The Ariel Helwani Show - Khamzat Chimaev Sean Strickland's explosive UFC 328 presser, Conor McGregor's return, more | The Craic

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

The Craic is back! Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes return as usual. First up, the lads react to the fireworks between Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland at the UFC 328 press conference (05:10). After predicting what kind of shenanigans could unfold at the pair’s final faceoff (36:19), the boys preview the flyweight title co-main event between Joshua Van and Tatsuro Taira (41:40). Attention then turns to Dana White’s confidence in Conor McGregor making his long-awaited return this summer (49:29). Elsewhere, recent comments from TKO president Mark Shapiro on the state of the UFC product have come under the microscope (01:01:45). To close the show, the chaps give their UFC 328 picks (01:09:15).

Welcome to the crack everybody. UFC 328 is tomorrow with the fights. Well, the fighters in the title fight have all weighed in after an electrifying press conference. Absolute chaos. As we all predicted, the whole week has been a bit of foreplay, a bit of outside the pants until we got to Saturday night. But we got it in reams there yesterday. The old press conference delivered one of the most heated exchanges we've seen in a long time. Dana White is saying it is up there with the, I believe, the top three blood rivalries that we've seen in the UFC, the others being Habib and Connor, and then I believe John Jones and Daniel Karmay.

He's actually graduated to number two today in the media things I've seen, which is quite interesting, but very, very heated stuff. I mean, a lot of things to talk about as well. On his media stew over the last couple of days, we've had some revelations regarding Connor McGregor's return, Armin Sarukian as the backup fighter at the White House and much, much more. We even heard from Mark Shapiro of TKO talking about how the product, the UFC product that is,

is as strong as it ever has been. We're going to try and get to all of these wonderful conversational notes throughout this wonderful podcast for you crackheads. But before all that, let's bring in the boys. Chuck Mendenhall, Ben, folks, welcome to the party. It's pre-paper-view Friday motherfuckers.

How are you feeling, Ben? You're still calling a pay-per-view? We need to, I don't know what you guys are doing over there, but for us, yeah, like, I feel like we should be graduating to PLE lingo, numbered event lingo. I don't like it either. And it just, it feels wrong, but it also, it's like it's ingrained in my DNA at this point to call it a pay-per-view, even though it is just not true anymore. And thank God it's not true anymore.

It's the only time in the history of my fandom of mixed martial arts, the price to be a fan has gone down even somewhat. So we should at least give it that respect. I just don't know how we should say. Numbered events. How do you feel about numbered events, PC? Better than PLE. PLE boils my piss.

I don't know how it just makes me. Wow. Furiated. But they number the normal events too, though. So it's like, do they know. I mean, I mean, they do, but technically. Which fight night did we just come off of? 389, I believe it was.

I'm just throwing that out there. There's no way. There's no way. He knows that. I don't know. Yeah, we got like three different names for the fight night events. At least the numbered events, we just decide on one thing that they are. I don't know.

I feel like saying numbered events, I know that people inside the MMA bubble will get it. It also feels like it makes you sound insane to anybody who is not a hardcore fan of this. where you're like if they're like, oh, is there a big UFC this weekend? You have to be like, yeah, it's a numbered event. And they're just like, what? What are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense at all. What if we call it a capital E event?

Oh, I don't hate it. I don't hate that. But then, let's be honest, not all the numbered events are capital E events. You know? Let me keep brainstorming. According to Mark Shapiro of TKO, you're completely wrong. That's true. You are completely wrong about that and they're all fantastic events.

We'll get around to the vernacular later. I mean, I don't really, what, capital E event, pay-per-view just feels, you know, it's just right in my heart. That's, you know, it feels good here. But they've never been paper views for you guys, right? You get them. Occasionally they were. Okay. When Connor McGregor fought, when Habib fought, and recently when Paddy Pimblep fought, pay-per-view.

Wow. Too many technicalities to work through here. Yeah. Also, it occurs to me that as I've gotten to know you, P.C., I've been shocked. at times by how many Irish idioms involve piss in some way. What about that outside the pants? Yeah.

At the beginning here. Come on now. Listen, guys. I'm just trying to deliver an entertainment product here at the end of the day. You know what I mean? And with that said, let's see the boys in their pants, please, Jordan. The guys weighed in this morning.

Let's have a look at this. Shemoyev up on that scales for all of three seconds. It's five pounds of beard right there. Just beard. He was. he was stretched off after it. Basically like carried. Like not carried.

That's being a bit dramatic. But he looked like that way cut really, really fucked with him as most of them. Van just looking like a superstar. At the press comments yesterday, he didn't say a whole lot. Near to his opponent. Tire there. Really, really good fight,

but it's floating on the radar. And we'll speak about that a bit later on. But we should talk about what happened last night, right? I mean, a bit dramatic. Jordan, let's just, let's just show. the people how the press conference started yesterday in case in case he didn't see it here's the lads everything calm it's all good like how you doing looking forward to the fight oh let's have a look oh they're up now newark police imagine being the cop who drew this duty

here we go shut up bitch straight away you back home. That is a fair. I make you cry again. The fucking guy. The fucking guy leaves his shitty country. Please the Sweden. Goes back home.

Hors himself out to a fucking dick trainer. And what's it? I hate it. Damn. Who's got the first question? So it was about 30 minutes. John Morgan. Give her a take.

30 minutes of that. And then, well, basically there was this debate. You know, throughout will the guys face off? And Dana White actually answered that question pretty early on when it was put to him by Oscar Willis. I believe we have video of this as well. Pat, top three all time. Top three all time. Are you going to let them face off at the end of this press conference? What's that? Are you going to let them face off at the end of this press conference? Absolutely. Hey, listen, you guys, I didn't come. from a fucking third world. I know how to have

a beer. Hey, no way to ask you shut up bitch. Fucking pussy. Fuck you. Yeah, yeah. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Shut the fuck up. You're just a fucker. Hey, according to my therapist, I'm a sociopath. So why would I not want to have a face off here today? Woo! I mean,

does therapists really have to tell him that? Come on. Come on. How much is he? How is he paying this? his therapist. The therapist in this case, of course, Sean Strickland, who ahead of the event called Dana White a sociopath.

Seemed to mean it almost as a compliment, though. Yeah. I felt that as well. Yeah, when he said six fuck. He meant that as an affection, I think. Yeah, that was the other one. That was the gentleman. Well, I guess you probably want to see how the old face off went. I guess we're going to have to do that. Roll it there, Jordan. Here we go. Here's the lads. How are you demo, man. That's correct. Classic look. Just tuck clipping your, your ball cap onto your blue jeans like a professional. Who knew that something could possibly go wrong here, you know?

Pretty safe. Five and a half feet. A little kick. There it is. Oh man, the boys get a hold of them. Newark's finest. Well, there it is, guys. It's the scene we've all been waiting for the face off, which was teased all week.

You know, what would happen when these two. fucking lunatics getting the same vicinity as each other. We saw it yesterday. Chuck, you have a column coming out about this and I had the great pleasure of reading it already. It is posted by the way. It has posted. Oh, it's up? Yeah, it's up. Yeah. Well, it's a fantastic

piece of work. Tell me why this is vibing so hard with the UFC audience. And I will say, this press conference has been viewed, I think, 10-fold more than recent broadcast. Like, it's up to like 1.5 million here as we go live today. So what is, what is?

it about this one that has got our blood boiling? Well, in one part, it's just because, like, you look back at the other UFC numbered cards, and they are they're guys that just didn't have like any kind of real, you know, combative blood between

there, there was nothing really going on. You had some good fights. But this one, it's this kind of, you know, when you watch a ton of fights, especially because we don't get a lot of weekends off, when you see that happen, there's something that at some point that starts to transcend that you're like, okay, Now it doesn't even matter what these guys are saying.

It doesn't even matter. There's such bad blood and such personal kind of things going on. And I mean insider things. Like this was one of those insider type things. If you're not following the saga, you might have been lost through this thing. But for Strickland to be like, or for Shemayev to be like, I'm your daddy. I'm going to make you cry again, you know, and he's kind of projecting himself into, you know, this, you know, incarnate of like basically his father. That's dark material.

And I just, I think that something happens. you know, there are a lot of people who are going to tamp their feet and be like, you know what, man, I'm leaving. I'm tired of this sport giving a platform to this kind of ridiculousness and the, you know, these crazy ideologies and guys like Sean Strickland, but they can't even get out the door for all the people rushing in to get a closer look at what's saying. That's what the piece is kind of about is it's like, this is that kind of theater to me because when it,

when the emotion starts to play into, I guess, the audience, and you can feel that there's a vicarious something that happens. We did feel that in some of the bad blood events. I mean, the Cori-Jones one is a great. example of that. That once they showed that behind the scenes exchange and you're like, okay, these dudes hate each other. I mean, hate like on a level that we hadn't seen. There's something about that that really does translate where you're like, okay, now, now I'm

excited to get to the bike rack after school, man. I want to see what happens here. I feel like it's achieved that. Yeah, it also seems like right. Like it's some part of it is that sense of this volatility where the reason you want to watch this fight week stuff is to see what the hell is. is going to happen. When it's other events where it's just like,

I'm pretty confident everybody's going to be a professional and behave like a professional. And we'll do the thing where we stare each other down and provide some intensity for the cameras, but we're going to save the real shit for Saturday night. And here it felt like there was a very real chance we would not. And it almost seems like, well, you got to throw a kick or something at the press conference

just to deliver on what people have come to expect here. I mean, I do maintain that it's always, a bullshit move to do anything that could actually hurt your opponent. And, you know, other than just one thing going to stand face to face. We've seen guys get injured from a shove right before the fight, right? And it's like, not only is it kind of a bullshit thing to do anything that could diminish him physically in advance of the fight, but also if he is too diminished and can't fight, neither one of you gets paid. So it's just kind of dumb. But it did seem like that was a big thing of what was driving is where we were just like the emotions.

are so high, the intensity is so high, people might do dumb stuff here. You could absolutely imagine them doing done stuff and you don't want to miss it if they do do dumb stuff. And so like that it seemed to me was like a big part of the anticipation here. And it's still one of the most reliable things that sells in combat sports is when we feel like there is genuine bad blood. Nobody's faking it for the camera. Yeah. It's so true what both of you guys are saying here and you know I'll for sure like I had to watch this life because I was like will they face off now immediately they start john at each other and all of their best punch lines are gone with it in the first like three months no it's just fuck you no fuck you basically shut up bitch yeah yeah just

constant like waves of that coming at you but you can't turn it off either because dana wards is after saying they're facing off and you're like holy shit you know ariel text me halfway through you know like he was saying well sean's um What do you think of the body language here or something to that effect? And I was like, oh, I think, I think they both look a bit spooked by this. And then I continued to watch and I was like, oh, no, Sean Strickland is having the time of his life, actually. Like, this is, this is everything that he could have dreamed of. I thought, Shemoyev, you know, he's obviously, this is not his first language.

I think he's probably uncomfortable in that sense. But when it's all said and done, do I feel like it's changed anything with regard to the fight that's about to happen? because let's be honest, it is heavily, heavily weighted towards Hamza Chimoyov in terms of how the bookmakers feel about this and probably about how the world feels about this fight. But Strickland has certainly brought a cultural element to this where he's at one stage he's signaling to one side of the room. We're all the good people, they're all the bad people. It was got fucking crazy.

And I'm just thinking because this week a guy said to me, he was like, I think Strickland's going to do him. And I was like, boy, like, honest question, like, why do you think that? You know, Hamzat hasn't been defeated. Like, he's like, oh, just, you know, all the shit he's talking, you know? And I was like, oh. Well, okay. This is one of the things, though, I was going to put to you guys is, let's say that the intensity of all the pre-fight stuff is going to affect them both.

Maybe to varying degrees or whatever, and we don't know exactly how. Let's say, though, that neither guy can go in there completely. unaffected by it. Who do you think that helps more? Because I think that it helps Strickland just because I think that his best chance is for Hamzaa Chamaev to fight dumb on some level, whether that's stand and trade with the guy more than you need to, whether that's when you do get him down, take more risks to try to physically punish him rather than try to like lock on a submission and finish it early or just concentrate on keeping him down. Like those things that Hamza might be encouraged to do just because I want to hurt this guy so badly.

I want to punish him. I want to make him pay for all these things. Those, while they don't come without risk for Sean Strickland, they do seem like it gives him a better chance in that fight. Because I feel like if Hamzaa goes out there and just does the stuff that he has shown, he has so far been able to do to absolutely everybody, I don't know that trickling can stop that. I think he needs Hamzaa to give him an opening to let him into this fight some way, and that could be the way.

Yeah, I'm kind of with you, man. And do you guys, do you see it as a fight that is Hamzaat, like inevitably Hamzot early and Strickland late? Like it would be like one of those things like, okay, Strickland has weathered a storm. And Shemayev, who has not been tested a ton within five round fights, right, has a tough weight cut as well. Like just things like this, the kind of intangibles stacking up. that basically if he doesn't get it done, that it could steer into Strickland's fight. That's the one thing that I look at,

he's very good at getting up too, by the way. You know, it's like if you take him down, he's very good at kind of getting back up. The expense of energy to try to get him down maybe a lot more than it was for Shemaya versus DDP. So if it comes that type of thing where he's just trying to dump him and he can't keep him there, does he wear himself out? I mean, those types of scenarios,

when you're contemplating the path of victory for Strickland, And those are the things that stick in my mind. You just kind of see it in the way that Amanda Nunes, when we're looking at Julianna Pena, right? You're like, well, I don't know how Giuliana Pena Pena would ever beat Amanda Nunes. But then what happens? Amanda Nunes goes in there, basically blows her wad. And then this was the second round loses all steam and just as like a title wave coming over and she can't do anything about it. I don't know if you can go like that, but that's, if you're playing an emotional game where you're trying to get a guy to come off his moorings a little bit,

maybe fight a little recklessly, maybe to blow his water early in the fight. this would be the way to do it. So I do think there's a, if there's some kind of psychological edge, it would probably land in Strickland for those reasons. You know, I just think that if you can get a guy to fight out of his composure, you've won some battle. You've won the psychological battle at least going in. And we do know that Strickland, one of the things that he's been criticized for, but that could end up being an asset is he has no problem talking as if he is Patrick Bateman from American Psycho before the fight. And then showing up and being very tactical in the fight. He doesn't seem like he struggles to separate those two things.

So, like, that could help. I mean, the thing is to me, like, Sean Strickland has at times looked like a better wrestler than we expected, but against other people who are not elite wrestlers. I don't, like, if you look at his record, tell me the best wrestler you think Sean Strickland's face. I don't think he's face anyone who is as dominant in that area of the game as Hamza. is I don't think there's anybody even close on that record. No. No, on DDP, what that first fight he took him down like six times.

He wasn't able to keep him there and get like control, but he was able to take him down a lot. And not at will, but he was able to take him down fairly easily. In the second fight, he didn't really try to get him down. So if you look at stuff like that, you're like, is he going to, I mean, it's almost like, is he going to take him down? Yes, but is it going to be able to stay there? And I guess that's where the first piece of drama comes in, because I feel like it's inevitable and I'm guaranteeing that Nick Sick, Eric Nixick is coach, Strickland's coach, they've been training this. Like, how do you get back up? How do you,

you know, how do you scoot, scoot over to the, to the fence and, you know, get back to your feet again and again. But you're, I'm with you, man. The one thing that when I think about this fight, I really don't see a way that he can stop the onslaught because we've seen, that is what Shamiya wins by. He just, it's the wrestling onsla, he's going to, he's going to put it on you. and if you can't break free of his custody, that's going to be the fight. And honestly, like, he might have a chance,

just given if the emotion goes the other way or if it really plays in it, he might have a chance in an early finish here, like either through a knockout or a, or a submission. I could fully see that too, like Shemaya in the first couple of minutes getting this thing done.

Yeah, it's interesting about the taketowns because if we're just comparing it to the Drickus duplessi's fight, Sean is a better buddy for getting up. If you look at Duplessus' body, he's so heavily muscled. The lactic acid building up in his body, it makes it very, very difficult. The longer you get into a fight, they keep moving that mass and that muscle off the ground. And I thought it was interesting when I was looking at the takedown stats from the first fight with Duplessi. Hamzad is 100% on takedowns for the first three rounds.

Then he drops off a cliff in the championship rounds. He goes to 60% accuracy in the fourth round and then 50% in the fifth. However, he does fight the majority of those fights from top position while DDP is is underneath him. However, back to the point about their bodies, if Strickland continue to get up and keep forcing him into these takedown exchanges because it's a massive, massive amount of energy you're exerting every time he takes someone down as well to get up. But I do feel as though Strickland is probably conditioned in a way and built in a way that could make that a lot more troublesome later on. but I'm kind of feeling like look there's a lot been said about the fact that Strickland has not been submitting the UFC or maybe

ever as far as I know. I have a fucking feeling Shemoyer is going to be going for that like a feather in his cap he will want that stat he will want to be the first man to force Strickland to tap and I think he's capable of it too. After seeing what he get to Robert Whitaker I mean yeah well and see that was the thing too

this is one of those where I can still kind of maintain that I was almost right was when Hamzot and Robert Whitaker fought and I was like, this is every point you've ever made in your life though, man. You can always, you know. I was almost right that time. I, what I said was if Bobby Knuckles can get out of the first round, Hamzaa might have problems late in the fight.

For all we know, that might still be true. He just couldn't get out of the first round because Hamzaat put the squeeze on him and broke his entire jaw, like broke his whole face. So if not for that, if not for that inconvenient fact, Maybe I was right. And that's, that is part of, I, I hesitate to look too much at that Hamza, Dracus Duplase fight, just because that one, it really felt like Hamza was going, this is my shot at the belt. Don't screw it up.

You know, get this guy down. There's a clear path to victory here. I can just do this all night. And then I'll wake up tomorrow morning as the UFC champion. And he took some shit for that. Like people criticized him for that for not really. trying, they used it. When I went to the combat sports official summit, they used that one as an example to be like, here's what it looks like when a guy is dominant in a round, but did not earn a 10-8

because he didn't do enough damage. He just kind of held him there for some of those rounds. And I think that that might have been the case for Hamza just because he was going, get the title. Don't mess up this opportunity to get the title. And then once he gets the title and he ends up, especially in a fight where he feels maybe more motivated to go out there and hurt the guy. maybe he will fight a little bit differently, a little more aggressively when he is in the top position. So, man, that could go either way. I will say this, because of Sean Strickland's specific attributes,

both as a person and as a fighter, this is one of the most anticipated and, like, most talked about five to one underdog kind of fights I've ever seen. Like, if you just look at what the odds say about who should win this fight, it shouldn't be that much fun. it should or shouldn't be that anticipated because you look at it and you go one of these guys should steamroll the other that's what the odds makers are expecting that's what a lot of people are expecting and Sean Strickland we know he performs pretty well as an underdog he's done this before where he came in there and we all said you got no chance here and he found a way to win you could you could sort of picture a scenario like you're saying Pizzi where Homslai gets tired down the stretch and Strickland can come on late like you could almost talk yourself into it and so it like it doesn't doesn't have any right to be this interesting if you just look at the betting odds. You know, you know, one of the interesting things is Strickland to have his attitude in general

as an underdog of this size, right, like to be poking the bear and say like, hey, I'll suffer the consequence, whatever, like, you know, come do it to me if you think you can type thing. But it's also, I sometimes, he's a little bit more of a mastermind in some ways than you think because he's actually planting the seeds like if he does that thing that he did to DDP to me, you know, where he just thumping my leg, you know, and he's like he's planting the seeds for what he's saying is a boring fight. Don't do this. He's already setting the fans' expectations for something more out of Shemayo. He's trying to say, like he's trying to set it up so that there will be a chorus of booze. And the first round the moment he's on the ground and he can't get up. Do you know what I mean? Like he's planting a psychological seed of saying like, don't fight that way with me. which I sometimes I look at that and I'm like, well, if you can make the guy the enemy before the fight and have people hating the thought of a game plan to do that, that's somewhat effective too. If you're going to get a guy to be like, okay, I'm going to try. So I've got to try for a finisher. Yeah.

You've somehow won the first little psychological battle, right? Like you're already taking them out of his, what he would maybe want to do. So that's really an interesting thing. Do you guys, like, I do think that there are similarities that obviously, I don't. don't think it's gotten nearly as dark in a weird way as like the McGregor, um, Habib thing. I mean, it's at its elements. It's pretty dark. It's pretty dark. But I think the reason is, the reason it, it doesn't seem as dark is because Habib was just kind of internalizing everything. It was like,

you could just see him like sitting there like, and you're like, that, this is getting bad because he's not talking. You know, he's just like wait until fight night, but, you know, that type of thing. This one, it's like, Shami have came to life at least on the microphone and, you know, it seems like he actually sort of enjoyed himself kind of figuring out his own psychological role in this. And like there's something about him that's a little more demonic, you know, than. Yeah. He has never seemed upset. He's never seemed angry really.

He's the Wario to Habib's Mario. Yeah, no, he is. There is something. I mean, just like, you know, you show those shots of him kneeling down before the fight grinning over at his opponent. And you're like, I know. There is a malice there that was not necessarily there with Habib. You're right.

Like, Habib would sit there during the Connor Greger stuff, and you could tell, like, he is focusing all his energy imagining your head on a stick. That's what he's doing over there. And, and Hamzot seems like... It was his tension that made it dark. It was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were just like, you're playing with a guy who doesn't play here, and he's just waiting for the time when he can uncork that. And Hamzat seems more like he is like, okay, this is what we're doing fine. Ha ha, this is what we're doing.

I can do it too. And that's how he's seen the entire time. when people were like, Sean Strickland says he is going to shoot you in the hotel lobby, and he was just like, yeah, okay. Like, you know, like he doesn't ever seem like upset about it or concerned about it. He seems like he's just kind of going along with it. It seems like this is just sort of fun for him in a weird way. When he kicks Sean Strickland, it seems like Sean Strickland loses it a lot more than

Hamzot loses it, that kind of stuff. I mean, the thing to me is that it's so weird, and I've felt this in so many different times with Sean Strickland where sometimes when he is. just talking and saying stuff, I'm going, oh, this guy just, this guy is just a hurt child. This is like if, if Travis Bickle from taxi driver just got into MMA, you know, like, and he's, he's just completely off the rails. And then every once in a while he'll say something and I'm like, oh, damn it, you kind of made a good point. And I hate that.

Like, or like, you start out making a good point and I'm with you and then you veer off somewhere crazy. Like when he's talking about Hamza, because especially he'll be saying all this stuff about Hamza at all week where he's just like, uh, you know, I would go to fight him in a parking lot by myself. He needs this whole crew. He's a coward. He's a coward. He'll never fight me. And it's like, bro, he will fight you on Saturday. I'm pretty sure of that. You know, like, don't, don't do this stuff where you're just like, oh, he's a coward. He'll never fight. Like, he will fight you. He and trying to paint a guy as a coward when he is an undefeated cage fighter from Chechnya is wild to me. If there's one thing we know,

we know about that guy is that he does not experience the same kind of fear about interpersonal conflict as many of us do. And yet when he's going on, he's just like trying to throw everything at the wall and criticism at Hamzaat. And then he brings up the way Hamzat has sort of allowed himself to be used by Ramzan Kadirov and Chechny. And I go, actually that is a good point. It was super cringy when you let Ramzan pretend like he was beating you in wrestling.

And it looked like that scene from Foxcatcher, you know, like that. That was kind of gross. too. There's been too many of those clips with Canada. There's been too many. And they did not fit our image of what that is, which makes them all the more. His sons as well winning sparing rounds against them and stuff,

it's, yeah. Here's the thing, right? This fight, like, we're talking about the amount of people who've watched his press conference compared to the year every kind of weak press conferences, a lot of people. That would say to me that there are more casual eyeballs on this fight than we usually

have. You watch that press conference and you're like, oh man, these guys are going to fucking rip each other's heads off when they get in there. But we also know how Shmojav's last fight went with DDP. We've been talking about this. There is a, if this fight doesn't end very quickly, there is, I would say the most likely thing here is Hamzat being in top position for a long period of time, Strickland who has never been submitted, not allowing him to get submissions, but he's holding position waiting for Shemoya. Like look, we could have a 25 minute wrestling match or grappling match for all intensive purposes.

100%. What I'm trying to say here is like, this could be a big letdown if you're comparing the press conference to what could happen on Saturday night, right? Chuck. Yeah, I mean, and that's probably the most likely scenario. You know, we haven't seen anybody disrupt Shemaya from doing what he's going to do.

We've seen guys kind of like, you know, Like you said, it goes into the later rounds. You might see a little different version of him. But he's been basically able to dictate his will in every fight he's had. So there would be if he's in, we know exactly what he wants to do. So just given that, the first piece of drama is can he have, can Strickland disrupt what Shemeyov likes to do? Can he make him uncomfortable in there? And I guess the big drama will have to come from the swing of Strickland's side.

Like when you mentioned it's a five, it could be a five round fight. if the tables are turning somewhere in there and you see Strickland actually reaching deeper into his bag and somehow he's the one in the third round who's starting to lay it on him a little bit wouldn't that then become like a sort of epic five round fight? It would just you know it could play out that way

but all evidence that we've seen so far is that this should be Shemai's fight. It's able to do what he normally does Strickland's no different from the other guys he's fought. I mean he should have his way the drama is going to have to come from left field You know, it's going to have to come from Strickland side of it. Yeah, and it absolutely could, right? I mean, you could imagine a whole bunch of, and also, Pizu, if you're talking about, will people feel like the fight itself is a disappointment compared to the lead-up?

Hey, if it comes for $9.99 as part of the Paramount Plus subscription, rather than $80 on pay view, I'm a lot more forgiving of that stuff. Just as a fan, I feel like, if you don't ask me to pay as much, I don't need it to deliver quite as much. It's, it's, well, for him up about that hour, man. great point. It needs to be something, okay? It needs to give me something. That's what you brought that up. Don't you think that there's something missing now? Because one of the big, like, livelier things that's been going on

MMA is just the right to bitch after a pay-per-view. Like, you go through this whole, like, oh my God, what a waste of money. Like, I feel like now we've taken that from people. As crazy as this sounds, all of a sudden, it's like, well, it's just for you, it's just part of the subscription for everybody. It takes away this weird backlash that used to happen all the time. Yeah, I feel like I could get used to it, though. I I'll adjust. This is the biggest compliment, Ben's given the new era of the UFC. Every time he's just like, listen, man, it's 10 quid.

You know, what do you want me to do? Yeah, he's almost right almost all at the time, P2. That's true. And even if he wasn't find a way to argue that he was like, Ben, you've, on this week's mailbag, you've talked about what Strickland would have to do to beat Hamza, you know, what would his style have to be on the night, what kind of things he'd have to do. tell us what is this? What is his method?

And would it make for an exciting fight? I mean, the thing is that Strickland has done well in fights is find a way to make somebody fight his fight. And his fight also a lot of the time sucks to watch in a different way. Like, he, you know, he had a great performance last time out. But it was also remarkable in that it was such a departure from what we had seen from him in a lot of fights. It's like he is very careful, very hard to hit, like frustrating for opponents, but he's going to walk forward. He's going to hide his chin behind his shoulder. He's going to throw out jabs.

He's going to throw out front kicks. He's going to just try to pick away at you and try to keep you from landing anything big and try to keep you on the back foot. And he's been surprisingly good at that against people. Like they, I think his style is frustrating for people because they look at it on film and they go, all right, this guy is not. too scary. You know, he doesn't do anything where you go, holy shit, that's a problem. And I got to come up with a way to deal with that. You know, he doesn't have like a Francis and Ganu punch in his back pocket that he could pull out at any moment that you're worried about. And then they get in there with him and they go, this is more frustrating and more difficult than I imagine. And the next thing

you know, the rounds are gone and I've lost on the scorecard. It's like, that's been kind of his game. And they realize only too late, like, I just played right into what he wanted to do. And I wasn't able to do my stuff. The problem is you're bringing that style against a dude who has excelled at making every fight exactly what he wants it to be and doesn't even, doesn't even go through the motions of trying to be like, all right, let's start outstanding and see if I can work my way into a take. He's just like, tell me when it's time and I'm going to walk across and pick that guy up and slam him down and then he's going to stay there. And if he comes out for round two, we're just going to do it again. And like, that's been.

Tomzachmaev's whole thing. Like the one outlier from that was when he fought Gilbert Burns. And he kind of messed up. Like he got himself into a brawl. It seemed like he heard the music and he had to dance. You know, like once he and Gilbert started standing there and throwing, he couldn't help it. And it kind of seems like after that he learned from that. Like he went, that was how you lose to a guy you shouldn't lose to is if you go out there and you do that too much. Eventually, you know, your numbers, it was fun to watch, but your number is going to come up sooner or later. and maybe he overcorrected hard in the other direction. But it's like, that's been his bread and butter is just being like, I will decide where the fight takes place and at what pace and you will have no say in it.

And I think that's also why we've seen him at times, because sometimes you can see him and you're like, he doesn't seem like he has any problems with his cardio. And then other times you see him, you're just like, you can picture that guy gassing out in a fight and lose into somebody maybe he should beat. And the difference I think is what George St. Pierre used to say is that who gets tired. in a fight isn't just about who comes in better trained with better cardio. It's who gets to decide what kind of fight we're having. If the other guy is having to keep up with you, if he's having to dance to your tune, he's going to get tired sooner than you are.

And when Hamzad is able to do his stuff, I don't think he gets tired so much. Like, Sean Strickland needs to find a way to get to do his stuff. But first, you're going to have to shut down some takedowns or you're just going to have to get up so much that you get him to wear himself out by taking you down. like neither of those are easy easy paths to victory against homside is there any possibility like in you guys in mind where you know ben asking used to be like unapologetically like if you don't like my wrestling if you don't want me shooting in and I do something about it like he he was so confident in what he was doing and obviously like in that ass in that maswoodal fight he goes in and boom

he's out with a flying knee in five seconds is there any possibility that we see some some reckless exchange where it's like i'm going for the shit and then boom he gets hit and then that's it Yeah, I mean, I think there's always that possibility, right? But, I mean, the thing working against that is that you never really known Sean Strickland as a big one-shot guy. True. You know, like, he might be a little end. Yeah, knee is a different shot.

Like, hey, if you can get the guy to duck into a knee that you put all the force in by running and cross the entire case. And yeah, you probably, anybody going to hurt you with that kind of thing. It just, like, maybe you have something like that. the back pocket just because you go, hey, we're probably going to end up on the ground here at some point anyway, right? Like, let's take a chance right out the gate when everybody's fresh and maybe we catch him unaware. I'd also think, Homsot watches the same fights we do. You know, he saw that Ben Askeran fight. Somebody in the camp at some point might have mentioned, hey, this guy knows you're a better wrestler. Like, he might try something crazy right out

the gate. So be on the lookout for that. Well, it's such a heated. rivalry. We've been garnished thanks to Chucks with some prop bets for the way in. You know, the press conference wasn't enough. So, um, will any object be thrown by either further? These are comments of a bet online by the way.

Yes. Plus 1,000. No. Oh. Minus 3,000. Okay. I'm touching it, but the values in the, the values in yes. Yeah. I'm, well, I mean,

if anything, the kick at the press conference makes me more likely to think something would be thrown because we're not going to let you guys get close to each other. But they say throw a slap? Because they say it out in Dublin, if you threw a dig at someone, like you threw a punch, will they be like, that can't? No, that doesn't count. I don't think that.

I think we're talking, I mean, for one thing, that's why you get into some weird territory with these prop bets because the sports book could come up with any way they can at times. Do you know what? The next one actually clarifies this. All right. Okay. Will there be a physical altercation during the way in? Yes. Plus 150. No, no. Minus two. again, the language there

strikes me as troublingly vague for something where we're betting money. The kick at yesterday's thing would be class, no? I mean, physical altercation doesn't tell me, did they need to actually physically touch each other?

Because like if one of them tries to lunge at the other and the Newark's finest have to get in there and separate them again and then like, was that a physical altercation? I don't know. It's like if the guy shoves him, is that a physical altercation? Oh, wait, wait, wait.

The next one, Once again, that's the question for us. All right. All right. Will any kicks or punches land during the way in? That's yes, plus 200, no minus 300. Which way are you going on with this one, boys? I'd say no. I'd say after the press conference thing, they're not going to let them get close.

Because they probably saw that and they were just like, I mean, they should be a long. We could have messed around and lost the fight. That's what I'm saying. That should be the only thing on the matter. Okay, they've already done a good job selling this thing. They don't need to have some kind of like a fist of. up before the fight and then to jeopardize the actual

fight. So I don't think. That's why I think they're more likely to throw stuff is because once melee weapons are out of the realm of possibility, then ranged weapons is when we're looking around. Like, don't anybody leave a can of monster energy out there. Don't leave a

water bottle. Make sure we're watching everybody's hands and there's nothing to reach for because otherwise, like I think there's a pretty good chance somebody might, like, especially Sean Strickland wants to get one back. If he sees something laying around not nailed down, He's picking it up and throwing it. Make sure Strickland's not carrying it as a blow dart gun into the...

Sinoid special as you put it in. We'll either fight or bleed during the way in. Yes, plus 200. No, minus 2,000. Will Strickland and Shemoyev make contact during the way in? A lot of these feel like the same fucking bet. Yes, plus 200, no, minus 300. And minimum distance between Shemoev and Strickland during way in,

5.5 feet. about the size of a pizzy carol between them. You can deal with that. Are we getting a tape measure out? If they come within like five feet, two inches of each other. I had the over. Imagine I had the over.

It was clearly over five, five, five guys. Jesus. I could lay a pizzi right there. No one would touch him. I don't think we're letting them get anywhere close. That's funny. It's funny there are prop bets on this at all.

Like, it's just hilarious. My final one, will there be an altercation? afterwards. Like, do you think whatever happens, someone gets their hand raised, it's all kisses and hugs, listen, we saw the baby. Look at all these people thinking we'd hate it or I love you and you love me. Friendship.

After the fight, I mean, not after the way. After the fight, yeah. Could depend a lot on how it goes, but I don't, I don't know if I see this one being the like, we shake hands and agree it was all for the good of fight sports, you know. I will say that Strickland has a weird way of like all of a sudden being a little more professional in those moments, you know, where he's all of a sudden, like, all right, we got through that. Like, he works himself up to a lather, and then he's like, all of a sudden, a different guy afterward. You know what I mean? Like he'll talk and he seems

semi-normal at that point. Um, I don't think so. It, like Ben said, though, it kind of depends on how it all goes, you know, like if there's some element to it that, you know, maybe doesn't feel resolved. I mean, maybe something like that happens. But Strickland just hasn't shown that in the, in the post fights. There is, of course, many other on this card because of the contentious nature of the way the press conference. We had to get to all this stuff and the boys in the back did a wonderful preview of the whole card but of course there is a fly by title for it in this card and Joshua Van a man you had a hard out for last week chuk because you had to speak to the champion. Did he make it

words or what? No, you saw the piece. It was uh he didn't he wasn't uh you know what I what you're trying to get out from him is like, psychologically do you feel like the champion? I mean, so much has been said about like, not the champion and, you know, he kind of inherited his belt in this lucky way and,

you know, and so you're trying to get at that, but either he has had that question so much or he's lived with it so long, you just weren't going to get anything out of him. Like, no kind of rise out of that. But I will say that he's got,

what strikes me about him is, as you know when you talk to very young guys who've achieved something, they've got the sheen, of invincibility still with them where they're like even though he's lost that by the Charles Johnson a couple years ago like he still got that thing about him where he's like dude I'm gonna beat this guy's ass and then I'm gonna retire I'm gonna defend the title bunch times and retire and you're like that's always a fun thing to see in the fight game

because you know that it almost can't happen that way yeah and who in this particular point he's the underdog in his fight so it's just the way you're talking yeah it is kind of crazy but it is I think that's probably accurate when you watch tattoo I was like I probably leaned at Sir, you know, to win this fight. But he has a great stile for Van. He does. Yeah. So, I mean, but it's just fun to talk to a guy like that.

If nothing else, just because where they're at in the game is just sort of like, they just, they can't imagine all of the cynical things ahead for them, you know? Yeah. So it's like, uh, it's pretty fun to do. It's, it's a really great for you. Honestly, it's a great style match of Vans boxing is unbelievable. and a prodigy of Yuki Nakai in Tyra there in the in the challenger spot he's a brilliant grappler you know like a really

intelligent grappler when you see him down there it doesn't it doesn't look like other guys grappling like it looks like there's a level of sophistication that is that could really that Morano fight yeah I mean he is he's really really good but I would Ben correct me if I'm wrong I think there's a similar skill gap in Tyra striking as there is with Van and him on the ground. Is that too much of a thing to say at this point?

I don't know. I think that they each have a great ability to end the fight with their specialty. That's the thing. And it's just sort of like who can get it there? Like the advantage in those situations usually goes to the striker because we're going to start every round standing up. You know, you already get to do your stuff there. And the other guy has to be successful enough to get.

to where he can do his stuff. And so, like, it's really hard to be a submissions guy in 2026 MMA. Just because everybody's learned Jiu Jitsu, man. Like, you're not catching anybody by surprise at that point. They've also learned sort of anti-Jujitsu where they're just like, here, jujitsu is hard to do on people who know enough of it and also know how to not participate in it. Like, just don't give guy anything. Don't give him any openings.

Like you usually, it's why you see most submissions when they happen in the UFC now, it's somebody's hurt or tired. Or, you know, you put them in enough bad positions that they are just trying desperately to get out and they give you an opening and you take it. And so, the question for me is can Tyra get him there? Can you surpass that, that first level of defense and get it where you want it to be and keep it there? I'm pick a ban in this one. even though he's a slight underdog. Okay, hang on a second. Here it goes.

Okay, we gave the notes at the start of the song. There's an ad hoc section at the end. Oh my God. And it says, it was clearly marked. I mean, clearly marked there, Ben. I mean.

Was it? I missed this part. Well, we're going to have to scrap the whole focus. It was right before the hilarious banter. George. Sorry. I think.

They were, yeah, we're going to have to go from. Oh, fuck. Which are free-form jazz conversational still. What the fuck did wrong with you, man? Ad,

ad hoc. He says, okay, see, here's where you messed up, I think, with this outline. Because you say, here's some show notes, the videos, there's like a bulleted list, lots of love, Pizzi. I stopped reading after that point, honestly. It says lots of love Pizzi. That's the end of the email as far as I'm concerned. It came in at 5.50 a.m. in my time zone. Oh, you thought that was when your buddy woke up at this age.

I was honestly up when this came in. but I was up and doing stuff. I saw lots of love, Petecy. I was like, there, I've read the email. Okay, all right. Listen, that's my fault. I'm going to amend the notes next week. See, even when I'm wrong, I'm still right, Pizzi.

Yeah, fuck, get it again. Motherfucker. They're saying he can't, they're saying that he can't keep getting away with it, but he does. He does keep getting away with it. Did you guys get the sense when you're watching those two, the two flywights on the stage, the same stage there, that they remind him of UFC 189 when McGregor's on it. And you have Robbie Lawler who hates to talk essentially, doesn't want to be talking.

And you've got Roy McDonald who was like, I'd prefer never to talk to anybody, you know, and they didn't have to. And then they went out there and put on this ridiculous more that people talk about all these years later. I would say that this fight has some of that cap. Like it has the potential to be like one of those fights we talk about in a few years, you know,

because both guys are so young. This is the youngest combined, you know, age for a title fight ever. 50 total years, like 26 versus 24. it has that kind of feel to it. Like it just could quietly go in there because these guys didn't have to do much promotion. They know they're on a big spotlight. It could have that, right?

Like I feel like, and it's, I don't know. I feel like they're chump in a bit. Yeah. Yeah. It could be where those fights. And there's also something to what you said. I mean, now these lads have lost, but that delirium of youth, you know,

when you're just like, oh, this is my fucking time. This is, oh, this motherfucker is not going to know what hits them. And even when things are going to and wrong in those situations. Those guys are the last fuckers to stop believing. They're like, oh, I want to pull this out of my ass somehow. So I think you're dead right with that. It's also easy to when you're young like that to be like, you just, your failure or whatever

you did, just like, oh, that was because of this. You just kind of wet your hand at it. Like, I won't do that again, you know? The first time of girl says no to you. You can't believe that you're not the most handsome mom in the world. Right. Exactly. What do you mean, no?

What the fuck is that? Look at you. I'll let you know if I feel that way when the pilot happens. I don't know. There we go. Here we go. You know what? I was thinking, you reminded me, though,

you were talking about, like, the guys saying nothing, the other guy's going crazy. That clip at the end of the press conference, everybody's being ferried away by tons of humanities coming in between us. And you could see Chris Costello from the UFC, one of the UFC, like, media PR guys,

and he's standing there holding the belt. Yeah, great guy, Chris Costello. And he's standing there holding the belt. And the look on his face is just like, like, he's seen it all at this. Like, he's been through it all. And he's, like, everybody else is, freaking out trying to control these guys and Chris is standing there like it's another day

at the office to tell you you know like when's lunch yeah remember Dave Schaller back in the Cornelia Jones they oh my god never forget you just like imagine the things you've seen at this point because Chris has been there the U.S. for a long long time and saying there and just being like well we had to do some crazy shit to get him off his yeah like imagine him going back to the hotel that night you know like calling a family back home how was work today Oh, you know. It was okay. It doesn't even mention it.

Well, that's, before we get to the pick section, which was clearly marked by notes, we do have some media stew to get through from Dana White. He said it, guys. We've been waiting for that update about Connor McGregor. Hasn't said International Fight Week, but did give us an indication, Jordan.

Is Connor fought his last fight? Is Connor? No, we think about Connor. We're in a good place. We're in a great place with Connor. I'm extremely confident that Connor will fight this year. I'm extremely confident that we'll get him dialed in and ready to roll. He's training this footage out there of him in training right now.

Dan, give me an idea. When and where? When and where and against whom? Well, we haven't announced anything yet. You always announce bleep on this show. Yeah, that is true. You always get it out of me. But he'll fight this summer.

Let me just start there. He'll fight this summer. Why? Look, look, he's been great for you. You've been great for him. Why do you still believe in Connor after all this time? He hasn't fought in years. Yeah.

Well, I thought it would happen last year. It didn't. I'm extremely confident it will happen this summer. Yeah. He seems motivated. He's training. And there are a lot of other great things going on behind the scenes. that make me very confident that he will fight this summer.

Now, I do not have any breaking news on the great things, but give me a percentage of confidence here, guys. Chuk, how confident are you that we're going to see Connor McGregor this summer? You know why I'm confident that it's going to happen? Because I see Ariel pointing it out. Like, if I was just watching this, if I saw this, I'd be like, ah, who knows, it's 40-60, you know? But since Ariel was backing it up saying, like, I told you guys, it's kind of, blah, blah, I'm like, this is what tells me that it's happening. He's never wrong, right, when it comes to this stuff. Yeah.

That was exactly what I thought was it was like, Dana White saying I'm extremely confident Connor Regger is going to fight this summer is like, you know, Lucy holding the football telling Charlie Brown this time, come on, come on and kick it. You got some good references for this one, man. This is a record here. This is the time. Come on, man. I won't pull it away this time.

And but yeah, it's when I hear Ariel talk about it, I'm like, okay, then I'm more confident. I'm more confident at least that the UFC has reason to believe they will put a fight on the schedule that involves Connor McGregor. Now, will Connor McGregor make it to that fight? That is the part that no one can really know at this point. It's the part that I still remain somewhat skeptical about. And then the question obviously, yeah, this is the first year. This is the first year. I said he will fight. I think he needs to fight. He has been training. He, uh, he's looking good. You know, they always say he's looking good though. I was like,

oh my God. I'm hitting the bag, boy. Yeah. It's always, oh, it's like, it's like 2014 over here again. Yeah. And I've also heard they're going to do a big press conference, the week of that White House fight to announce said fight, like, well, to

ham up the sales or whatever for it. And you can see Ariel pointed out there in the week with the White House packages that part of these million dollar packages, two million, two point five million or one point five. One point five. Yeah. Part of that is sales for the event that Ariel has been reporting that they're targeting for McGregor. So that's the only thing that if you look at that, uh, that what he's talking about, the partnership thing, like the only event that it explicitly promises you like actually like floor seats to is USC 329, the international fight week event. Uh, and the other stuff seems like, you know, we're going to get you at the show around the show.

kind of a hey we'll treat you like a VIP you'll be like among the movers and shakers but we're not necessarily saying like where we'll get you during the actual UFC White House event. And so it's you need a big if you're the UFC you need a big international fight week kind of thing. Something that feels like because right now you know you're looking at a situation where you you want to be able to show we can still put off a big blow off event and one that we can profit handsomely from over at T-Mobile arena. like do our usual thing, show you that, you know, we still got it. And Connor would be a key part of that. I mean, that question that Jim Rome asked that Dana White specifically did not answer, why do you still believe in Connor McGregor? I think the answer is because he's like the one guy left who can still deliver that.

And even if there's some doubt as to whether he will deliver that, like whether he will do his part to deliver it, he's still the guy who can. It is still possible for him to deliver that. it's it's kind of crazy even that in itself Ben because I was speaking to my friend's mother there a few days ago bumped into her down the shops and she's like oh and um are you still doing the fight and are you still doing the fight and stuff and I was like yeah this conversation before yeah yeah yeah and she's like whatever happened to uh to Connor McGregor and I was like no he's he's gonna be fight he's gonna be fighting this this summer I think she's like is he that's and do people like you know that's gonna be big is it and I'll I was like, no, it's going to be the biggest event of the year. It's going to be absolutely huge. You see, really? And has he been fighting Riesie?

I'm like, no. Not at all. Not a lick. It's pretty crazy, though, isn't it? He is nuts. He is still the guy by a fucking mile. Like, well, that's, Chad and I were talking about this on one of the co-made event episodes recently where he was saying that he has consistently been surprised how once you become a thing,

and MMA, once you become like one of the few. famous superstars of this sport, that has an enduring power that goes a lot longer and a lot further than some of us think that it should, or some of us think that it would based just on what we think you can still do physically, what we think you can still do as a fighter in the cage. The Diaz brothers are a great example of that, where people bought into like sort of the Diaz brother mythos, like the kind of just like the aura around these guys that people still kept believing in it, kept being interested in it anytime they show up to do anything. And it still continues with, you know, this Nate Diaz, Mike Perry fight, where it's just like,

once people bought in, especially to the sort of cult of personality around that, they stay bought in for kind of a long time, like, well past the point when the physical skills say that they should. Although I do think, like, was it at least, uh, tempting when your friend's mother asked, like, whatever happened to Connor McGregor just be like, no one knows, lost at sea. She wouldn't know She'd be like Oh, is that right?

Yeah. You know, I'm in the middle of a busy, like, store and I'm like, do we need to get into the Remember that article we did for the ring or chook? Yes, I was just thinking about that. I was like, yeah, I'm not going to get it for something.

You just like, I'll send you a link. Don't worry, I'll send you a link. You can read all of it. Get you caught up. Pretty much everything. Pretty much everything that can happen to someone. Don't you think the part of why they stay like this too is because the bigger me,

the national media, or the big outlets like Jim Rome or, you know, whoever else that Dana ends up talking to, this is the one thing that they know. It's like, well, Connor McGregor. So his name is every time, he's like, what's the news on Connor McGregor? Is he, you know, is he coming back and they keep this thing alive?

He's always answering questions whenever he does, you know, anything. And the, uh, the, uh, the, MMA dedicated media will ask him. But it's really those, those bigger voices out there when they get the chance and they, they want the inside dope from Dana himself and, you know, like Jim Rome and those type of guys. They always ask about him.

They're not asking about Peter Jan, you know? Right. That's the thing. Can't wait for the next no mercy fight. How's Nick Lynn's getting about? Is he still around? Oh, my God. Well, one guy who is trying to challenge McGregor in the superstar's sakes is

Armin Serukin. He's been doing a lot of live streaming. He's been doing a lot of wrestling. And according to Dana White, he is the backup fighter. We got the video, don't we, Jordan? Somebody said, ask about Armin's next fight. So Armand is the backup for the White House fight.

If anything happens to that fight, Armand's in there. Where are we doing this? Yeah, what was that? Where did we do this? That was very unkey. That was very unkey, yeah. But here's the thing. What nightclub are we at?

Are we smoking cigars in the nightclubs and there's some music going on? Yeah. You never been a club like that, Ben? No, if I walk by, I, if I walk by, that's happening. I'm like, where's the dive bar, man? I'm going to get me a Miller light and watch the TV. Yeah. Will you bring me to a place like that, please, Chuck? I'd like to just see how long they'd let me just be in that moment, you know what I mean? I'd say three whiskeys, I'm out the fucking door. Yeah, but I don't think we can. But I'll try.

I'll try. Not on my own. Yeah. We'll try. Jedi Goldman brought up a very good point about this whole thing. Do we have the tweet, Jordan, or should I just read this? Well, that's what it is. Yeah. Tarukian is supposed to be fighting, well, wrestling, Tony Ferguson on that same day. Slash fighting. You know, he always throws in a little extra. That's a day before. June 13th, the day before, right? Yeah. So as Jedi broke it down, if Armand is the back coop, you'd think he would need to be in D.C.

the morning of June 13th, then if there are no issues with Taborier, Gagee, he could fly to Missouri to compete later that day. I can feel a messy situation developing here. Great point. Especially since he can't fly, like, they'll probably kick him off the point. anyway, so it's just, oh. Yeah, no, he, he knows where they keep the PJs. So if he needs to, to be somewhere in a couple hours, he can be there. I don't know if that's such a big issue. Also, like, if we're saying he's the backup, I don't know if we're, like, by June 13th,

we probably know whether we're going to need the backup on June 14th or not, right? Like, there's limited circumstances that could ruin your fight by that late hour. So I think he'd probably be all right. Doesn't it seem like the UFC would have some stipulate. like, hey, man, if you're going to be the backup for this fight, you cannot do that of the thing, right? It seems like they would have that. Independent contractors, joke. Yeah.

Independent contractors. I mean, and this is a rare one. I don't remember a situation like this, you know? Armand's work rate suggests that it would be no big deal to him to get into a wrestling match the night before and then go fight for the lightweight title. Yeah. We have one last bit of news before we get into the much maligned ad hoc section. That is Mark Shapiro. disgusting. Oh, sorry, Jordan correctly has just told me.

Ilya has responded to said backup fighter claims. Please. Obviously, Armands is going to be the official backup. He was announced yesterday. Yeah, he's always a backup. That is a bar. That's pretty good. Wow. That dude. He's prepared. It comes so naturally to that guy, you know. He doesn't seem like he's really trying too hard. He's always a backup. He even gave Trump as in, like, is a, like, is a. own kind of promo

30 or a day. He was like, why would you do this to your friend? Yeah, yes, yeah. And Trump's like, fuck,

I'm all right. The thing that was crazy to me about that exchange is that he's like, and Trump is kind of looking at him being like, are you very confident? And he's like, I'm 100% confident, you know,

like, I'm Alya, yeah. And then Trump kind of like turns and looks at the cameras and he's like, they believe that too. And you're just like, you don't know all these guys, man. Like,

this, like he's just sort of like, Like right there in front of the guy just being like, can you believe it? They all think they're going to win. Isn't that crazy? Did you see the part where Gaitch was like, you know, and thanks to President Strump, but like he's been a, he's been a great patron of the sport. You know, back in the day, everyone thought we were animals.

And he's like, but you are though. He said like, straight away. Like, you are. And he's like, well, I mean, I know you guys all think you're his friend. But if he, if he saw you in the Mar-a-Lago golf club and you weren't carrying a, a drink or a plunger. He'd call security on you and get you out of there. Not a Colby, though.

Colby's been there many times and friends of the family, okay? He said he wouldn't lie about that. That's one was funny. So all this conversation about the UFC product, not very much conversation about it this weekend, I will say. Shapiro was asked about it on a call, TK. I'll call. I'm sure it was like shareholders or something.

Do we have that, Jordan? The product is great at the UFC. The brand has never been stronger. our reach has never been greater. So the foundational elements of UFC are in concrete. Anyone that came to our last numbered fight in Miami, which was UFC 327, was flat out blown away. Or anyone that went to our last fight night, which happened to be last weekend in Perth, Australia, a sellout, or even watched it, witnessed an extraordinary sport. Look, we are always building at the UFC.

We're in the building phase at all times. We find the best up-and-coming talent around the world, and we match them continually in the best fights. There's a huge movement right now with all these young fighters coming up in the ranks. Many of them are taking over slots in the top 10 from guys that have been names in the rankings for years. Strong personalities that are busting just now. Joshua Van, Brazilian Carlos Predus, undefeated Michael Morales, the next generation. Or look at the White House card, which we put out there as a strong card.

We've actually added a card to it, the UFC Freedom 250, which is it's stacked top the bottom, and we're using that opportunity to feature one of our most promising stars in Ilya Taboria. Dana White and his team have been doing this for 25 years. And look, the real truth of it is that we don't get to determine who wins. It doesn't work like that. You take these great personalities who hail from every corner of the world with exciting fighting styles. And if they win, you've caught lightning in a bottle.

That's what we do. That's what Dana White does. And there's no better matchmakers in any sport than we have with Dana's team of Hunter Campbell, Sean Shelby, and Mick Maynard. And then I would just say, you know, I'd remind you finally that with any sport, there's just natural ebbs and flows. right it's all very cyclical again kind of harking back to the ESPN days the NBA was on fire with Michael Jordan and then he left and there was a bit of a dip and then all of a sudden it was Shaq and Kobe and as long as Shaq and Kobe were in the NBA finals the NBA was in good shape but the year they weren't there or they were playing the nets or the San Antonio Spurs were there

there was a falloff and they needed more stars and everybody talked about it earned and and commented those social back then but there was still a lot of noise and now you know they're they're uber rich when it comes to sports personalities

and teams that are playing well as evidenced by the homegrown New York next year there you go boys shut the fuck up okay okay the part about that that we didn't catch I'm gonna blame Jordan for cutting this part out

because I thought he was very interesting was the question where the guy is like what do you have to say about like there's been criticisms about UFC fight quality what are you guys doing to improve the UFC fight card quality overall? And I had this quote because I wrote a column about basically TCO's bottomless greed in all areas of the fight sports business. The way he started his answer was by saying, bottom line is we don't buy it, which is just saying, like, nope, no, isn't the problem.

Wrong. And then says, let's start with it. was like they're not buying the paper views anymore. This is just a soft free product. He says, let's just start with this premise. The product is great as the O.C. The brand has never been stronger. Our reach has never been greater.

All that kind of stuff. And see, but then it's like the more he talks in that answer, the more you're, you're trying to make a whole bunch of different points, some of which are in conflict with each other. Because you're like, there is no problem with card quality. It's fantastic. Everybody loves it. There are no criticisms. Like what you're saying is just wrong.

Like the premise of your. question is wrong and I do not accept it. And then by the end of the answer, we're being like, hey, man, it's like the NBA. Sometimes the New Jersey Nets make it and everybody, and it sucks and everybody hates it. And we got to wait until the next Kobe shows up. And you're like, which one is it? Are you guys red hot and you're killing it on every front or, hey, are they, they're dips and lulls and we might be in a dip and lull right now. Like, he doesn't seem to know which one, just like he doesn't seem to know exactly how to pronounce Carlos

Prost is his name. But he had a really good attempt. The pause is what kills you there. The pause is what made it stand out. Let me tell you something. If you're going to mispronounce names and take it from an expert on mispronouncing people's names, you got to commit. You got to go in there with 100% confidence, mispronounce it. And then when people correct you want to keep mispronouncing it.

Just like, just insist that you have your own way. You're right even when you're wrong. Because if you pause, we are picturing you looking at a piece of paper and knowing that it's not exactly like this guy's name is on the tip of your tongue. But it's like the point he's making there is essentially just being like, there is no problem. We're doing great. We're doing phenomenal. All this kind of stuff. And I don't, you really do need to kind of choose a lane on that.

Like is this the product greater than it's ever been? Or did we lose Michael Jordan and we're waiting for Shaq and Kobe to show up? You're right, Bean. And I'm not sure that's how they pronounce Nick N are. Joe helps. Joe helps the old mispronunciations. of names. An accent.

I mean, I'm sure this is stuff that only stands out to guys like us, but it also stood out to me, like, the number of times he keeps saying we in referring to the UFC. And I'm like, who? That was that. What he said was out of the playbook from like 2008, like, you know, Dana White. I mean, the beauty of it is, you know, we don't know who's going to win. You know, it's like that sort of thing. Like, you just, I mean, it's like a guy who's only been looking at the sport for a

very short amount of time, you know, you're still kind of fixating on. He's my mind, guys. He's my mind. I mean, I'm convinced. As soon as he said it wasn't the thing, I was like, thank God, here's me fucking worrying. It's all fine. We have some breaking news.

We have some breaking news. Okay. Do we don't have the music? This is exciting. There we go. This is exciting. Get ready, boys. This is off script.

We're killing the keyboards on that music. It's off script. Okay. Floyd Mayweather and Mani Pacchio have agreed to terms on an amended deal for a Professional fight on Netflix scheduled for September 25th at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, per ring magazine. There's some great sources there.

May Weather and Bakuio were initially scheduled for the rematch at the Sphere in Las Vegas on September 19th, but had to pivot due to booking conflicts, lads. It's happening. Wow. Again. Yeah. What else we got? Because they're like other stuff like.

Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Ben removed his headset. He's out of here. it's uh yeah okay yeah now i tried something there didn't quite we do have the picks can we bring up the picks please george what year is it talking about manny pack yeaho and floyd and mayweather mac yeah oh baby ben what the fuck are you doing all the way up there whoa look at this at all he's playing it's safe he's playing and say he's chock his all it's all chalk no like he's just chock

what listen don't hate appreciate it's it's not a sprint it's a marathon yeah okay I can't see this, so you're going to have to read off who we pick here. Okay, so everybody's gone for Shemayef. Everyone's gone for Shemoyaf. No, no one's, no one is straying away from that there. However, the co-main event, very interesting. Okay. Ben folks, well, I'll start from losers on the way up.

So the most losing person is Shaheen Al Shadi. So we'll start there. Make sure you mention that. Yeah. The biggest loser so far is Shahin Al Shadi. He has gone for Joshua Van. Connor Brooks, the second most. The second most losing

staff member is Connor Brooks. He has gone for Tyra. Now, the fifth winningest, Pete Carroll, I've gone for Van. Drake Riggs has gone for Tyra. Mendenhall has gone for Van. Mysterious Frank has gone for Tyra. Eric Jackman, Tyra. Ben folks, Van. So we're on the van. Ben's got it right. You know what? Drake has never picked against a Japanese fighter.

I've just realized this. Never once have I seen him go against the Japanese fighter in the scenario. That's a good point. Yeah. I'll tell you, this is the one I, this is the pick I struggled with the most, honestly, was Van and Tyra. Because I was like, I can talk myself into it either way.

I just got through telling you guys that I'm leaning towards Tyra at the beginning of the show. And then you read off the official van pick. So that shows you every. So in the heavyway banger, Ben Folks has gone for Salza Boy. We've all gone for Volkov apart from Connor Burks, so it's just Burks and folks, and they're pretty good pickers, I'm not going to like you. That's that. We all saw

Volkov last time out, right? No, I scrub that for my mind. You're talking about the Omeda fight? Yeah. Oof. No. I did watch it, but he beat Cyril Gan in the fight before that. They just gave a decision to Gat. That's what I was thinking about. You know what I mean? Also, this is, this is, this is is a, Waldo, like, it's seventh fight and like, 14, whatever it is, it's like, very condensed.

I'm like, you always worry that too much, you know, you worry that they're hitting that moment where you're like, okay, I overdid it here. We've got two clean sweeps in the next one, everyone on Sean Brady, everyone on King Green. Everyone was playing the odds. Okay, well, most people, Sasser Koev,

Shemoyev's buddy, another Chechen there. We're all pretty much on him, apart from, Mysterious Frank, who's gone for Jared Gordon, He's floating Jim Miller at 42 years of age, Jim Miller, and Connor Brooks, who's gone for Pat Sabatini. Interesting. That's putting the balls out there a little bit, huh?

Okay, I know this one is not on the ad hoc list, at least as far as I understand it. Sometimes you got to go John Coltrane on us, you know what I mean? You mentioned King Green. Did you see during the media day when he mentioned how he needs to fight a whole bunch and make some money because he lost $300,000 worth of jewelry. No. You didn't see this.

Okay. No. So, because he brought it up out of where it was just like, I don't know what the original question was. It was something about like, okay, you've been pretty active and everything. And like, especially, you know, he's getting on in years, but still fighting a whole bunch. And he's like, yeah, hey, I mean, I might fight two or three more times this year.

Like, I want to get that money. Like, you don't know stuff I've been going through. I lost $300,000 with the jewelry. Anyway, I've been telling my coaches where. And like, you know, the. So no follow up there. No, there was. And like once he stopped talking, you could tell, like, people, I don't know who it was who followed up.

And they were just like, uh, feels like we got to ask about the 300 grand worth of jewelry. Like, especially when he says it like that, like, and you're just like, is that, are you being figurative? Are you? And he's just like, no. He at first acts like he's not sure. He wants to tell the story. And it's like, my man, you brought it up. Like, you want to talk about it.

Come on. Tell us about the $300,000 for the jewelry. And he tells this story about like, maybe. like an ex-girlfriend or something who came over and he left her at his house when he went to train and when he came back all this shit's gone and he was really mad about it he just he said something about he's like I'm driving around all night looking for more of my stuff is at and I was just like man the last thing you want is King Green getting in the car and looking for you imagine him rolling up on you yeah and and if you don't have his 300,000 first of all how you get

$300,000 why do you get $300,000? Why do you get $300,000? thousand dollars worth of jewelry man i mean you want to be the fucking mile on the streets i guess 300k around my neck around blanchard sound people like all right didn't know you fucking did that yeah yeah yeah well i do i do that's what they're doing is getting the knives out and being like handed over uh you just giving somebody a reason to and also i remember i remember watching uh chad ochosenko on one of those uh nfl things where he was explained to his teammates how he'll he'll wear the fake diamond earrings from clairs in the mall because he's like, look, people know I'm a pro football player. They assume I have money.

They see me with these earrings. They assume they're real diamonds. I still got the money I saved at home. And you're just like, that's genius. You could do it. King Green, there is nice looking stuff on Amazon, man. You could find some stuff. And instead, he loses $300,000 worth of jewelry.

He got to turn around and fight this way. And I was just like, honestly, if I were fighting a dude, especially if like he's got show and win money on the line, all that stuff. and I find out he's out $300,000 worth of jewelry, I'm a little scared to fight that man now. Jeremy is motivated. Don't tell him that. Like, it's already a bad situation for Jeremy.

No one's coming into him and go, here, man, did you see that the King Green interview? He's like, no, what did he say? He lost 300 K's or did you, oh, fuck. Yeah. And then you miss weight as Jeremy Stevens. They give a portion of your purse to King Green, and he's going like immediately like,

now I can start to rebuild, you know? Like I'm putting that down on a chain. right now. Yeah. About you're going to run. Have you ever been to San Bernardino? Oh, yeah. I was going to say, I mean, he's from Fontana.

I used to, when I, I grew up like near that area. Inland Empire. It's a, yeah. I grew up in the Inland Empire. And when I, when I graduated high school, I went to work at a trucking dock in Fontana, where, you know, four in the morning, driving a forklift, not having a clue what I was doing, damaging so much. stuff damaged so much merchandise.

But yeah, you hang around in Fontana and San Bernardino in the area and you're just like, this is not the place to show up with $300,000 worth of jewelry. That's what I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. He knows. I've tried to Google inland empire and it's a film by David Lynch. Like, what the fuck are you guys talking about?

No, it's the, it's the, David Lynch isn't making movies about nice places, you know? Yeah. It's like Riverside, you know, Riverside. Eagles a debt medal of a lot of a song called San Bernardino. Yeah. I know that much. It's beautiful. That's all I got there. I'm sorry, guys.

It's not beautiful. It's not beautiful. I did. We, we teased the last week, Ben's sunny list and article dropped, and it is fan-bloodytastic. You got to do that, huh? Yeah, I mean, I took it in four nights. You know, I broke into it. How many words was that thing?

That was a monster heft right there. I think it was around 6,000. Wow. Around 6,000 word I thought. Okay. Tell us about a pin. That was a good piece. Yeah.

Well, thank you. Yeah. I mean, you know, I've always thought Sonny Wilson one of the more, like, weirdly fascinating characters from like this period of heavyweight boxing history just because, especially when you dig back into like what people were saying like contemporary sources, like what they were saying about him in the press at the time, even when he died. And he died suddenly and kind of unexplained at first where people were trying to figure out what it was he died of. and even right away when the news broke, you know how it is usually, even if somebody is sort of a complicated figure, you know,

if Floyd Mayweather showed up dead tomorrow. In the immediate aftermath of him dying, people would be like, wow, this is sudden and shocking, and this was a guy who was a huge important figure in boxing. And when Sunny Liston died, Howard Cosell went on ABC News and was like, there will be no requiem for this heavyweight.

And people were just like, this son of a bitch. And he was like, why, like the, the degree to which, especially like white America was worried about Sunny Liston, which just felt unnerved by Sunny Liston. But also, you know, when he was clearly the number one contender, just knocking people out left and right, Floyd Patterson had the heavyweight title. And even the NAACP came out against making that fight. They said Floyd Patterson shouldn't take a fight with Sunny Liston just because it was kind of known. Sunny Liston is mobbed up. He had to testify before a Senate committee about his ties to organized crime and had a long criminal

record himself had kind of never stopped getting arrested, even after he'd learned a box in prison. And there was a sense of like, don't give this guy shot at the heavyweight title because he'll probably win it. And then what? Then you've got a guy we think is a criminal and we think is connected to criminals as your heavyweight champion. And that seems like a bad situation to be in. And, you know, Floyd Patterson just kind of felt that pressure enough where he was just like, if I ever want to sleep at night, I need to give Sunny Liston a shot at this title.

And so I can feel like I'm the real heavyweight champ. He did it, got knocked out in the first round twice. And then sure enough, when Sunny Liston was the heavyweight champ, you know, and turned around to defend the title against, you know, Cassius Clay, who then became Muhammad Ali in time for the second fight, both fights were under suspicion. And like at least one of those fights, the second one seems, I'm going to say probable. There's a lot of skeptic. I wasn't aware of the second one. I was not aware of the doubt that that you talk about in the article. I had no idea.

I knew the first one was I had no idea about the second one. And I thought it was brilliant the way you framed it around that iconic image of Cassius Clay over Sunny Liston. Because as you say in the article, it is all over dorm rooms. It's all like your friend had it in his bedroom. Right. Without a doubt. The boxing gym I go to has two of them. Two of them.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Imagine if social media existed back then. My God. Like you see stuff like that. You're like, we see it from this lens of like historic. But like you think now and oh my God, can you imagine what would be going out of that happened?

Yeah. Well, that was one of the things that I think is interesting about it is that now, especially like the, the aura of Muhammad Ali is so strong that people see that image. And they go, yeah, that seems right. That's the greatest fighter in the world. And maybe I never heard of Sunny Liston. So, yeah, it sounds right to me. Doesn't need to be a fix for him to be standing over Sunny Liston like that. And though at the time, you know, they had that second fight in a, in a, basically a youth hockey arena in Lewiston, Maine.

Just because other places, they had problems fine in other places to have it. And because of the concerns after the first fight and what everybody knew about Sunny, listen, they wanted to have it in Las Vegas. And there's a quote of my story from one of the guys who was the head of the boxing commission in Nevada at the time saying he was told by state senators don't have it here because gambling is our business. We think that this one might not be on the level. We don't want to be hosting fights like that when we're trying to convince people to come to Vegas and gamble. You know, we want them to think that the tables are square and this won't help us. And so they ended, you know, they tried to have it in the Boston Garden. Ted Kennedy was against that, you know, like all kinds of stuff like that.

They finally end up in Maine. And then in the immediate aftermath of the fight, there were people in the crowd who were just like immediately chanting Fix. And that's, you hear that from multiple sources, like multiple sports writers who were there were like the chance of Fix started up right away. People knew what they had seen there and they were mad about it. And now that is almost just completely lost when we look back on that fight. You actually make a great point in the piece as well about that.

How many times Sony Listen been knocked out in the first round? Zero. Other than that one time against Muhammad Ali, zero other first round knockouts. Muhammad Ali in his entire career had one other first round knockout, and it was at the very beginning, he was like his fourth pro fight against a guy who retired with a losing record and a lot of knockout losses.

Never again, you know, yeah, never again did he knock somebody out. That was just not his game, you know, to land one punch like that. And that video of him talking about it years later where he is trying to say like, oh, no, it was just because the punch was so fast. All those people blinked at the same time. And you're like, that's Muhammad Ali making this into humor, like in this, that charming, charismatic way he had.

But even like when he's saying that and everybody laughs and you could see like he's trying to keep a straight face through this explanation, but he kind of like the corners of his lip are turning up because he knows like, hey, I'm trying to offer you an explanation that makes sense, but it's also kind of funny because he knows that it doesn't make sense. It's great. Everyone should read any combat sports fan. Get over and read it because it's full of stuff I hadn't got a fucking clue about. I didn't know that there was that line about Ali berating. Listen, as he goes down, like, there's a report of him berating him being like, they're not going to fucking believe this, mate. Get him off the ground. And he comes over to interrupt

the count. You know, he knocks him down. You would think, like, that's where you'd stand back. You'd be like, count him out. Let's get this over with first round knockout. I'm still the champ. And instead, like, he's yelling at him at first. He walks away a little bit. He comes back to keep yelling at him. And the referee has to stop and push Ali back aside because he's, he knew like, this is not

legitimate. I see what you're doing here. And he, I'm sure was worried that it was going to stain him as well, like to be in a heavyweight title fight that people thought was fixed. And it turns out in the end, like, people just remember him in such way. And that's also the thing that's crazy about it. is if either or both of those fights were fixed, they might be the most unnecessary fixes in history. Because Muhammad Ali might beat Sunny Liston every time no matter, because he's Muhammad

Ali. We know that now. They didn't know that then. They were just like this skinny kid who talks a lot and is really probably more of a light heavyweight. Yeah. To get the first thing. Forever followed him around. Yeah. Yeah. At the time though, they didn't know he was going to be Muhammad Ali. Yeah. crazy. Speaking of heavyweights boys, there's a big fight on in the UK. It's Dubovie Wardley and it is huge over here.

Like I mean, these guys are basically in a kind of an AJ Tyson kind of thing. Of course they aren't on that scale but two ferocious heavyweight knockout artists. Very, very, very highly anticipated over here.

I'm just wondering, has this registered a blip over there, Chuck? Like, are you interested in this? Yeah, I'm interested. but I didn't even realize it was happening this weekend until you just mentioned it. So that's, that shows you where I'm back.

Didn't read the ad hoc section? It's right there. Love PC. What do these notes mean anymore, guys? Yeah, it's going to be a bang-out. I'm very, very interesting. Where's this fight happening? Is it happening in, uh,

I think it's in a stadium. I think it's, um, I think it is not Wembley again, is it? No, let me check. Let me, Ch. Manchester? Oh, is it the co-op? I think it's a, it's where, um, it's where Balal beat Leon if what, uh, Jordan is time.

Oh, right. Okay. Let me, yeah, it is the co-op live. So about 20, over 20,000 people. Sorry, it is not a stadium. My bad. Um, but yeah, um, it's, you know what? I'm actually going to my first fucking indie pro wrestling event tomorrow.

Oh, hell yeah. In the day. Never been to them. Yeah. Don't know what's fun thing about it. It's like in a community. It's like, it's like, it's, they are really fun. One of my favorite things about going to like an indie pro wrestling

event is that they know we can't count on people to know who these wrestlers are and know what their thing is, know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. And so seeing like the at times genius ways they'll come up with to just like, I got to come through that curtain and very quickly communicate what you're supposed to feel, what the character's whole deal is. And we had one here in Missoula a couple summers ago. And when the guys, he came through and he's, he's holding a half empty Gatorade bottle and he's just like holding his head and just like shaking his head and like drooping down the whole way when he walks to the ring and kind of gets people's attention right away and then gets on the mic and it's just like, listen, I was out at the bars all night in your

downtown area last night because there's nothing to do in this town except get drunk, you know, and he waits for the booze. And he's like, so I'm super hung over today and I'm going to ask you all respectfully to keep it down. And you're just like, that's great. And then you're off. And it's like they always had to find like some ways to do that kind of stuff. I think they're so fun to go to. I can't fucking white boys. It's going to be a long one. And of course, we will be doing the post show tomorrow.

There's a live event. I should have said this earlier. Fuck, Jordan, I'm going to be in trouble over this? You're fired. There's a live event happening at the city winery, I believe it is. Ariel O'an, he's going to be there, Jordan's going to be there, GC's going to be there, Rick's going to be there, Andy's going to be there, Frank's going to be there. We're not going to be there.

Yeah, I noticed. So we were, whatever, we're not about it. Not even found out a bit on the show. No big deal. But it's going to be a great event. Dustin Porre is going to be there.

Among others, who else is going to be there, Jordan, quickly. Give us, give us to me in the headset. Joe Pfeiffer. Joe Pfe is going to be there. Wonder boy, right?

Wonder boy, thank you. Yep. Is Jordan going to, is it going to be more of like a, a Cabernet guy? Are we going to like getting into some Malbex over there? What's the,

the plan of attack? A Keonti, okay. All right. I don't drink wine because of it's, degenerate. They just go straight for the drinks and then. The Arthur. Yeah. The Arthur and then just a whiskey and then. Yeah. You know what I mean? What are you going to do? Then should we talk about the, our friendship? Sure. We're among friends. This is what you know. Yeah. So Chuka's been a victim of many.

Yeah. I've been there for these. I'll tell you what though. I understood what it was. Because I was hanging around the house. What was it? Sundays like Sunday after a new. I'm doing stuff around the house. I see the phone rings and it's, it's Pizzi and I'm like, I'm doing the math in my head. What time is it in Dublin? You know,

had to be after midnight over there. And then, and I pick up the phone and Pizzi's just hammered. Just, and I'm just like, you know what? This is a new phase of our friendship. I appreciate it. I understand it.

I know what to do with that. at some point made me talk to the taxi driver. Neither me or the taxi driver seemed to know what to do with that. And then I told him I was just like, all right, I'm going to tell you a joke and then I'm going to hang up the phone. And then I told him the joke. And then the last thing I heard was Pici's hysterical laughter hung up the phone. I was just like, I went afterwards, told my wife, I was like, me and Pici, we crossed a

threshold today in our friendship. The problem is I was laughing maniacally outside of the head. Alain was inside. She's hearing me laugh and she's like, oh, he's bringing lots of people back to our house on a Sunday night, which he's done before. And she's like, oh, here he comes. Come in the door and it's just me and she's like, well, been out there like laughing like a psychopath for five minutes. What, what happened? And I was like, oh, and I was, just Ben told me, told me a really funny joke. And she's like, what was the joke? And no. So maybe next week we'll tell the joke and we can we can remind us on. So you don't remember the joke. So you don't remember the joke. So you don't remember the joke. joke at all. Not even a little bit. I think it was something to do with Buzz Aldrin. Yeah? Yeah, you're close. You're close. Come on. Give it to us, Dan, Ben. Give us the joke. I don't know if it's appropriate.

You keep a bit on the spot. This joke out of a scale of four is a four, though. It's a four. It's a scale that we use. It was. Do you have any super chats, Jordan? Not with that we're doing, he said. Sorry to those of you. We don't know. doing. I'll assume they're explicit.

But thank you for coming to the show today. We love you all. Get over to City Winery. He's been Chuck Menemal. He's been Ben, folks. I've been Peter. Thank you to Jordan. Thank you to Oscar. That's everyone. Thank you to all you beautiful people. We will see you on the post show.

Watch the watch along with G.C. and Rick. And then it's going to be the three of us again to tell you all about what happened at UFC 328 in New Jersey. We love you loads. Have a fantastic weekend. See you tomorrow. Thank you.