The Ariel Helwani Show - Leon Edwards, Bo Nickal, Gordon Ryan, Jeremy Stephens, coach Dave Lovell, Conor McGregor visits the White House

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

 Ariel Helwani kicks off the show with a little of college basketball bracket talk (01:10).Jeremy Stephens discusses his surprise UFC signing, taking another gamble on himself with a one-fight deal, his future with BKFC and more (08:30).Leon Edwards previews his UFC London main event against Sean Brady and reflects on his title loss to Belal Muhammad (34:03).Edwards' longtime head coach, Dave Lovell, then joins us to do the same (59:01).Bo Nickal discusses his May 3 bout against Reinier de Ridder at UFC Des Moines, the problem with the UFC APEX, his issue with UFC's rankings, trolling Khamzat Chimaev and more (1:31:45).Gordon Ryan discusses Tom Aspinall's grappling, trolling Dillon Danis, working with Bo Nickal, rampant steroid use in jiu-jitsu, competing for UFC and more (2:07:43).Petesy Carroll joins us to ring in St. Patrick's Day the proper Irish way (2:44:46) and reaction to Conor McGregor visiting the White House.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Err-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r- And 25, hello again everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. Welcome back to the program. Hope you had a lovely weekend and hopefully you are enjoying this lovely St. Patrick's Day Monday. Yes, it's St. Patrick's Day. Shout out to all our friends over in Ireland, of course, our closest friend of them all,

the great Pizzi Carrol, who will be joining us on the back end of today's program because it's an old-school type of show. There was once a time where we, you know, we wouldn't even talk for a second. There would be no, maybe at the very end, like I'm talking about the early days, it would be guest, guest, guest, guest, guest, goodbye. Actually, the idea of a 30-minute block without a guest used to terrify me. Now, I love them. But we're going old school because it was a relatively quiet weekend in the world of combat sports, if I'm being honest.

Yes, there was an event at the Apex, main event won by Roma Dalitzi, the pride of Georgia, defeating, conquering the returning Marvin Vittori. Uh, they fought a couple of years ago and, uh, Dolizze with a nice win. He is, uh, he's on a bit of a streak these days. Wonder where Vittori goes from here. And there were a bunch of finishes and the UFC was very excited about that. It was another soulless card at the mighty apex as something falls from the top of my head.

Uh, but nevertheless, it was entertaining with a bunch of finishes and there was some notable things that happened. A couple of, uh, uh, female stoppages to start the car back to back, Camorra's all very exciting stuff. Uh, matchroom had a card over at the wonderful Kareeb Royale in Orlando.

Uh, Edgar Berlanga got a nice win. It was, it was to be expected. Emma Williams with a nice win. Uh,ved what Amari Jones had to wear. Amari Jones, the pride of Orlando making his pro debut. The US Olympian now turned matchroom super prospect. Look at this old-school Orlando magic gear. I love that. Look at those trunks. That is 1993, 1994, 1995, Shaquille O'Neal, Penny Hardaway, a little Horace Grant, but really Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott, Jeff Turner, I mean Scott Skiles, that era. So I love that. Great stuff there.

There was a Maple Leaf Wrestling show on Saturday, which I enjoyed as well. So a little hodgepodge, nothing to really go crazy about. And that's part of the reason why we're starting with guests off the bat. Maple Leaf Wrestling Show on Saturday, which I enjoyed as well. So a little hodgepodge, nothing to really go crazy about. And that's part of the reason why we're starting with guests off the bat. I do want to give a big shout out very early in the program to our friends, to our partners here at Yahoo Sports. They made some incredible history this morning.

They got to ring the NASDAQ opening bell. Yes, at the New York Stock Exchange there are all our friends look at Ryan Spoon El Presidente you got Sam Farber over there I see Nicole I see Paige who else is there Kate ah Benny Stark is over there all very important big wigs, uh, still waiting for my, uh, save the date. Did, uh, did you get that Frank? Cause, uh, no, I don't. Let me check. Nope. Okay.

Well, you know, very, very excited about it. A tremendous honor and very cool to see all our newish friends, not really new anymore, new ish friends celebrating a big week over at, uh, Yahoo Sports. It is the, uh, the start of the, uh, uh, new anymore new ish friends celebrating a big week over at Yahoo Sports. It is the, the start of the, uh, you know, you can't say there's a certain thing that you're

not allowed to say cause cause they get in trouble for that. So I think it's just the NCA men's and women's basketball tournament. Is that fair? Does that not get us in trouble? You know, you can't say the old double N. Yeah, you can't. So anyway double M. Yeah, you can't.

So, uh, anyway, there are brackets and all this stuff. And right now, if you go, if you're watching live, do us a favor, uh, join free of charge. Winner gets a, uh, heel, Wani merch care package. And we've got it right there at the top of the chat. It's pinned. You can join our bracket pool right now. Bracket mayhem from the OGs over at Yahoo Fantasy. The very best in the business.

Join us. We're going to have a grand old time. The action kicks off tomorrow with the first four, and then it's on to the real stuff on Thursday. Can't wait. What a time. We're supporting the Red Storm over here. That is the pride of New York, St. John's. What a run for those guys

winning the Big East Tournament. So yes, please join us and let's have a grand old time. Now today's program, like I said, super stacked, old school, we got a lot to get to, big weekend coming up, the UFC returning to London town, normal time, not in the middle of the night, headliner Leon Edwards, Sean Brady. It's a big one for us looking forward to it I think it's a sneaky good card back into the program. We're gonna talk to Gordon Ryan the king of Jiu-jitsu, you know about this man. He is an absolute legend. He's still in his mid-20s and he's killing the game He's had some health problems He was brought up last week by Dylan Dennis always great to talk to the one and only Gordon Ryan.

Prior to that, we'll be joined by Bo Nicol. We found out last week that Bo Nicol is in fact returning on the 3rd of May, UFC Des Moines. And for my international friends, it's not Des Moines, it's Des Moines. You don't really pronounce the S's. That's in Iowa, by the way. And that's a pretty good fight. It feels like it's a step up for old Bo Nicol. Going up against RDR.

Renner Derrida. I always say it in French because it feels like it's a French name but it's not. So we just go with RDR to be safe. Anyway we'll talk to Bo at 2.30. Two o'clock we'll talk to the head man over at Renegade Jiu Jitsu, the one and only Dave Lavelle, the head coach for one Leon Rocky Edwards. He shoots straight. I always enjoy talking to him and at 1 30 for the first time in over a year believe it or not we are in fact going to be joined by the one and only Leon Rocky Edwards. Massive massive massive massive fight for him.

He has to get back on track. He's going up against Shawn Brady. And this is a big one. He was supposed to fight Jack Delamadalena. We found out Shafkat gets hurt. They go to JDM. JDM now fighting on the 10th of May against Balamahamed in Montreal, UFC 315.

And so Shawn Brady, who was asking for this fight, long before it was made, long before I even think the London card was official, he gets the opportunity to fight the former champion in his home country, his adopted home country. And if he wins this fight, could potentially be one win away from fighting for the belt. for the belt. We'll kick off the show in a matter of moments with Jeremy Stevens who we had on the program just a few weeks back. He had that amazing win over Eddie Alvarez at BKFC in Philadelphia and what a performance that was, what a time that was for him. He showed up, he had to deal with all the nonsense of the Philly fans, he sat there, He was in total heel mode. He gave it right back to them. He walked the walk. He talked the talk and he beat up Eddie pretty bad. We haven't really heard much from Eddie since. We did find out that he had a broken jaw. Perhaps that's his last fight.

He has always told us that he's not going to make a big to-do about his retirement and then afterwards I remember on the Monday after two days later Jeremy reveals he was very fired up. He was very emotional. He reveals that He's a free agent Essentially that was his last fight. He had no commitment and I couldn't believe it. Remember on that same show We found out that Jeremy Stevens and Ben Rothwell were essentially fighting on the last fights of their deal.

Rothwell becomes the heavyweight champion. Jeremy Stevens headlines the show with no future commitment in place. This to me felt like a massive blunder. But we all kind of assumed, hey, he's got this, he's got the GFL. Let's go. Lock him up. BKFC, you have found a new face. Times are a bit weird with Mike Perry. Lock this guy up. Then we find out, late last week, he's returning to the UFC

first time in about four years. He's going to return and he's going to fight on the Des Moines card in his backyard in a stunner. A crazy turn of events against the returning Mason Jones, the double champion from Cage Wars. How did this all happen? Let's talk to Lil Heathen and get the low down right here. Now he is kind enough to join us. There he is. Hello, Jeremy, how are you in the gym?

Ready to go? Absolutely. Absolutely, bro. Stay ready. Okay, well, thank you for joining us. This came out of nowhere I mean we spoke the Monday after the Philly BKFC card and you told us about the contract situation But we all kind of assumed I mean you're you become like a face of the organization for them. You're rolling

You're undefeated. You just beat Eddie in his backyard. You got the GFL thing in the back pocket How the hell did this all happen? How are you back in the UFC? Yeah, I told you. Manifested it. Fortified my mind. You know, delusions to reality. You know, I crawled out the ring well. You guys ever seen the movie The Ring? Yes, yes, of course. I crawled out that with my bare hands and moved the concrete lid that was over the top. Now I'm just out crawling, wreaking havoc on these motherfuckers, bro. It feels great. Uh, I will this into reality delusions to reality.

You know, I journaled this in, you know, and I'm making it happen. I did it on my own. You know, people left me for bed. I rose up like the undertaker and I reached out to the Godfather himself. You know, I took a shot, bet on me again and here we are, you know, the return in my hometown. Like you cannot write or make a movie about this or make this up. It's, this is the life, baby. So, so when we spoke to you on that Monday, was this all part of your plan?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's all part of the, it's all part of the process. The process and the system, the way that I see it going in there and getting big fights. This is just a stepping stone and a small gas station stop to the ultimate destiny. But just right now I'm having fun with it. It feels amazing to be at this point, to take options in life outside of UFC, career could have been done, great career, knocked people out a lot of ways. Got to stick highlight tapes, to pull myself out of the mud, the ringer, showing resilience and to come back after walking through the fire in hell and Philly, getting dragged on

by promoters, bashed on by the fans and everything, and just promoting the fight, selling out the event, and cracking a jaw wide open to going to my hometown to getting the love and turning the head. I mean, bro, you cannot make this up. This is life, this is excitement, it's incredible right now. And I'm very happy, I'm very happy, and I get all my tools back, this is amazing. So what happens, you just sent Dana White a message saying,

I wanna be on that Iowa card, like take us through the whole thing, how did this all happen? Man, I'll get real and authentic, man. So, you know, life outside the UFC, I don't know, I felt like it maybe kind of left on a little bit of rough terms with that push or car. I know that wasn't a good thing, I was on a losing streak,

just in a different mindset at that time. I've always kept a great relationship with Dana. When my youngest daughter was born, we were watching the UFC while my wife was giving birth. And I saw a response and he's always gotten back to me if I ever needed tickets, just anything. He's always just been there. Bro, the dude's been there for me when I was in jail.

He's like a homie, right? So, but realistically, like I was like, you know, low key in my mind, I'm like, you know, I don't know, like, I've already kind of had it with him. I kind of went my own route. I don't know. And my wife, dude, like on her, like, this all like kind of came for tune, like on her birthday, but rewind before this before I trick it back to Iowa to go see my mom go see my family she's like you should shoot Dana a text like you know they just announced the Iowa card you know shortly after I'd fought in bare knuckle and I was like tell you what if you if you shoot the text like I'll shoot it to them like you write it up I'll copy page sure enough like as I'm flying out Tuesday night to Des Moines, right as I'm on the plane, I shoot him the message, turn off my phone, and I go and spend the whole week in Des Moines.

I didn't hear back from him. I wake up on my uncle's couch four in the morning to head back home to San Diego, and I got a message from him at one in the morning. He's like, hey, man, I've lost my phone contacts. I've been trying to get a hold of you. And this is from Dana. He's like, hit me up, give me your number. We'd love to hear from you. I'll have Hunter contact you. So I go to the Des Moines airport.

My flight gets delayed. It gets like, I actually, instead of Denver, I was gonna land in Denver and then San Diego. But, you know, a short amount of time, they end up switching me over to Vegas. And you know, here goes my delusions of reality. I'm like, bro, I'm gonna be sitting in the big boy office tonight, you know, possibly.

And when I landed in Vegas, I got a text from Hunter. So I hit him up once I had to boarded that plane and had like a great chat with him. Just, you know, just talking about the future, what could possibly be, and next thing you know is delusions of reality. Started hearing some names and opportunity to come back. The whole time I was back in Des Moines, everybody's like, dude, you should hit up Dana,

you should hit up Dana. Like in the back of my mind, like dude, I already shot him a text. Like I don't know how it's gonna work. And as the week kind of went on, I was like, I don't know, we'll see. I shot my shot and the fact that I literally just't know, you know, like, we'll see, you know, I shot my shot. And the fact that, uh, like I literally just came back, San Diego started getting in the gym and things started

moving. Next thing you know, we're hearing some names. The next thing you know, boom, soon as I got off the call with, uh, Hunter himself, like, I mean, literally like five minutes later, it was like already out and it was a little bit later in the night. And I was like, man, in the morning, like shit's going to go nuts. Like my dad's probably going to hear about it at his work, like everybody. and sure enough, it was just like a bomb shelter, but he's just like you and me, bro, like, holy shit. You know, and I kind of had to look at it like, dude, like I did this, bro. I had to go fight bare knuckle, prove myself, like put my ass on the line to get this opportunity. You know, this isn't a retirement fight for me, dude. Like,

I don't have a fucking crime. I just get better and better each day to go there and walk through the fire and Philly to come back here. And it just kind of still honed honor that focus, bro. Like that darkness that's kind of got me to where I'm at. And I get my tools back. I'm gonna go be mean on somebody in my hometown and just it's a great matchup. And I'm looking to put the punishment pressure on this kid

and break his fucking neck because I ain't here for the check dude I'm here for the for the opportunity that comes with it. I love it and well done well done for for going out there and taking what you want. Can I ask how did BKFC respond to this because like you had become one of their faces you were one of their top stars what you did I still can't believe they let you fight in that fight without locking you up because it was such a high profile fight. What did Dave Feldman say is all this? Did he try to keep you? Did he try to match? Did he try to offer? How did that all go down? Man, I love David Feldman. I got a great relationship with him. I'm still that fucking dude, bro.

Ain't nobody gonna fucking get me at bare knuckle, bro. It's like going back to AAA, putting the gloves on here. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm still a nightmare and dangerous in a lot of situations without the gloves. But you know, we reached out today, dude. You know, I got some, as a Fortune 500 company of Jeremy Stevens, cause I have to look out for me. I have to do what's best for me.

You know, when I fought Jimmy Rivera, he gives me a nice fat check. I sat out for a year, no communication. April, April didn't happen. May, no, May didn't happen. June, July, and I fought ODB on like September. So, he and my management, we were trying to get in contact with him

and he had mentioned a bonus, my hey dude, do I get a bonus? You wanna keep me around? Try to contact him and it's just hard to communicate with him. I've said this in the past, the only thing with Dave Feldman is just the communications.

And I don't like that uncertainty of relying on, listen, those guys ain't sticking around to pay my bills. They may write me a fat check, bro, but they don't have to sit out a year and not get paid They may write me a fat check, bro, but they don't have to sit out a year and not get paid. So, you know, and I saw this, bro, I've been doing this myself, you know, that whole year I sat out, bro, I ran, I missed my wife's birthday. I ran, I missed my kids softball. They're like, dad, why don't you come to the game? I'm like, dude, I'm training. They said April, they said May that, you know, I got pushed back, pushed back. This is what I'm talking about when like, bro, you cannot break me because I I ran I dig to work

I was in the gym the whole fucking time. I stayed healthy. Look at my career I can perform three four times a year. My body doesn't break These knuckles don't break. I can continue to do this I don't want to sit out for a year and and having to wait UFC came by with the opportunity the godfathers over there bless me and and I'm making my own path, bro Like I said, I'm still the baddest motherfucker when it comes to the bear knuckle and no one's beat me in that game And like, you know, I go in there I do my thing over here. It's just more opportunity, you know, what's what a possibility of UFC? I'm setting myself up. Where's Connor BKFC UFC? You cannot fucking run from me

You know, I go back to BKFC I I was promoting that, uh, the Perry Connor over there. Like these guys don't want it, you know, like no one signed a contract on my bro. I'm not trying to wait a year to fight, you know, uh, uh, Mike Perry said he was ready in April. I've shot it out there. Even on my content, shout it out live and told everybody like, Hey dude, if you're ready for April, you can make the weight let's go like 170, you know, bare knuckle. But that's past all that, you know, no bullshit when it comes to UFC.

I know I'm going to get paid 24 hours later and here we are, you know, making myself, uh, betting on myself again. You know, I could have got a bag from UFC or it was the, the, uh, the wins or the show and win. And I could have got a bag and I was like, you know what? Well bet on me again, big dog. Oh, you took the show and win. And I could have got it back. And I was like, you know what? Come on bet on me again, big dog. Oh, you took the show and win.

You took the show and win. You can't fucking write that dude. Why, why? It's gonna be better and bigger. So I'm betting on me. I'm betting on me. And I'm doing this for the love and support that I've gotten around from the 515.

You know, I'm the best to do it out of Iowa, bro. Best driver do it, hands down. I'm assuming this is a multi-fight deal with the UFC, but at some point, is it just a one-off? It's just a one and done, dude. Wow. And again, I'm betting on me. I can really set myself up for an opportunity,

the performance I'm looking to go in there and show and dominate. It's gonna be brilliant. It's gonna be epic. So I'm looking to go in there and show and dominate, it's gonna be brilliant. It's gonna be epic. So I'm betting on me again. So you win on the 3rd of May, what would you want the next fight to be? How do you see this playing out?

I see me going back to Sarah Knuckle. I like to fight Mike Perry, someone big. I could see, you know, if there's some opportunity there in UFC, that's for sure too, bro. I'm not worried about any of that. That's the opportunity that comes with winning. That's what gets me excited on days that I don't want to do it, push past it. I'm excited about life right now. I'm excited to get all the tools back. I was exhausted in wrestling and doing things last week, getting it into this week. I'm here at get get all the tools back, you know, like I was exhausted in wrestling and doing things last week getting it into This week. I'm here at the gym, but it's like a dog. I'm tired as hell

I'm slobbering but I just I'm happy chasing these cars, you know, I'm happy about life right now I can't stop me. I'm unbreakable this mindset that I'm on. I'm on a wild ride and I'm just I'm setting it up for me, bro I the only person who's taking care of my family is me and the fact that you know I told you I broke the matrix what you're reaching out or changing the game, you know, I don't have some traps No one owns me. You can't you can't keep a muzzle on me. You know, I'm so I can get sponsorships You know, I could do this do that, you know, I talked to the godfathers, you know Like I mean it just gives me certainty and confidence like on a level like People will pay managers to talk to the Godfathers. I can go to them directly.

I earned this every step of the way, blood, sweat, and tears. I'm not making any of this up, dude. Authentic healing. I love it. So you mentioned Connor and you mentioned Chase. Do you feel like maybe this is you saying, I'll fight you in UFC, I'll fight you in BKFC?

Because I saw your tweet about him. Where does he, here it is right here. You cannot run from me, you said. I will find you and I will kill you, boy. Your time is up. I got you a front row seat in Iowa to Wells Fargo event center in my hometown. Watch me break another jaw.

So is he a part of your plans this year? Yeah, that's the illusion into reality. He's had a lot to say about me, you know, and over time, and I've, you know, to snap someone's jaw right in front of him when, you know, he doubted me, kind of tried to humiliate me again at the press conference to, you know, after I just ate a gazelle and I'm a lion just standing right there in front of him.

Yeah, it definitely, it gets me excited about the future, bro, and turning these fights into reality. We got a lot of history there, but the main focus right now at the end of the day, bro, and turning these fights into reality. We got a lot of history there, but the main focus right now at the end of the day, bro, was just me getting better, showing up on May 3rd, having an absolute brilliant performance, cracking someone's leg, cracking, splitting their spleen. And, you know, I'll get what I want and I'll turn my delusions into reality. And I'll, I'll make a statement because, you know, no one else is out there doing it like me.

Who's risking it and bare knuckle? Who gets these opportunities and fighting? If I go out there, do what I'm certain, and I know that I can, I'm gonna demolish this fucking dude. You know, and it puts me in a really, really great spot. And that right there, the big bag, the huge bag, the millions by the end of the year,

I told you this on the content, I told you. That shit turns me on, bro. So it's like, I'm hot this on the content I told you that shit turns me on bro so it's like I'm hot for this shit I'm ready to go. Last time you fought in the UFC July of 21 when you left and you went to PFL and all that did you think in the back of your mind you would be back someday or is this a new feeling that has emerged given the the increase in your confidence? the increase in your confidence? Very low, low, low, small, tiny spirit of me. It's like my big brother, Anthony Johnson, rest in peace. I'd seen him do it.

I was kinda a little bit later in my career, this was the kind of time that was kinda going on. I almost didn't believe it. And then I went over to boxing, I had a great fight, then I lost to Avila, it was kind of like a setback. And then I went over to boxing. I had a great fight and I lost to Avila. It was kind of like I said back. And then I switched up my coaching and I really went into just boxing.

I started doing the bare knuckle. It slowly started creeping on me. It really did. And it was the love and support I got from my wife during them times. I could have given up. Great career, Jeremy. I can show that highlight across the world.

People respect it. The fact that I just kept going a little bit more. Now I just feel like I'm getting the good graces from my ancestors on the other side and the blessings above. My resilience is paying off. It's just taken me a little bit more time to get to the top. I still got work to do and I'm excited because I know this is a sprint

to the finish of my career and I have a ton of experience in a clean sheet of paper to go forward. Do you remember your last fight in Des Moines? Ha ha ha, got me on the spot. No, I don't. July 2007, Midwest cage nine. You defeated Nick Walker in the first round. Does any of this ring a bell?

Well, wow. It's been that long. Bro, I've had so many fights. Man, I don't really focus on the past so much. I know I have some history. I always told myself, man, I'm in the now, I'm in the present, like always stay like that. Once I retire, bro, I'll probably let out a good warrior cry,

a breakdown cry, and just like, you know, I've dedicated my life to this. And people always ask me like, what's your favorite fight? What's your favorite knockout? And I'm always like my next one, my next one. I'm still going. Once I look back at all this, I'll probably just be in shock.

You know, I still am. You know, like what I'm doing today, you know, it's unheard of. It's amazing. It's amazing. I did this. It's awesome. Let me ask you before I let you go,

Mason Jones, how much do you know about him? I'm not worried about him, bro. I'm focused on me being the best, absolute fucking savage when it comes to being a human highlight on the third. I'm worried about me. I don't care about the opponent. Punching bags, put them in a body bag

and put a fucking toe tag on them. That's what it is to me. Well done. Thank you, Jeremy. Amazing, very, very happy for you. I know you got to get back to training, so I'm going to let you go. But much respect and congratulations and good luck on May 3rd. Can't wait. Thank you. Ariel, God bless. I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity,

this type of, I haven't done any podcast. You're the first person I wanted to give this to. So thank you so much. God bless you. I'll see you at the top, my man. Yes, sir, thank you. And thank you for that. Really appreciate it. There he is, the great Jeremy Stevens, little heathen taking a break from his training schedule to join us. What a story.

A guy who left the UFC after a July, 2021 loss to Mateusz Gamrot, went to the PFL, went one and two in the PFL, Oh one and one in boxing mentioned the Chris Avila fight. I remember being there for that one and imagine telling someone that yeah, he would go after that to bare knuckle, go three and L beat Eddie Alvarez in Philly. What a performance that I mean, look at that. Moving up in weight back to 55 now and

the UFC heads to Des Moines and here he is the face of Des Moines MMA over the last decade plus they call him up and he's back in against Mason Jones who's who's a great story in his own right. I was in the UFC, left the UFC, double champion cage wear is now getting another opportunity to fight. That card, by the way, sneaky good, that card. Not even sneaky. It's just a banger. It's a great card.

And there are actual rumblings. I actually heard about this through third party of the BITB going to this card. Oh, there's no rumblings. It's happening. It's happening. Oh, look at this. Yeah.

We're actually just going on the Jeremy Stevens 2025 tour. We were at BKFC in January, and now we're gonna be in Des Moines. Yeah, flights booked. We're going, baby. Is that true? Flights booked. Swear to God, flights are booked.

What is happening? Touching down Saturday, 24 hours in Des Moines, baby. Just to go to the fight. Yeah, they're gonna make movies about this. Not just the fight, we're gonna get something to eat. The flights are booked. What is happening? Touching down Saturday, 24 hours in Des Moines, baby. Just to go to the fight? Yeah, they're gonna make movies about this. Not just the fight, we're gonna get something to eat. You're gonna do a fight feast there? Oh hell yeah.

But usually fight feasts come out before. Yeah, but it'll be just like the BKFC, it came out after. That's a good point, that's a good point. Who's going? Me and Rick. Just you two? Me, Rick, and camera guy Nick. Camera guy Nick? Yeah. Who guy Nick. Camera guy Nick?

Yeah. Who's that? Camera guy Nick? Fight feast cam op. Nick. I don't even know. I thought cam op was Nicole. That's what the real name is.

Cam guy Nick. Is that his full name? Oh, Nick. Oh, God. Wow! Wait, Frank, you didn't get the invite. I mean, it's one thing for me not to get the invite. No, actually everyone got the invite

and they all declined. That is such, you guys invited me. No, no, no, no, we knew you wouldn't go. We knew we wouldn't go. We all loaned up to that. That's so crazy. No, no, we didn't even consider inviting you. You can join in.

If you knew I wasn't gonna go, then it's the easiest invite to make. No, no, we don't do the invite. That's a totally different invite. We don't do the invite that we don't want. If you surprise them once, who doesn't wanna go? No, I appreciate, you know what I appreciate? I appreciate Lloyd Pearson who told me

that he was instrumental in this. I was like, oh wow, I legit had no idea. I legit had no idea. I mean, I knew it was like a thing. Like you guys say, oh, I'm going to London. I'm going to Abu Dhabi. I'm going to Riyadh. We're just capping with all that.

No, we will be in Ireland. No, we're there, baby. We will be in Des Moines. Rick's already ordered a Caitlin Clark jersey I got a boom-boom huck jam shirt on the way some Hawkeyes gear. It's gonna be scouting out restaurants. No, no Listen, I've had people who are who know us and our fans Who have texted me and been like yo Can I can I tag along to Iowa people people are excited everyone wants to go and and why are you going to this one?

And not any of the other ones. I feel like we kind of worked ourselves into a shoot, as they say in the business. I feel like we shit on Des Moines so much that now we're forced to go. Wow. It's also a great card. No, it is a great card, but there have been great cards all over the joint. It's a quick flight. It's not a...

How long is that flight? Is it direct? Three hours. Oh yeah, direct into DSM, baby. DSM, I guess that's Des Moines. Yeah. No, I was trying to figure out what the DSM was but it's the D Day and then the moine No, listen, I'm happy for you guys I just like you know, I thought we you know when I find out about my trips

I tell you guys three months in advance just to give you heads up and they probably personal chair 50 Yeah, of course, like every trip you're going on, you tell us about it? This is not personal, this is business, this is business. What's the, no, no, this is, this is. It's a pleasure trip. It's coming out of my personal phone. There's fight feasts being shot, that's business trip.

Is it not? It's work, pleasure, it's all the same to me, man. Yeah, a little work pleasure combo. I just enjoy it all. No, no, listen, I think it's great. I just, I, I, when I found out about it, I was like, no, not like, you mean there must be another Connor and Eric because surely they would have told me about this. And again, it's not that I need to know.

I just like to know, you know, and then you came in and I said, Hey man, lies, lies. You brought up Des Moines and I said, yeah, man, actually we're going to go to Des Moines. No, you it up. Yeah, man, you keep lying. I brought it up. You brought up Des Moines and I said, yeah man, actually we're gonna go to Des Moines. No, you brought up, no, that's not what happened. You brought Des Moines and then I said, when were you gonna tell me that you were gonna bring, you guys were just talking about Des Moines. I was like, oh, the one that you guys were going to?

You asked about the man in question and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's the one that pushed us over the edge. No, I opened the door, I opened the door, which is, it's fine. It's good to have friends in the business. It's good to have people that are looking out. It's just, it would be nice to know these things. Frank, am I wrong? Am I wrong? You're absolutely right. Also, on top of all of this, we are telling you a month and a half in advance.

But again- These tickets were booked Saturday. But again, you're telling me because I asked. I think we need to replay the tape. I think we're going to have to pull up a tape farm. Also not sure what the... I think it's a replay of the tape. I think I was like, hey man, we're going to Des Moines.

You were like... Yo, Helwani, we're thinking of going to Des Moines. I would have been like, that's a great idea. Awesome. We wanted to break it on the show. So let's pretend that happened. No, no, no, you can't say you pretend. I'm just not sure what the, what is the betrayal that happened. That's the part I don't understand. It just feels like

activity behind the back. And then the question is, what activity? And then the question is, why was it behind? The question is, there are boys in the back, so we are doing it from the back. Then the question is, why was it behind the back? Is there more that I need to pry about? Is there more that I need to? Listen, if you were coming, you know. Here's the invitation. I'm coming! Come to Des Moines. Then you'll find out. You should have seen how fast Frank shot us down. Yeah, absolutely cannot go.

Frank, Frank, Frank, be happy. At least you got the invite. Yeah, well, I have to admit, it feels nice to be invited. I'm looking down at where you are, and I'm like, damn, that must hurt. Did On Air Jordan get the invite? He was also invited. Wow. Andy? Yep. Wow. So literally the whole team got invited except for me. The the Thursday in office team. Even even camera guy Nick got invited. Yeah no no no this is uh. Anyone who was standing in

the control room post show. There's a separation here and I understand that and you know, it's totally fine. I'll remember this. That's fine. Hey, I'm going to Manchester. Oh, I've never been to Manchester. Oh, come along. No problem. I'll pay out of pocket for you. I want to give you that opportunity. Can't even get an invite. You come to Des Moines? No, I'm out. That's fine. Am I hurt?

No. No. Am I insulted? No. No. You are. Disappointed. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, would I, you know, what would you rather I lie or would you rather I just say it, you know? And, uh, as some of, you know, that hurts most being disappointed, you know? Um, wow. Uh, Walter's telling me here that even the cleaner of the studio got the invite. Damn. Yeah, she actually did. most being disappointed you know wow Oh, PC was invited, yeah. Wow. Okay, now listen, I hope you guys have a great time and I hope everyone has fun.

I told my parents about it. They were also disappointed. That you didn't invite me? No, that I was going to Des Moines, Iowa. No, I think they should be happy. I mean, actually... Yeah, I got it. Someone was saying, should i get the

tissues i have them right here i have them right here so you know i got the tissue for my tears that's fine i'm comfortable i'm comfortable with expressing my disappointment uh that's fine it's uh you know just one of those things uh let's move along let's move along because it's getting a little awkward uh looking forward to talking to our next guest we haven't talked to him in over a year, I swear to God. I swear to God it's been that long. And he's got a massive fight, he's kind enough to take some time out, he's going to be headlining

the 02 in London. Maybe the boys are going to that one too, you guys going to that one? You going to London too this weekend? I fell through so that's where we replaced it with Des Moines. He's headlining against Sean Brady. It's a massive fight for him. It's a massive opportunity for him to get back to where he once was not that long ago,

and it's great to be talking to him as always. Is he actually there? Is Leon Edwards actually there? I don't believe it. They're telling me he's there, but I don't believe it. He's there! Leon! Where have you been, Leon?

I mean, I was starting to wonder if I pissed you off. Where have you been Leon? I mean I was starting to wonder if I if I pissed you off where have you been? Nah, never never never never. Over a year. Leon, over a year since our last chat. You know it's been over a year. Is it that long? That long. Pre Colby! Shit. That's not good. I blame you, not me. Okay, fight fair enough. You didn't want Norman to lose the title. I'm joking. That's bullshit. Ask Tim how many times. Ask Tim how many times.

I'm only joking. But we are here now and it's great to see you. How are you? I'm good, very well. I'm in good spirit, good mentally, physically. Excited for the weekend. I'm at home now. About to head to London tomorrow morning.

So yeah, feeling good. Any truth to the rumor that when you found out about what time this fight was happening at, you said to the UFC, no, I'd rather it be at 4 a.m., 5 a.m. That's more ideal. Did you say that? Never again.

The first thing they said to me, we'll come back to the UK in March. I was like, okay, what time are we all fighting first? Yeah. They're like, no one time. I was like, okay, perfect, let's do it, you know? I just feel like that 4am, 5am workout was madness, you know? And I tried my best to get into it, but I just couldn't. For some reason, my body, for the last fucking hour of London, mixed martial arts,

I've been training and fighting at a similar time. So yeah, just easy as it is. How much do you pin that performance on the time in which it happened? Um, a lot. A lot. I just feel like my reactions were slow, you know. I could think in my head what I wanted to do, what I was trying to do, but for some reason my body and my mind just wasn't in sync as it is normally in normal fights. Like I said, competing, I walked out at like 5am.

It felt like someone was walking me up and be like, okay, go fight, you gotta go and fight. And then I got in there, but like I said, it is what it is. Even though he got the win, it was still a close fight. I'm a worst day, you know. I think he won three rounds, I won two rounds and even more worse day, I was still in the fight and I was so close. And I know you have a big test this weekend, you're trying to turn the page, but we haven't talked to you since then. So just a couple more on that if you don't mind. Can I just ask about the aftermath? You know, there you are champion,

you're headlining the show and it's a disaster situation. Right? You're fighting in the middle of the night and now you're no longer the champion against a guy that you were en route to beating a few years back before the, you know, the eye poke. How did you deal with the aftermath? What was life like after that fight in July? I've been right after, I was upset obviously.

This is a guy that no one can beat right. I think 10 out of 10 times I beat this guy. You know, you think you got the one time. And it was more about knowing that I could beat this guy, knowing that it was the circumstances leading up to the fight that played a massive part in the fight. So it was more of a frustration at the start. But then after that, it's just like, hey, what's next? You know, let's regroup, let's get back to where

we know we belong, you know, and that's all it was. Just went back to my team and just, like I said, just get back to where we need to go to. So this is some eight or so months later. Was there any talk of coming back sooner, or did you always want that time off afterwards? No, I feel like I wanted the time off. It gave me time to do more personal stuff in my life, like buy my new house and doing it all up. It gave me a little time because when you're champion you're quite busy doing stuff and getting drag hair in there.

So it gave me a little time just to regroup again, get all my personal life sorted out, everything sorted out, and then now it gives goal, full force again to get that two-time world championship, you know, and that's where my head is at now. I'm not trying to set you up for any excuses, but I did see an interview where your coach said that you were a little banged up in the fight. Is that accurate? Yeah, well, I was at the back problem. Well, obviously I did it in camp. My hip was kind of like tilted and, but I was trying to, I was thinking, I couldn't pull out because it's such a big event in the UK and in Manchester and there's such a big thing about it that I thought, let me just get all the physio I can to get me to the fight.

And I was truly believe that Bilal could never beat me. You know, I truly believe that skill for skill and I feel like I am the best athlete. And yeah, just like I said, he's who he is. That mindset that you truly felt like he couldn't beat you, is it possible you look past him a little bit? A little bit, a little bit. Even I feel like the whole thing was wrong. I feel like, like I said,

me looking, probably looking past him a little bit, people in my ASN, even battering, blah, blah, blah, and that with the injury, that with the time zone, everything just was down to fail, I feel. And looking back at it now, but in the moment, I truly believe that I was going to win the fight. You know, and, um, but like I said, it is, it is, there's no excuses. Like I said, I'm on my worst day. He got the, he won one round over me to get a decision and that's it. You know, I'm no longer focusing that fight and I'll get it back for sure.

When you see him with the belt now, what do you feel? Every time I see him I'm like, fuck sake, like why? Why? Because he said to me, he said if he lost he would have retired. I was like, oh man, I wish this guy would have fucking retired because he's annoying. You know what I mean? It doesn't look right on him, the belt, you know what I mean? It just looks like, ugh. Well, like I said, either it is, ugh. Ugh, either it is. So the return fight was against JDM.

Obviously, it became Sean. But just curious about JDM. Did you like that matchup? Were you into that one? Were you excited about it? Yeah, 100%. For a long time now, I thought I was just a pure striker. Perfectly. I get time to showcase more weapons. I think when you're fighting in grapplers, you showcase the skills, but not as freely as you could, you know, girls, he does take downs there and, um, there's a different game plan going into the fight. Um, I feel like it was pure striking. I get to showcase,

um, my full arsenal of strikes that I've got, you know, and, um, like I said, I've, my team now, I feel like I'm like I've regrouped, we've re-studied, we've got everything back in order, where we're needed to be, and I feel like this fight has been one of the best fights of my career. So when it became clear that Shavkat couldn't fight and they were considering moving JDM to the Montreal card, were there a list of people that were being thrown your way

or was it just, hey, we're moving and Sean? Because obviously Tim, your manager also manages JDM. So he would have known about some of this beforehand as it was happening. So were there other names being thrown your way or was it always just Sean? There was another name. I can't remember the name really,

but there was another name. Was Ian thrown your way? Ian Gary? No, I asked Ian though. I said, but there was another name. Was Ian thrown your way? Ian Gary? No, I asked Ian though. I said, let's get Ian in London. And they said Ian won't fight in London. He won't fight in the UK or he won't be ready, something like that. OK. It was the actual, I think that was it really.

It was more like Ian fight. And then they came up Brady. They said Brady's available or there's someone else. Buckley. Buckley, that's it. Yeah. Buckley said he wouldn't make weight. So then it was down to Sean. Okay. So Sean, very different fighter than JDM. What was your feeling when it became him? It's a style that I'm used to. This is what I've been fighting now for many years. He's a style that I'm used to. You know, this is what I've been fighting now for many years. He's a short boxing, wrestling kind of guy. It's something that I'm used to, right? And I feel like it gave me a chance to go out there

and prove to the world that I am who I am, you know? And I've got to prove it to the world that I am the best waterway of all time and you just never got in my way. And was there any talk at all about you stepping in the Montreal card as opposed to JDM? Well, I said to the UFC, like let me get rid of my tribute out, right?

Because it's also the 5AM thing and blah, blah, blah. But I think, because obviously, there's so London around me, right? I'm like, there's no patches on the card, it's just me. So I feel like it was difficult for them to take me off the card, off London card, and let JDM fight Sean on the card. You know what I mean?

It wouldn't sell for the UK. Especially the prices, they're asking for tickets. You know what I mean? So I feel like, yeah, that's where I'm gonna happen, basically. Did that annoy you? Like, let's say this was a regular card, you know, the geography seemed to be playing against you.

I know you wanna fight in England and you're happy to do so, but maybe if this card was happening in Chicago or something, maybe you get moved and you're now fighting for the belt. Yeah, 100%, yeah, definitely. It was that, fuck's sake, another thing, but like I said, I'm on the stage now, I'm a career, it's like whatever, like I said, I believe on a stage now, I'm a career, it's like whatever. Like I said, I believe I'm number one, right?

I don't care who I fight next, it's more about putting my rung right from the last fight. That's where my head is at. Like I said, if Sean is going to be the guy and he's not Bilal for rematch, I'll get Bilal down the line. If he doesn't beat JDM, I'll get him down the line. If not, then I'll move on to someone else. Do you think he beats JDM, I get him down the line. If not, then move on to someone else. Do you think he beats JDM? I don't know, I was considering today, my coach, and I don't know, I don't know. If I had to put money on it, I'd probably favor JDM.

Oh yeah. If I had to put money on it, yeah. If I had to put money on it, I feel like, I don't know, actually I don't know. 50-50, I'm putting money on none of them. I don't know, actually I don't know. I don't know. He just figures out a way to win. And JD hasn't fought in so long.

I feel like JDM is boxing is what will probably shut him down. He's a good anti-grappler JDM. He's a take him down, but his scrambles on the floor is good. I feel like Bill I won't be enough to hold him down for that long, you know? So maybe JDM, if I had to put money on it probably. Okay, does this stuff not get you riled up as much anymore because you've already climbed the mountain

and everything now is just kind of gravy in your career and life? Nah, it's just, I was a two foot brain. Don't get me wrong, but it's like control what you can control, right? I feel like I've went through the ups and downs over the years. I'm used to it now. You know, I am a seasoned veteran and now I just feel like I got a plan in my mind. I know exactly where I want to go.

I know exactly what I need to do to get there and that's it. I can't worry about if JDM is getting the shot or this or that. I can't control that, right? So I'll control what I can control and that's me going out there Saturday night performing and calling for my towel shot, you know? Did you make any big changes on the coaching front or on the training front after the loss to Bilal? Did you use that as an opportunity to make a big change? You had not lost in so long, right? It had been- Yeah, a long, long, long time. Yeah, yeah, a long time.

And I feel like that's not been said enough. You know, it's been a long journey without a loss. And also it took a while to let that soak in. And, but like I said, I had the time to let it soak in and like enjoy it, you know, and be like, okay, but like I said, I had the time to take it, let it soak in and like, enjoy it, you know, I'm like, okay, good. Let's get back to work now and let's get, get what we need to do. But first coaching, coaching goal, um, not really the same team.

I brought home a new coach, a grappling coach. Um, that is very well, that we'll see it in sync very well. And he's, he's, he's the way it breaks down grappling and fights, I feel like this is very beneficial moving forward. So because you had not lost in 10 years, just like that feeling, letting it sit with you of not getting your hand raised. Yeah, I feel like let it sit with you for a little bit more than just making those excuses and doing this and changing up everything. That's because you weren't a team really, you know, I mean, it's more just about. Just we're in a night, you know, like for whatever reason, it wasn't a night.

And like I said, it's been almost 10 years I've lost my team, you know, so not suddenly going to change everything up and throw everyone away and get a new team, because that's that's not the case. Like I said, I am confident now in myself, confident in my team, what we're preparing, what we're doing, and yeah. Do you feel like you still don't get that respect after everything? Because even when this fight was announced,

this new fight, I saw some people saying, including notably Michael Bisping saying, this is a terrible matchup, this is a terrible idea. It's a wrestler against Leon Edwards, the striker, even though you've been in there with Colby. You've been there with- Yeah, but it's been like that for the last I ever long, you know what I mean? I don't see myself as a striker no more. I actually don't. The amount of camps I've done for wrestlers now is just like, I feel like a fucking wrestler. You know what I mean? That's

all I do. So it's like, my understanding of the grappling, I think they're judging it obviously from the last performance, right? They're seeing what happened in the Belar fight. Even though it was still a close fight, and they're judging it off that, you know what I mean? But before that, I took him down, I took Usman down, I took Kobe down. I know I have to grapple. This is not a strike versus grappler fight.

This is a mixed martial arts fight, and I was showed up that night, you know, that is, that was just a blip in my career that night. And if the judging off that, then isn't for some mistake, you know. Does it bother you that this still gets brought up? Do you feel like you are not? No, no, no, no, not really. I feel like obviously it's annoying,

but it's like, that's the game that we're in, right? Everyone talks about your last fight, no one cares about it. Well, wow's the game that we win, right? Everyone talks about your last fight, no one cares about it. Well, wow, like you lost 10 years, that you became champion, that you defended your bout. None of that means shit. All of that means shit is the last fight. And from the last fight,

I didn't perform how I should perform or normally perform, you know what I mean? So that's all it is. Like I said, Saturday night, I get to remind the world who the fuck I am, you know what I mean? So that's all it is. Like I said, Saturday night I get to remind the world do the 4KM, you know, and that's it. The last two fights that you had, Colby and Balau, there was tension there between you

and certainly we had never seen the emotion that you exemplified after the Colby win and everything that happened in the buildup to that fight, right? This time there doesn't seem to be any tension, right? There's no trash talk. There seems to be just kind of respect between you and Sean. Is that kind of refreshing to not have that hatred for the opponent? Or maybe you do and I just don't know about it.

Yeah, it isn't nothing. Anyway, I've noticed that's came on my feed that would annoy me. But apart from that, it's more just about me. It's not really about sure what the opponent's gonna be. It's more about me putting my rungs right from the last fight. And I was the Kobe, Kobe was the dickhead, Bill was the dickhead. Apart from that, everyone else has been all right. I feel like some of these guys think, maybe because you're kind of quiet and mild-mannered,

they think that they can sort of bully you with these words and get under your skin, but I feel like by now... No, you know what I mean? Like to get really personal with you, but people I grew up around and just the life I grew up around is two different worlds from what Belar or Colby or anybody come from. You know, I feel like them talking shit on social media, it's just, it's two different worlds, you know what I mean? And I can't, it just doesn't make sense to me to get angry because I know these, in the real world,

the Opus is in the real world, you know what I mean? Like, fights are fights, but in actual, like, the world, and the roads, we're two different people, you know? Was it not close, though, before the Colby fight, where you could have kind of gotten too emotional to where you would stray away from what the action was? No, it was, I was caught up,

that was like another level, though, you know? That run like fight talk, that's more like, you know what I mean, that's different. Like it took me a while, it took me like a lot to calm down, you know, like I said, speaking to my team, speaking to my mom and everyone and like it took a lot for me to calm down and go out there focused to compete, you know, and yeah, definitely, it was different. Now in the UK, now back, like, do you feel a different sort of connection and relationship with the audience, with the public? There was what, you know, we talk about 2019,

actually it was six years ago yesterday when you fought on that card, I believe against Gunnar Nelson, where you were getting booed, and now you're the headliner, and they're like, you can't, we can't take you off this card, you know, like you're the one holding it all together. Do you feel a different connection with the public,

with the British public? Yeah, 100%. I feel like what I've done for the mixed martial arts community in the UK and just for the UK in general, as far as fighting goes, it's leaps and bounds. I feel like I appreciate the support that I get fighting at home. That's, that's one of the reasons as well. Well, why I want to stay on the card, you know, just to get back to the UK

and so different from the last performance in Manchester. I feel like I have to go back to London and put it right for you know, I mean, and a lot of people spend a lot of money to come out there and watch me and stay up to five, six a.m. But in the audience, people fall asleep. Everyone does that talk to me about the fight, they're like, oh mate, I was asleep. I was like fucking falling asleep before you walked out.

You know what I mean? So it's like, now is the time to go back home, no more time, another opponent, and just put on a performance for him, you know? What about your mate, Tom Aspinall? He's in a little bit of a pickle right right now as well, right? Yeah Yeah, cuz he wants to have fighty and he's not getting the fight or at least they're they're trying to make it happen It I think it would happen. Yes to happen, right?

I feel like it's been bubbling now for a long time and I feel like the fans has won it Yes, he wants it ever wants it. You know, I mean, so I feel like yes to happen this year you know, I mean, I feel like like it has to happen this year, you know what I mean? I feel like Tom is a special athlete, special heavyweight, and it will show the world, you know, just like it is. I was a little jealous of you, Leon. I have to say, I love Louis Theroux. He's one of my favorites.

I've looked up to him for a bit. I love his style. You were on his show, you were on his podcast. What was that like? Yeah, yeah, it was good. It was fun, because like, you look like a dry sense of humor, right? Yeah, yeah.

Awkward sense of humor. Um, but yeah, I've watched his documentaries and everything. And like I said, I'm a fan of his as well. And it was good. It was good. I went there to do the interview. Imagine his light went out. So you had to go to another studio. Yeah, the power went out, right?

And you guys had to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was crazy. So you had to go to another studio to do an interview. And, um, but it was good. It was good fun. And you guys had to go. Yeah, the power went out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was crazy. So I had to go to the level studio to do an interview. But it was good, it was good fun. And then you had to do it over. Again, all over again. Oh, gosh. You would only do that for him.

You wouldn't do that for me. Now I can't even get you on the show, for fuck's sake. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. You didn't talk to me for eight months. Oh my God, eight months? It's 15 months, Leon. I mean, I was starting to feel, I put my neck out there for you, you know?

All these guys. I know that, I know that. I saw Lover, you know that. No, I know, I know, I'm just giving you. It's always good, always good, NG. You're like the last guy left from this whole crew, from that whole era of welterweights, all the ones that said that you weren't gonna be

amounting to anything. They're all kind of, Colby's on his last legs, Kamaru's on his last legs, Gilbert's on his last legs. Do you take pride in that? Here you are still headlining shows. Still headlining shows, still the man, you know, about to be two time world champion soon.

And it feels good. Like I said, the cream was always right to the top, you know, and I'm the fucking king. So like I said, Saturday night with Sean, it's all about me. It's not to do Sean, not do with whoever it was gonna be. It's all about me and me showing the world and just how good I am. Have you been told or your team been told like,

okay, you win this fight, this is what we want for you, this is what we're gonna do, this is who you'll fight or the spot? Because you're ranked number one still. So have you been told what this gets you? because you're ranked number one still so have you been told what this gets you? Um a little bit by the UFC you know I feel like for me this is my number one contender fight you know um I go out there I perform like I know I will perform and I feel like the tower shot is next you know that's the only fight that makes sense for me next you know. Okay so you think that you win this fight you're fighting for a belt next? Yeah, 100%, especially with the performance

I'm going to put on, I feel like 100%, definitely. Does the Shufkat entry screw up those plans though? Because what if they go to him after the JD, if Bilal wins, then they go back to Shufkat, would that delay things for you? Let's hope that don't happen, right? Just go from there. All right, fair enough. How do you see this one playing out? How do you see Saturday playing out? And it's't happen, right? Just go from there. All right, fair enough.

How do you see this one playing out? How do you see Saturday playing out? And it's five rounds, right? He's taking this five rounds? Yeah, five rounds. I see a finish, like I said, is five, nine, five, 10. I feel like I can finish him, mate. I can finish you.

And that's just where my head is at. You know, and I'm going there to help him. Like I said, it's not just about showing some more, just about what I need to put right where my head is at, you know. I'm going there to help him. Like I said, it's not just about showing some more, just about what I need to put right in my head and just what I need to do, you know. I'm going to take him out. Well, the people of Birmingham,

they could use something to celebrate. I mean, it hasn't been great for Aston Villa this season. Oh, mate. I mean, it's just been a little... It's not quite nodding in for us, you know. Yeah, I know. They've been doing good though, it's not quite nodding in for us, you know, it's just been. Yeah, I know. Now, they've been in good though, man. Just like, it's weird that you ask the villa,

because you know, we're good teams, they play good. Then we're shit teams, shit teams beat them. Yeah. It's mad, you know what I mean? It's like a weird thing, but. You play up to the competition and down to the competition. That's a problem, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's mad, it's a mad thing, but it's a great team.

And like they come from Birmingham, and they're doing well, they're doing well, you know. You're the man, Leon, great, it's mad. It's a mad thing, but it's a great team and like they come from Birmingham and they do well. They do well, you know You're the man Leon great to talk to you again. Thank you so much for taking time out on fight week Wish you nothing but the best welcome back and good luck on Saturday Good man. Appreciate it. Love always. Thank you. Same here. Same here. There he is the man Leon Rocky Edwards returning to action I kind of love this, I love this fight and I love this fight card, I really do. I know some people said that it was a little thin,

but I think, I don't know, I think there's a little something for everyone. Jan Bokovic versus Carlos Ulberg is a fantastic fight at 205, it's a great story there. Ulberg climbing up the ranks, seems to be in position to be one of those next guys. Got to get by the former champ. Former champ hasn't fought in quite some time.

We spoke to him last week. Check out that interview. Kevin Holland versus Gunnar Nelson, completely flying under the radar. I feel like this fight is flying under the radar. In fact, I can tell you that Gunnar Nelson will be joining us on tomorrow's program. So I'm looking forward to talking to him. He has not fought in quite some time. To be exact, it has been two years,

two years tomorrow since his last fight. A win over Brian Barbarina. Molly McCann now has a new opponent. She's now fighting Alessia Tainara, who is replacing, and it's crazy. It's always Molly McCann against. Against Brazilians. She was fighting Estella Nunes, Nunes out now it's Alexia.

Uh, Jordan Vucinnes, Chris Duncan, Nathaniel Wood versus Morgan Charriere. Like that fight a lot too. Uh, Morgan will actually join us on tomorrow's program. So we have you covered as far as UFC London is concerned. Marcin Tabor against Mick Parkin. That's a tasty one. Couple of Irish men and women on the card.

So I dig it. I fucks with it. Main card starts, I think the main card starts at... Well I think the prelims start at one. Maybe main card starts at five? It's four o'clock main card start. Four o'clock, that's weird, because that means it'll start at

8 p.m. Local time because they're only four hours ahead of us now Because of the time change and all that that's a weird time to start but alright Oh, so you think I'll go one to four and then four to four to seven here on the East Coast Yeah, no, no Arnold Allen and no Patty Pimlet. Of course, he's fighting next week. Not next week, next month, sorry, against Mr. Michael Chandler. In a matter of moments, we're actually gonna be talking to Leon's head coach, the one and only Dave Lavelle.

You know about Dave, what a legend. Don't let him bully you, son. The head man over at Renegade, Team Renegade, head coach, boxing coach, longtime coach, mentor to one Leon Edwards, has been a father figure in his life and someone who has been by his side through all the ups and downs. It will be great to chat with Dave. We don't have him just yet, do we? Oh, we do, okay, all right. So without further ado, let us say hello to Coach Dave Lavelle, who's kind enough to join us on this very busy fight week. There he is, the man himself. Hello, Dave, how are you?

How are you, Ariel, how are you? It's nice to talk to you. Thank you so much for doing this. Big week for you and Leon and the whole team. And we just had a great opportunity to speak to Leon, but wanted to get your perspective, because it's a big one for Leon, coming off what happened in July. We didn't get a chance to speak after July so could we put that one to bed? When you look back to July in Manchester, what are the

feelings? What are the thoughts when you think about that fight in that whole week? Yeah, it was truly a disappointing week for us. Obviously, Leon, his first loss in how long, and in the fashion how he lost it. Yeah, it was upsetting all around, but listen, we're in the fight game and shit happens. Did that feel like a nightmare to you because there was so much, you know, between him and Balal,

but it was in the middle of the night and everyone said, ah, no problem. The first fight, he was quite, he was quite dominant in it. And I hear you guys are back home getting a chance to headline this card and it's against an opponent that I think you all thought that you could win. Did it feel like a nightmare in the aftermath? Well, in all fairness, yes, Ariel, because there was some major factors leading up to the fight. Forget the minor injury part, but in England,

whenever you ever heard of a sportsman performing six o'clock in the morning, it's never been heard of before. And no doubt you'll never hear of it again. It was just a freaky moment in time. And yeah, Lian had to deal with it because it is what it is. And to lose to Bilal in the fashion he lost to him, the world knows he's a lot better than that. We know, most and foremost, he knows he's better than that. So, you know, yeah, it was a major setback. Um, but yeah, we're on the road, um, back to gold.

You know, what more can I say to that aerial? Do you regret agreeing to the fight? You regret having Leon say yes to it? Um, well, you see, Leon's kind of been badgered by the UFC as you know, before you don't want to fall out. And, um, it was just like I say, I can't remember the original time, there was some mix-up between the companies which sports channel was going to edit it at what time and there was some change like that, why it became a freaky kind of time for

Lee Ant to fight. But like I say, we just had to deal with what was in front of us. Leon, to have turned it down in the time that he was given for the fight, then I don't know if he would have carried favoured or looked good amongst the UFC officials, etc. Not that we was really the main issue to us, it was just that we just thought we could have dealt with the time situations. But we was in England fighting as if we was in a foreign country, the way we had to train, the times we had to train, it was all just freakish. But you know, that's water under the bridge area, what can we do about it?

Sure. I was wondering if you guys considered moving your training camp to America, because I felt like that card favored the Americans, because they could just stay on American time zone, as opposed to the UK fighters who had to reprogram their clocks and fight in the middle of the night. Did you guys consider that? Yeah, you're 100% there, Ariel. They was fighting on their time zone,

and us as the home team had to fight as if we was away fighters. But, you know, like I say, what can you say, what can you do about it now? If you could change it, we would change it. But, you know, it's all water on the bridge. We've just got to focus on moving forward and dealing with Mr. Brady. And that's our main goal. And what he's done, he's done. And that's Leon's mindset. You know, he knows what he's done and that's Leon's mindset you know it's it's he knows what he's got to do he's got to go out there make a little mark for himself and put his um put his name back in the talk.

Obviously Devil's advocate would say you know Aspinol, Patty those guys look great on the night so why do you think it affected Leon so much? Like I say there was a few factors Ariel I mention it before, he had a little niggling back injury that was niggling leading up to three weeks before the fight. He couldn't get to wrestle the way he needed to, obviously against a wrestler like Bilal. But yeah, and again, the time factor, as I say with the training factors, couldn't really express his defensive or offensive wrestling. So he was limited.

So, but yeah, you know, these things happen. Fighters leading into camp, being in camp, get niggles, get little injuries here and there, but you know, it's all part of the game, mate. When you see Balal with the belt now, how does it make you feel? Yeah, it's a bit of a pill to swallow, but I take nothing from Bilal. He won, he waited his time like Lian did, so let him make the most of it, fair play to him. But yeah, it's a bit of a pill for me to swallow for the simple fact on how Leon lost it, you know?

They lost an effort for whatever reason. But yeah, yeah, because we all know that there was what? That was what? 30, 35, 40% of Leon Edwards that night, so. You know, one of them, man. So that fight was about eight months ago. Were you in favor of him taking a prolonged break in between fights here?

You mean since the Bilal fight? Yeah, it's been about eight months. Well, I think me personally, I would have liked him back in the saddle a bit earlier, but we can only go with what UFC offers us. As you know, they offered us Jack and then took it away and now it's Sean. So again, we can only deal with what the UFC throw our way. Nobody else was offered to us because Leanne's only fighting lads that are in the top five. So everybody

in the top five basically booked up, aren't they? So, you know, Leon, as I say, Jack Delamaina was his first opponent thrown his way. Then I think it was about four weeks into camp, they then says, well, Jack Delamaina was now going to fight Shafkat, am I right here? So, well, no, Jack's now fighting Bilal. Bilal, sorry, my bad. Yeah, sorry, sorry, but Shafkat was injured. Fighting, he fighting Bilal. Bilal, sorry, my bad. Yeah, sorry, sorry, Shaft Cat was injured. He's going to fight Bilal,

and then they threw Brady's name into the mix for Leon. Which matchup did you like better for Leon, Brady or Jack? Personally, I would have preferred Jack. Why's that? Obviously, he's not fighting how many? Three, four wrestlers back to back. So, yeah, I would have liked to have Leon to be able to maybe display some of his offensive

and defensive wrestling against Jack. We set a game plan for Jack, but like I say, four weeks in, it changed to another wrestler. Not that Leon is now, oh, well, it's all that. You know, Brady's Brady, we know he's a wrestler, we know what wrestlers do, he's been against the best. So, he's just about settling down and getting on with the job. How do you feel about, you know,

Brady's sort of all around skills? Cause we know about his base, which is wrestling, but we've seen as of late, I feel like his striking is coming along. Do you feel like he is getting more and more well-rounded? I do, I do. It's like Bilal since the last time when prior to him fighting Leon,

I watched him progress, and he progressed into a better all-round fighter, and Brady is not far behind him. Yeah, I'm aware, and the team's aware of Sean Brady and his attributes, what he'll bring. And yeah, he has, his stand-up has got a little bit better, but again, you know, we set game plans for who we're against and we're against a wrestler who's to be effective as a wrestler. It's all about coming forward. So we've got our game plan set for Mr. Brady and we know about wrestlers. Leon knows about wrestlers. So yeah, he's game one on the wrestling side.

Were you disappointed that Leon didn't get the call to replace Shavkat and fight for the belt? Well, yeah. Well, yeah, but it's like he's just held the title, he's lost it and maybe It's gonna be a bit unusual for him to get the call to shoot fight back for the title straight away That's very rare you hear that happen But yeah, why not? You know, because I know we can beat Bilal. He knows he can beat Bilal I think Bilal knows he can beat him, you know caught Leon on a, like I say, a very, very low night, and he came out the winner, and that's the way he is.

You can say or do about it, Errol. You obviously know Bilal well now. You were preparing for Jack. They're fighting in May. How do you feel that one goes down? Well, again, Bilal knows one way, and I think he won't be standing up with Jack too tough. He'll be wanting to take it down, grind it out and maybe look to stop Jack a bit late

or maybe grind out a points decision. But it's a bit of a tough one to call to be fair, you know, Ariel, because Jack has come on as well and he's got decent hands and if he's improved his ground game and his wrestling, then who's to say but if I was to stick money on it, I'll go for Bilal to pinch a pint to win. Okay. Going back to Leon, in the aftermath of the Bilal fight, how How did he handle? You know just this change in his life. He's he's at the top of the mountain. He's the champion all this stuff and like I said a

Tough blow to lose the belt middle of the night everything that happened. What did you see from him? Did you did he not come by the gym? Did he need some time off? How did he react everything from your perspective? No, no, well after the fight told him to take a little break. And he did. I think he had a little holiday. I'm not too sure he went, but he went and had a little break for a couple of weeks. He came back, we had a talk. Yeah, and he was back in the gym. And he knows, he knows to himself, nobody has to tell him,

we're not going to beat him down or bad. He basically gave away his title, but he was one of them. He knows in the fashion, that's what hurts him. It's in the way he lost it, Ariel, because we all know. If it had gone out there and it would have been a gunfight and blah, blah, blah, and the best man won on the night, it would have been okay. But for it to have been like a one-sided beat down by the total, well not the total underdog, but the underdog of the fighter.

And for Leon with the hype that was around him at the time to have lost it in that fashion, yeah, it did bite home a little bit, but like I say, he really saw part of the fight, gay my friend. But when you rev things back up and it was time to get back into a camp, did you see any differences in him now that he's become,

you know, a challenger again and not the champion? So he's the hunter, not the hunted. Do you see any differences in his mindset? Yeah, yeah. Listen, Leon's regrouped Ariel, you know, mentally and physically. He knows what he's doing, knows what he's lacking on and he knows what he had to tap upon. On the mental side of it, that kid don't really get worried and get too frustrated, too tough about anything, he just takes it in his stride, it's his nature. And yeah, you know, he's accepted it,

he's accepted it, he's not, what else can he do? He's accepted it and he just knows the task in hand now. Being at the top, what it takes to get to the top, the journey we took before, and maybe it's just a fulfillment of a story that he's got to go through, you know, to go and win it again now, then, you know, it's what does it say about the kids? So we can only take one step at a time, my friend. Yeah. And, you know, we were talking to him about the emotion and, you know, all the drama leading up to the Colby fight. And then with Balal, there was a history and a back and forth.

But this time, it's just about the fight, right? There's no extra curricular stuff. Is this fun for you? Is this refreshing that you don't have to deal or worry about any of that other stuff? Yeah, in a kind of a way, yeah. Because when you're a world champion, you know what comes with it, and the eyes,

and the rest of the razzmatazz with it. It's kind of like, you know, just come down, calm down a peg or two, which yeah, suits us. We're fine. You know, we're from a small town where, you know, big things don't really, you know, bedazzle us too much aerial. And Leon's coming from a background where he doesn't get carried away too easy, which is a good mindset he's got for fighting. And yeah, we just know what we've got to do. What's, um, next Saturday, what the task in hand is.

And, um, he's just looking forward to it. You know, he's looking to put his mark back on the fight to let the crowd know. Well, you know, Leon, Leon Edwards is back in town. So when you, when you see the fight, when you think about it, when you game plan for it, you know what Sean is great at, you know what he likes to do. He's relentless, he's strong, he's young.

How do you see the fight playing out? Well, that's his attributes, like you said, his aggression and his strength. But yeah, you know, he is one of them. Leon can catch him unaccountable. We've gone through a couple of plans to neutralize Sean. But yeah, we're aware of what he's gonna bring.

And we've set plans to counter him in the wrestling department. And if he goes to the ground, to the ground. Okay. What about Fabian? Fabian now in this PFL tournament. You like this for him? Well, yeah, well, it's like this.

And Ariel is coming off a loss against Eblum. It was a different path put towards him. And I think he's got the ability to fulfill it and move on to the UFC. It was his total choice to do so. I said, son, listen, it's your life, your career. All you can do is sit down with your management and come to an agreement if you need any advice

from me, your brother, or any of the coaches around you, which he did ask and he made the move and the rest is history. Oh, so he could have potentially left. Well, yeah, any of the fighters potentially could have left the area, because it was open, wasn't it? Yeah, he could have left, but he decided to stay with the PFL organization and give it a chance.

Okay. You also have boxers that you train as well in addition to the MMA fighters. And I was just wondering from your perspective, do you feel like Leon gets treated like some of the big name boxers? You know, boxing in the UK is gigantic now. It's enjoying incredible popularity. But I sort of feel like from the outside looking in, like the Leons of the world, the Tom Aspinalls of the world don't get the same type of love and attention and press coverage as some of those guys. Do you agree or disagree with me? Yes and no, Ariel. It's like this. There's no way Leon can't go

in Birmingham now. That's in Birmingham apart from that. Yeah, people who know about UFC and know, well, we'll know him, but average Joe Blogugs away from Birmingham maybe struggle to know him. But yeah, the boxing, because it's more prominent outside of the woods, yeah, boxing gets more attention. But Leon is known by the boxing paternity and often gets invited to big shows as guest appearance or come and watch the fight. And because Leon knows a lot of the guys as well that are in the boxing world, sometimes Leon goes and supports them. So yeah.

So he is getting that love and respect, in your opinion. Yeah, he is, he is, yeah. Would you like to ever see him box? One day, one day. Yeah? One day. Why not? Have you talked to him about this? No.

We've had brief chats along the way. You know, realistically now he's about 33. So if he was gonna do boxing, he would have to really have done it like now. Yeah. You know, cause it's a bit long in the tooth, he's 33, he's his weight. He would contest maybe a super middle 12 stone would be Leon's weights. Um, and he's a lot of, not a lot

of hungry, hungry dogs at that weight in the boxing world. And for Leon to make that transaction into boxing, maybe a bit much at his age now. Okay. But he'll take fights like Jake Pauli fights and all the rest of them of shows if he wants you know if the money's right then why not he's he's more than capable of holding his own and being part of one of those shows but let's see how it goes or even try and get him to Dubai where the the prince is giving away a bag of money for fights. Saudi Arabia. Yeah, yeah, why not? For you, has life changed dramatically since Utah? Do you still feel the after effects from that night?

It's not changed for me at all, Ariel. Really? No, no, no, no. Like I say, the boys will tell you, Leon and all the rest of the lads we trained in that. The old boys' feet still on the ground underground with my routines more or less the same. I've got a life to live myself away from fighting when I do get the chance with my missus who suffers with me with the fight game, who's stopped by me for all these years, you know,

through the fight game, flying away with these fighters. And sometimes you need that little time for yourself as well, Ariel. Yes, of course. But I'm assuming more fighters from around the country, from around the world, want to come train with you because of the success that you've had with the Edwards brothers. Yeah, we got up renegade, we got guys coming in from Norway, we've got guys local, guys coming up from London. Yeah, we have some guys flying in. When I was away with Fabian on his last flight, made a few links with some lads from Brazil that was looking to fly in and come in. So yeah, we, you know, it's a fight game. It's like a big family once you're always making a connection somewhere. You know, your name is given to somebody that will phone you and recommended that, you know, your name's given to somebody that will phone you and

recommend that, you know, can you do some work with this lad for me, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, it's all connected one way or the other. You've got big Arnold Allen over there as well, right? Yeah, Arnold has been coming to Renegade, and enough for a while, but he's recently got married. Oh, Arnold Allen, you're not talking Arnold Allen? Yeah, Arnold Allen. Yeah, yeah, he's recently got married,

and he's just had a little time out. Okay. He's still training, but yeah, Arnold comes up by us regularly, him and his dad. And yeah, works with the lads on a regular basis, yeah. Big pacer, he's a big old fella, his dad. Oh yeah, works with the lads on a regular basis, yeah. Big pacer, he's a big old fella, his dad. Oh yeah, that's a character now, let me tell you boy. Okay, so Saturday, back on track.

Sean Brady, we think you're stoppage, we think you're indecision, what are you thinking? What am I thinking? I'm gonna be honest with you, Lian. Lian's gonna go out there and make a statement. Does that involve a stoppage? Then we'll see. We know the fight plan. We've set a fight plan and if it goes to how we're working on it, looking at it, the game plan we've set, then I'm looking for a stoppage either early or late. Okay, all right.

But that's where we are. Can't wait, always a pleasure, coach. Thank you so much. Good luck to you and the team on Saturday. Looking forward to it very much. Nice being with you, Eero. Same here. Pleasure, there he is, the great coach Dave Lavelle

of Team Renegade over in Brum, as they they say. Brum you know what Brum is? Birmingham and they could put you know they could put the Bilal fight behind them. The reason why I wanted to ask so many of those questions we didn't get a chance you know that was during our that was during our break. I was in Paris at the time and so actually I actually suffered as well. I was watching that fight in the middle of the night. Well, it was more like 6 a.m. But, you know, the rest of the card. I don't know how you guys do it. And by you guys, I mean the European fans.

I really don't. European fans, without a doubt, have to be the most, I mean, the most... Devald? Not deval, like, dedicated, loyal fans. When it comes to combat sports of course because if you're, you know, if you're a football fan, a soccer fan in America, yeah it's great. You wake up 730 a.m. you watch, you know, Forrest Beatman City. It's great. If I was living in Europe, if I was P.T. Carroll, if I was a guy who wanted to be an MMA journalist living in Europe, I don't know if I could last this long.

How do they do it? Certainly not with kids. Staying up till 6, 7 in the morning, it's impossible. If you're a fan, I guess if you're a fan, I saw a video where Tom Aspinall, last week he was watching the Magomed on Koli of Alex Prair fight and he said that he avoided spoilers and he watched it the next morning and he gave his reaction to it. Good luck avoiding spoilers by the way. I don't even know how you do that. I guess you just shut up your phone. Yeah. Also you're, if you're

Tom Aspital avoiding spoilers right? Like if you're in the actual like league mix competition sport like it's, it's probably a lot harder than if you're Joe Blow who's just like, yeah, I don't know. How do you avoid spoilers these days? Someone's going to text you. Someone's going to text you. You got to turn the phone off.

You got to really disconnect. You got to, you have to hard, hard. Shut that boy down. Yeah. Yeah. Tom Aspinall said that he's expecting to have a meeting with the brass this week in Las Vegas, not Las Vegas, London, face to face, to try to make sense of all of this. What's going on? He's in. And I think Tom is ready to go. Like, I don't think there's anything that needs to be done on Tom's end.

And I think John is to a degree ready to go, if they meet his price. What I'm starting to gather more and more is that that 30 million is a real number. Remember when it came out and then everyone said it wasn't a real number? Yeah, Joe Rogan said it. Well, Joe Rogan first said that it was a real number and then he came back and said it wasn't a real number, right? He doubled back immediately. I think what happened was someone told them, don't say that. Don't say the number. Yeah. Did Joe Rogan get reprimanded? Come on. Yeah, it was probably like, hey.

First time in his life. Help us out here. It doesn't help us to put that number out there. Yeah, I think that number was real. Hey, guess what? That's a goddamn discount for how much that fight's gonna generate. Seriously.

Do it. 30 million, who cares? Who cares? Even if Tom gets, even if, honestly, let's do like real talk, do the math. If Tom got, even if, honestly, let's do, like, real talk, do the math. If Tom got the same number, you're still making money on that fight. 100%.

So what are we doing here? Let's get it done. Here's my theory, and I want to talk more about all this tomorrow, because everyone's going crazy over this Netflix ESPN thing. We're gonna save that for tomorrow. Ooh, I wanna talk about that. But my theory on this is,

in a contract year, while there are negotiations going on, look, if we were three years into a six-year deal, there's no real pressure to make it happen. And what I always said was, when the UFC sold its pay-per-view package to ESPN, the pressure to get the word out to market was on ESPN and not the UFC. And so you saw the UFC do less from a promotional standpoint. It was already bought and paid for.

There's no need to invest more. But now, as you're in the final months of a deal that started back in 2019, you gotta light that spark. And so I think if you're someone who is hoping and praying that they make Tom Asimov versus John Jones, this works in your favor. The fact that it's a contract year, you're shopping the product around, you're trying to tell people, hey, you know, we put on big fights. We make things happen. Look at these spectacles. Look at these numbers.

Make no mistake about it. That article that came out from the New York Post, that's just public negotiation. All of that is just public negotiation. Oh, it's on the heels of the app not working. Oh, we're gonna put out there that we're unhappy and we're gonna put out there that the numbers are down and we're gonna blame them.

All of that is public negotiation. Take it from me, take it from Rick who is inside those walls. Yes it was a few years ago but if anything the feeling is probably stronger. ESPN loves UFC, UFC loves ESPN. Now is there is there you know a nice lady at the end of the bar named Netflix that they have their eye on as well? Yeah, in a perfect world they still maintain they do a deal with both. Just like WWE, TKO does a deal with Netflix, they do a deal with USA, they do a deal with CW. No big deal.

It's not unheard of. Does Netflix want to be in the business of a random fight night? Probably not. Anyway, you could cut that, you know, you could cut that, that pie up in, in many different ways, but I'm not buying. That's just public negotiation. People just put that stuff out there. It happens all the time. It happens in media a lot.

You'll always see like, Oh, this person's contract is coming up. Take it from me. I've seen it's happened with me. Oh, this person's contract is coming up. Take it from me. It's happened with me. Oh, this person's deal is coming to an end. Oh, they're looking at other suitors. This is how it goes. People plant things. It's always crazy.

People lost their minds about this. We've had ESPN go down so many different times. People constantly complain about ESPN plus going down. But all of a sudden, this was the straw that breaks the camel's back. like people constantly complain about ESPN Plus going down, but all of a sudden, you know, this was the straw that breaks the camel's back. Oh, yeah. Oh, the ESPN Plus.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, obviously like coordinated and always happens. As you said, this is the nature of the business. This is the nature of the media game. Like around these times, yeah, all of a sudden, the things that were kept quiet for the longest time, all of a sudden somehow find their way to the light. Yeah. It happens. I wouldn't put too much stock into it. I would say there's ESPN as a player, there's Netflix as a player, Amazon as a player. I think UFC

would be great for Apple, but I don't know if they're going to be a player, especially with the MLS deal not seemingly going great. And I think WBD is a player, meaning Warner Brothers Discovery, TNT, TBS, Max, those guys. They even recently talked about it, the success of AEW and all this stuff. I think those are your players right there. I think you've touched on something interesting. I'm, I'm way less interested. I'm interested on where they, where they ultimately land, but what I'm way more interested in is how much of, uh, goes to the individuals. Like if it's, if it's Netflix and we want it all,

or if it's Netflix gets this, ESPN gets this, and maybe a third party gets this, or maybe it's split two ways. How this is actually divvied up whether it be one or many parties I think is the most fascinating part of this for me now. At the beginning of the year I said it was going to be the story to watch Netflix's involvement in live programming, in live sports programming, in live combat sports programming is a gigantic story because they are such a behemoth. You know I saw some reports that there's going to be a

surprise broadcaster and a surprise promoter for Canelo Crawford. There is no surprise. It's TKO and it's Netflix and it's the worst kept secret and everyone knows it. And that's gigantic. That's huge. And they're going to be airing... Look at how much has changed in the past year. You've got Weekly Raw, and then around the world you have Weekly Raw, NXT, SmackDown, and PLEs. You'll have now a second MVP show. You'll have Canelo Crawford, NFL is there, all this has happened in the past year. There's a hot dog eating contest as well, and so they are primed to take this to the next level and to gather and conquer more real estate.

To me, ESPN can't let the UFC go. If the UFC leaves ESPN+, what's ESPN plus' value anymore? Do you really need ESPN+, is there anything else on ESPN plus that is must-have? I guess you'll have like your random hockey games, you'll have your FA Cup, you'll have these one-off things, but is it like you if you are a UFC fan living in America you cannot not have ESPN plus there are ways of getting your fix of these other things without having it. And so I think that it's been the best thing for them.

And I think they want to keep it. And I think quite frankly, the UFC wants to remain bad app or not. That could be fixed. Being on ESPN has been incredibly, incredibly beneficial to the UFC. It's been a mutually beneficial relationship. UFC always wanted to get covered by ESPN, be on SportsCenter, be on the ticker, be a part of that mainstream sports conversation. You see the NHL leaves ESPN, they don't get talked about.

They're back on ESPN, everyone's talking about them. I also think, unlike a lot of on ESPN, everyone's talking about them. I also think, unlike a lot of those other products that you're talking about, it brings new people in. It brings in people that may not be regular ESPN Plus like users and subscribers, or maybe they're subscribing, but they're not coming in. When you have a big fight, you're bringing them in. And as we saw with like Netflix, maybe it's, you know,

just for that night only, but you get them. You bring them in and you expose them to the rest of your offerings. The only other place that is a kind of level up for me ESPN is is is Netflix for the UFC everything else to me is like oh yeah you want to go on prime but like does that really change? You're talking in terms of like brand name, brand equity, recognition, instantaneous, visibility, all that stuff. It's really down to them too. And I don't think because one time, I know people have had issues with the app.

Amazon? No, I don't think so. Yeah, Prime is not as noteworthy as Amazon. Look at what it's done for PBC. It's not the same. It's great for the NFL. It's gonna be great for the NBA, but for these fights, I don't really see it.

Yeah. It was a bad night. The app hasn't been great. How many shows have they had on, on that app since 2019? There's 13, there's 13 a year, 13 times six. You do the math. I know it's all great. Listen, I can watch anything on the app for more than two minutes without on my phone, without it crashing.

I don't know what's going on. It's not been a great time, but that's very fixable. UFC a taking its ball and going home. And by the way, they're, they're, they're businessmen. They're, they're going to go for the best deal. And I just, I can't see, I can't see like also this report, God bless, but it's like, you don't gotta be some sort of insider to say like the UFC wants to be on Netflix and that Netflix is at least kicking the tires on the UFC.

Of course. Like if you thought that that was news, you haven't really been paying attention. Those are the players. Now we see who wins out. But I still maintain, I would be very, very surprised if there's a total divorce between the UFC and ESPN. If there's no UFC programming on ESPN, I would be extremely surprised. Extremely surprised. Right now. Let's see. That negotiation window, by the way, is open April 15th. So while they probably have had some talks, let's be honest, technically it's exclusive right now.

So what is all this talk about flirting with others? We shall see. Let's move along now. Our next guest is in fact returning on the 3rd of May. We were wondering, we were wondering, when's he going to return? When's Bo Nicol coming back? Well, we got our answer late last week. He is returning on the 3rd of May in Des Moines, Iowa. He is going up against RDR René Derrida. Some variation of that name. There he is. Bo Nicol, kind enough to join us. Hello, Bo. How are you? Doing well, Ariel. How come these people aren't paying attention? It's crazy. What do you mean? What do you mean? What you're just talking about with the UFC and stuff. Let's talk. What do you mean? What do you mean? What you're just talking about with the UFC and stuff. Let's talk, what do you think?

What is your take on this? I don't know, I haven't thought about it a lot. I think that it's interesting, when they switched over to the new model with ESPN, they're just putting out so many shows, right? Like it's Like every weekend. And I know what I see is a lot of, from the fan's perspective is complaints on this card, you know, is this and that it's not, you know, it doesn't have the star power, blah, blah,

blah. And, uh, you know, with the, you know, what used to be the standard was every card was a banger. And so I don't really know what they're going to I know they want to they want to put on great shows I think that I don't know if the incentivization was there to put on great shows and it was more volume and and quantity over quality so but I I'm not sure I'm just a fighter so I'm just gonna get step in the cage and beat people up That's really what I'm focused on by the way. That's a great point. But there's a couple of mistakes that people make.

Like I get into it, I got into it with, and when I say got into it, like we just had a friendly chat about it. Alan Jobin, because I was complaining that the Apex shows feel soulless and are just kind of hard to watch when it's just empty and quiet and all this stuff. And he was like, you know, they're putting on so many shows.

There are certain cards that aren't Apex, or excuse me, like arena worthy, they're apex worthy and my response to that was they were doing this many shows back in the Fox days as well when they were in different cities and countries every single week. They are booking those kind of like weaker cards for lack of a better word because they know it's going to the apex and so it would be on a Netflix or an ESPN to say like hey we need to beef things up a little bit but right now it's the same amount of shows they're not doing more it's just I don't think that there's any pressure because ESPN is happy with the product and happy with what they're getting to say like oh we need

to to beef it up so I'm curious if with this new deal they're going to beef it up and and hopefully get out of the apex because I have a very hard time enjoying those shows The fights are great, but I just feel like the atmosphere is a little hard to get past. You know what I mean? I Would say I fought twice in the apex and I would say that The virality of the moment is like a fraction of what it would be with the crowd, right? So, you know you I think of some big fights in the apex, you know, uh, Francis and steep a, uh, Fourier hooker, like imagine those fights with the crowd. Imagine how many viral, you know, clips and highlights and moments there would be from those versus the, you know, no crowd, no reaction. And

as a fighter walking in, it feels weird. It doesn't even feel close to the real arena and a real crowd. And it feels like you're just going out there to spar. So I think that it affects the competition. And yeah, I mean, I would love to see more shows in interesting places. I'm really excited to be in Des Moines

and compete in Iowa. I got a big fan base there. A lot of people that know me know me support me and appreciate me So wait a second. I think I feel like when you say this by the way, is everything okay? You my back? Yeah. Yeah Sorry, my wife just tried to call me. Oh, no problem. No problem. Do you need to take that? No, I don't okay I feel like but yeah, I think't. I'm good. I feel like. But yeah, I'm excited to find Des Moines. I think they should do more cards in interesting places.

I feel like when you say this about your fan base in Des Moines, you're thinking because oh, I don't know anything about collegiate wrestling that I don't know about your history with Iowa. I've seen the tweets. I've seen you dig. What is going on? Are you like a huge heel over there here? Guys, this is back in 2022.

Guys I will admit this, Mic Michael Parsons' wrestling is legit. He did much better than most of the guys that wrestled in college. Definitely was tougher to pin than any Iowa wrestler. What's happening here? And I've seen, my college record versus Iowa's 3-0 with three first period pins, including one in the middle of Carver.

My team's running defeated against Iowa as well. Not competitive, check the stats. I am Iowa's daddy. This is back in 2022. What's going on here? Tell us the history. Friendly competition, you know? For me, competing in the Big Ten,

competing day in, day out against top level programs, it gets competitive, right? I showed up every day for four years, put on a Penn State singlet and I was out there to win. And the Iowa, the tradition of the program, the, the, the fire, the drive, the competitiveness is there too. And so there was just, you know, in the past, a lot of, a lot of different things that just motivated me to want to beat those guys. Those guys were motivated to beat me. And, uh, you know, I went out on top after four

years undefeated record and a lot of domination. So I think at the end of the day, I respect, um, Iowa wrestlers coaches, the fan base, they're an amazing group of people. And I think that, you know, they don't really have have a choice but to respect me because I put them in their place a little bit but it's just all good fun and I'm excited to go there and I think that, I think that there's definitely some people that might wanna see me lose but the reality is the track record is pretty solid in the state of Iowa

so I'm looking forward to getting back there and competing. So since coming to the UFC, since graduating from Contender Series, it was 285 to 90, 300, 309, always pay per views. And I thought for sure you'd be on the Miami card. It seemed like perfect for you. And then we see you on your first fight night. Did they save you for this

because of your history with Iowa? I believe so. You know, I think that just the history, the fact that it's such a strong, um, tradition of wrestling and, you know, I, I didn't get into the thought process behind it, you know, behind, uh, putting me on the card, but I think you can kind of extrapolate from previous data and feel like, you know, it makes sense to have a wrestler there. You know, you have other, other guys there that have history there like, uh, Jeremy Stevens.

And so I think that, um, you know, they want to, they want to put on a show that, that is entertaining and makes sense and gets people excited. And I think that I'll have a lot of, I'll maybe have a little hate there, but I think I'll have a lot of support as well. Were you okay with that? Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of my favorite things, um, in college wrestling was rolling up to, uh, an away venue, whether it was, you know, Carver Hawkeye or Gallagher IBA or, you know, Ohio state or whatever, whatever the arena was and just putting a whooping on that team because, you know, they have their whole crowd

there. I have, you know, 15, 20,000 people cheering against me. And so one of my favorite things was to roll up there and, and silence the crowd. So, you know, I don't necessarily think that I'm going to get a negative reaction because at the end of the day, wrestling people support wrestling people. There are a few diehards that will, of course, want to see me lose, like diehard Iowa people. But I think the majority of the Iowa fans that I've interacted with and that I see, they all want to support me and see me win. So what about this this matchup because it does feel like okay the natural progression Paul Craig, RDR, undefeated in the UFC, looking good, multiple weight champion in one championship.

Were you happy with the matchup when it was presented to you? Yeah, absolutely. This is a matchup that I asked for. So I feel like it's a it's a matchup that's exciting for a lot of reasons. You know, he's had a lot of success in other organizations, had success in the UFC and it's a natural step up for me. I think that I want to keep fighting better and better guys. And this is a guy that has a proven track record and you know, many,

many finishes and it's an interesting matchup again, you know, similar matchup to the Paul Craig fight where he's got more of a jujitsu style but I think obviously him being on a win streak and also just having maybe a little more just a different type of style on the feet I think will Prove to be an interesting interesting fight, but I'm pumped up. So you asked for him, did you ask for anyone else, or was it just him?

I mean, I gave the UFC like a dozen names, so I was like, whoever you guys wanna match me up with, let's make it work. And I think that it's getting harder and harder because one, I don't know that, there's some people that wanna fight me, and then there's a lot of people that don't. It seems like a lot of people that wanna fight me, it's all upside for them and they

want to maybe like gain some clout off my name. And then the people that, you know, as I move up the ranks that maybe have a lot to lose, it's they don't want to take the matchup as much. So it's an interesting position. In reality, there's only like maybe half a dozen people that I could fight at a certain point because of what makes sense with my career and my progression. And so yeah, I mean, at the end of the day,

I asked for this fight. It was a fight that I wanted and I don't know that he wanted it, but at the end, you know, the UFC is the one that makes the decision. So they like it and we'll do it. I did see about a month ago, Andre Petrosky cut a mean promo on you

and then your response was, I'd love to get an easy check, but the fans say I can't fight cans anymore. I mean, it's spicy. The tweets are spicy. I have to say the trash talk is pretty damn good. Is that what you view, Andre? I mean, I don't think that it matters how I view him.

Let's look at the stats. Let's look at the records. Go watch the film. And I can say whatever I want and what I believe. But at the end of the day, just go check the film. And I think everybody can make that decision for themselves. I think we're on a different levels. And not to say that he's not a good fighter,

he's in the UFC and stuff like that, but I feel like my career path is like this, right? And I don't necessarily see the same for him. It would be a step down for me to fight a guy like that. And for me, it's not interesting. So the fight in New York at Madison Square Garden was in November, this is May. So are we down to, like, do you like this every six months?

I think there was a time where people wanted to see you even more active than that, but do you feel like this is the perfect cadence for your career? I would love to fight more. I mean, for me, it's something that I think it's kind of a situation I found myself in where, again, there's not a lot of guys that I can fight.

You know, they had me in the rankings at number 15. So realistically looking to move up and continue to improve and get better. There's just not a lot of guys for me to fight and other guys are getting matched up at different times. And so it seems like a lot of it's out of my control. And what I've switched my mindset to is, is not the quantity of fights and getting the experience there. It's just getting the experience in the gym, continue and improve and develop. And for me, you know, most guys at their point, if they're where I'm at in my career, they're still fighting

on the regional scene. They're like, all right, I got five, six more fights on the regional scene. Then I'm going to get a shot of contenders and then the UFC. I've already been in the UFC for four fights. I'm kind of getting to the point wherein another year or two, I'll be a veteran. That's something that it's just the way that it's kind of shaken out and the way the cards have fell in my career It's just been very unique and interesting I'm wondering if this thought crossed your mind in In New York at MSG you got to right the wrong of 2016, right? You got to exercise those demons

Are you getting a chance to exercise the demons of Cedar Falls in? 2016 when you were trying to make the Olympic team. Is there anything there or is this a stretch? I didn't actually compete in the Olympic trials in 2016 so I never wrestled there. When I look back at my career I'm trying to think of I've ever lost in Iowa and I'm pretty sure the answer is no. In the whole state you've never lost any competition in the entire state trying to think now I don't believe so not since I started wrestling so I've got a pretty dominant history there you know that that used to be a preseason nationals folks down nationals as a high school kid won that a bunch of times went undefeated there in college won the big 10 championship there in

2016 Yeah Look out if I'm in Iowa here you're against me. You're probably catching an L by the way Wells Fargo in in Des Moines That's the same as Bryce Jordan in in at Penn State, right? I mean if they're going there, they could surely go to Bryce Jordan and go to that venue with a card headlined by you. Yeah, absolutely, and we've started up discussions on that, looking at potentially, I want it,

and I know Penn State wants it, the Bryce Jordan Center, I've been in contact with them, we've brought it to the UFC, and so I think there's some pretty serious potential to do a fight there, and I believe that, you just throw me on the card, I'll sell out 17,000 seats, no problem. So to me, it's a no-brainer.

You think so? You think if they just announce Bo Nichols fighting opponent TBD and not a single other fight, they're selling it out? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, again, I'm training at Penn State a lot. I'm at, I'm on campus, you know, I'm in the community and I can't like walk from the parking lot

to the wrestling room and not get stopped by five, six people. So, you know, I think that my name carries a lot of weight in state college and then in the entire state, right? Like we're, it's a really nice location too, because we're about two hours from Pittsburgh, two and a half, three from Philly, and then about three from New York. So I think that we'll get all that, you know, big city traffic to kind of come in, meet in the center of the state. And I believe like that would be, I mean, the wrestling team sells that out, no problem

every single match. And so for me, with my name and reputation, that selling that out would be, yeah, no problem. You had three Big Ten championships, right, to your name? Yep. What about our boy Gable? Just got his fourth, right? Yeah, yeah, no, it was good. He's tough, man.

Gable, he's a generational talent. He's a guy that the way he competes at heavyweight is pretty unprecedented. There's only been a few guys that have had that speed and power and explosiveness. And when you look at a talent like that, you just, I think, you know, got to appreciate it. But I think I'm looking forward to a rematch between him and Greg Kirkfleet, you know, hopefully NCAA finals here in Philadelphia. It'll start off this coming Thursday. And so, you know, riding with my Penn State guy, he's hadn't had a hasn't had a win against

Gable yet, but you never know. I mean, crazy things happen at the NCAA tournament. So we'll see what happens in a few days. And I'm hoping Greg can do the unthinkable, pull the upset. For the MMA fan like myself who wants to get into wrestling, we've talked about this. This is no better time than now to talk to you with the tournament about to start later this week.

Is there a name or two, a guy who maybe could be the next you, the next Ben Askren, the next DC, who is potentially finishing up or maybe has a year left, who's going to transition, who should we look out for? Is there anyone, I know I'm putting you on the spot, but are there any like super studs who you hear might go into MMA after they're done with collegiate wrestling? Yeah, there's a lot of really tough guys.

If you're looking at guys that want to transition into MMA, Andrew Alirez is a guy, he competes for Northern Colorado. He's a former national champion. He's had some MMA experience or excuse me, some, uh, some striking experience. I think I've seen videos of him and, um, I believe his dad maybe as an MMA coach, but, um, he's, he's, uh, going to be, I think transition and over and he's really tough. Um, I think the guy, you know, you mentioned Gable Gables, you know, got the John Jones connection and there's possibility we see him in MMA at some point in the future. But I think the guy you got to watch more than anybody is Carter Starachi.

And he's the guy that, you know, if you don't know Carter, Carter is absolutely insane individual. He's already won four national championships, which is incredible. And because of the COVID year, he got an extra year. So he'll be going for his fifth national title this year, which is like never it. Well, it's never happened before and it'll never happen again. You know, with NCAA eligibility, you only get four years. And so because of COVID, he got that extra year, then timing worked out and he gets to go for five right now. he's undefeated. He's the number one pound for pound guy in the country.

And he's going to be able to do something this year that's never going to be replicated again. So if he wins this fifth national title, I mean, you gotta put him at least near the top of the greatest of all time list in college wrestling, because they'll have done something that nobody else will ever be able to replicate. And so he's a guy that I train a lot with. I put a lot of time in, um, wrestling with him and he's definitely going to be a pursuant MMA in the future.

And he, he spends a lot of time at ATT in the gym. So he's a guy that is an incredible competitor and you know, you gotta watch it. It's going to be history in the making, uh, this, this weekend in Philly. I love it. Um, and congrats to Penn, won the team title, right? We won the big 10, but yeah, you can pretty much guarantee that we already won the nationals. It's not, you know, the tournament, it's not done yet,

but with the way that our team works, it's like, they're so stacked. There's so many good guys. And so the team race is kind of a formality at this point Okay. All right. I got ahead of myself. I'm learning. I'm learning Bo. I you know, that's good I you got it. You should pop down and watch live. I know I know DC tells me it's incredible It's an unreal. So you got three days Thursday Friday Saturday You have the 330 best wrestlers in America competing. So it's 10 weight classes,

33 guys away. You're going to see, you know, hundreds of matches over the three days. And every round is more and more intense because it's just the bracket style, you know, coming in from the first round to the round of 16 quarterfinals, semis, finals. And it's just like, it's an unreal spectacle. There's nothing like it in in combat sports in my opinion just because of the not only the volume of matches but the quality you're getting a lot of the best guys that have been doing it since they were five years old chasing their dreams it's it's cool back to you I remember we spoke right after the MSG fight and you know it felt like the first time in your

MMA career you got some kind of criticism people were starting to add they weren't impressed You know, you're not as good as we thought you were all this nonsense Do you do you remember any of that you keep that? You know, is this is this one where you have a chip on your shoulder and you're trying to to prove people wrong Are you using any of that as motivation heading into this one? You know, not really. I think that it's interesting to hear people's perspective and for me, I'm internally motivated.

You know, I only do this because I love it and because I wanna do it. I think that I feel a little bit of fire when somebody maybe says something negative about me or maybe doesn't believe in me. And it's more like an attitude of like, all right, okay. That's how you feel. All right. I'll, I'll, you know, keep that, keep that logged here and watch this. So, you know, this next fight is going to be the best fight of my career. I think every fight I continued and

improve and get better. And the goal for me, again, it's not to beat Paul Craig or to beat Renner de Ritter or whoever the next guy is. The goal for me is to be world champion, pound for pound number one fighter in the world and dominate the scene for the foreseeable future. So I'm always continuing to improve and get better and they're going to be critics. Any great has dealt with that and for me it's just part of the journey. I noticed you with Gordon Ryan. What was that like? Oh, it's just part of the journey. I noticed you with Gordon Ryan. What was that like?

Oh, it was great. You know, getting to train down in Austin with Gordon and work with just some of the, you know, Gordon obviously being the best jujitsu practitioner of all time and a bunch of the other guys that he trains with at his gym is really, really awesome. I love getting to learn new technique and details. That's one of my favorite parts of the sport

is just getting more and more polished and refined and figuring stuff out. And then I think that the more I'm able to master the fundamentals and learning good solid fundamentals is just such a key that I can then use those to be more creative and do whatever I wanna do in the fight. So learning from a guy like that's a huge honor and a huge opportunity.

Rainier never been submitted in his career. Is this maybe a preview of what you're trying to do? Yeah, I mean, I could see it. I feel like that's a pretty realistic outcome. For me, I don't like pigeonhole myself into the fight has to go this way or I want it to go this way or that way. It's just go out there, put myself in good position, move left, move right. Um, you know, have solid defense and then the everything else

will come right. Whether it's a, whether it's a knockout, whether it's a submission, whether it's just domination for three rounds, like I'm there to win. So this is not a, it's a knockout, whether it's a submission, whether it's just domination for three rounds, like I'm there to win. So this is not a game. This is a real life fight with rules. So for me, I'm going in there with every intention to smash this guy for 15 minutes. And if it's shorter than that, it's shorter than that. By the way, I noticed you were ranked

for like a cup of coffee a month ago. Now you're not ranked anymore anymore but you didn't compete. What was that all about? What do you think? I don't know. I mean, the whole ranking thing is a little weird but. Yeah, so I mean, I get why they ranked me, right? They put, so we had Shar Bullitt

and I think another guy ranked and then they lost. They took him out of the rankings. They sled me in there. But I would like to hear what you think of that situation and kind of how it all went down. Well, right now, you're not there, right? You were 15 for a moment. But there's all kinds of activity like how did Paul Costa move up?

How did he move up? And how did the ridder slide into 15? What are you saying? Are you are you suggesting that there was some foul play? Not foul play. I think it's marketing. Is marketing foul play? I mean, to a degree when we're talking about rankings, because rankings are supposed to be independent and unbiased. Who makes the rankings?

Honestly, they say it's these people, but I don't even know if these people exist. I think it's the UFC playing around with them. What do you think? I mean, to me, the rankings are all, it's all just marketing. Yeah. It's not, I mean, we've had guys that are number seven

fighting for the title, so no shade to them, like that's a great opportunity, but if that's, if the rankings are what, rankings, then the guy who fights for the title should be number one, maybe number two, but like, that's not how it works. So to me, it's all marketing, it's all optics. So I think that you can kind of connect the dots. If you see I was in the rankings and now I'm not.

And now the guy I'm fighting is in the rankings. You know, why would they do that? Right? Like, you know. By the way, I'm not trying to upset you, but this just came through a good friend of yours with Conor McGregor, does this bother you? Does this make you,

are you jealous seeing this, Bo? Does this annoy you? No, not at all. I thought you were his guy. No worries. He can have a lot of friends. He loves the sport. So yeah, I ran into Conor at the inauguration, actually.

It was one of the craziest things. So I was sitting at the commander in chief ball with a few people and all of a sudden I just get bumped into by like three people. I'm like, what the heck? I kind of turn around and look and there's just just a mob of like 25 people and they're all like looking into the center of, of the circle. And it's like moving kind of almost like through my group and these guys are bumping me because they're walking backwards and not looking

and like I get finally the group moves around me and I get to the center and it's just McGregor in the center and he's just like, what's up, Bo? And I'm like, what's up, dude? How you doing? He's like, you're killing it, mate. You're killing it. Keep up the work. Keep up the work. And I'm like, thanks, killing it, mate. You're killing it. Keep up the work. Keep up the work. And I'm like, thanks, brother. Appreciate it. And he just moved through. But I think he wants to maybe pursue a career in politics, potentially in Ireland.

And I think that there's a lot of, I don't talk about politics because I'm just a fighter, but there's a lot of stuff going on in Ireland and in Europe that's very interesting and I think, you know, I think guys that have a similar mindset to me that know what it's like to really put in the work and grind and earn everything you get, it's good to have people like that in politics. Yeah, I saw a lot of you there. GSP, Tim Kennedy, yourself, John Jones, Connor,

it was a who's who, look at this. Look at this crew right here was a who's who. Look at this, look at this crew right here. A who's who. Yeah, I felt, you know, I was honored to be in that group. Just hanging out with those guys was pretty cool. Yeah, it was interesting. We didn't really show up together. I came separately, it was a last minute thing,

and then I just saw them at the same event that I was at, and I was like, yo, what's up, guys? And so we just hung out, had a good time, and Tim took care of my wife and I, so he was super cool to us, and he knew everybody there, so I was just kind of, at a certain point, just tagging along with Tim, because he knows a lot more people in those circles.

I have to say, we do a segment on the show on Wednesday called On the Nose, where I answer questions. Till this past week, I continued to get questions about my appearance on your pod. A ton of questions. And I have to say, as I said to you on the pod, you do a great job. The questions that you ask, the way you listen,

and you ask follow-ups, and the research and all that. And I've seen, I feel like you're putting a little more TLC into this. I saw a chaile on there. I saw a DJ. Like it feels like I keep seeing you pop up with these. Seems like you're enjoying it. What's, what's the, the, the long-term goal for this and it's called a nickels and dimes, right? Yeah, sir. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, my main goal with the podcast is just to have interesting conversations with people

that I want to get to know or I like what they're doing. That's really the entire genesis of it. I like seeing people who are successful and have done really well in their area of expertise and just picking their brain and seeing what makes them tick and how they've found their way through their career. So I think success is such an interesting topic to study. And there's a lot of people that are studying it and a lot of people doing a good job, but I like to make correlations between people that are just at the top level of their field. So that's the ethos behind the podcast,

is just interesting, successful people, interviewing them, getting to know them. I don't do really any prep or any type of studying for any of the guests. It's people that I already know and like, and I just want to get to know more and learn what has helped them find success in their career and share that with people. I think that it took a little while to get to that point

where I figured out how I wanted to do it, but really it's just about having interesting conversations and learning and growing and being able to share that. It's great stuff. I really urge the audience to check it out. Last thing, I did see you tweet, someone asked you top three MMA wrestlers and you had Islam Khabib and Hamzat.

I feel like you were being Mr. Humble doing this one. How far away, A, were you and B, how far away do you think you are from that list? You know, I think that- Or were you trolling? It's hard to- Maybe you're trolling based on your face right here. I don't know, you know, those guys are all,

those guys are all awesome. Islam, Hamza Habib, all super accomplished, have done amazing things, and you see their style, the way they compete. It's very wrestling heavy, and so, you know, I like them, I appreciate what they do. I film study all of them, but there are a lot of greats. You know, there are a lot of guys that are doing

really good things right now. And yeah, yeah. I think the list is always... You were messing. You were actually, you were actually, oh, wow, you were instigating. I like this. I respect this. Okay, so you were just trying to rile up the Russian fans. Is that what you were doing? No, you know, Twitter is really interesting because it's like, you know, you can say three words or three names and you can take that really any direction that you want.

So you know, some people could think that I was trolling. For me, those are guys that I respect and like. And again, I study them a lot. So, you know, whether you think that that's trolling or whether you think that's me just giving some respect where it's due, I think that, you know, you could take it and perceive it however you want to. All right, fair enough. I like that.

I like the little smile. Well, it's great. I'm looking forward to, you know, RDR, former 205 champ, you'll be defending your unofficial 205. You're the uncrowned champ. We're uncrowned here of the 205 pound division after Ankalayev's win.

If MMA- That's a big one. Yeah. So that's, if RU keep the trolling thing going, show up with a belt, you know, say here it is. I don't know. If you really think about it though, it kind of makes sense because it's not like, oh, I beat a guy who beat a guy who beat a guy. Like that's a, that's a little far removed.

Like you can't really take that for, you know, with, with, with too seriously, but I beat the guy who submitted the guy. That's like a direct right there. So you know, run with that again, I think you just got to, it's, it's, it's just statistics at this point, just statistics, film study numbers. I'm not even really like, I don't know if I should run with it because the numbers do speak for themselves. Okay. Fair enough facts, but I appreciate you, you calling it out. Thank you for, for, you know, bringing that to our attention, uh, looking forward to this. Uh, my, my crew is

going to the fight as well, so I don't know if there's much to do in Iowa as far as food or anything or great restaurants. You seem to know the area quite well. Is there any final recommendation you can give to them? I would say, I don't know what city it is, but the national, I think, not the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, it's I think not the national wrestling off him.

It's the dang Gable wrestling museum is there and it's very cool. So I would I would check that out. It's like I forget the exact if you just search Dan Gable wrestling museum it'll pop up and it's a really cool area. There's actually a little wrestling room in there. I've trained there a few times. There But there's a bunch of different cool memorabilia and stories and they do a really good job of like kind of curating it to tell a story about wrestling and talk about Dan Gable and stuff like that. So I would check that out.

Amazing. Thank you, Bo. Good luck. Appreciate it as always. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Ariel. You're the man. There he is, the great Bo Nicol returning to action on

May 3rd against Rainier de Ritter. You see that? I wasn't even invited and I'm looking out. You see that? RDR. I'm looking out for that. You were wanting him to cut a promo on Iowa. No, no.

You were looking for him to be like, that's shit in Iowa. There's a great gas station over there. And he gave us an actual like great recommendation. A great recommendation. Is it, is it in Des Moines? We'll find out. Oh, wait, wait. Here's a how far? Oh, an hour 55.

Damn. That's a bit of a trick. That's tough. We only got 24 hours. Next time. There it is. Yeah. It's tough. All right.

Let's keep the train rolling along a great day here on this super stacked Monday. We just spoke about it. We talked about it. We talked rolling along. A great day here on this super stacked Monday. We just spoke about our final guest of the day. We were just talking to Bo about him. Let's say hello to the king himself, Gordon Ryan. Is he there? No, he's not.

He's not there, oh, okay. I thought I saw that he was there. Am I wrong? You were wrong. Okay, oh, I guess I misread that one. This is probably why you weren't invited to Iowa Wow Yeah, yeah, I mean I kind of like hey, I've read it tires up at 8 a.m. You're like, oh, I thought it was eight tires up seven time ADCC world champion

He is a three time world no gee gold medalist a, a two-time IBJJF Pan Am Nogi Jiu-Jitsu champion, some call him the Nogi Goat. According to Wikipedia, who knows how accurate it is, a record of 157, nine and three. It's an unbelievable record, just 29 years old. He is referred to as the king. He has wins over Niki Rodriguez, Andre Galvao, Gabriel Gonzaga, the aforementioned Bo Nicol, Gary Tonin,

Craig Jones, Josh Barnett, Keenan Cornelius, and so many more. And we're starting to see him more and more. We saw him in John Jones' corner when he fought Stipe Miacic. We just saw him training with the great Bo Nicol. And yeah, I mean, if you can make it happen, I'm sure he's not doing it for free.

I'm sure he's not doing it out of the kindness of his heart. But imagine getting that kind of training out of one of the greatest ever. And it's a fascinating time for Jiu Jitsu that kind of training out of one of the greatest ever. And it's a fascinating time for Jiu-Jitsu because of course the UFC has started to sign people. He was commentating the last Fight Pass invitation, actually no, two Fight Pass invitations ago in December. So there have been some talk about like a tough type of show

that perhaps he'll be involved in so in a matter of moments as I'm stretching here because I was ready to go like I Was all that out of the gate and now I'm like This is exactly what people want on the podcast. Let's keep it going. Beep. That was good, that was good. I have to say, Frank, you're getting to be Fred Norris-esque with these.

Oh wow, that's quite the compliment. It is. We just need more, because Fred used to have so many different carts, and you have told me that you could only have like 30 or something. I have 32 ready to go, you know, yeah Also mixing the show at the same time plus the uploads after I have to tell you when you're trying to bring in a guess

That's not yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I I will just say I feel like you're it's a it's it's it's a perfect vehicle for your comedic timing Yeah, I like it because then uh, you know, just let the other people speak for me. I think it works out. Oh, you mean like the voices on the drops? Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, so here we go.

I think is now safe or? Yeah. Okay, let's go to our last guest of the day, the one and only Gordon Ryan. I ran through his entire resume, so he won't be impressed with this intro, but here we are. Wow, I'm impressed with this setup. Holy shit, what is this?

Is this in your home? This is in my home. We have our trophy room behind us, and I'm in a throne that was a Christmas gift by Gary Conan. Wow. Yeah, it's like where I do all my interviews if I can. This is an incredible setup. Well done and apropos given your success and also you know given your nickname. By the way I see top right you have some knives

over there. What's going on over there? Yeah so John is like a knife fanatic, our coach John Denninger. So yes whenever whenever we like win a big tournament or we get promoted he'll like gift us a knife or a sword. So whenever we like win a big tournament or we get promoted, he'll like gift us a knife or a sword. So I have them all over. I got swords in the wall next thing here. So we have like, it's a combination of like metals that I won,

belts that I won, like a bunch of different, you know, things that people gave me. And then the knives that John gave us. So. I'm not used to seeing you without the gray hair these days. Why the natural look?

I'm kind of incognito and people, even my friends get confused, especially when I shave my face and I have no beard. But it's cool because I can go out and compete with the white hair. And then like, if I don't wanna get like ultra harassed in public, cause everyone like knows the white hair hair so if I go back to my natural hair and I just stop dying it then people like don't recognize me as much so if I want to kind of go incognito then I just go back to the

back to the brim. And why incognito right now? I just like haven't been competing. You know ADCC happened when I got a little bit injured. I was rehabbing my knee after ADCC. And then we just been trying to open up our school. So I've just been working on trying to get to school in Austin opened up that we've been working on for years now. So that's my main priority. Any chance it opens this year? Yeah, we should be open in the next couple of months I'm hoping. So we're up in North Austin and I'm hoping that we should be open the absolute latest by June. But people keep asking me and I keep telling them two months and it's been like two years so I don't want to, nobody quote me. But I think we should be open the next couple of months.

Okay. Good luck with that. By the way, we just spoke to Bo Nicol. I didn't really plan this but you guys were back to back and I saw you guys training together. What was your experience like with him? Oh, he's the best. Just a super nice guy. We trained together.

You know, we went out and I took him around Austin a little bit and tried to coerce him to come back to Austin because he's such good training. But you know, he's a he's a very exceptional, very exceptional athlete. He he's really he just wants to learn like he puts himself there's a lot of wrestlers who come in and and just try to not get submitted try to avoid submissions but Bo really comes in with a learning mindset where you know he's playing leg locks with some of the best leg lockers that we have in the gym. He's playing guard, he's playing bottom position.

And so his ability to, number one, just throw his ego out the door and put himself in positions where he isn't really good and be willing to get submitted and put himself in bad positions. And his ability to learn. Like when he asks a question, he knows questions to ask which is which is very rare with someone who? It was coming from a completely different martial art, but he asked the right questions. He's willing to learn And he learns very quickly. So he's gonna be he's gonna be an issue. I think in the middleweight division Do you feel like he's just scratching the surface with his jujitsu? Obviously, we know about his wrestling background, but he's still, you know, a

neophyte when it comes to, to MMA. Do you think there's, there's much more that we can see out of him from a grappling perspective? Yeah, for sure. I think that, uh, I think even if, I mean, obviously it has, you know, some potential issues with the UFC allowing him to do so, but I think if he jumps into some actual grappling competition, it's like he was doing before, he was fighting in the UFC, just for fun.

Like, it's not going to, if he jumps into like a fight pass in the tational, for example, even if he loses to a good guy, it's not really going to do anything for his mixed martial arts brand. It's not going to negatively impact him. But just having him even jump into some grappling tournaments just to kind of get the experience. You know, a lot of people were criticizing him, you know, in his, in his last fight for,

you know, kind of being a boring fight or whatever the case is. But I looked at that fight and I was like, there is no way that Bo fought this way other than to get experience on the feet at a high level, like in front of a crowd. And I asked him and he was like, yeah, I was just trying to get experience out there and you know, you know, play on the feet at a high level, like in front of a crowd. And I asked him and he was like, yeah, I was just trying to get experience out there and, uh, you know, you know, playing the feet. I really played the feet too much. You have a lot of early finishes and I was like, yeah, exactly. So people don't understand.

Like he's, he's very, he wants to learn. Um, he wants to get the experience. He wants to get the time in the octagon. Um, and I think, you know, in so far as jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts, I think he's kind of just scratching the surface. Obviously, he's a very credentialed wrestler and, you know, American legend. But I think that there's just so much more for him to learn, you know, pretty much in every area. So I'm excited to see him, especially for his next fight against the, against the Ritter, because I've trained with both of these guys a fair amount so I'm excited for that.

We saw in November you in Jones' corner and I'm wondering now as you're getting a little bit older, do you think more MMA fight, are you open to this? Do you wanna coach more of these guys or is this just a coincidence? Yeah, it was funny with John. He kind of just messaged me on Instagram. We had talked a little bit back and forth,

but he messaged me one day and he was like, hey, can you come out? And I was actually helping him for the first, the first steep fight that when I got canceled and thank God I left like before he got hurt. I don't want to blame me on that. Blame me for that. But then I came back.

It was kind of like a weird timing because I was in camp for ADCC and I was competing in ADCC and I was like I can't come during the camp but right after the camp I'll come because he was fighting in November and ADCC was August. So I was like after the camp I'll come and I ended up staying for like six weeks or five or six weeks I think it was for that camp. And I'm always willing to help coach and especially high level guys. And it just so happens that John Jones was the first high level guy that asked me to actually come and be part of his camp. So he was a great experience for, for, for myself, you

know, definitely as a, as a high level coach and, you know, and for him, because whenever people come to us, it's just John is coaching because John is just the coach of coaches. So it's always people taking John's classes, but because I got to go to him in Albuquerque, I had the opportunity to explore high level coaching where I was one of the guys in charge. Obviously, Greg was in the other coaches where I hadn't met because I'd been with John for so long, but just being one of the core coaches and being there just as a coach and not also as an athlete was a really cool experience.

So I'm open to coaching high level guys in the UFC, but John was just the first person he's ever asked me. Wow, that surprises me, but good on him. If this Aspen all fight comes to fruition, do you think you'll, given his grappling background, do you think you'll work with him again? Yeah, I think so. That's totally up to him.

I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters in the past, but it's just been kind of sporadic training where they come to Austin and they ask me questions. But doing the whole camp almost with John was my first real coaching, coaching experience. But I think that, I think that him and Greg and the rest of the coaches were pleased with my ability to translate my knowledge into his game and work with him the way that he learned. So it would be my honor if he wants to have me back

coaching him for, I lost my light, don't know why. But it would be an honor to coach him for the Aspen All Fight because that's a real heavyweight. He's a huge guy, he's super explosive. He can finish the fight at any time. And he has good takedowns, he's good striking. So he's definitely a problem. So it will be an interesting problem to solve

alongside John and the rest of the coaches. What do you think of Aspinall's Jiu-Jitsu? He's definitely got good takedowns, he's got decent Jiu-Jitsu. The one fight I saw of him losing, he actually got heel looked, and the heel look wasn't particularly tight. I mean, that was a long time ago, and Tom obviously has gotten a lot better since then. But the one time I did see him actually lose a fight was

to a heel look, and it was not a particularly tight heel look. So grappling is definitely a situation where I think that we can win the exchanges, especially because, you know, John already has a grappling background and he's just, he's very good at putting guys down, very good at mixing everything up, very good at holding guys down. So I think that, I think the grappling is definitely a place where we can, where we can win the exchanges. But I think that Tom's grappling is up there with the rest of the exchanges. But I think that Tom's grappling is up there with the rest of the guys. By the way, when you were with John, did you, I'm assuming the answer is yes, but just curious,

did you roll with Gable Stevenson? And if so, what did you make of that experience? Yeah, Gable's great. It was again, right after ADCC. So I was coming off like a pretty bad LCL tear and an ACL and PCL sprain and a grade two LCL tear. So I wasn't going to go like super hard with Gable because he was like 300 pounds at the time and he's like already uber explosive. So I just didn't want to get hurt. But we just did like some light hand fighting and some training up on the ground.

Nothing too crazy. It was like very light, just kind of getting the feel for one another. And then, you know, we were both, we were both there for John, we both understood the assignment and understood that, like, you know, we're here to do our thing. But you know, our primary focus is John Jones getting ready to fight for the heavyweight title. So, you know, me and him mostly took on a coaching role. And then whenever John needed a body, that was our job.

Your health issues and in particular your issues with your stomach well documented, where are we at now? How are you feeling these days? My stomach's still not great, but I'm alive so I can't really complain. I know it was really, really bad for the ADCC camp and leading up until the ADCC camp, it's kinda gotten a little bit better now,

but it's still not great. So other than my stomach, I'm pretty healthy. Like my ankles got a little hurt at ADCC. My knee got a little bit hurt at ADCC, but I'm not really too concerned about that. The main concern is just my stomach, trying to get that back on track. I actually have an appointment with my doctor like I think early next week my stomach doctor

So we'll see how that goes How is your diet like are there are there certain foods that just? Kill you that you have to stay away from is a very restrictive these days I try to stay away from like fast foods or anything hard to digest like anything that's like ultra processed Yeah, and hard to digest kind of just fixed in my stomach for a while. Spicy food sometimes gets me. So just clean, clean food most of the time.

Like I'll have like a cheat meal here and there. I'm like kind of fat right now, just because I haven't been traveling and haven't really been doing too much training because my knee's been hurt. Like hard training. So I'm kind of like a little fat guy right now. But mostly clean

stuff. And then I'll have some, you know, have a burger sometimes or pizza sometimes. So, okay. Well, what is, what is fat for Gordon Ryan? Um, my abs are like barely visible. Um, my, my, my, my genetics, like my, my dad would always get like a little like, like fat down by the belly button and the muffin tops, so that's where I start to get fat, just with my genetics. So I'm a little pudgy right now by my midsection for me, but once I get back in shape at all, give me a month and it'll move up to my biceps and traps.

I'll be fine. When I asked you about your stomach, you said that you're alive so all is good and I've seen you I think refer to yourself as being like half dead when you competed in ADCC and you only kind of did it because of your relationship with them and you wanted to help them out and whatnot. Was it that dire? ADCC was rough. Like I was going to that camp so it it was supposed to be, it's supposed to

be a 12 week camp officially. And then I do like a four week unofficial camp, just because I like to do more than most teams do like 12 week camps. I like to do an unofficial 16 week camp. So for me, that entire 16 weeks, my stomach issue kind of progressed and there were some things that changed and it's not relevant too much right now. I don't want to go too much into detail, but I ended up having mast cell activation syndrome. So every time my heart rate would go up, I would just immediately get super nauseous. So because of that, the full 16 weeks, I wasn't able to finish like one single session. Like either just like I got there and I would drill and then I would start training and

my heart rate would go up and I'd like start dry heaving and have to stop. Or I wasn't even able to drill some days. So it was like the last 10 days of the camp, I messaged Mo and I was like, hey, I'm like 99% sure I'm not going to be able to do this, but I'm going to try. I just was like, when do you need an answer by? He's like, well, at least give me like a week's notice. I was like, okay, well, we have to leave in 10 days to go to Vegas.

In those 10 days, I'll give you an answer. That 10 days, I just give you an answer. And that 10 days, like I just barely managed to like finish a session and like do like a hard roll with like, you know, one or two of the guys at the end of the class. And I used that to like get my timing back to my wrestling. I'm like used to be here, just get used to having hard matches. So I basically had a 10 day camp for that 80cc and I was just dragging myself through it and I was like, this is just absolutely miserable.

And then I was actually going into the match with Pennant and I just like shuffled to myself in my head and I was like, I have no idea how I'm here right now. But we made it work, so I can't really complain. A few weeks back, you posted something on Instagram and I've looked at this picture for a very long time and I still can't believe that, is the guy on the left actually you?

Is that really you? Yeah. So this is- You look completely different. So the guy on the left, this is before 2017 ADCC and I was doing a massive weight cut. So I was competing at 88 kilograms, which is 194, and I was about, I was cutting from like 225, and I was like 200 pounds in that picture.

The picture on the right is me at my biggest. After I got my tonsillectomy, I had my tonsils removed and I had my deviated septum fixed. So I couldn't do jujitsu. My thumb was actually doing like pretty good here. I couldn't do jujitsu. My thumb was actually doing like pretty good here. I couldn't do jujitsu, but I could lift weights. So I was just lifting weights and eating. And I was like 245.

So it's like a 45 pound weight difference from left to right. Wow. And so are you closer to the guy on the right these days? In weight, not in the blood. I'm just like a fat, I'm like a fat in 45 right now fair enough anytime You know like there was the whole thing with Mikey Musumechi with the the PDs and your name always gets brought up Your stance on it now. I saw you respond to him in December

But it feels like anytime someone wants to talk on this topic in jujitsu They they come after you because you're so open when it comes to this particular topic How do you how do you feel about it this these days? Yeah, I mean, I have a full video that I did a breakdown on my YouTube channel. It's just Gordon loves jujitsu like all my other handles. I did like a 30 minute rant on like PEDs. But you know, at the end of the day, first of all, steroids have been rampant in jujitsu for decades and decades and decades. This is not a new thing where steroids are just now starting to come into the sport.

The Brazilians have been doing steroids since the 1900s. So it's not new to the sport, number one. And number two, it's not new to this war, number one. And number two, it's not illegal. If you want people to stop doing it, then make it illegal. So people are like, oh, you're cheating this, you're cheating that. It's like the definition of cheating is to break the rules.

Like greasing, for example, would be to break the rules. Poking someone in the eyes would be to break the rules. Using PEDs is not against the rules in any of the organizations that I compete in. So until it's against the rules, until you change the rules and make it illegal, people on PEDs, which everyone is on PEDs, and people on PEDs aren't breaking any rules.

So forgive my ignorance, like even UFC Fight Pass Invitational, they don't test none of them test? No. I BG Jeff, Nogi Worlds, Nogi Worlds and Worlds I believe test. I'm not 100% sure they may have started testing Nogi Pans and Pans. I'm not 100% sure and the way it used to be I

believe was that they tested every other podium winner so if it was like one way class yes one way class no one way class like one way class, yes, one way class, no, one way class, yes, one way class, no, they may test all the winners now, but it's only the winners and it's only on the day of the competition. So there's no random testing. So basically if you just cycle off,

you can beat the test with like, just doing some math in your head and like cycling off properly before you have to compete. But none of the other organizations besides IBJGF to my knowledge are testing us. Do you think that'll ever happen or do you think it will remain like it is now? Well, I think it could happen.

The one problem that we have in Jiu-Jitsu is that there's not one governing body. So let's say for example, that UFC Fight Pass decides to start testing athletes. So unless, unless you're going to have athletes being exclusive, which is a whole nother issue. Let's say I I'm competing as an athlete for UFC fight pass and these guys are testing and then I go to compete in ADCC and these guys aren't testing. That means that you're going to have got, you're going to have guys that are fighting at UFC Fight Pass against

guys that are fighting in ADCC that don't want to fight on UFC Fight Pass. And the guys at ADCC are going to be juiced up anyways. So then if you're an athlete on UFC Fight Pass and you're getting tested, now you have to go and you have to compete in these other organizations where they don't test. So you're at a disadvantage because of the fact that one organization is testing and you have to be clean year round if they're doing random testing and the other organizations aren't. And now so the only way to really get past this is number one to have an agreement across the board on organizations which ADCC was pretty vocal about saying that they're never going to test athletes like they don't they

don't care they just want to see good matches- so you need to have an agreement across the board which I don't think is going to happen. Or you need to have organizations that are going to sign athletes exclusives that if you're

competing for flow or for one or for the UFC you can only compete against athletes in. Those organizations and everybody in that organization. Is now going to be tested the problem is when you start talking about exclusivity now. Need to bring money because in

order to get people exclusive to your event you have to pay them. Us the spit. But you know a much much higher amount. Any would. To happen compete not exclusive so and there's not enough money really to fit. You know a much much higher amount. Than you would- to happen compete not exclusive so and there's not enough money really to start paying these

athletes all this money to be exclusive- you know right now because there's just not that much money in the sport as athletes so. You run some problems when you start when you start having one organization tests and not the other

organizations because then you have clean athletes here. That are still competing in the organizations with PEDs being legal and then you still have athletes that are natural versus or more natural versus athletes that are not natural. So you start to you run to some logistical problems here that people don't really think about. Your relationship with UFC now, do you have any type of deal with them? No, I'm not exclusive. You know, I have a very good working relationship with UFC. The UFC, they've been very good to me. They've been very straight shooters. Like, you know, I'm a big, like, you know, straight to your face, like black and white guy. And, you know, if they're

going to tell me to f off, they're're gonna at least do it to my face. Whereas some other organizations will be super nice to my face and then try to do things behind my back. The UFC just is like, if they're like screw you, they're like screw you. So I have nothing exclusive with the UFC as of now, but I have a good working relationship with them for sure. I saw some talk that maybe there was gonna be like a tough type of show with maybe

you and Mikey as coaches or something like that. Is there any truth to this? Yeah, everyone keeps saying that I'm going to be a coach against Mikey on some like ultimate flexing grappling ultimate fighter show. You know, I talked a little bit about that. Like, I kind of just like we put it in one another's ears. I've been saying that we should do a reality show for years to build new stars.

I've definitely spoken to the UFC about it, but there's nothing set. People are talking about it being a leak that me and Mikey are doing this reality show. As of right now, I'm not doing any reality show against Mikey. So there's nothing as of right now that would, that that's happening. Do you have your next match tournament set?

Nothing right now. My main thing is I'm just trying to get the school open. Like, you know, we're trying to get match ordered. We're trying to get like security. We're trying to get the school open. We're trying to get maps ordered, we're trying to get security, we're trying to get the website started. So I'm just trying to focus on getting the school open because it's been way too long and I just need to get everything set.

Like we need to hash out an affiliate program, all these things which we're gonna have. But my main thing is get the school open, get it running and then probably compete sometime later in the year. Okay. Last week, last Monday, I had Dylan Danis in studio, and your name got brought up. For those that missed it, just want to play the clip

real quick and get your reaction. Here's Dylan. The recording one is one you should go after. What, in a grappling match? Yeah. Yeah, 100% update pay. Why don't you do it? We got big money, but that would have to be a big money one

because I'm the only one that went to The thing is that fake fucking screen. No, this is the window. Yeah, they're just fucking realize that that's what you mean You got the sun setting that's hilarious. What do you mean? It's a freaking fucking crow just came by. Yes. That's not real What do you mean? You just saw the crow come by what do you think we have it on loop hilarious? We were cars picture. That's a great poster by the way. I was one which one that soccer So can I be honest with you Gordon in the moment? I didn't realize what was happening and I think you posted it on your story and I was like, ah shit I did get duped here because he he did a phenomenal job of changing the subject

And so what is your reaction when you see this? Yeah, he, uh, I mean, you know, Dylan, Dylan is always going to be dealing. You got to get Dylan props. Dylan is like a guy that makes things happen. Like he, he manages to stay in the public eye, not really having any credentials or skills of any kind. Like he's never really won anything big. Like he won no, he pans like he was, he was decent at one point in jiu-jitsu. There was always a point where he was competing with the best guys, but he

can never really beat the best guys. Like, like his record at black belt is 18 and 16. And we always had this kind of beef going back and forth. We competed, we actually had a relatively close match. It was one like he was at his like near his peak in jiu-Jitsu and I was kind of just breaking onto the scene. We had a match in ADCC 2017 which I won and ever since then we've kind of been going back and forth. He won't really like 100% acknowledge me and he like changed his subject like you saw because you know he's you know I guess more famous than me so if he does acknowledge me he can't argue with me on facts and statistics.

So he just knows that if he mentions my name, if anything, I'll get more popular because of him mentioning me. So I mean, I don't have a problem with Dylan. More power to him. He makes things happen without actually doing anything. Like he's a master of getting himself into big matches and then pulling it out. Or like just not,

he doesn't do anything athletically and he keeps getting these big matches and keeps getting the public eye. So, yeah, I mean, nothing against Dill. He's just, he's not a real athlete. So I don't think he'll mind me saying this because when I posted that you were gonna be on the program, he responded via DM and he wrote, fuck Gordon.

And I wrote, why? And he wrote, you know why. And I said, I don't. And he said, ask him. He knows I'm the only money fight possible for him. And I wrote, where? And he said, any Jiu Jitsu league. And so do you feel like that is accurate? Are you staring at a situation where Dylan is the only quote unquote money

match for you? Well, I mean, I also have DMs with Dylan like one time he wanted to fight me and I sent him my schedule of where I would be and he didn't show up. The other times I was like, hey, he was like talking shit and I was like, hey, he was like talking shit and I was like, hey, do you want to compete? Like what do you need to compete? And I was like, I can make a match happen. I can get you paid.

What do you want to actually compete against me? And he just like kind of brushed it off and he was like, he'd be lucky to compete against me. And I was like, okay, man. Like, I don't know what else he wanted me to do. I'm offered to compete against them plenty of times, both publicly and privately. I'm offered to put up my own money to have my teammates compete against them. You know, and that matches things like that.

I don't really know what else I have to do. Dillon's is very interesting because Dillon doesn't actually do anything to make money. So unless you'd like a guy who like invested in Bitcoin in like 2009 or his family has money, like there's nothing Dylan actually does. He always talks about money and like money fights and this and that. There's nothing Dylan actually does to make him money. Like he doesn't promote, he's got a ton of Instagram followers, Twitter followers, whatever, doesn't really promote anything on there.

And just teach anywhere, he doesn't do private, as far as I know. He doesn't teach, he doesn't compete. I don't even know how Dylan makes money. But it's definitely not through competing. It's definitely not through teaching. It's definitely not through having sponsors because he has no sponsors. Like the people who follow him are kind of laughing at him and not with him.

So they wouldn't like buy anything that's like Dylan Dennis merchandise or anything like that. So I don't really know how Dylan makes money other than he has, his family has money. He does have this fight against KSI coming up next week. Yeah, and you know, he'll make, he'll make a little bit of money doing that. But I think it's similar to the fight that he had with Logan, where it was like, Dylan

was just the guy that was there because he like talked shit and can get beat up. I don't think that like, I don't think that Dylan and Logan were making it nearly the same amount of nearly the nearly the same pay structure. And I don't think that Dylan KSI would be on the same pay structure. So like, it's not like Dylan is like doing one of these fights and then he's getting $10 million and then he can kind of chill. Maybe if I had to get to making a couple hundred grand, 500 grand, something like that, like

it's not an absorbent amount of money where I can just like not do anything for like three years after. By the way, that was wild when you showed up. When you showed up to the weigh-ins for his fight against Logan. I don't think we've talked since then. I remember seeing you on the way home, but like how did that all come about?

Did Logan just call you that week and say, come on down? Yeah, he messaged me because he knows that we competed and we had some beef back and forth. I actually knew Jake, not well, but I had met Jake and had a dinner with Jake at a mutual friend's house in Puerto Rico. So I kind of knew them through passing.

And then Logan just found out that one of my hobbies is to troll Dylan. And he was like, hey, can you come down and just talk shit to Dylan? And I was like, yeah, for sure. And then, uh, the second Dylan saw me, he got like super pumped up. Uh, and then he had that boxing match, which again, more credit to Dylan for what he did in that, in the actual boxing match, because it didn't actually, you didn't actually get a conclusion. It wasn't like the match ended and Logan outright won and he got his hand raised. And there's a picture of Dylan next to Logan with Logan's hand raised.

He just started a fight towards the end and then the match got canceled. And then they said that Logan was the winner and then that was it. But there was no, he even finagled his way into that fight with Logan. Didn't really do anything to get there, besides like, you know, be a Instagram guy.

And then he ended up in a massive brawl, which has brought him more publicity. And he didn't actually, he lost the fight, but he didn't really lose the fight. Like they didn't go to the scorecards and then he lost the fight. He just kind of finagled fight like they think he didn't go to the scorecards and then he lost the fight He just he just kind of finagle his way in there But he goes way out and then like on to the next thing then he was like I'm gonna fight in the UFC

And they were like no Do you think you guys ever compete against each other again? No, there's no way you know Dylan hasn't competed Injureditsu in years. He's 18 and 16 as a black belt, 18 wins, 16 losses. He's one and three at ADCC. So ADCC is where we competed. It's our Olympics.

It's the biggest, most prestigious tournament we have. Dylan's record there is one and three. Dylan doesn't really have any accomplishments in jiu-jitsu. Number one, he even merit competing against me, but I would just do it just because he's like a funny guy on Instagram who likes to talk shit and like that's it. It's just like a fun thing for me to do, but uh, there's no way that he'll ever compete against me now. He's not even, he's not even an athlete. He doesn't even train anymore. He just like posts online. Like once he started hanging out with McGregor his like athletic career kind of just fell

off the cliff is there any chance you compete for UFC this year I'm hoping so yeah you know I'm hoping that you know fight passes is throwing some money into jiu-jitsu I think Dana just said they were doing 10 to 12 million dollars this year so it'll be exciting you know I'll see what events they have later in the year and kind of go off of that. And until then just trying to help them build a sport and promote. This is a very young sport in so far as being a professional sport, like a serious professional sport. I think the UFC is doing a good job of trying to push it mainstream.

So I'm just here to help however I can. And then when when the schools open and we have everything set and I'm feeling OK, then I'll hop back in and hopefully beat some people up. And I remember the last time we spoke, you know, you had the one deal and you said like you kind of owed them because you weren't able to compete. Is there any chance we ever see you in one or has that ship sailed? Is there any chance we ever see you in one or has that ship sailed? Well, so I, you know, I felt bad because, you know, one was paying me and, you know, just as I signed the contract, my stomach got so bad that I couldn't compete and they

were still, they were still paying me. And, you know, then they wanted to sign me exclusive and, you know, just didn't, the numbers didn't really make sense to be exclusive because they were trying to make all their athletes exclusive. And I was like, we couldn't come to an agreement. And I was like, listen, even though we couldn't come to an agreement,

like you guys have been paying me all this time, you guys have been supporting me. I feel like I owe you something for that. So I offered to do a match for free. And they're like, well, they're like, oh, well, that's really kind of you, but we're only competing with exclusive athletes from this point forward. So I was like, okay, no problem. So I don't have anything against one.

I have a great relationship with Chantre, but it didn't work out numbers-wise for exclusivity, but I have nothing against competing for one. I just, you know, there's one guy that brings numbers in, you know, puts butts in seats in the sport, and it's going to be like most of the tournaments that I compete on or organizations I compete for, like I bring in 12 to 15 times the viewership of the second best guy. Wow. And if they aren't viewers.

So if you're gonna want me to be explosive, you gotta pay me a lot of money. Makes sense, that's good business. You've got instructional videos over at BJJ Fanatics, your YouTube channel that you mentioned Gordon loves jujitsu and also Gordon the king Ryan comm where you can buy merch links to the instructional videos And a bunch of seminar information and stuff like that. So wish you the best appreciate you coming on great to catch up Gordon And hopefully you get better soon and we'll see you back out there competing later on this year. Thank you guys. Got a lot of good soundbikes today that should be that should break the internet for the next few weeks. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you Gordon. All the best. There he is. Gordon Ryan. Great stuff and what a world. What a world this Jiu-Jitsu world. You know I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's there's high drama in it. There's always a lot of fun things to talk about. Great personalities. They do a great job with the personalities and you know there's different people who have different beliefs and you know the the steroid stuff and all this. There's a lot of meat on that bone and the UFC is very smart to get into it. UFC I think is very smart to get into it these days. Uh, they're slowly but surely dipping their toe in that water, but in their, in their quest to kind of dominate all forms of combat.

MMA, pro wrestling, boxing, Jiu-Jitsu, slap fighting, do they ever get into kickboxing? I wonder, I do wonder that's one that they never really yeah that's one that they've never really showed any kind of interest in whatsoever I just don't think it'll work it's pretty much just become glory right I mean is is k1 even a thing anymore okay one is not a thing is there any is there any PFL to glories UFC? Is there any number two out there? I don't know if Infusion is still around. One championship puts on

pure striking fights. In fact, they're more that than MMA at this point. But it's more Muay Thai. I know there's kickboxing as well, Jonathan Haggerty, but it's never like a or correct me if I'm wrong. Is there ever like a full kickboxing card? No, maybe. I think there might be, but either way, like, it's striking arts, right, primarily. Like they're doing Muay Thai and they're doing kickboxing rules, and I think it would be one, like, I don't think it necessarily would be one sport

or another to take off. It would be like, you know, striking in the big gloves. And I don't, I just don't know if, if there's an appetite for it here in the US glory, really invested in that and tried to make it happen. And it just never took off. Well, a lot of people were asking, you know, usually on Mondays it's a first hour.

We, we kept the weekend. We talk about what happened. We get into things and then guests, you know, second and third hour, but we, we flip things, uh, this particular weekend, if only because our good friend, P.C. Carroll, had some St. Patrick's Day plans. He was very busy.

It's a holiday, and I told him you could take it off. You know, you don't have to show up to work today. This is a national holiday. There's no bigger day on the Irish calendar, I do believe. And I learned last day on the Irish calendar, I do believe. And I learned last week on the crack that it was the great St. Patrick who rid Ireland of the deadly snakes. And that's why on this day, March 17th, we honor him by I think, you know, celebrating and eating and drinking and whatnot. Is P.T. here or is he? Oh, there he is. Hello, P.T.,

how are you? Happy St. Patrick's Day. the IRL. Thank you for having me, boys. Now, I'm not sure. Is that the Guinness? I thought you get a talking. What is that? Is that the Guinness speaking Irish? What's that? Are you singing? I saw a character doing it last week and I said, fuck me. If he's going to come on here and start speaking Gaelic, I better throw out a bit myself. GC, your Italian 90 jersey is beautiful. I was very emotional when I saw it earlier.

Or the whole set is fantastic. Glad. Thanks very much for honoring. It's all for you. Beautiful. All country. I will say we set up Ariel with two two Irish flags. Yeah, he read them quickly. I've never seen him throw something off. Yeah, what is going on?

We're American. We're Canadian. Didn't didn't carry them over. He said in a roll, it's a bit bigger. Roll like this. It's Canadian. Look at this. Look said in a rule, it's a bit bigger. The rule is too big. It's Canadian. I mean, look at this. Look at this. Look at this.

Look at this homage. Can we get that? I mean, look at this homage. Actually he is protecting me. The Irish flags were a little bit smaller. It just, it didn't fit, you know, and listen, there's, there's been a theme these days having the home country smaller.

The Canadian flag was microscopic. At least you got like something that was up to here. So you should feel happy about that. But I wasn't going to disrespect the, uh, the tri color by having it lower than, I mean, that feels, you know what I'm saying? Um, we get into the weekend review lads really sorry that I can't join you in the morning. Um, obviously try to move things around.

But thanks so much for the invitation and course the individual phone calls when you know, said I couldn't go then GC, he called me for she's like, we can pay and I was like, don't worry about it. You see then Rick Hall and I was like, don't worry about a Rick then. Then Frank was like, I'm not even going, but I'd like you to go. But yeah, sorry, lads, I can't make it. It's all good, man. It's all good. We appreciate you considering it. Yeah. We were heartbroken. No, no. You're gonna have a great time.

You're gonna have an amazing time. It might be one of the greatest white feasts ever. Who knows? Yeah. Tell people you're going to Des. No, no. You're gonna have a great time. You're gonna have an amazing time. It might be one of the greatest boy feasts ever. Who knows? Yeah. Tell people you're going to Des Moines, Iowa. It's usually a knee jerk reflex of you're gonna have a great time. Yeah.

Yeah. What time is that? If I'm being honest, I feel like there's a lot of shade being thrown on Des Moines way. If I were them at the border, I wouldn't accept you guys. I would say go back home. I'll have my passport ready. You don't have a warrant in, you don't have an entry.

We've worked our way into a shoot here. Yeah. In any event, P.T., I'm trying not to bring up these old wounds. What is life like? And by the way, last week you had Thomas Cardy saying, I think he said 90% of the country doesn't speak Gaelic. Is that what he said? And then he also, he backed you up on your claim that Blanchardstown is kind

of like the rough part of the hood, right? So that seems like a moral victory. Yeah, and especially like your Thomas Cardy. Like Thomas Cardy would knock nearly every single person out on the planet earth and he's saying, don't come to Blanchardstown. Both hurt me and was also like justified and what I was like thank God someone's backing me up here so Paul Hughes the slander put to bed thank God. I'm wondering I heard there was some big celebrations today in Ireland and Dublin in particular and I'm wondering is it because of St. Patrick's Day or is it because the patron saint of Ireland, King

Callum Walsh, picked up a big win last night at Madison Square Garden? Which one is it? Or is it a bit of, you know, column A and column B? Yeah, just rolled into St. Patrick's Day after the celebrations. Obviously, everyone out in the streets here last night after the big win. Pandemonium. Listen, a great win for him. And I will say, like, when he came to Three Arena, the buzz buzz wasn't here but like this this kind of stuff is what creates the buzz if he came back now

I'm sure he'd sell more tickets a great win very I'm absolutely devastated for Thomas Carty How unlucky can you be or like I saw he posted from his hospital bed today and Look look away came into you came into you a day early last week I really this is a massive opportunity for him And look, look away. He came into you came into you a day early last week. I really, this is a massive opportunity for him. I still think, and I said this to you before when I saw him fight at three arena, you were there as well for the Cameron Taylor fight, the boys he created around the event, even at the weigh-ins, things like that, this guy has something.

So I'm sure he'll be given an opportunity again. Um, absolutely devastated from, um, I even saw, you know, even the US boxing guys were excited to see him. Even the great Chuck Mendenhall in attendance texted me about beforehand. So heart goes out to him. A very tough one to swallow I'm sure today. Speaking of Chuck, he wrote a great piece on the show last night. It's over at uncrowned.com. Go check it out. No one does it better than him. I maintain that in all of sports, not just combat sports. So definitely go check that out. Uh, did he write by the way, uh, Thomas, what

the injury was? Cause it looked like he blew out his knee there. And by the way, the fact that he was fighting a 400 pound guy, I don't know if that, you know, was it 400 or 300? He looked 400. I mean, it was gigantic. It's like a hundred, 170 kilos.

So he's, he's there. I think it was 4 0 7. Yeah, he's there. I think 189 kilos. 407. Yeah. It's absurd. Who, who accepts this? I mean, like that, that, that stuff actually comes into play when you're fighting a mountain of a man like that, you know, not suggesting. This is what I always say when, when people talk about these fights, like,

Oh, I'm going to fight this guy. And then I'm going to fight that guy in, in boxing. Like you could tweak a knee knee you could tweak an ankle throughout the flow of a flight and and be sidelined for nine ten eleven twelve months anyway did he say what happened cuz it looked like he blew out his knee I'm pretty sure he did blow out his knee and look to the point you're making Thomas is a big dude and putting him in a fight against a 400 pound guy is gonna make him challenge his legs in a way that he usually

wouldn't. We've seen him fight guys bigger than him before and he's put them away. This guy was gargantuan and Thomas had to be on his bike more than ever and inevitably that's unfortunately was his downfall. It seemed like he just tripped over the ropes when he was trying to evade the attacks of his opponent. So very unfortunate for him. I really, really feel sorry for him. All seriousness, what are the plants today? Like,

what do you actually do on St. Patrick's Day? Nothing crazy. We woke up today. We listened to a lot of Irish music. We were listening to the Dubliners. We're listening to Sharon O'Connor, yeah, Tim Lizzie, Phil Lynett, Rory Gallagher, Van Morrison. Oh, we had a full Irish breakfast and then we drove out to the coast and we brought the dog around the coast, loads of kids out and all their green celebrating the day that was. Then we came home and went across my brothers, wrestled my nephew for a good 30 minutes, ate ham, cabbage and potato dinner. Because it's like all of the colors

there. And then, yeah, came back to do the show. Alain's still over there. Oh wow. Now I feel bad. Now I feel bad. No, no, no. I wouldn't have missed this for the world. Before the segment, he was like, I don't know why he hasn't been coming on so late. Oh, he didn't say that. Frank said that. He said, I have no problem. He usually has you on earlier in the day so you could have had the whole night to celebrate. Ah, now I feel.

That is not what was said, Ari. You asked me plenty of times not to comment. If Donald Trump is having his favorite Irish man in the White House, why can't Ariel Luane, oh, huh, huh, Ariel Luane have his favorite Irish man on his show? That's what I want. Well done, well played. We'll get to that in a moment.

Can I just ask, no school today, right, for the kids? No school. Me niece and me nephew were in a parade through Blanchardstown today. Amazing. And what's a full Irish breakfast? I know what an English is, but what's the difference? I actually don't know the difference between the two of them.

It's honestly. It's an English breakfast, but you have Guinness, right? Yeah, no Guinness today. Not a single sip. Not nothing, nothing. No, I haven't hadness today. No, um, not a single sip Not nothing nothing. Um, no, I've been anything today. No, not not all weekend. We actually dug up my whole garden over the weekend I was telling Ariel about this not cut out for the old manual labor as Peter Carroll It was a trying time and then I got just as we finished the amazing UFC show kicked off So at least that picked up my spirits

a mutual friend of ours, he will remain nameless, told me that when he saw you last week you told him that you quote-unquote looked great for boiled shit. Yeah that's right. And you came on the show later that day so I thought you hit it very well. That was the day after Cheltenham. I was telling Jordan and Frank and Andy before I came on, I was like, lads, I am I am struggling here. I got a text message off this mutual friend of ours and he said, Fiji, all right, man, I saw you had a bit of a session there last night.

And I said, look, I feel like boiled shite. And he said, don't worry, man, you look fantastic. And I look back at the video and it turns out I did look fantastic So yeah, delighted with that and look at me now. Absolutely fucking glowing. Yeah, what a day All right, so by the way, can I just ask to be honest? If I asked you what is st. Patrick's day? What are we celebrating? Honestly? What is it? I I would I would The the vast majority of americans have no idea who is St. Patrick. Don't really know. A lot of came over here, spread the word of God, I believe. But it's taught to

kids. And I was asking my niece about this earlier. I was like, what do you know about St. Patrick? And she said he chased the snakes out of Ireland. That's some kind of parable, I'm sure, for something holy or whatever. But it's a celebration of Irishness and it's an immigrant holiday really because it's become popular in the US, Australia, all over the world because obviously we had such a great diaspora during the famine in the 19th century, the 18th century. there was lots of people leaving Ireland, millions in fact, fled the famine and stuff like that. And then afterwards recessions and they took this thing with them.

And that's where it's celebrated all over the world. And I think that's a really cool thing. I heard over the weekend, I believe where you used to grow up, there were some footprints and you would see the footprints and they would say that it was St. Patrick's footprint. I mean it's amazing stuff. I don't know how much of it is true, but I love the history. I love the lore. None of it is true. Yeah, I like that. No, well, like if I was, it's actually where my mom grew up. It's like

a coastal town and my uncle's a trawler. What's the name? Scarrie's. Scarrie's, yes. Beautiful place. Which to me is a feeling that I get on Sunday night. I never knew it was an actual place in Ireland. I was getting that today. I was boiling the scariest feeling.

Oh no, what did I do? Oh, my life is over. But yeah, it's a beautiful place and we were taught to swim pretty much in this place called the springers where they just throw you off rocks into the sea. And there's a big pothole there. And when they were a kid, they were like, that's that's St.

Patrick's foot. That's his footprint. Like he stood here once. Now, the thing is about it's bigger than this table. So he must have been a giant of a man. But I was told the footprint got put there because he jumped from this part of Scurries onto an island many miles across the way in the sea. So not only a giant, but a giant with fantastic vertical. Could you imagine this man in the NBA? Unbelievable. Wow. Uh, that would be, yeah, that

would be something. Well, I appreciate the history lesson, even though the, um, listen, we don't need to get into the nitty gritty. I thought that you'd give us cause what last time I was in Ireland, you were like that yellow door, this patron saint walked out. You knew everything. And now when it comes to the most famous of Irish holidays, you're like, yeah, I think that's the story. I'm not quite sure. I mean, like a quick Wikipedia search could have told us, you know? Yeah, I know. But it's the essence.

You know what I mean? It's not, you know, you're getting the real shit here for me as always. Well, speaking of looking at the moment to speak about what happened. This is incredible. We get a side by side. I mean, it's amazing. If only, if only. I am not able under advice of legal counsel to speak about the actions that that led me to this point.

I thought you loved Tessa, bro. Yeah. Listen, I just said I am not at liberty. That's the best part about this. I have been advised by legal counsel. I cannot. I cannot. It's just the the facial hair is just a little different if it was honestly. The hair kind of like throws out a little bit too much but it looks like Rick's little brother. If I let my hair grow it's there and also the like the patchiness of his beard is like perfectly mine too. Like it's quite jarring.

Wait, Jordan, can you do like a, can you keep like a semi opaque up and I'll just like go onto it. Here we go, wait, wait. Wait, wait. That is incredible. It really looks like your younger brother. Yeah.

That is unbelievable. His younger brother that's pissed that his older brother has a Tesla. Yes. Listen, it's a family affair. We're not going to discuss these things. It's a private matter. And thank you for respecting our wishes at this time. For those wondering, that is allegedly Daniel Clark Pounder, 24 of James Island.

Hell of a name. Pounder. Pounder. Of South Carolina. That is the DCP. He was arrested and charged with arson for throwing molotov cocktails at a Tesla charging station. Is this a thing that people do now?

Yeah. I feel like the Tesla backlash is coming, you know? All right. That was the DCP, man. They never found out. Speaking of which, you alluded to this, Pete Sey, but Conor McGregor at the White House today, and it wasn't just, you know, I'm going to meet with, you know, like we had Bo Nicolani's at the inauguration,

like he's in the press briefing room. Like this is C-SPAN footage. It's wild. He's at the dais, man. He's at the press briefing room. Like this is C-span footage. It's wild. He's at the dais, man. He's at the dais answering questions. It's wild. And he's talking about the state of the country, immigration. I mean, look at that.

There's people standing around who I presume are members of the press. There's a press secretary. Press secretary right to his left later on hanging with the president of the United States, Donald Trump. In the Oval? Yes, in the Oval Office. What has been the reaction to Conor McGregor's visit to the White House? It's not been very good, lads. Obviously we have parliamentary people out here who aren't Ireland's favorite people by any stretch, but they're obviously very upset about it The other they said about because like any any celebrity could go visit the president. So what are they upset about? well, I think it's his delivery of a message from From the dais about the state of Ireland, which which he's not incorrect about but it I think it does feel like a

state of Ireland, which he's not incorrect about, but I think it does feel like a great PR win for him, I'd say. Like a huge moment for him, but I think the Irish people don't really like the idea of McGregor being a spokesman for Ireland. Him there to represent the Irish people, I'd say, is probably their issue with it. It seems like he, I don't think you need to be like some sort of like, you know, detective to figure this out. It seems like he is considering a run for, you know, some sort of seat, some sort of role in politics in parliament. Is this possible? And when is the next election? I think I think current president, which he got actually no power.

It's a symbolic Position here. They don't really is it is there a prime minister? There's a tea shock yet. Um Is it is it like England? Yeah, that would be our version of a prime minister. Yeah, that's that's correct. Are there elections for that? Yes, yeah, and winner. Is that what he's? Yes. And when is that what he's wanting to run for? Because it's no, he said no, he seems to be talking to an American audience about a presidential

run in Ireland. Okay, that's, that seems to be what's happening here. I've told you this before. The view of MacGregor in America and in Ireland is very different. And I think, I think that's probably why people have an issue with this in terms of like him being pulled forward as this great redeemer of the Irish people or something like that. And I think that's probably why people have an issue with this in terms of him being put forward as this great redeemer of the Irish people or something like that. I think that probably rubs Irish people up the wrong way.

But if you're Conor McGregor, this is perfect. What's being said about Conor here since November, obviously, when he fell liable for sexual assault in a civil court here, something like this changes that dramatically. You know, like they're no longer talking about that. They're talking about why is Conor McGregor with President Trump in the White House, why is Conor McGregor up here speaking about these hot-button topics in Irish politics? I think it's a good move for him in that regard, honestly. And so, and there you have it. Look at that crew. There's the whole family and there's Elon Musk that's just over there in the middle. Look at that crew. There's the whole family. And there's Elon Musk.

This is just over there in the middle. Speaking of Teslas. And the gentleman, who's the gentleman? I believe it's Mark Burnett, like TV's Mark Burnett. Oh yeah, it is from Survivor. The creator of Survivor? Yes. You don't hear that tagline too often these days.

Which one? TV's Mark Burnett. Yeah. Wow, that's mark Burnett. Yeah He looks different. It's a wild saying though, isn't it? Oh because of the apprentice because the apprentice Yeah, but why is he in that picture? It's a V's mark Burnett. Shout out Never heard of him. Is he? I don't think he's our you know, he's one of the, the, the all time greats. No, he's actually, yeah, he's a British television.

Reality show. He's a sacrilege. I'd be in a fist fight with him later on in the lawn. What a time. Do we know, does he have any other plans? Okay, so wait, regarding the presidential, because you say like it doesn't hold, is that something that you get via election or does your party get elected? I think you need to be elected by a certain number of people in the arachnids, like in government. Yeah, I believe you have to be

kind of nominated, there'll be several people who run for it. And then you can get elected. Like then I think there is an election process like we'd vote for it. But it is a symbolic like it wouldn't be like like an Irish president doesn't get elected and start like say, like in Trump situation, like these tariffs and stuff like that, you would have no kind of constitutional power like that. They sign off on constitutions that have been brought forward by our government, the DAAL, but they don't have any kind of

power as such, if you get me. Okay. All right. Well, wild times. It's truly bizarre. I will say, no one that I met today didn't speak about it. Oh yeah, I'm sure it's everywhere. It's yeah, it's a it's a massive hot button issue. It's and I'm sure he'd rather people be talking about this than the way they were talking about him and look like I think it's been fairly clear how Irish people feel about McGregor even through the Paul Hughes thing,

the outpouring of support for him when McGregor questioned his Irish nationality, and then last week, a clip went viral around here. I know he shared it with a, with a few of the lads. And I might be yourself. He's like at a Limp Bizkit. He announced he's going to see Limp Bizkit of all bands of Rolling Fame and the direct three arena. They had the venue where everyone, this is where he put away Brandeis

when everybody in the world was like, we want whatever this guy is selling. Fred Durst, the lead singer of Limp Bizkit, of Rolling Fame, he announced that Conor McGregor was there and 10,000 people booed him in the arena. So I mean, obviously 10,000 people isn't all of Ireland and he certainly does have support still and there's lots of guys who have really big online followings who put out this stuff like it. It's great father for them and but i do think he is a long way from being. Scene as a voice for irish people are a guy that is and lifted a loft. the Irish people to be the voice of the nation. I think that's, I think he was much, much,

way more like that 10 years ago than he is today. And he wasn't even trying to do it then. Let's see what else comes of this visit. Wanted to put this past weekend to bed. And in the midst of that card on Saturday, like I said, entertaining fights, entertaining results, certainly a lot of finishes, stoppages, submissions, et cetera.

The, the UFC admin was, was feeling itself, uh, because they tweeted this, which got everyone in a tizzy fight nights at the apex are so boring. Make that nine finishes on the night at UFC Vegas one of four side note. I hate the fact that we call it UFC Vegas one of four. There have been, uh, way more than 104 events in Vegas, way more than 104 events at the Apex, way more than 104 fight nights in Las Vegas, but nevertheless, that's just a weird thing

that I get hung up on. This was great. To the 26-year-old who's running the account, God bless, I'm sure everyone loved it. I'm sure the bosses loved it. But it was, You know, to the 26 year old who's running the account, God bless, I'm sure everyone loved it, I'm sure the bosses loved it, but it was, you know, it was pretty off the mark from what we've been talking about regarding the Apex, and I'd like to think that they know that. No one has ever said that the fights at the Apex are boring. No one has ever said that in a vacuum, the fights at the

Apex are bad fights. These are UFC fights. They're not quite UFC caliber like what UFC caliber once meant back in 2010, 2011, when you had to have a certain amount of fights and there was a certain sort of like, you know, there was a process to get into the UFC. Now you can have just a couple and get into the UFC. So no one ever shits on the fights or the fighters. When we talk about the events, feeling soulless, feeling empty, lacking buzz, lacking excitement, all these things and more,

we're talking about the event itself. We're talking about the venue itself. We're talking about the production. We're talking about how it comes across on television. And to ignore that or to deflect is disingenuous because they know exactly what we're talking about and it's getting harder and harder to switch around. You're watching, you know, on Saturday I'm watching whether it's NCAA, you know, conference tournaments or other sports, NBA, whatever, and then you switch to this and it still feels like it's 2020 and we keep talking about this. We keep going on and on about this and I can't imagine that the fighters believe that this is the issue. Like no one is saying that your fights are bad. No one is saying that your fights are boring. It's the production and here I see Mr. Hinata Moikano say on his YouTube channel, and I saw this courtesy of MMA fighting.

There's no dynamic like other fight nights on the road. It's good when it's elsewhere because all the athletes go to a different city and they call TV stations, radio people, and you do a fight night with media day and open workouts, and that makes people excited to watch the fights but nobody cares when it's the UFC apex. UFC apex cards must stop and again hat tip to MA fighting for getting the quote this is according to Henato Moekano on his YouTube channel Henato Money Moekano. Look no further than Ignacio Bahamandes and Mauricio Ruffi. Same finish, same kick. One gets talked about as one of the great knockouts of our time. The other completely forgotten about. Completely forgotten about.

And who was it? It was Bo Nickel earlier today. You lose the virality. You lose the crowd pop. You lose the reaction. You lose the interview afterwards. You lose the interaction with the crowd pop, you lose the reaction, you lose the interview afterwards, you lose the interaction with the crowd, whether it's Brian Battle in Paris or someone being treated like a hero. I love when you hear like Joe Martinez who's fantastic, he's like, everybody make some noise if you are

ready and there's no one there. Or when Bisping does the post fight interview and he goes like, everyone give it up for so and so and there's no one there. Who are we kidding? Enough is enough and if we're in an era where the UFC is playing this game where they're going to negotiate through the media and whatnot and the rubber is going to meet the road with this new deal, I pray to God because part of the onus has to be on the new broadcast partner. The new broadcast partner has to say we don't want this. We don't want this product. We want these exact fights. Give us these exact fights. Put them at the at the palms or the virgin or whatever the venue is called these days. The Hard Rock in front of 2,000 people. Put them in an arena, do better, because the athletes deserve better, their teams deserve better, their families deserve better,

they can't even get tickets to some of these events. Oh, it is driving me nuts. And you know what's the craziest part about it? They're not even trying. NXT went to the Apex and they put on a great show, and it was lively and it looked cool, and it actually had like it looked cool and it actually had like some sort of buzz and atmosphere. They're not even trying and some of you guys,

I bet you in the chat right now it says, oh look at the casual. It's some sort of like point of pride to say like yeah I suffered through seven hours of an empty warehouse card with fights that had no atmosphere whatsoever, no buzz whatsoever. Sometimes I'll listen to the fights in the car on SiriusXM and it is unbelievable. You can hear the corners. It sounds like a sparring match at a gym. And it's like this point of pride like, ah, you're a casual if you don't appreciate that. If you don't see the joy in watching pure martial arts, ah, you're a casual. Fuck off. This is not the major leagues of MMA. This is not the major leagues of sport. I'm so freaking tired of it and luckily we don't get it this

weekend. We don't get it in Mexico on March 29th. We'll get it a few weeks later with with Lerone Murphy and Josh Emmett but please God if I get that just ask for one thing as it pertains I'm done with unions I'm done with revenue sharing I'm done with all these things we've talked about these things until we're blue they're about to sign a deal worth billions of dollars and the fighters aren't even gonna bat an eye they're not even gonna think twice as they're getting 0% of that and all the other athletes are getting 50% of that I'm over that we're done with that Please for the love of God, MMA Gods, TV Gods, streaming Gods,

whoever you may be, please make this come to an end. Please. I beg of you. Enough already. I never thought it could get worse than the fight nights on FS1 or FS2 that would start at 10 o'clock and finish at 1 30. Do you remember those days? How awful those days were? Every fight night used to start at 10 p.m. and they would stretch them because they had no other programming to show on Fox and it would go to one or 1 30 a.m. Every single one week after week after week after week. I never thought it could get worse. We're now worse. We're now worse off. This is awful. This is awful. And Dolizze and Chidi and Jokowani and all these other guys deserve way better. And if you are a true fan of MMA, you recognize that

and you demand better. Tired of it. Tired of it. So they thought they were cooking with that tweet. To me, it just looked like they were either like blissfully ignorant or, I don't know, missing the whole point. I don't know what it is and what's and what's and what's the Drake reference what are we doing I miss that one what does that mean what does it think that might just like match the what's the what is it from the SpongeBob text theme thing of it I don't think it's like Drake specific I think it's just no no I know but what's the there's a there's a kinetic there's there's some. No, no, no, I know, but what's the, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's some like thing there.

What is he, what's the meme there? What's the Drake? It looks like he's doing like the ooh. Stop. Oh, got it, got it, got it. It's not Drake. It could have been any. No, I know it's not Drake, but like what from that?

I didn't get it. So you're saying it's not really Drake. I get that, I get that. Well, it is Drake, it is Drake. Oh, he's just saying ooh. Yeah, he's calling out all the people that don't like the API. I like you don't like the episode. I like you don't understand it because I think it's a

tacit acknowledgement of like, yeah, people say this. If I was the UFC, I would never acknowledge that people say this. I would never talk about the fact that people are saying this. You are now acknowledging that people say these fight nights are boring. I would have never even addressed it.

I don't know what the- But again, I don't even know if it's accurate to say boring it's not boring it's what you said which is the the atmosphere is so long shit it's zero it's nothing it has the fights are fight they're great worse than that though it's a tiered structure where we know that these cards are gonna be full of Dana White contender series fighters and they're not gonna be high level MMA especially at the bottoms of the cards so you're acknowledging a lack of quality amongst the cards. People don't say the cards are boring because two fighters of any level if they're equally matched the skill if

they're equally matched in terms of skill level and kind of a station it can produce an exciting fight like that you can find a more exciting fight between two low-level guys versus two high-level guys right. Magomed and Alex Pereira are very high-level fighters. It was not a great fight. You can find a great fight between two guys who are never gonna sniff championship status. It's not about boring or not boring. It's about quality. And these cards are not good, quite frankly. They're pretty poor quality in terms of what we used to get for fight Nights. And so it's that.

It's quality and it's atmosphere. It is nothing to do with boring or not boring. And the UFC could put on better cards. That's what I'm saying. It's quality. Yeah, this idea that like, oh, we have to put on a certain type of card because it's at the apex is total hogwash. It's bollocks. It's not true. They could put on any card they want they have the deepest roster

They've got names. They've got they've got Resources, they could do whatever the hell they want. They are choosing to do it this way They are choosing to do this way They are choosing to put on a card because they don't have to sell a single ticket to these They don't how you don't see this and again just look up history go to pre 2020 and look at how many shows they did and look at where those shows happen and compare it to now. It's the same amount of shows. Same amount.

Nothing's changed. Yeah, we actually, Connor and I looked at this on Thursday. Starting in 2014, they've done 40 plus shows. It's been like the same number since then. It has nothing to do with the Apex. Since the Fox deal. The Apex is not giving them the ability to do that. No. There's a correlation between

The the lack of card quality and the apex but not a causation as you said it is not because they are at the apex Do we need to have lower end cards? the reason we're having lower end cards is because they are replacing all the the low and middle end talent with Dana White Contender series Guys and girls who are in very low contracts. And all they have to do is keep churning that over and keep feeding that process, feeding that machine, feeding that mill. And they bring them in.

And then once you advance to a certain level where your contract is no longer worth being able to keep you in that replacement level talent, you don't have to stay. And then they get rid of the middle. So it's by design. It's a business move. It's good for business,

but is it good for viewership potentially? Oh man, and our saving grace is this new deal. And so look- Okay, brass tacks. Do you anticipate anybody actually holding the UFC's feet to the fire in terms of quality? If it's ESPN, I don't have high hopes. Cause I could tell you, even in the pandemic,

even in the pandemic, I was complaining about the Apex. And this is when I was working there. And I had a discussion with someone who was pretty high up and saying, we don't criticize the pandemic, excuse me, we don't criticize the Apex around here. The Apex saved our jobs. That's the truth. The Apex saved our jobs because if there

wasn't an apex we could have put on these fights and and the sport couldn't kept on going that's the general sentiment now perhaps things have changed I don't know four years later perhaps but if it's ESPN it doesn't seem like they seem to care let's separate the apex for a second yeah I'm talking quality I'm talking card quality as an as a of reference, we just saw that report that we were talking about earlier, right? These pay-per-views are no good. They're not selling anything. Well, there's a way you can sell more pay-per-views, right? And that is by putting on better quality cards. If you have that Alex fight, and then maybe you put Volkanovsky under that, and then maybe you

put, like, you can stack the deck and you can have better quality paper views. The the UFC is not in a position to proactively do that unless there is somebody who pushes it back against them and demands that they do that right if the fans are not buying and the broadcast partner in this case ESPN who is selling those pay-per-views says we need something higher quality then the UFC is incentivized but short of that they're not going to be do you foresee any world where they go we need a high quality pay-per-view, we need a higher quality fight night, we need to get out of the apex? I struggle to imagine it.

The business is so good. Okay here's where it gets interesting. You'll see this in the NFL. The NFL is split between ESPN ABC, Fox, CBS, Amazon, Netflix in play, and you'll see this thing where it's like hey Amazon's not happy with the Thursday night package or ESPN wasn't happy with the Monday night package, we need to beef up the NBC Sunday night package etc. Point is if there will be multiple homes for the UFC you'll start to see a thing like we're not happy with the

product compared to the quality of the cards, compared to what they're getting. But right now it's all under one roof and there aren't going to be that many suitors compared to like what the NFL that what the NFL has is, is insane. And it's a testament to just how powerful they are. But look what the NBA was able to do for themselves. ESPN, Amazon, NBC, not bad.

Um, NHL has two, most people have more than one. And so. If they're crazy, how competition could actually lead to increasing the quality of something that's yeah. And what a novel competition coming from the PFLs of the world. And by the way, there's a, there's a great

correlation, like some of the most boring periods, stretches of time in pro wrestling history was like the, you know, Oh three, Oh four, Oh five, Oh six. I mean, this is just me speaking. That's when I kind of like lost interest in it. There was no competition. There was no pushing them. AEW comes and look at what happens, right?

AEW deserves a lot of credit for the resurgence of WWE because it made them, in my opinion, up their game. There is no one, there is no one threatening the UFC right now. They can post by. Yes, but in this case we're talking about competition amongst the broadcasters. Yes, so the only hope that we have is competition amongst the broadcasters who say, you're giving them better than us. We want better.

We don't want the Apex cards. We want UFC Mexico. We want UFC London. And how that whole thing is going to break down, I'm not quite sure. I don't think anyone knows. We certainly don't know because we're still in that negotiation period that's exclusive to ESPN until April 15th. But that's our only hope. And there's a chance, by the way, that they just resign with ESPN. ESPN is very happy. UFC is happy. And we're going to get the same old thing.

Why, you know, why change something that's going seemingly well for everyone? Who knows? But that's my wish that they finally pull the plug on this. Again, Contender Series, Tough, it's actually perfect for those. But we have seen what WWE did with NXT, same venue, same configuration, it's the same type of ring, cage, it's all the same size. You can spruce it up, but they're not they're not sprucing it up I mean, you know logic would dictate they're getting paid one amount now that pay that number is gonna be exponentially more Certainly they could reinvest that money that they're gonna be getting that extra money and put it into the product and make a higher quality product certainly

Maybe that maybe up the bonus. I don't think there's a chance. No, I know I do that Share the revenue Maybe that, maybe up the bonuses. Oh, I'm kidding. I don't think there's a chance. No, I know. I was going to say, they're up the bonuses. All right. Revenue shares. Yeah, yeah. Share the revenue. Up the bonuses. Yeah, yeah. We got a good student going.

This is going to be great. This is going to be so cool. It's going to be a whole new day. Yeah. Can I just say, as a European fan, it's absolute torture. I can't. I can't imagine.

Waiting for GC's leg in a parallel light to come through. That's the only reason I stayed up, man. That was it. We were having a bit of a crack in the group. And he came through baby. Come on. We're back. Look, the team effort, by the way. I mean, should we talk about the HDAL by the way?

Listen, I wasn't going to say, but yes. It was good. It was good for all of us. It's absolute. There used to be a real, and look, I'm sure there still are a lot of Europeans watching the Apex cards. I find myself watching them, even though I deliberately said to myself I wouldn't last year I still happen to watch an awful lot of them, vast majority, but there used to be kind of this, a real kind of feeling amongst the European fans, you can see them all together kind of talking about the experience of watching these through the nights. A big drop off, you don't see it anymore with these Apex cars. They don't really feel, they don't feel like the product is worth it at this stage. You'll just sleep and wake up in the

morning and check out the results or something. But I've noticed a huge drop off because of the them. Sorry, go ahead, Rick. I was just going to say, I think it's important to acknowledge that I think this is by design, right? I don't think this is an accident. I don't think this is an accident I don't think it's like a oh god you guys don't want to stay up and watch these cars anymore the UFC doesn't care because there's enough people who will stay up and watch and there's enough people on ESPN plus who are watching and so they can continue to turn this out and they don't care if Pizzi Carol stays up they're like okay we've got a few million over here that are going to be watching it. Jesus Christ. Sorry, Pizzi. Don't isolate me like this.

But the Pizzi Carrol, you know, a few blocks over, they don't care. They've just, the business is so good right now, they don't have to think about these things. They don't have to care if you're doing it. That's dangerous terrain. I feel like that's dangerous terrain. I feel like what Ariel's saying here is like, I don't know how the fuck it would happen. I don't know where this competition comes from, but it's when people start taking liberties with their fan, their fan base that it eventually catches up to them. I don't, I don't see it catching up to them anytime soon. As we always say, they're absolutely killing it. They are leaps and bounds years, decades ahead of any competition they have. Um, but it just feels like everything we're mentioned, revenue share, all this stuff, it's beggars belief how it's continued for so long when every other sport is coming along, you have these lads wanting to jump into boxing. How do they answer that problem?

We'll just take over boxing. It's unbelievable as a business model. How could you complain but it is taken away from the enjoyment I feel and we've talked about the pay-per-views not being what they used to be we've talked about the fight notes not being what they used to be and I did see a report last week talking about pay-per-view numbers I haven't looked into any more than that but it just doesn't seem to be affecting them at all. Well consider consider a point Ariel has always made, and I agree with it, and it should be continued to be restated. USC is much more similar to WWE than traditional sports.

Imagine if the NBA commissioner said, you know what, Los Angeles, you're going to lose 10 games a year and we're actually going to just put them in a bubble. Well, no, because the team owner in this case owns the arena and needs to pack that arena and you need to travel there to do the games. These venues, they're benefiting from when the UFC comes to town, but the UC is under no obligation to go to everywhere. They can just post these fights for free in their apex and continue to make money on the back end of it and keep costs low. It would never float in other professional sports because those other teams are part of the ownership and have stake in the league and its success and they need people to come to their arenas. If I'm one of the owners in Los Angeles, New

York, Philadelphia, we need to collaborate in some certain regard because now we need to have people traveling around the country, teams coming to our arenas and we fill it. The UFC doesn't have any obligation nor do they have any pressure to do so. They are, they are a one man band and they can go and do whatever they want to do the same way WWE can. I, I think they will be a little bit protected from some of this broadcaster competition that Ariel is, is saying because they have so clearly tiered the product, the pay per view people will know what the pay per view looks like.

And the fight night people will know what the fight nights look like and they'll have so clearly tiered the product, the that like, hey, we run this whole thing, you wanna be in business with us, you're gonna take cues from us. Even going back to that Mark Shapiro conference call where he talked about the boxing, like we're gonna control it, we're gonna do the production of this, that, and the other. They're really the only entity, I'm not gonna include WWE into this because that's a show and it's not like a live sporting event

where they do the broadcast deal, you're not producing it, we are. So we're gonna tell you what's best for you. And for the most part, these 55-year-old executives are sitting back being like, yep, I mean, the track record speaks for itself. Who the hell am I to tell Dana White what to think, what to do with his product?

So we're just gonna sit back and let you do it. Who am I to tell Ari Emanuel what to do with his product, or Mark Shapiro? So whatever happens come 26, they're still going to control it, they're still going to produce it, and you know, does it start to trickle down? Perhaps, but my dream is that there is no trickling down and that they freaking pull the plug on this and get the shows back out there. And again, you want to have it a tiered system

where it's in front of 2000 people and then 10,000 and then 18,000, great, great. There's a massive difference between 2000 and six people at the apex. Like that shot of Dominic Cruz getting his flowers and there's like four empty seats behind him. And it wasn't just four empty seats among the sea of a thousand that were filled.

There were just four seats that were empty behind them. There was no one even there. They couldn't even seat fill it like they do at the Oscars. They couldn't even have someone sitting there just for just for optics sake. Come on. And by the way, I don't get hung up on the app stuff. I know like people get crazy, but like the combo of those events feeling soulless and like, you know, Apex show Saturday, four o'clock, you got things to do, you got kids, my thing is like, I like to listen, so walk the dog, you're making dinner, this and that. The app keeps crashing. Is no one else having this problem? What is it with my app?

Why can't I not go two and a half minutes, more than two and a half minutes without it crashing? Does it any- I really have not had any problems with it. I don't have that much problems. The entire time. It's driving me nuts. It just goes two and a half minutes and crashes. That's it Have you updated the app sometimes the problems between the chair and have you tried unplugging and replugging it I?

Watch a uoC foy pass myself, and it's fantastic must be nice must be nice Out there, I know I know you're not the only one I've never had problems with the SPM plus all right super chats Frankie Try again Yeah, that's much more like it baby, what do we got Frankie? Let me get my notes together. Oh wow did I catch you off guard with that one? I Mean I thought we were rounding third. So Jake from Wendy City writes in, question for Ariel and the boys, Adidas or Nike? I have been always more of a Nike guy.

I'm more of a Nike guy myself. Both. Yeah, Nike all day. Yeah. Adidas. Wow, well you're wearing Adidas? Certainly, certainly when it comes to like basketball shoes, like to me it was, it was as a kid, it was, it was only Nike.

Now when it comes to football shoes, Pizzi, I feel like Adidas has a much better, my kids, I think- It's Coach Juarez, because of Predators and then Nike will come back, Mercurials. I was like, wore Mercurials because the first RNIs, remember them in 98 World Cup that all silver with the yellow swoosh Yeah, and I like I like a D this clothes like a you know like tracksuit said nice But I probably have more Mike Mike stuff the shoes. I love air max I love of like every pair of air max. I love them. I love that you caught Nike Yeah, yeah, so call it Nike. Yeah.

So European of you. Yeah. Yeah. You know the shell color? Adidas, what'd you call Adidas? Adidas. Adidas. I actually call it Adidasler.

Wow. Wow. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. What else? Mason Bickner writes, just wanted to say I'm seeing Shaq play an EDM set on Saturday and I'll have Edwards and Brady on the phone

mid-rave, much love. Yeah, I saw. Shaq would appreciate that. I saw Shaq with Marab and Roman Dolizze over the weekend. Do you guys see that? Yeah. You know, I referred to Roman Dolizze as the pride of Georgia on my BedMGM video and then I got a lot

of people say he's not the pride of Georgia. I was like, you know, there could be more than one pride, right? Who did they suggest? Well, I guess you lot of people say he's not the pride of Georgia I was like you know there could be more than one pride right who did they suggest well I guess you'd have to say he's one of the prides of Georgia you know I mean he's I feel like you could say that about multiple people right I don't know do they not claim Roman I think they claim him yeah for sure taking a bit literally aren't they? I got like five or six comments by five or six comments. By the way- He was the one and the only. Were they even Georgian? Did you verify that they were Georgian people?

No I have no idea. Is it true that Vittori thought that he was fighting Roman Kopilov? That was hilarious with Branniston. I mean between that and the cup thing- The backwards pants? The backwards pants is classic but I don't know. Is he just a legendary piss-taker? Backwards pants was Photoshopped this time though

The backwards pen there's another fit resurfaced, but it was a viral no no no I know that but he forgot his car a lot of you Believe yeah, I did forget his car. Yeah, now doesn't strike me as a very Italian dude You know fair all of the times the team the team could have helped them out there Like that's kind of like, you know, yeah, you got a few jobs on fire Like help me have my cup. It is crazy that he's he's still ranked eighth and he hasn't fought in two years I'll probably drop out of that. Yeah, what else? So then braily press wants to know boys in the back to Miami UFC 314 So then, Braily Press wants to know, boys in the back to Miami, UFC 314?

No, we spent the travel budget on the trip. Oh, I don't know. Like, tell us, what other trips? Look, you'll find out what the rest of them are. Yeah, what other trips? Do you want to go to Miami 314? No. Frank, you're setting a separate trip now?

No, I'm just making sure she's invited, so. Oh, me and you. PT and I are going to have a great time. Actually, no, PT, I was thinking we would band together and do our own thing, but apparently you were- Why are you trying to make division but apparently you were in the vision well and why am I trying to make I am the victim of division what do you talk about division I have been excluded that's fine listen Ariel do you want to come no I don't he never wanted to come I'm going I'm going to Riyadh.

By the way, 24 hours, I would have been open. Yeah, right. Would have been open. I would have been on the flight. Listen, you can tell yourself whatever you want, but I think I have shown a willingness to get out of my comfort zone. And you guys can laugh, that's fine,

but we'll see who's the last one laughing. We'll see. I mean, I got the last one laughing. We'll see. I mean, I got a lot of big plans. I got a lot of trips. Are you looking at your lock screen on your phone right now? He's counseling like you're in New York as we speak. He's the counselor. Yeah, I got a lot of things.

All right, what else? He's like, we don't need you for that Katie Taylor with PT. What was that, PT? I was saying you're counseling my New York trip on your phone there as we're speaking We're listening man listen We're listening

If you don't want to tell us about those trips else all good what else? Cledo asked Rick sounds a little under the weather. Oh I heard yeah, Jackman flew around to I pressed him about it at lunch He was like no he was sniffling I feel fine lunch table and the lady up front was like is he okay? I'm like she heard it all never happen like is that why you didn't go to the the Nasdaq thing Yeah, it's gonna spread around the control room like wildfire if we're being honest. Yeah, I just got out on bail this morning because

That's why all I gotta say is Iowa better watch out. We got patient zero of the Jackman flu Yeah, I know you got you got some time. It's okay. Yeah, well, I think we'll be okay by then Frank No, we'll be on round three of the Jackman flu by then maybe four round two these soft people I just I just can never it never made anything. It any sense. Dude's nose is a faucet over here. Yeah. I feel fine. Porn buckets of snide. Sneeze like eight or nine times back here.

These people need to live in hyperbaric chambers. Running a 102 fever. They have bubble. They need to all have their own individual little bubble. Ricky's like, I'm not sick at all. Has all the symptoms of sickness. Never been sick, never gonna be sick, forever. Well he says that while he sounds sick.

What else? Elijah One Dream writes, Unreal night for me on Saturday, one provincial, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Provincial. Provincial JV Basketball Championship with a team I coached had my best night of betting up plus 16. Wow.

Two nine units. I mean that's a hell of a night. That's a hell of a night, That's a hell of a night. Shout out to Olajuwon. Olajuwon, who holds it down for us. He's been doing some moderating, yes, along with. Say it. Fuck.

Brandon. Brandon, yes, of course. Yeah, he's a legend. One of our most loyal viewers always pops up. He was actually invited to Iowa as well. Yeah, I bet. I mean, he's pretty close. He's in Winnipeg, I think.

So he's pretty close. We're gonna see him there. It's a hop skip. Yeah, I'm not going to Iowa. I'm busy. No, no, you're invited. We know. I'm going to Riyadh instead, May 4th, you know, Cannella. I'm on the private plane with the whole crew.

Enjoy, brother, we're happy for you. Yeah, yeah, man. Wish I could say the same. What else? Sucker-free rights. I don't understand who's... okay we got to acknowledge that laugh. It's a great laugh. Party laugh. Sucker-free rights. I don't understand. It comes in dos. It comes in dos. I don't understand who's paying $70 per month for a pay-per-view. Do you think we all see pay-per-view model die in our lifetimes? It'd be sweet if we could just stream the numbered events for an annual prize. Okay, so this is another thing that's been brought up.

I mean, they're pretty much the last ones left, let's be honest. And it's an incredible testament. They were once banned from pay-per-view, and now they're pretty much the last ones left. WWE isn't on pay-per-view. You know, there's the odd boxing these days on pay-per-view, but one can make a very strong case that they should probably get off it in order to get more popular. It is programmed in people's brains, like you want to watch UFC 3, 13, 14, 15, 16, it's a pay-per-view product. And look, we don't know what the numbers are. There used to be a time where it was on in demand, it was on direct TV, it was on all the different cable operators.

So there was a way, the Dave Meltzer's of the world would get some sort of sense, but now it's under lock and key one place and they're not making those numbers public. So it's really hard to get a sense for what they're doing, but I've heard people talk about, okay, they cut a deal with Netflix, you know, sort of like WWE's deal, right? The PLEs are, you know, they're, they're, if you're

outside of the U.S., they're on Netflix, no extra charge. If you have Peacock, you get them there. I don't think they're there yet. So I don't see it going away. One thing that I've seen suggested, you get some sort of pass, like the NBA league pass type of thing, or Sunday ticket, where you pay X dollars for the full year. And I struggle to see that being a real thing because as you guys know, you get a big McGregor card or a big John Jones card,

or these days, like we've talked about superstars few and far between, but you get those big McGregor card or a big John Jones card or these days, like we've talked about superstars few and far between, but you get those big jolts, you end up losing. Yes, but you end up gaining on the lower tier. Most people think of this, and this person in particular, and I'm not trying to single them out, but everybody thinks of this as like a fan appetite perspective thing, it is not.

This has nothing to do with how much people love or don't love pay per views, how much people willing to spend. It is purely an economic situation. If the new broadcast partner, let's call it Netflix, right? If Netflix goes, we are willing to pay you X and we will eliminate the pay per view model and it is good enough business for the UFC for them to do that the way it was good enough business for WWE to do that with

Peacock they can do it and they will probably do it it is all an economics thing it is all a what is the bottom line for the UFC if it is worth their while to do it they will do it the same way the guaranteed minimums that ESPN is offering them if they can find a system like that where they no longer have to make the pay-per-views of a certain caliber and quality and and invest marketing dollars into it, they will find a way to do that. So this is really, it's not so much the economics of the individual consumer, it's the economics of what their broadcast agreement is ultimately going to be. And if Netflix can up the price to buy this and you don't have to be on

pay-per-view anymore I think the UFC would gladly not offer a pay-per-view anymore what else any chance we'll get Brenda Schwab versus GC on the bike wow that's a weird one there's got to be I mean like there's got to be some sort of filter here just because you're you're paying $279, I don't know if you make the cut. You know what I mean? Like there's gotta be some sort of like, really, $279 Canadian? You pay a dollar, Frank, he's reading that bad boy.

Yeah, come on. Like there's gotta be some sort of checks and balances here. For fuck's sake. Me and Frank conferred on that one, we misread. We really did think it said Brendan there. I mean, still. Reading comprehension, still working products. What are we doing here? I don't know. I thought what are we read the super chats as they come what are we doing here?

What are we done here anything else? Yeah, we got one more. Okay from one GC to another We need to get the parley recaps back happy st. Patrick's Day lads. Well, you found out You guys won and h-tile so it was plus 1,000. I like to think it was the luck of the Irish, if I'm being honest. Was it plus 1,000? Well, we're batting 1,000. Oh.

You know. You thought that I was talking about the odds were plus 1,000. Yeah. What were the odds? Dalitse was like plus 135. Yeah. It was pretty decent.

Or Parlet was shorter than that. It was weird though. I mean, I was watching Boys in the Back on Thursday, and I said I want to be back in, and I picked Alite, and there I was, and the thing just got ignored. It was a people invited to Iowa and- Ah, okay, no, I don't make- You hit us with the H, though.

Nah, I said I wanted in. I said I wanted in, and I even gave you a pick. I think Frank heard it, right? Frank, you saw that, right, when I gave a pick? I heard the H-Tone. I like how Frank has become the one ally. Frank is just the echoing board. Just whatever you say Frank's going with.

You know what? I'm starting to rethink the Paul Bearers list, Frank. I'm telling you, man. Need a DJ for the funeral? I got you. I'm starting to think that maybe you were the one to always have my back and not let me down. Is it true you want to be buried in Des Moines?

Nope, nope, nope, no interest. Could it be there? Nope, swinging a miss on that one. That's the pulverist status it goes. Anything else? Anything else, Frankie? When I said it was the last one, it was the last one. Well, I didn't know if there was anything else, that's all.

I see there's a Monday Night Raw going on right now in Brussels. Wait, what? Yeah, it's going on right now and John Cena has finally re-emerged and I see that he's cut a mean promo on Cody Rhodes, so go check that out. Is this the first time he spoke? Yeah, first time. Is this the... Yeah, but wait.

Do they normally do that? They don't do raw, like they adjust it for the- Yeah, well this is the new era. You know, Netflix, look at that. Oh, look at that poor youngster. Why is it a heartbreak emoji? Because he cut a mean promo. He's a heel now. Oh, because the kid is like-

F them kids. Oh, wow. Damn, that kid bought the- You got the awesome- The Brussels merch. Yes. With the hat? Yes. Yo, poor kid. the Yes with the hat. Yeah Poor party got the hairline started as well. See ya. Yeah, I heard he did. I heard the bald spots gone Yeah, what did you?

I heard he got worked on he got the bald spot. How did that happen? So quickly by the way? I know what you John Cena That picture actually makes me sad. That kid is like- I got that, P.T. What is that kid, like eight years old? I wanna believe that John Cena's looking directly at him too. He finds him in the crowd and he's just like, you. Now I kinda-

That's classic heel shit, by the way, like you heel off on the kids, imagine? Well, that was the thing that people always said he wouldn't turn heel because of the kids, because of the make-a-wish because all this And now here he is cutting a promo on those damn kids. I like this that they're airing it live and not tape delay It is 2025. It's on Netflix. You can watch it. You can go to the start I can I'm midway through the Andrew Schultz special and I have to say it's it's amazing

What a guy that Andrew Schultz and I keep hearing that there's there's some emotion coming he's talking a lot about his family and his wife and IVF and all this, but it doesn't feel like a comedy special where he's just kind of going all over the map. It feels like there's an actual story being told, which is really great. So shout out to Schultz,

who is just killing the game right now. He too is on Netflix. If you haven't seen it, it's called Life, and I highly recommend it. I haven't finished it. It's been like 11 or so viewings, but we're inching closer. It's that one and Court of Gold for me.

I'm still, I'm- How are we doing on the Adam Sandler one? Adam Sandler one we just kinda said we're gonna revisit it. Even someone over the weekend was like, that was such a great specials like who we talk about Adam Sandler I'm like oh you'd be surprised yeah not everyone loved it nevertheless tomorrow we are back like I said Morgan charrier on the program

Gunnar Nelson on the program and also Jalen Turner will be on the program to talk about his sudden retirement we got a big show planned for Wednesday as well. So do stick with us. You know, my friends, and I stress the word friends, I'm not a colleagues kind of guy. I'm a friends kind of guy. They may be deserting me, you know, by the minute, but I know you, our loyal audience, would never do that.

So thank you for the support. Thank you for the love. And thank you our loyal audience would never do that so thank you for the support thank you for the love and thank you for being a friend. Frank we can hit that music yeah we'll get to the other stuff tomorrow thank you on air Jordan you know what yeah I saw this I saw this thank you no no this is more of like a under the music type of thing. It's like the music I wrap up. The music. Two and a half minutes. I already started playing it. You're like Frank you can hit

the music. What's going on? No, no. I know this this. Look at this. Look at this super like face off over here. I mean look at that. A bit of a height difference. Is that Sebastian Fundora? No. He's fighting this week. Oh wait This is a very busy weekend coming up. Fandora is fighting. Yeah. Boom. I mean what is that? That's like a head and a half What do we got? We got Fandora fighting. We've got Matrimon Sidney UFC London Next weekend. You've got Danis KSI UFC Mexico The Michaela Mayer, Sandy Ryan card.

So there's a lot going on. All right. No rest for the weary. Then we headed to April. April should be fun. Yeah. April should be fun. Are we still on?

Wow. Jesus. No, I was just thinking of the good old days, you know One big happy family It's almost like somebody right in the middle is creating the rift It's almost like somebody has been... I'm a Harper, you know what I mean? I'm someone who laments, so I'm going to keep this going for quite some time I just want to let you guys know. Maybe till May. Yeah, probably.

What's happening then? At the very least till like May 12th. Like it'll be like the Monday after it will really reach an apex, part of the pun. And then like it will trickle down. But like till at least 12th or the 19th, we're gonna keep this going. So buckle up.

Great show today. Thank you to Leon Edwards, Jeremy Stevens, Dave Lovell, Bo Nickel, Gordon Ryan. Back on Tuesday, St. Thomas! Peace. I'm out of here.