically driven in any way

he seems just very focused on his fight career and he just he has to deal with this one way or another but he did not seem eager to talk about it and so i i i feel like he's he's kind of going to do the bare minimum he can it's just that as you become champion and get greater visibility, the bare minimum of itself, the expectations there become greater. Well, we heard from Brian Bartlett later this week on the Ariel Hulani show. You know, the outlook was pretty good, but it seems as though he has been cut. We have to talk about that. We have to talk about a lot of welterweight drama, Sean Brady, saying different things about

Ian Gary, Ian Gary telling Pratches, Leon's not going to fight you over there. There's a lot of things being said about Leon Edwards right now. I don't know how comfortable I am about all this. but we are going to talk about all of that right after this break. Get out quickly, we're back. Sorry, the makeup guy was just in here. Sorry, I hope I still look good. Welcome back to the crack, everyone.

What was it going under your desk? What was going on to? Hey, whoa, whoa! Welcome back. It's me chook and Ben. That was an ad. And now we're going to talk about Brian Battle, lads. He has apparently been cut from the UFC.

Ben, we kind of knew, right? We kind of knew. there was some trouble of brune for the old miss weight situation we're on the crack last Friday and we're kind of saying you know what you know who doesn't like this kind of shit it is the UFC

turns out they didn't like it then no especially you're gonna miss weight two times in a row in two different weight classes that's a bad look man that's just such bad look because you miss weight the first time you go out there you win the fight anyway

and he had some comments where he was like hey don't complain afterwards you took to fight. I won. Sorry I missed weight, but, you know, and then he's like, I'm going to go up and wait. That's the thing I got to do here. And we all go, all right. So that's the end of that weightness, right? And it turns out, nope, you're going to miss weight up there too. And it just paints a bad picture of what's happening with you. You got to know when you go up and wait for the next one. You absolutely cannot miss weight there. However, it is, it does highlight some stuff about where the UFC is at because Brian Bell is a good fighter. And it seems like he has to

a good future and is an exciting guy, a guy who has managed to stand out at a time when it is not easy to stand out on a crowded UFC roster. And for them to look at that and go, you know what, we can cut that guy. That tells you something that they're not worried about a competitor is going to scoop him up and we're going to lose this guy who ends up being a star, ends up being a good asset for somebody else. We're not even worried about that. We can take a guy who seems like, who is an ultimate fighter winner who seems like he has a bright future and And we can go, you know what, we're mad at you, so go away now. And they're not at all concerned about giving him over to somebody else who might be in a position to promote him, which tells you something about how confident they feel in their position overall in the sport, but also how they feel like, hey, he's going to want to be back in the UFC anyway.

You know, that's what his focus is going to be. We can say no. We don't need any of these people. they're all kind of interchangeable to us and uh you know we'll see it down the road if you get your weight stuff together and they've kind of like he's he's kind of dotted you know along the way like had some high marks like he came up on tough right like it was like he came up on tough so i felt like people kind of paid him attention as he came out but man it's crazy to think that like as of last september not quite a year ago he cut that great promo i did a whole piece on him you know after that that card

in france where he was like you know chastising and antagonizing the french crowd and saying like uh you know nobody's going to beat the butcher and Frenchman's not going to beat the butcher. And I really believed, I was like, this is a guy who just kind of showed, like, how to handle a microphone again. And it seemed to me, especially as they booked him against Randy Brown, like he was on the verge of actually doing something pretty big. I don't know about stardom, you know, but I felt like he was heading that direction, like he'd gotten his name. And then that whole weight miss, it felt like it derailed him in a big way and especially the way he handled it. If I recall, it was such a close fight. I remember at the time thinking he lost the fight.

I don't know if you guys remember it. It was like a very close fight. And then for this one to happen, like you said, at the new weight class, and I think both times it's like egregious, like four pounds, five pounds. Like he was not close to the, I think that you just put the UFC in a, you know, the UFC would kind of look bad if they didn't, you know, set like basically cut you for that because that's the kind of miss that you're not professional. And I didn't think that he was, it was extra satisfactory, like when he was coming on and talking about why he missed.

You know, it's kind of like, ah, man, you know, it just kind of didn't get dialed in right for this one. You know what I mean? So I wasn't surprised at all, but I think to Ben's play, like, 7 and 1, I think he's 30 years old. He's a guy who's just kind of coming into his prime and does have potential to be a standout kind of fighter that way. It's crazy that the UFC can do that. I don't think they could, I don't think they would have done that a few years ago. I think that this, that's a, that's a now thing. Yeah, like, just on that point, like, I've noticed this with, you know,

prospects in the European scene that used to be snapped up by the UFC as well. Like, they don't, like, if you don't want to come in here and do what we want you to do, we don't, we don't care. Like, but the likes of hues and guys like that who are just like, oh, you don't want an entry-level deal in the UFC, see it. Like, they are such a machine at this point. Like, and I do, like, I can remember. we had Al Shadi on not so long ago

and I was kind of saying like this is going to bite them in the ass at some stage and I know we're nowhere near that right now like they are killing it they've signed this new broadcast deal and not and again I'm not necessarily saying they're wrong for doing this to Brian battle leader but that's that general kind of you either want to be with us or go

and do whatever the hell you want to do we don't care we're not going to fight for you and we're not going to you just don't get the same feeling like back in the day where they're calming through the European scenes where the matchmakers were really really trying to isolate the talents in different aspects. Like the UFC is just taking what's coming through the managers that they deal with, and that's the way it is.

And I think just Ben speaking about the fact they kind of will take or leave, like one of the top 30 welterweights in the world kind of reminded me of that. Speaking of welterweight, lads, there's been a bit of drama. And I know, I know Chuck Mellon Hall and Ben folks love themselves some drama. Are you ready to get into this? Are you ready? Oh, yeah. Everyone watching on TV.

Say, yeah. Are you ready to get into some welterweight drama? Puzzin, buzzin. Roll the Sean Brady clip. Please, on Air Jordan. Thank you. I mean, they are big words from Sean Brady all the way over there in Philadelphia. It is dramatic, Ben, to say the very least, what's going on here.

I'd fucking love that fight. I mean, I'd flippin' love that fight. And I guess that's my main takeaway. I really wish that fight. My main takeaway is, do we have to do this while driving through a tunnel or whatever? Like, okay, Mr. Colin and Ariel's show from the, from the tunnel that time. I just don't understand. He wasn't really in a tunnel, I don't think.

The hypocrisy. MMA fighters would have us believe that they are the busiest people in the world because even when they are filming a video in which they update us on their careers, we can't even park the car. No. We can't, we can't set up a nice environment, think about background a little bit. Half of Ariel's interviewer from a car, you know what I mean? Like, I said I would do that one time. I was like, one of these times when I'm going to be on there, you know, I'd just show up in my car. See, that's a thing.

It's hilarious. It's hilarious. As they have before, I've been on, like, I've guessed on people's shows. And if they asked me at a time when I had to be driving in the car, I would be like, well, obviously, I can't do it then. I'm going to be in the car. It's, I don't understand. I think that they go to the car specifically for the interview. I think that that's what they're doing.

I think there are definitely some people, you know, when I talk about it. about him later on. Sean Strickland loves to pour his heart out in the front seat of the car while looking at like Instagram Live or something. And maybe there's something soothing about it or something that feels like a safe space to them. I'm in the driver's seat of my car. Nothing bad can happen to me here. Like I can say whatever. I get it. That's, I'm, I'm getting distracted here. Because, yeah, I mean, if that really is the situation, what he outlined, yeah, I don't blame him for being frustrated with that it is nice to see that here's the situation right now at welterweight you've got so many different uh interesting fights that you could make there and you get an opportunity

to kind of pick and choose what we want to do when and where uh but yeah if i'm if i'm if i'm in gary sitting around i'm doing like all right yeah first things first let me go get in the car fire fire off an answer you got to come you got to come back with something here right yeah that's it is that fight though right like I love the idea of that fight because it immediately gives us the next guy to fight for the title like it the winner of that fight surely um shavkat you know we don't know what's going on with him this this uh this sport is this promotion especially recency bias will do a lot for you and i think if if those two guys fought you the winner the winner's next in line for sure right i think bala like i'm the official like whatever the the UFC rankings like Balala is up there nobody's they're not trying to rush him into a shot right like so I think Sean Brady's right there anyway it seems to me like if you're in Gary that would make sense if that's so you know it's also a huge narrative shift from like the Ian Gary we were talking about just a couple of months ago the guy who was the backup fighter for a title fight and

he stood in there against a process right like it felt like he was saying that hey I just want to fight anybody I'm ready to go um so this is a huge narrative shift in a short amount of time. I never know in the fight game what is true anymore. Like, you hear one thing and then you get the extreme other side of it. I never know where it's coming from. But that doesn't seem entirely Gary like to me. Does it to you, PT? Like, it feels like he would. No, he is, he's very, he is a very willing guy. Like, he is, I think the trouble with Ian, since his amateur days was trying to get him to calm the fuck down. Like, trying to get him to not fight people is probably the biggest issue there

are having with him, you know? Sorry, Ben, I caught you off there, me. I do think, think that one thing you're seeing with a lot of these guys, they get up high enough in the rankings and they get a lot less willing to fight other top contenders because they kind of think, I'm already here, especially somebody like Ian and Gary where he's like, I'm a name already. People know me. I can sell a fight. I can promote a fight. If I just wait around, then maybe the title fight comes to me without me having to do anything, either because, you know, somebody else falls out of the title fight and I'm in a position to say yes or just like when the next opportunity rolls around i feel like

promotionally i'm in a better position than somebody else is and so i it gets a lot harder to make those fights once you're talking about trying to match up like number five versus number three number four versus number two stuff like that because they kind of feel like i'm here i don't need to prove anything else but i do think the ufc has long done this in a way that a lot of other combat sports haven't where they'll take the top contenders and smash them against each other and say when the dust clears whoever's left stand and that's the guy who's going to fight for the title and that makes for exciting fights for fans and it makes it so that you do end up a lot of times with a very clear contender that can't be

argued over but it also makes it so that we've seen some people who had such a tough path up to the title that by the time they got there that there were damaged goods a little bit to some extent So I can't really blame a fighter for trying to be smart on how he's picking his path to the top. Well, Ian Gary is not yet. As far as I know, it might have happened. Look, we are on live TV, guys. This could have happened. But what I want to tell you is he did have something to say about some welterweights.

And, Dan, I want you to brace yourself because you're going to be very impressed at where he did this call from. Go ahead on there, Jordan. Oh, we missed out where he goes to the Portuguese. He starts talking on Portuguese. Ben, what you think, man? This one, he's clearly, he's talking to someone holding the phone. in the passenger seat, right? Like the other one, at least it looked like

Sean Brady had the thing where you set your phone up on the dashboard so that you can be hands free looking at your map and it's less distracted driving. I won't exactly call it safe driving still.

This one, he's doing it like an 80s TV show where he's not looking at the road a lot of the time. He's looking away so they can address directly into the camera. We don't need to do it this way.

Where is your destination? Especially this one, if wherever you're going to get there and I still don't I still think we could find a better background than the car but like we don't need to be doing this man I just don't understand it I think what I wish I watched these things and I considered the backdrop as much as you're like I've learned today and I will look out for more of it oh you're going to notice a lot of cars yeah but it's a nice car is that what is that the point it looks like a horse nice is that the point we're supposed

supposed to get is we're supposed to be like the interior of that car looking clean man like good for you i'm supposed to be like places to go people to see you know he's busy man but he's going to respond here you know he did even respond he just launched a fucking stray at leon edwards basically like it's like i'm not you're going to talk about this point that have allegedly turned out what's up before leon man why is he in season fucking everybody's out for leon man they've seen they're trying to steal leon's looky charms they saw what happened with sean brady and then shon brady mr hot shit of the division now and they're like I want me some of that

Alexa of championship contention. I want me some of that Leon Edwards Clariff all over my all of my fucking gloves so I can get, sorry, of course again, so I can get to that championship stakes. Not a good place to be for Leon right now. Like he's not getting

the attractive situations anymore. Like it's classic kind of after being a champion in the UFC, you'd say. Like, you know, Chuck, this is what happens, unfortunately, isn't it? Like, they are trying to make Leon Edwards' father for the new generation. Yeah. They also, I think there's something to be said for a guy.

Like, he's a former champion, right? So he's still got that juice, even though he's lost a couple of fights. But when you look, there's always like this kind of subtext to this when people start calling you out. And then you look at the top five and you're like, well, it's because you're the one guy that they think they can beat in the top five, like hands down, right? Like they're looking at it, if you look at that top five, it's, it's, there's some monsters in there. And I think that people right now are like, let's see, if I'm going to topple some, oh, what about Leon? I think that that's kind of where he's at. That can't be good for the ego either, you know?

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I don't think it's, I think it would be crazy for Leon. Like, Ben, like, honestly, like, if you're, if you're anyone to do with Leon, are you like, Leon, do you know what's a great fight? Pratchez in Brazil, baby. What about that one? Let's think about this. We'll get back on the horse. We'll be right back in there when we take out JDM.

I'd be like, stay the fuck away from that fight, Leon. That's what I mean, say the flip. Sorry. Stay away from that, Leon. Go ahead, Ben. I think what Leon is suffering from right now, what you're seeing and the way other people are treating him is that you're somebody where they go, this guy still has a name. Lately, I don't know if his heart is in it. He seems more beatable now, but also it seems still like a win that would mean something for you.

and yet he also he doesn't have enough personality points with the UFC or with fans or anything that they look at this guy and they go he's he doesn't have another option he can't wait around for the title shot

to come back his way like that's not happening he's got to take some of these fights he does not have the ability to kind of pick and choose so I can pick on him he was looking strong now he's looking like food and that's what they're thinking I think that that's definitely the calculation that it's going through these guys' minds.

They're not picking them because they're like, Leon Edwards is as good as he's ever been, and that's why I want to fight him. Absolutely not. Yeah. It's a rough spot to be in. It's a rough spot to be in, lads. Listen, I know I teased you before the first break of the day. But get ready to be teased even more because I know for a fact that Chuck Mendenhall and Ben folks have been dying to speak about the big fight.

That's what Ben calls it when he's texting. He just calls it the big fight now. It's Jake Paul v. Tank Davis. God, that's the big guy upstairs working in our favor here. And we're going to talk all about the big fight, as Ben calls it, right after this break. I said I wanted a latte, not a cappuccino. Oh, sorry. I mean, oh, we're back.

Sorry, sorry, guys. Great to see you again, Chuck and Ben. Completely normal break there and we all had a great time with it. I always forgot. We were talking about Jake Paul and Tank Davis. What a great fight, Chuck. Yeah, the big fight. You're just going to throw to me?

I don't even know where to start on this one, boys, because I feel like it's like one of those digressions in the fight game that you're like, nobody's asking for it, and yet this is the direction we're going to go. And I was at the Tank Davis fight, you know, when he fought Lamont Roach. And that building was left in a state of like, you know, pending because we're like, well, okay, wait,

we just got a majority draw. Are we going to resolve this thing? I think everybody leaves there thinking that that's where you're going. This is a natural, like, organic drama that you now have in Tank Davis's career. And you think you're going to get that rematch and you end up over here. A guy who's, you know, fighting a guy who is 50 pounds heavier than him, at least, is just, it's so now, though. Like, I feel like this is our, this is our time. This is like how it is these days.

But it still catches you off guard because I still have this old school mindset that you're getting resolutions with these fights or these, you know, series or whatever, whatever ends up. happening. So if there's an automatic rematch, you kind of want it to play out. I guess that's what kind of bothered me about the whole thing when it was made. Yeah, it's, um, look, I'm sorry, Ben. I don't really like the FOIAator, okay? I'm going to be honest with you. Um, you don't. That's crazy, uh, it's, it's, he's outrage farming at this stage, right? Like, he is, I was telling Ben this before he went low. What do you mean at this stage? I mean, I got angry with his tweet yesterday. Where's his tweet?

Bring up the tweet there for a second on there, Jordan. We have that there? I was like shouting at my phone yesterday to the point where Alain was like, mate, what the, like, you know what the, like, you know what I mean? You need to really have a look at yourself. Javonda, who has been disrespecting my name for too long. His nickname might be tank, but I'm an FPV drone and I'm about to disable tiny boy. Yes, he's one of the top pound for pound boxes of the world.

but my motto is anyone, any time, any place. That's when I start losing my shit, I think, against all odds. And I like my odds. Yes, I don't. First, I'm going to kill David. Then I will go on to slaughter Goliath. I believe he's talking about Anthony, Joshua there. A bit of a size difference between Joshua and Davis, of course.

But, Ben, in all seriousness, tell me how you reacted to seeing this mega fight being made. You know that the first thing I did is just to make sure that I wasn't tripping is that I went and I looked up the official listed height for Jervanta Davis just because I was just like, hold on. Am I thinking of the right guy? Am I thinking of a different tank Davis?

5-5, by the way, is the listed official height for him. So it's going to be visually hilarious in the lead up to the fight. I do appreciate that. I appreciate a little bit of just like visual, physical comedy. But it also, it does seem, like Jake Paul is doing a thing where you're right the whole thing from the beginning has been

how can I make people mad enough that they somehow go no damn it I must this can't be allowed to continue and he successfully did that to us as the MMA community for a while right at the beginning where he fought Ben Asgren and he fought Tyron Woodley fought Anderson Silva stuff like where we were kind of sitting around and being like listen this can't happen We can't allow there to be a world where Jake Paul can walk the earth, and he has a win over somebody like Anderson Silva. And it worked on us. And then he tried to do it some to the boxing people,

and it didn't work on them as well until the Mike Tyson one, where that worked. And I think he's still trying to find ways to do that. And also working around being like, what is available, who will actually do this? Like, who can I get as a dance partner for something like this? And honestly, you yelling at the tweet Kind of shows that it worked on you

I hate to be the one to deliver that bad news, Pizzi. But if you're yelling at the tweet, he got you. That's the reaction he's looking for. He's not really looking for the reaction of somebody being like, Jake Paul, you've done it again, you're genius. It's really not the Jake Paul port. Like, Jake Paul's going to do what he's going to do.

It's when he, you know, gets it like, it's in this case a champion right like it's when he kind of it's almost like when they used to announce tough and they'd be like hey guys this champion's going to be going against this guy and you're like great so they're going to be on the show for a year you know that and so it was kind of land with a thud it's like i guess that's what it is you're taking a guy kind of out of his um ellen i know it's happening in november which isn't that far off but still you're taking a guy out of his natural like where he should be um you have a fight for him you're taking him out of that and putting him into this other situation, which

let's be honest, I don't know how you guys feel, but every time I think I've come out of a Jake Paul fight, it's like the walk of shame, right? Like, oh, God, man, you know, I just, I never feel like, even if you don't pay for it, it never feels good after a Jake Paul fight. You're always just like, this is, why did I,

why do I keep doing this to myself, you know? So, I feel like you're still setting this up for something. I don't know exactly how this will play out, but if you recall, in 2017, Javada Davis was fighting Francisco Fonseca, remember on the card that Connor McGregor

was fighting, Mayweather, he was on that card. And I remember at the time, the boxing purists, and there were a few of them there at that event, which was a huge crossover, you had every kind of celebrity and every kind of media. But he was the one holding down the boxing

purity of it. Like, he was the one kind of like he was fighting in his fight. There were a couple of others. It was a pretty good undercard, but like they were the ones kind of keeping the boxing alive part of it, right? Like, we're like, this is pure boxing. Then we'll get to our circus show at the top and see how that plays out. It's crazy that, like, what, eight years later, you know, here's Tank Davis, who was affiliated

at the time with Floyd Mayweather and all that, is actually the guy doing that. It's a strange trajectory when you think about that, when you've watched these guys go from one thing to the next and to end up in a situation that you're sort of like, you know, bemoaning at the end of the first one. Like that 2007, it's not exactly the same thing. But it shares those qualities, right? Like, it shares those like circus tent qualities that you're like, ah, I want to be done with it, you know?

Yeah. It's interesting you say that because they've actually followed the same formula the whole time. Like even if you're like where the, the Mike Tyson showing his ass to the world on the broadcast of Netflix, his point with Paul, they had Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano. Right. Like in that spot beforehand, which was, it turned.

Like, anyone that was watching that fight, it really helped them kind of show, like, this is a real boxing fight on this card. Like, that really helps these promotions, like, you know, to be like, this is real, this is as pure as it gets what's happening between Taylor and Serrano. And then this thing is going to happen later on. But I feel like, Ben, like, they have to do something like that again, right? Like, Netflix, for their good, like, for the sake of, I mean, I don't really, I don't know anyone in Netflix, but like, these are getting involved in these fights. One is Tyson, 60-year-old Tyson, 30-year-age gap. Then this one, this crazy freak show with Tank Davis. Surely they have to balance the books a little bit here

and put on a real boxing fight in the Serrano-Taylor slot. I don't know. Maybe they don't feel like they do? I think that, don't you think they came out of that Tyson, Jake Paul thing, being like, well, it worked. Yeah. It did exactly. 108 million, right?

Yeah. And that's all they care about. It doesn't matter if all the regrets are in place. You know, it's like. Right. Well, yeah, especially because what we heard from Netflix people coming out of that where they were like, this is what we want is big tent pole sports events like this, more so than just owning the rights to a sport kind of on a weekly basis. Like we want big events that get people talking. And that, you know, it was the Jake Paul, Mike Tyson part of that, clearly that got everybody talking.

And that was what created a really rare thing in combat sports, which was a night where it felt like, oh. All of America was tuning in, but much of the world was tuning in to watch the same thing, talk about it all together, all live, focused on one event. And it was a fight sports event that just doesn't happen very often. That's kind of like our Super Bowl sad as that is to say, given what the fight actually was. The thing about Jake Paul's whole gimmick, though, is that it only works if you seem to be constantly turning up to heat in one way or another. and that gets hard to do because he has to find a way he did it pretty well early in the career where he was going from, all right, you saw me fight a broke down wrestler and I knocked him out. Let me fight a guy who actually has some knockouts.

Let me fight a guy who's a broke down striker. Like he has to ramp it up somehow and also ramp it up without getting himself literally killed in the ring. And so those are two kind of tricky things to balance. Like, you know, he wants to go out there and have a. good time he doesn't want to go out there and be foolish however and get his head knocked off and so it's tricky to find those like find somebody who's going to say yes find somebody that other people are going to want to watch that it's going to feel like we are we are moving for because he's had a couple of those stumbles where he was trying to do just regular boxer stuff

where he was fighting people who made sense for where he was in terms of his development as a boxer and nobody gave a damn they they sent a very clear message we don't want to see jay Jake Paul, the legitimate boxer. We want to see Jake Paul the freak show boxer. And so he's now corrected in the other direction. Can I ask a pen just in the back of that point? How would you feel if they announced a Joshua fight yesterday, not this fight? Concerned.

For who? Yeah. I feel very concerned for Jake Paul. Because I'd just be like, man, sometimes you start having so much fun with a gimmick. you go out there and get yourself hit by a truck and the gimmick's not going to be very fun at that point so I mean he's going to take out David and then Goliath

that's who he's talking about we're going to see it eventually the natural progression from but do you believe that progression will happen like I guess like we're talking about the fact that like we're kind of entering the fuck around and find out kind of situation here for Jake Paul as he slowly escalates this as great as Davis is, the escalation from a 5-4-5 guy

to a behemoth, like Joshua, like he looks like he's been carved out a marble for Christ's sake. We've seen why he did the Francis and Gannu. Like, do you believe, like it seems like

there was at least conversations happening about this fight? Do you believe that he will pursue that or will that be just a dangled carrot only to take on a lesser opponent again claiming that, in fact, in the future,

I will fight Anthony Joshua. I mean, it does. feel like if you're trying to find ways to constantly up the ante, you're going to get around to one of those kind of fights eventually, right? And I also think it's hard for me to tell to what extent does Jake Paul believe his own hype? Because I think to a lot of extent that is probably the case. I think to, you know, he knows what he's doing. He's very savvy as a self-promoter. He just kind of seems to have a an natural gift for that. It's worked really well. But I also think one of the things that it took us a long time to adjust to early on in the kind of the Jake Paul experiment was the idea that, no, he really thinks he's a boxer. He's not just out here thinking of himself as I'm an influencer who boxes. I'm, or I'm a celebrity who has found a way to monetize that celebrity and that platform is boxing. He thinks of himself as a boxer and genuinely believes that he is

going to be a great boxer by the end of whatever his career is. And so if you told me that he talked to himself into thinking like, yeah, I'll go out there and beat Anthony Joshua. I'll surprise a lot of people. I might believe that. I might believe that he believes that. And more natural segue

would be in Gano, right? Like you fight the guy who has the less, who got blasted by him, but at the same time, you're still escalating with a major puncher like that. But you're fighting a guy who's a little far greener, right, than you would fight with with Joshua so I feel like if that happens eventually it'll probably go through something like that

don't you think his progression has been all over the place but you're right man he's been each time he's adding an element it's like he's on a soundboard and he keeps messing with each knob he's like okay this guy's got this but i'm i'm advantage here you know like i'm gonna weigh i'll weigh him by 50 pounds so i feel like that would be the natural thing you know well here we go we can obviously see there in the kisa bedarian uh jake v tank was always the plan for 2025 on discussions for Jake v. Joshua has always been for first half of 2026 and those negotiations continue. I mean, for the amount of conversations about the Tyson fight where it was like, oh, these two guys have a gentleman's agreement, blah, blah, blah, blah, like they're not trying

to kill each other. I think that's going to be ramped up quite significantly in the lead up to this Tank Davis fight. Now, lads, we're going to have to say goodbye to our beautiful people who have joined us on the Yahoo Sports Network. I mean, what an experience for you guys watching the crack for the first time. It's kind of like listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club for the first time. You know, you're going to go and tell people like,

holy shit, shot this show. Exactly. You know, it's a life-changing experience. But I'll be happy to tell you all that, you know, you can come over to YouTube now, and we're going to be breaking down that low-key banger in Shanghai. We're going to be talking about the PFL files. I spoke. I know. I spoke to Fabian Edwards, the main man over

there. He's fighting an American guy that looks like he's in the cast of American Pie. Chuck Mendenhall spoke to Brian Ortega. It will be out tomorrow. And Ben, folks, talk to Al Jermaine Sterling. But for right now, we'll say goodbye to our lovely TV people. What a lucky day for you.

Join us again. Not next week, but the week after. Goodbye 15 minutes of fame. Welcome back, Crackheads. We're on the main line now, the YouTube. We love you more than the TV guys, obviously. Like, I mean, come on. you know you're the reason we're here really crackheads i don't think the tv people are crackheads only

you guys okay just saying oh but i said okay i don't like who are they i don't even know those people okay i don't even know i'm sure they're i'm sure they're lovely people but anyway uh look the hardcores are here and we've got some fucking fights to talk about this weekend proper fights low key bangor is an expression i've used three times today in reference to the shanghai card boys. I mean, on very early as well. You have a little bit of oatmeal, perhaps. Oatmeal? Coffee?

What's the start time on this one? I mean, it's like, put it in American terms. 2 a.m. Chucks time, I think gets underway out like. So that's Sounds like, I'm not your time. This is like, am I right about this? Honor, Jordan, can you check my facts here? This is every fucking

5 a.m. Eastern? This is every bike out I watch. No. Okay? You're insulting my life. I'm not going to do that. I'm not doing that pizza. That's absurd. How did I not realize this? Okay.

All right. I mean, you two guys. It's like you two guys. In the true mountain times on, the true time zone, that's what, 1 a.m.? That's not bad. You'll still be up anyway.

If I'm still up, it's not going to be, you know, to watch prelims from Shanghai. Like, especially, if that's the start, is that the total card start time? That's not even main card start time? That's just, That just starts going on.

Oh, my lord. Okay, main card 6th Eastern. Hey, that's kind of good news for me because it means you'll wrap it up basically in time for me to sit down with a cup of coffee and skip through the filler, which is how I like to enjoy it anyway. They make you sit through a lot of crap on the U.S. Fight Night cards throwing it back and forth at a desk and all this. And you're just like, there ain't nobody got time for that, not for this kind of a fight card. Skip to the part where the mountain tiger knocks out. Johnny Walker in a way that makes him

flop around on the cage, like the inflatable guy outside the car wash. Like, nobody gets knocked out funnier than Johnny Walker. And this is exactly the kind of fight that seems like what was set up for him to get knocked out funny in front of

like a supportive crowd for the man, the mountain tiger. He gets hurt generally weird, right? Like even doing the worm. He gets hurt weird. That's not his fucking gravestone. That's not getting I saw a video I had never seen before. Somebody posted it on

Twitter where it was a fight of his from like jungle fight from before he was in the UFC where he gets knocked out all weird and I was like, this guy's been doing it longer than I realized. He did it on the regional scene in the UK as well. He lived in Scotland for a while way before he came to Ireland. Like it's

a very strange guy. What I will say is just on that point as Ben was talking about him getting hurt weird as I check my boyfriend takes me this morning. and saying, how is it that the mountain tiger is the same odds to win as he is to win

by K.O. And I was like, I think you've answered your own question there, buddy. That's the way it's going to go. I think you know what that is. Look, you guys talk to both sides of the, I suppose it would be a chief support because it's a hell of a fight between Brian Ortega and Algepain Sterling.

The Ortega article is to go out tomorrow, I believe. So you guys can check that out on Friday. But firstly, and what kind of mood did you find Aljo in Ben? You know what? I was surprised with Al Jo's forthrightness in a lot of ways and just like he's, he's a very self-aware guy, an honest guy, smart guy.

And so I was a little bit surprised he was willing to just lay it all out there. When I asked him kind of, what do you see this fight as, you know, why they book you two guys against each other here? And he was like, it's a crossroads fight. Like, you know, they'd see two guys. at this point in their career and they go, one of them's on his way down, the other one can still go up, which one is which? And that's what they're trying to figure out when they match the two of us up here. And I went, yeah, I mean, that's pretty accurate. That's a guy who's been in this

sport long enough to know how it works. But also, when I kind of asked him about where he felt like he was overall as a 36-year-old featherweight at this point and former champ, and he said, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know, I know the end is coming. And when I asked him at some point. I was like, what's that feeling like to know the end is coming? And he said, it's depressing. Because, you know, he said also, he was like, I can tell just by how my body feels a lot of the time. Training hurts a lot more now than it used to. He says, like, I'll get to periods where I feel pretty good, pretty healthy. I think it made a big difference for him moving to Las Vegas where he could use the Performance Institute and get into physical therapy there because he said in

New York, he wasn't really doing any of that. And, but he's also like, hey, I'll, be feeling good, I'll ask for a fight. By the time they finally give me one, it's six to eight weeks later and something hurts. And so I can kind of tell, you know, you're not going to be able to do this indefinitely. You're closer to the end than you are to the beginning. And it made him reflect a little bit on like when he was the young guy who showed up in the UFC and was on a winning streak and everything. But I think he also realizes this, if you still have any hopes of accomplishing something big, maybe making a last title run, We're just getting some last big fights in.

This fight against Brian Ortega, this version of Brian Ortega in this spot, you've got to win it. You know, you can't lose this one. Especially he's a pretty sizable favorite in this fight. He seemed not that pleased that it's a five-round co-made event, you know, which is weird for this situation. Especially it's like if you're not going to pay him anymore. Because it's not like anybody was going to be sitting around to be like, Aljo and Brian Ortega is only three rounds. I know. That's crap, man.

And we need five full rounds. Like people were, this is the kind of fight where people would go, well probably see what we need to see inside of three rounds, you know, like so I could understand his feelings on that one. But I do think he realizes if you want to still do something with whatever time is left, you need to be pride or take her. I'll tell you. It feels to me like they, they put this together with sort of like that, well, what do you do with this guy?

What do you do with this guy, you know, well, put them together. Let's, you know, I don't know if there is, like, if there is a set of definitive of stakes. I was asking Brian Ortega this thing too. And I mean, I don't know. I felt like I was I kind of had the opposite experience that Ben had. Like, I felt like I was keeping him up from a nap because he was, uh, he was kind of like lying on his bed. He was lying on his bed and he was just kind of giving you the, what a ride, bro, you know, like that kind of thing. It's been a crazy journey. Do you talk about his name? No, man, I was so tempted to ask him about it. But it just seemed like he was, uh, drowsy. Um, so I was like I didn't want to get too deep into

stuff but uh but he kind of is in the same spot right like he's basically he's 34 years old i think he's two and four he looked in his last six fights and he looked pretty i thought he looked pretty bad at the sphere he didn't look like himself um in that fight against diego lopez and so you're just basically asking the same things and i think he's kind of like you know as long as i am because i think he's ranked fifth as long as i win i'm always within earshot of that like title and that's still the goal but you wonder if i was trying to say to him you know man is it sometimes like since there aren't any obvious title implications you get a fight like this isn't it sometimes just most simplistic way to be like my job isn't to worry about anything like that

just to go win the fight like you just want the most simplest view on it because all those you know when there when there's a lot of um stakes attached or um maybe there's a title fight on all that like looming it tends to get in your head a little bit isn't it better to just just kind of approach it like I just need to win a fight that's all it's as simple as that and you know he kind of kind of agreed but he he did sound like he was like still thinking about a title fight at some point soon you know so you never know I feel like there's a little bit of a delusion sometimes with these guys and I'm not sure if it's just like he's kind of giving you the rote answers that he thinks he should or if he believes that yeah there is some really nice fights

in this card. Like, and I feel like this Pavlovich, Waldo Cortez-A Costa, finally got his name right. Um, this fight is important

for heavyweight. Like, every, like, anything that's happening in this division suddenly feels important because there's a champion again. Like,

I, if this fight happens four months ago, we're kind of like, well, what the fuck are they fighting for? Like, I can remember even feeling that about Volkov and Gan when they fought.

I was like, that, everything was still up in the air. Like, this is a great fight between two highly ranked guys and everyone was like, because I'm like, Like, what are they, what are the stakes? We definitely have that with Pavlovich,

Waldo, Cortez, Acosta, Nell it again, Sumajiri against Kevin Borjas. Kiefer Crosby, this guy is hugely popular in Ireland, Kiefer Crosby. And he was initially meant to fight Keenan Song on this, he's fighting a debutante now, Nourajie. But he is a hugely popular dude over there. He's 0-2 since he came to the UFC.

This guy used to sell so many tickets for Bellator for Obama over the years. an SBG for a really interesting story from a very, very Irish MMA level. He did an interview with the El Triangle. That's our good friends, Andy Stevenson, Quiltz de Barra, and Ian O'Neill. And he kind of said, like,

and this is in reference to John Cabin on SBG. He was like, I didn't have a coach for my last four fights. Like, he didn't really elaborate on that that much, but he's over with Eric Nixick now. He's prepared for that fight now. And he got to remember, this is just a week after Artem Loboffs on Ariel's show going, like, oh, John's not a coach anymore.

so it's just bizarre like 10 years after like changing the face of MMA, this gym apparently, you've got this coming out. It's a really, really weird wrinkle to all this, but he feels like he's prepared for a fight for the first time since he's been in the UFC and I think it's the most winnable fight he has had. So I'm looking forward to seeing how he gets in that one. Mahaschetti's on there against Gage Young. What a fucking name.

Lanier Kavana fights out of the UK. Now you don't have to beep out your cuss words, man. I mean, yeah, we can fuckety, fuck, fuck. We're back on YouTube. Yeah. Wow. Captain is a savage. He's playing Charles Johnson.

That is a savage boy of Floyd. A lot of shit going down, but we've also got. Wait, real quick. You, you know, you were mentioning just how things change, like, with the gym over there, an island, like, all that stuff. I was thinking about, like, this would have been a big deal, Shanghai. Remember, like, when they were, like, people were trying to get into China and they couldn't do that?

Like, rough, you remember rough MM-R-U-F-F? They were, like, their claim to fame was. hey, we got into China, you know, and we're, that's the market. Like, they were going to tap into a billion people at once, you know. It's crazy that this is like flying so far under the radar nowadays, like, oh, they're going to China and then next week it's wherever, but it's, it's like just any other event. Isn't that enough? Was that where Chris Barnett was?

Was he in Roof? He might have been. I don't remember. I just remember they were, their claim to fame was they, you know, they were in mainland China. They were, like, doing events in China. They were the only sanction show in town that could get in there. this was before the UFC got in there by far

but it was such a big deal I felt like we used to always talk about this stuff like man can you imagine if the UFC starts to make it into China and all these places now we just like you just take it for granted we don't even pay any attention to that then we go do you think the USA are going to go to Spain and everyone laughs

I know no no talking about it crazy something cool no way but yeah it isn't the only fight this weekend lads there are there are lots of fights but one that's particularly very it's captured my attention in a way

I did not think it would and you can tell me if I have a strictly European sense on this guys and I would like you to tell me does Dalton Rasta look like every bully in every American coming of age film

you've ever seen because I mean I feel like he's should be wearing a letterman jacket he should be beside like a cheerleader and he should stuff some guys in the lockers and he acts like it too right I could just play the clip

on Air Jordan please like is this just me come on have a go of this do we have it we don't have it oh we have what we have there we have there well there's these incredible interactions between fabian edwards and dalton raster where dalton just shows up and he's immediately talking about his forehead he's talking about like i'm going to fuck you up and you can see fabian in real time being like i feel like i'm in a movie right now and you can see him like i said this to what i was like describing exactly what I said to you guys at the start here to him just the other day. And he caught me off. He's like,

a joke. You're talking about a jock? And I was like, that's what I'm talking about. But have you guys seen any of these fucking interactions? It's absolutely wild. I know Ben's a massive PFL fans. I assume Ben's seen all of this. I haven't seen any of their interactions. I mean, I do say, look, when a guy

goes by the nickname Hercules, I feel like he's trying to tell you something about how he views himself, how he would like to be viewed, something like that. It's very muscular. He's very muscular. And Fabian said some comments about his muscularity didn't really rub Dalton up the right way.

The phrase we like to use over here is looks good getting off the bus, which is to say, you know, like you'd go, you'd play in high school football, some team would come, you'd see all the guys getting off the bus and you go,

oh, shit. We're in trouble. We might be in for it today, boys. But then sometimes you get out there on the field and you go, actually, no, we're in pretty good shape here. They looked a lot scarier than they ended up being. So, like, who knows? But

I find it interesting that Petsy seems to have a visceral reaction here where he, he sees this guy and he feels like he is already halfway bullied just by the man's appearance. He's got some issues, you know? Nobody looks like that in Ireland.

Not a single dude I went to school. It looks like that. Lots of guys look like that in America. Yeah. I mean, I'm like, what the fuck I've never seen a dude like this and we're like anybody who's been to high school in America has seen a dude like that but it's funny because Fabi described his feelings to me about

this and he's like everyone knows the Edward story right like their dad was like a gang leader like they grew up in like one of the most gang affiliate areas in Birmingham which is full of gangs peekie blinders etc and like they could have went down this path they were very nearly down this

path of being like involved in gang life and gang lang And then their mother forces them into an MMA gym and they become these two incredible fighters. And like this guy is talking all this shit to Fabian and he's like, I can't, I can't, I can't believe he's, he's saying this to me, which is an interesting thing. You actually have a now honor, Jordan, you legend. Give them a little look at this. Yeah, there's a dickishness involved here, man, that's like, he's like, he wants to give a wedgy or something, you know, stuff on the locker. God help him, if he's ever accused of putting something in a girl's drink, people are going to look at that man's face and be like, he did it.

That's the face that would do that. You know it. It's just very funny for me to watch them, like, Fabian going, like, what the fuck is going on here? But I will say, he's made me very excited for this point. Like, a lot of people are onto me. Obviously, they know Fabian's a big name over here. A lot of people very, very interesting.

And look, if he managed to get done, fair play. Like, you have made this interest. And you, look, you probably haven't got a lot of people in the UK going, hope Dalton gets the job done. But I mean, we know who you are now, and, you know, we're intrigued. That is all the fights we're going to talk about. But, Chuck, I believe there's been a big announcement from one of your favorite promotions. We don't have any graphics to support this, but a few weeks ago...

It is this. Trust me. Tell us what's happening. Well, you guys know that I was at the inaugural Ice Wars out in Michigan, and I had written a piece and I had talked about it. I find it very intriguing. I hope you do too, Ben. you're a hockey guy but like I found it very intriguing that they're doing this fight league but there were a couple of complaints one of them was they were on like synthetic ice so it's like they're on plastic they're not really on ice and the other thing was

you know it's called dropping the gloves when you're in a hockey game and yet they were wearing MMA gloves so I think they took it all to heart because they're doing their first big event and it's going to be what's the it's where the Florida Panthers play at the Amaranth arena on October 10th and they're going to do it like on the ice there. Wow. They're going to drop the gloves. They got sanctioned.

This wasn't the case of Michigan. They got it sanctioned. They're going to use bare knuckle. And I'm intrigued, fellas. I mean, this is like, this is what I want to say. The main thing I'm always like, what are, like, what are the nuanced kind of skill sets that you have to have in these types of situations and how does it evolve? To me, I can't figure this out exactly yet other than watching hockey fights and the guys that have the little tricks, what they do. But, but there is something about it.

of like how does this if it's strictly about fighting and they're they probably say like you know no sticks no pucks just dropping the glove just wearing no you know I'm all about it I'm like I'm excited about this thing man are they going to wear different colored jerseys this time I don't know it's here to tell because that was the other thing that was where I was just like you have such an opportunity to set them apart because they're going to wear jerseys why do the jerseys look so almost identical yeah other than the sleeves because the one I was that was Canada versus was USA. That's all, that was the only distinguishing market. But you had to really look hard to even see that. Now they got to fix that too. Yeah. But you're right about the, the ice part is to be

doing it on real ice makes a difference because it is literally in the name. You know? It is in the name. How are you going to have ice wars if you don't have ice? And also it's a bare knuckle. It's an arm of the bare knuckle thing. So you're like, well, then you got to drop the gloves. You've got to have bare knuckle. So they've got it the right way. So I'm intrigued to see kind of now what it'll look like. So now that it's really kind of replicating what a good NHL, you know, goon fight would look like.

I just wish On Crown would send Chook and ban there and just have the camera right on them as Chuck's like trying to get ban into it. You know, who cares about the fucking sport? Look, this is what we want. Beat the shit out of each other. The thing is, the thing is

when you watch hockey fights that erupt during a game, the actual fighting is usually not that great. Especially when to somebody who watches fight sports and has seen a lot of fights sports and enjoys that part of it. You watch a hockey fight and a lot of time we're pulling each other down by the jersey or we're not landed a whole lot of clean blows. The thing that makes it interesting is the context in which the fight erupted, whether it was because, hey, this is payback for you guys laid a hit on our star or this has been simmering since the last time

we played each other or just like, hey, we're down 6'1. Our fans are going to leave. We got to give them something. Would you mind? And that's like Quebec league stuff. Yeah, that's kind of the The funniest part to me is sometimes where they're just like very politely like, hey, would you mind? I know. Could we go ahead and go to the fight? And the other guy's like, well, okay, sure. Let's just throw them. I love that, man.

Maybe they could do like an AI reimagining. Like, WWE, like, I don't watch it at all. Now I'll turn on WrestleMania and they have the vignette beforehand where they're like, this is what this guy did. Hit him with the steel chair. We just make up a fake hockey scenario and then put Ben there. And like, look, this guy's just after hitting the star player. No, his mate is going to fucking sort this fucking shit?

And then Ben's like, I'm in, you know, this is, this is all I needed. I just need a little bit of contact. Before we go, Ben, I was wondering if you could give us the latest on Sean Strickland. I heard he's going to sort everything out based on this new suspension he got. Yeah, the news I saw come across just before we started was that the Nevada Commission has decided what they're going to do with them after he charged in wearing sandals at the doing the, I'm wearing sandals walk to come in and take a swing at the guy who was fighting his teammate at one of those regional events in Vegas.

And I believe they said, like a $5,000 fine, six months suspension, unless he would take an anger management course and then they would reduce the suspension to four and a half months. Now, I can't tell. Is Sean Strickland the kind of guy to just stubbornly refuse your anger management course and be like, give me the extra month and a half? I don't care. I'm going to continue to be angry and manage it poorly.

or is Sean Strickland the kind of guy to go to your anger management class just so he can come out sit in the front seat of his car talk to the camera on Instagram live and talk shit about how dumb the anger management class was. You know it would be a great feature for you, Ben,

is you go to that anger management class with Sean Strickland report on how that went. That would be, I would love to read that piece. I would do that in a heartbeat. How would the fuck can we make that happen? Oh my God, that would be the most incredible feature ever. You could be standing outside the car, as he's doing the video.

You don't know what if I come out of there and I've been Sean Strickland-pilled and I'm totally angry now. It has not only has it not worked for him. It has radicalized me and it ends up being the worst thing never happened to me. I don't know. I'm willing to take the risk for the sake of the content because I feel it would be great.

We just need to write this down now. We are sending you to Ice Wars together and then ban to Sean Strickland's anger management class. That's right. Yeah, let's get them down. And listen, guys, this was the crack for the first time on TV. And they're not here anymore so we can be like crackheads for you.

We love you so much. They didn't get any. Did I tell them? I love them. I can't remember. Did I probably did. I'm sorry. I'm a lawyer.

What do you want me to do? All right. But we're here. It's Thursday. This is our usual slot. You know, crackheads. We usually do Fridays. You know, we did the TV thing.

It's no big deal. I just don't want to get mobbed when I'm walking down the streets. I'm still a normal guy. I put my pants on one leg of the time. I'm like everyone else. Anyway, we're not going to be here next week. We're all going away or something. But then the week after that,

we're going to be back doing the show on Friday, I guess. On Friday, Jordan? You don't know. You can neither, yeah, yeah. We neither confirm nor deny what day we're doing, but we're going to miss you so much, especially you, the YouTube people.

You know what I'm saying? You know, you're the real ones. Yeah, listen. Have a great weekend. There it is. Oh, every time. I was waiting. Every time.

I didn't even, I can't, I never fucking think about it. Jesus Christ. All right, let's, hello guys. Do you think Brandon Moreno will get another title shot? Tittle shot, it says. But listen, Sam. Chuck, do you want that one? I haven't given that two seconds of thought.

I'll be honest with you guys. But, um, I mean, he could, you know, like, I feel like that's, like that's pretty tightly bunched grouping there, you know, at the top of that division. The only problem is, yeah, how many times do you want to see this? that fight if it's still Pantosia, right? Yeah, it's been a number of times. You know, I'm going to say yes. I'm going to say yes, he will get a TV shot.

He's the kind of guy who feels like he could always at any moment get a title shot. Yeah. Especially because sometimes in that division, the UFC has seemed to take the attitude of like, I don't know, whatever we got, man. Who, who, like, this is the date that it works on the calendar. Just call around, see who says yes first. Yeah. Is that?

is there more oh there we go organator 4,200 oh i think ean maybe turned it down because there's still a couple of months until the jdm fight and he's concerned someone else might fight closer to then now i can't get my brain can someone explain what that means i'm sorry my brain isn't i think he's talking about like maybe recency thing so he wants to be closer to the fight the actual title fight so that his name will be more you know relevant to that picture i'm just i'm just talking about like maybe recency thing so he wants to be closer to the fight the actual title fight so that his name will be more you know relevant to that picture i'm Yeah, but this is the thing with Ian. He is incredibly strategic. Like, he isn't, he's a very smart guy. He thinks about these things all the time. Like genuinely, I know he's got a kid now and obviously he's married. But the guy I met, it's all he thought about. Like, everything was just fighting.

If you mentioned a fighter, like, I would beat him. And he's like, I'm not, that is a separate conversation that we'll have. But right now I'm just mentioning something about the guy. Like, he's Uber competitive. of, I think he's, he's plotting his way to the title, same way as Sean Brady is. And I, but look, I, I think Sean Brady, if you're trying to, if you're trying to play this out in public, he probably did the right thing. Like, that is the fight everybody wants to see. Like, that would be an absolute, that would cement number one contender status for

whoever won it. And look, I'm here for it. And so is Ben, who loves drama. And so is Chuck, who loves drama. I do. We call them the drama boys. That's what we call them. Do we have anything else for the drama boys? Oh Okay Okay Lads Yeah

Oh lads What would we do for the merch We'd have to do with Mendenal ha Oh, he's already done that Sorry He's already got quite a good enterprise going with that shit I don't know Drama Boys T-shirts

Droma voice. The drama voice. An artistically rendered image of Pizzi talking into a camera while he drives down the highway. All three of us in the car. Yeah, it would be fantastic. Well, look, listen, I think that's it. Is that I'm allowed to take a, no, sorry. What?

Oh, look. Ari Lewani, Pizzi has so much aura. Walter, hell, I mean, what a compliment. Walter! My God. I mean, there you go. You were hurting for. compliments before. Nobody was saying anything nice about you when you went to the studio in New York and now you finally got it. He's beaming. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Walter. Congratulations, mate. You, I'm the best one. I've been saying this for ages. Everyone's like, oh, Ben, look at his hair. Sorry. I mean, flipping. I need to stop courses. I'm sorry for, I'm a better man than this. I can be better. Anyway, listen. I love you, too. I was back to question himself again, Ben. Just like that.

This is it. This is it. Listen, drama, boys. I love you, but I'm going to make this catch up. If it's the last thing I do. Ben, folks, Chuck Mendenhall, I love you very much. On Air, Jordan, I love you very much. Oscar Losef, I love you too. Lots of love going around here. Have a lovely, it's not quite the weekend, but like, I mean, some people think Friday's the weekend.

And tomorrow, you have all day. You're not going to have to think about, like, where can I get to to watch the crack? You know what I mean? It's already happened. So what you do tomorrow is you replay the episode. And send me an email of what I could have done better. Send it to me, you're the drama boys.

someone's going to get it. Anyway, we love you all very much. I'm very bad at signing off, but I love you so much. Have a great weekend.