The Ariel Helwani Show - LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS (DAY 1): John Kavanagh, Audie Attar, Eric Nicksick, Tyler Minton all in studio

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show, live from our Las Vegas studio, by setting the scene for UFC 329 fight week (01:00). Coach John Kavanagh joins Ariel in-studio to discuss Conor McGregor’s preparation, rumors swirling regarding McGregor’s late arrival, Carlos Prates initially being proposed as an opponent, McGregor moving up to welterweight and likely being done with lightweight, how his communication with McGregor has evolved over the years, stories from past McGregor fights, and more (09:51). Manager Audie Attar is in-studio to talk about Conor McGregor’s return, how negotiations with the UFC played out, the proposed April date for McGregor’s next fight, McGregor’s potential value as a free agent, the overall state of fighter pay, what’s next for Rico Verhoeven, Michael ‘Venom’ Page, and more (58:33). Nutritionist Tyler Minton stops by the studio to give insights into Max Holloway’s UFC 329 preparation and weight cut, suggest that more weight classes could curb weight cutting, and give insights on the science behind getting elite athletes ready for competition (1:36:49). Coach Eric Nicksick joins Ariel in-studio, discussing what’s next for some of his fighters, including Sean Strickland and Francis Ngannou, training Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, the rumored altercation with Ali Abdelaziz, Kai Kamaka’s UFC 329 fight, and more (2:21:45). The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll ambush Ariel with a birthday cake, before tackling news and notes (2:56:13) and Super Chats (3:24:33).

Live from beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. The fabulous Ariel Helwani show has hit the road and the team is in Sin City for International Fight Week. Now put your hands together for your host, Ariel Helwani. Back in your life on this Wednesday, July 8, 2000. And 26, hello. again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to see you all from our makeshift Las Vegas studio right here in the Venetian at the Yahoo Sportsbook. How great is this? You know, we were here some almost two years ago to kick off uncrowned. It's so great to be back

here inside the fan caves. They call it fan caves. We got the sports book right over there in back of me. A lot of people watching tennis, baseball, obviously World Cup, no World Cup today, but we are here for International Fight Week, the return of Connor McGregor. Five years in the making going up against Max Holloway. There is so much to be excited about, so much to do. We're going to be here today, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday. We had the beat yesterday. Hope you enjoyed that. But man, man, man, man, man, man. So many big plans, so many big names, so many guests. I love when we're able to take the show on the road. And I am continuously in awe of the team. The whole team led by Andy, Frank, Rick, Jordan, G.C. We've got some new

members of the squad here as well. Preston, Jordan. We've got Rob here. We have Petey in the house as well. We've got people manning the battleship from back home. Ben, Spencer, the whole squad, Jake, Kell, everyone who helps us out. I'm probably forgetting a name or two, but I can't thank you all enough because this looks easy. I just kind of show up, book a few guests, sit here and talk. It is not easy to pick up a show and just plop it in the middle of the Las Vegas desert and just do it for the next five weeks. I take it for granted. I'm sure you do as well. I'm infinitely and eternally grateful for all the hard work that went into doing this, getting it off the ground, making it happen here today. And what a time to be alive. Because on this, July 8, 2026, I am celebrating

my friends. My 44th birthday. Yes, that is right. My Landry-Shammat year, my Hank Aaron year. I mean, what's better than this? Spending my birthday, you know, my mom told me today, and of course, I always think that a birthday is a special day for mothers and fathers as well. It's their day as well. It's their celebration. They made me. And as I said, time and again, my mom saved my life. My mom had to lay in bed for about six months. Doctors told her, if you go out and about, baby's gone. And she did that. And she says she would do it every single day.

Obviously, no regrets. It would be weird if she told me there were any regrets doing that. And so I owe everything. I owe everything. And so I thank my parents for this life that they've given me. Thank my family as well. And I'm feeling better than ever. 44.

Thank God healthy. I think I got all my friends here. My mom said, I'm sorry you're alone on your birthday. I said, I'm not alone. I'm here with my best friends who just so happened to be my colleagues. I mean, how great is that? And we're going to be doing a lot of fun things here. We get to work and cover a massive fight week, a massive fight.

We got the MMA Awards later tonight, uncrown, this show, myself, been folks nominated. That's amazing. I just feel so grateful. I feel so appreciative, so happy to be here. And yeah, sometimes I miss these fight weeks, but it's different now. Now we don't have to be a part of the traveling circus. Now we don't have to be like everyone else. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but the dream was always to have our own thing.

And so to see how far this show has come and how guests come to us and we're able to give you a sort of different look on things, a different outlook, a bird's eye view as to what's happening from our perspective. It's just amazing. So later in the show, Pizzi will be here. Rick will be here. Connor will be here. Frank is here. Frank, you there? Yeah, man.

Happy birthday. Thank you so much, Frank. And it is worth noting as far as, you know, I know a lot of people worried about this. Frank was number one to send a text. He wins that award. We have to, we have to be honest. We have to call it like it is. We got a text from G.

You know, waiting for other texts. Waiting for, you know, other messages, other well-wishes. What are you talking about? You got an in-person hug. I got an in-person hug from Andy. That was nice. Jordan tried to do the thing where, like, you hit the home run and you go down the steps. Yeah, go ahead.

Break it, break it, break it. G.C. was like, why don't we just no-sell it? And I was like, all right, man, that's cool. I'm down with it. He said, you walk in, you're like, G.C. already told me. It's true. And I like the idea. I was curious how long you guys would be able to keep it up.

I don't think Rick even hit me with the HBD in person, which I think is really interesting. Usually he does the HBD thing. A good friend of mine hit me with the, you know the emoji, like the dude with the hat and like the, I just got that, which I thought was a little bit weak. Like, I thought HBD was the least you could do. Just sending the emoji with nothing attached, like no written sentiment, I think is a little lazy if I'm being honest. But look, the day is young. There's a lot more time left. And so yes, the cutoff is usually 10 a.m.

Well, it's past 10 a.m. Pacific. so they've missed two cutoffs now, if you haven't said anything. But that's okay, that's okay. We're very, very grateful. We're very appreciative. The Knicks are champions. The Knicks are champions. My sister said, what more could you ask for?

And I said, you're 100% right. Health and the Knicks are champions. And then my sister-in-law said, well, what about the bills? And I said, if the bills do it, then we die in peace. We don't even make it to 45 at that point. So peace and love, peace and love. Today's program is a great one. We're going to have in-studio guests for the entire week, my friends, and I cannot wait.

And a reminder, by the way, that on Friday, we're doing the live show right here in Vegas with DJ 730, Mama Rabbit. It's going to be amazing after the ceremonial wins. There's the information right there, right next door, 2T Mobile, Park MGM, myself, Demetrius Johnson, your final stop before UFC 329. I also want to remind you that today's program is brought you by our good friends over at Kalshi. We love Kalshi around these parts. And I do want to let you know that if you use the code Helwani, when you sign up, you get $10 when you spend $10. No one gave me the text here, but there it is.

Helwani hooks you up with $10 on Kalshi. Use that code right over there. They're the number one at what they do. Make predictions on sports, politics, and more. Trade $10 to unlock. Use the code Helwani, and they hook you up. We appreciate their support very much. There's all kinds of talk about McGregor's numbers.

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So there it is. There's the QR code. Back into the show, we're going to be joined by one of the best coaches in the game, Eric Nixik, the headman over at Extreme Couture, one of his fighters, Kai Kamaka, the third, fighting on this card. Saturday, UFC 329 against Luke Riley. Obviously, Monell Kapp is one of the best. his guys. Obviously, Sean Strickland, one of his guys. Obviously, Francis Ngano, one of his guys.

One of the absolute best, he'll join us at around 330 Eastern. Prior to that, one of the best nutritionists in the game, Tyler Minton is going to join us. Why today? Because he's Max's guy. And I think this is a very interesting story. How is Max going to move up to 170 in a healthy manner? How is it not going to deter him? Obviously, there was a lot of talk about Alex prayer moving up, fight at heavyweight. Did he do it right? Did he not do it right? Tyler's been with Max and the team in Hawaii. They're obviously... for UFC 329. Conn McGregor's longtime manager slash agent, Auditarr, headman over at Paradigm, Verhoeven, Dakota Dichova, Michael Venham Page, and so many others, been in the game

for well over a decade. Want to talk to him about the making of this fight, the contract, all that and more. So he's going to be joining us. And in a matter of seconds, the headman over at SBG Ireland, the man who has been by Connor's side from the very, very beginning, all those UFC fights, all those cage warrior fights, everything, the one and only John Kavanaugh are going to be joining us in studio. So there is your quartet of guests in studio, in studio, in studio, in studio, we're here at the Venetian, the Yahoo Sportsbook, the fan caves, we're doing it. I love it. I'm so excited, and I don't want to waste any time. I do believe our first guest is here.

There he is. The man himself, the headman over at SPG Ireland. The sense say we'll set you up. How are you, sir? How are you? Yeah, he's got ninja-like quickness over there, Mr. O'Connor. What is that? That's happy birthday in Irish.

Oh my gosh. Say it again, say it again. Speaking to the microphone, if you don't mind. Here, let me help you. He did it so fast. He was very quick, wasn't he? Yeah, he was. What was that?

What was that? La Brahevernedich. Gaelic? That's Gaelic. Happy birthday. Thank you, my friend. How about this? First guest on this massive fight week for us, on my birthday, it's you. This is probably one of the greatest honors of your career, right? Stars a line. It's unbelievable. It's so good to see you. Isn't it? It's amazing. It's like you never left the scene, right? Do you feel comfortable? I do. Okay, we're going to play poker after. Oh, I don't know how to play. No, neither do I, but we tried to make it very nice. It looks very cool. It looks very cool. Can I ask, what is it like? What is it like? Because I asked you about this on

text, the nostalgia. You've done this before. In this city, this venue, does it feel nostalgic? What are the emotions? What are the feelings as you embark on, like, the real fight week here? It's really about to commence

with the media stuff and all that that comes involved with the Conter Fight. This is the beginning for me because this is my first time coming into the strip. I've just been staying outside. So even just walking through the casino today, I was like, oh yeah. I remember this.

So, and then there's more media today and press conference on Thursday. So it's, yeah, it doesn't feel like as long as it's been, but it has been. It feels shorter. It feels shorter. Okay. It feels familiar. Okay. Yeah.

Does it feel like, are there nerves involved? Like, how would you describe it? Because you've done this so many times in particular in this city. You guys didn't really, once he made it, it was always in Las Vegas, for the most part, the odd Abu Dhabi, et cetera. But this was the spot for all those magic. magical nights. Yeah, I think there was, you know, his first set of interviews come out yesterday. And a lot of comments about them, this kind of calm aura around them. And what I would say is that a fight week can be quite enjoyable if you've done everything in the lead up to it. If for the last

couple of months you've lived a certain way, you've made every session, you've pushed yourself to the limit. You commit the fight week training tapers down and it can be, you know, it's It's almost like you're getting a rest, you're getting a break. And if you've done all those sessions, then anxiety melts away, as Connor would say himself, the solution to anxiety is movement. So if you've done all the work, you know, Saturday night is already written into the stars. The decision's already out there. And I think not only him, but we all feel the same way too.

So you kind of get to be a bit calm or a bit more relaxed and enjoy it. whole process. There's a lot of people who tried to find signs and look at things. And yesterday, before he showed up to sign the autographs and all that stuff and some of the media, they're like, he's not unembedded, he's not, where is he? And then he shows up and he does that. And I have to admit, like, I'm trying to look as well. And he's standing there and he's just like signing and he and he seems calm, but I don't know if he was, here he is right over here. Like, I don't know, is he enjoying this? Is he not? We, you know, we overanalyze every single thing. Yeah. So where is he? Like, who is that guy there? Where is he at? Yeah, well, there's, there's

great. I've told people about this and now I struggle to find it. I think it was BT Sports did it. And they made like a cartoon about it and it's him talking about the whole of Fight Week is all about leading. Oh yes, I remember that. Remember that? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, no, but look,

he's in a really good space. And I'll apologize. I maybe had a part in him being a bit late arriving because we're originally going to come in on Friday and we're up in Newport and it's so beautiful. I might have suggested, why don't we stay here another few days and just go in at the last

moment because the weather, you know, the climate's perfect. We got a few extra training sessions done over that weekend, which I feel if we had to come in to Vegas, we may not have. So I think it worked out well. And then, you know, because the weather here is, it's different gravy. Right, right. Was there a point where you thought this would never happen again that you guys would never? I knew you'd ask you that question. And I'm trying to be. honest with my answer that I just it wasn't really a thought of my head either way you know you're just living your life yeah I have a big fight team my family two boys and a few things that I'm busy bit so I just I never really sat around kind of pondering will we or won't we you're just living

day by day and then he's always in gym or we're always in contact and then hey we have you know as it's out there now we have at Prattis was the first opponent okay we're fighting Prates let's get going, da-da-da. And yeah, I just, I never gave myself the time to think about will it happen. How did you feel about the protest fight? Tough, you know, I knew it was going to be a hard fight. But, you know, you keep your confidence, you start game planning, you start training, you start studying.

But it didn't, I'll get the order of it wrong, but I can't remember, it didn't seem that it was all that long into it, and then suddenly it was, it was max. So, yeah, you know, whoever is it is, as Connor would say. Which one did you prefer? I suppose there's a familiarity with Max. We've already faced them and, I don't know, rematches. There's something kind of cool about it. There's a storyline.

Obviously, Max wants to get it back. De Met both of them were, well, Max was, I mean, I think he was on a sixth UFC fight. So it was quite a bit more experienced in the UFC than Connor. Connor, I was a few years older. Um, yeah, it's a good storyline. So you say there's a familiarity, but when you fought him, it was 13 years ago. Mm. So like is that the same guy?

I know you guys did a video, you and O and Roddy watching it for MacLife. Um, and that's great and that's great content. But is it, is there any familiarity? It's the same person obviously, but it has come such a long way. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, he has. Look, of course. And then as as Connor, the boat had developed. Um, as, as the years of, gone past. Actually, you know, one thing I would, there's obvious things you would compliment Max

on, but one that I was really struck me is that the, his mindset and his self-confidence, because when he fought the first time, you know, it went really bad. First two rounds, he's getting controlled on the feet and on the ground quite easily. And then near the end of round two, I love that there's a video of Max talking about. He, he hears the knee popping, Connor screams and he says, you okay? And kind of's like, yeah, yeah yeah keep fighting and they fight away so you know coming out into round three max do he was fighting a guy on one leg and yet still got control quite easily in the third round so for him to be able to have the mental strength to kind of flip that and be able to have a lot of confidence

coming into the rematch i think that's that's very impressive okay so who is max hallway in your opinion now can i be annoying go on water my mouth is so dry boom i was ready for it. Thank you. And I'll ask the question while you take a sip. Who is Max Holloway now because he was on some kind of run the knockout of Justin Gachey, what he did against Porre

all that stuff and more. And then all of a sudden Charles O'Ovara in March. And it wasn't like he got beat up by Charles Olivera, but he got controlled, dominated, and it wasn't an exciting fight, and a lot of people were frustrated and he was frustrated. And so do you chalk that up to, it was just a bad style matchup for him? Or do you chalk it up to

at some point everyone hits a decline like who was that guy and and and who's this guy that you're fighting i would think anything about decline i i think it was just a terrible matchup okay you know i don't think it was the most surprising outcome either like you know on the lead up you read some of the comments and it did seem to be not maybe what would you say predicted or a lot of people were saying that this could go that way you know max has shown i think he's only being submitted once he's got very good submission defense, but he can be controlled a little bit on the ground. He wouldn't be the absolute best of being able to scramble up in the world, but he's absolutely rock solid submission

defense. He's very, very hard to finish. So for Charles being such a strong grappler to be able to pin him and control him, you know, didn't know a massive amount of damage or didn't have many submission attempts as far as I remember. And, you know, you could see Max just going to shrugging his shoulders. So the rounds are going by. like there's not much he can do about it. But, yeah, besides being just a terrible matchup, I wouldn't really look too deep into it. How big is 170?

Him never fighting at 170. You guys have fought at 170. Like, how big of a deal is that? It is big. It is big. And I mightn't have taught that until Connor did it. You know, it's kind of funny his last three fights. He had the 170 fight with cowboy.

Absolute destruction, you know, it looked incredible. then he tried cutting again for two fights in a row and I just think he had mentally and physically had gone to 170 and I don't think 55 was in him anymore not to not to make any excuses but I just think 170 suits him a lot better

and he has more experience there he's hit I'm not sure of Kobe hit him too many times but he has felt that Max hasn't yes he's kind of gone up to that weight class, he's, obviously, sparring.

What's his name? Jack? Jack Della, yeah. JDM. But they're sparring and there's fighting. So, yeah, that'll be different for him. What I'm curious about it is sometimes when we see someone make that jump, I remember when we were saying back in the day, 155 was too big for Max Holloway. So now we're at 170. And sometimes, sometimes you don't push yourself as much. You're a little more relaxed with the diet, things like that.

That's why we have his nutritionist coming later today because I'm curious what the game plan was. Oh, yes. Tyler there. I didn't realize he was his nutrition. Yeah, yeah,

that's why he's coming on. So I'm curious what the game plan is, what the science is, all that and more. Well, certainly he has Tyler. Tyler's one of the best. Okay,

okay. I'm not putting any stock into that thinking like, oh, it wouldn't really be that side of things. I'm sure he trained hard. I know Tyler is excellent what he does. But there's being hit by 170 guys in a competitive environment with four-ounce gloves. And then there's been hit by

Conover-Rigger in a competitive environment with four-hounds gloves. So the first minute alone will tell us a lot. But yeah, it's more dealing with that, dealing with the extra power as opposed to, like I said, Max is famously hardworking. So I just don't see that being any issue for him. Every time we talk about this story with Connor, we always mentioned five years, five years, and sort of gloss over the fact that you guys went through pretty much a whole training camp to fight Michael Chandler.

And I get annoyed sometimes when people were not believing that this fight was going to actually happen because of the way that played out. And I remind them that it's the only time Connor's ever pulled out of a fight. And in fact, there were times where he had injured knees and he fought, et cetera, et cetera.

And so when Connor speaks of it, he always says, I noticed there was a lapse in judgment, right, in training. And so you were obviously there. Actually, I think footage came out very recently on countdown of it happening. And so what's your recollection of what happened? And when he says lapse in judgment, how do you explain that? Like injuries happen all the time.

Why would that be a lapse in judgment necessarily? Well, I'll say it more bluntly than he will. I should have had the protective gear on both guys from the start. The beginning of it was a little bit rushed. It's different when you're sparring. for sparring and sparring for whatever they wore embedded our countdown. And it was a bit sort of haphazard. And what are we doing?

Okay, look, we'll just move around for the cameras, but it's also a spar. Like, it just wasn't done right. Like, we've had them back. I don't know if the footage has come out on the spar that they came back for this time. And like, it's head to toe, it's proper warm-up, its proper equipment. It's going in with the mindset that we're sparring. We're not sparring for video footage. So yeah, look, I'll put my hand up.

I should have had all the gear on them. And I didn't. And he awkwardly caught Perl Tristan's elbow, fellow Canadian. And yeah, that happened very early. I think I've seen the footage, and you only show a few seconds, but that happened in the first minute or so of round one. and he kind of whispered to me in between the rounds that he feels his toes broke

and I'm trying to stop it and he insisted on doing the next four rounds he did five rounds because you know you can kind of run on adrenaline a little bit but yeah it was nasty you've seen the pictures of a bad break and if you did a middle toe

it's one thing but if you ask people who are experts and what's it kinesiology and movement and physios they'll say the footma makes a like a V, like a triangle, big toe, little toe, heel, and there are the three areas that will determine your balance. And as he said himself, he's done plenty of fights where he's hobbled in there.

And he was just tired of doing that. He says, no, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. And said, right, let's get the foot right and we'll go again. So you assume that responsibility. Yes. How did it feel afterwards? Like, you know. Sick.

Right. Really, really sick. Because he's the one that gets all the heat because he's the guy. who pulled out. Yeah. But you feel like it was something avoided. It was my fault.

I'm not going to beat around the bush on it. Should I had the gear on them. So we've been super careful this training camp. He is not a niggle on him, not a bump, not a bruise. 100%. And we'll get to see the best version of him. Did that affect you guys?

Was he mad at you? Did he blame it on you? No. No. He, like I said, I heard him saying something along the lines of like that. He wasn't mentally, I'm going to get the quote wrong, but it was like he was assuming the fault.

And, you know, it wasn't. It was mine. So what can I say? It seemed like for maybe the last year or so, he's been hinting at wanting to come back. And for whatever reason, it's always like this with him in the UFC, they take their time, they take their time. I have my theories as to why they took their time,

end of the ESPN deal, all that stuff. They wanted him to fight on Paramount. But are you sensing that from him as well? Like, when did you start to believe that this was a real thing, that he really did want to come back? Because there's also a theory out there. You've got all this money. You don't really need to come back.

You've done it all. Just go enjoy your life. Well, certainly when he moved into the gym. Like literally moved in. He literally moved in. I had a storage room. And he asked, could he put a bed in it? I was like, sure.

Sleeping there? Yeah. He has probably a mansion. He does. And how long ago was this? Christmas. Wow. Because when I hear him say moved in, I just sort of chalk it up to like, I hang out there a lot.

Yeah. I'll tell you a quick funny story. We had Stungan visit. Yes, Dengen and Kim. And it was early morning, well, early morning, like 10 a.m. or so. And he's downstairs at reception. And I'm chatting to him. And he's talking about Connor.

He's a big inspiration. or spard him, blah, blah, blah. And I said, oh, do you want to say hello to him? And he was shocked. He goes, what do you mean? Say hello to him? I said, well, he's upstairs. And all the, you know, just few of them there, media and everything.

They're all looking. He said, Conradger's upstairs. I said, yeah, I'll get him. So I'll go upstairs and I knock on him, and he comes down in his Gucci robe. It's actually, it's on Kim's YouTube channel. But, yeah, that was kind of funny. So he's just living there? Yeah.

Does he go back and forth? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So a couple of nights of the week, he was sleeping there, especially on sparring days, because, well, for him, it's early 11 a.m. So he can get up at 10.45. No, actually, he's getting up earlier than that because, like I said, we're trying to make sure we did everything right for the last six months. Why does he have to live there?

It was a certain mindset, you know, a certain mindset that comes with that. You're in that environment from 6 a.m. the gym is loud and busy. so yeah I just thought he was you know a bit of a rocky tree moment you know okay go back get the eye of the tiger is that a thing where he says I want to do it what do you think or is he just saying I'm doing this um you know a bit a bit of boat like you know he'd obviously ask permission it's it's my gym but um I thought it was a great idea so I said did you think he would I get a free security guard yeah that's right that's good point was it from Christmas on like up until the whole yeah really yeah did you think he would

stick with it no no how long did you think it would last like a week a day a day wow so what did this tell you a lot um so we did about three or four months of that now i will be honest and say in the last two months it didn't happen because we started all switching to west coast time so we were training much, much later, which meant he didn't have to be getting up early. Got it. So we did switch for the last couple of months to training at his house. He has a full UFC gym in his house. But yeah, those first couple months of him doing it was like, all right.

You know, no, I am often sent and reminded of me, was it a couple of years ago saying he'll definitely fight this year and I was, I was wrong. But anyway, look, here we are. Yeah. White week. We're a few days out. He's in a fantastic place. Everything is on track. Weight's easy. The camp is being fantastic. You know, we have, over the last few years, I kind of feel there's like certain themes to each fight. Eddie Alvary is we kept using the word perfection. Diaz, too, we kept using the word relentless. And the word I have for this camp is communication.

our communication as being the best for this camp than it's than it's ever been I think it might sound a bit weird to say that you know we're out 20 odd years friends and coach athletes but we did we've we've gone through patches of not having great communication or maybe it's something we just I don't know buy but for this one anyway

it's just being incredible just very open just you know I remember his very first check-in with Bert, uh, Bert Watson back in the day. Back in the day. Actually, I record it on my phone. It's on,

like it's on Mac life or something. And anyway. In Sweden. In Sweden. And Bert said something and I just stuck with me and he said, if it's in here, I want it in here. He was saying to Connor like, if you're thinking anything, you make sure you tell me.

Oh. And I was like, you know, that's, that's, that's, I like the way he's putting that. And, uh, like I said, we've had patches of that being great. and not so great. And these last few months have just been so black and white with each other and just honest. And as soon as we're thinking something, we're saying it. And, you know, I think that's kind of true for a lot of things, right?

You know, like, they won't have argued, a silly argument to see in my gym because I can see the communication is off or you read a text the wrong way. That's not what way it was meant. You know, the tone doesn't come across. But I just feel for this one that that's something we really got. we really got excellent

and part of it when I got him to see his first neurologist you know he was first time you're getting the proper medical stone

for the UFC you have to get all sorts of brain scans and the neurologist pulled me aside at the end of the assessment and said you know his greatest weapon

is not his left hand I was like what he's like it's a fast brain he's got an unusually fast brain and um sorry I realized over the years

that sometimes his frustration with people around him is that he's thinking so fast and then he gets annoyed that you're not able to keep up at him and then he finds it hard to communicate that like some examples might be like he's already thinking of what the next shot on the pad should be but you haven't thought of yet it can annoy him

that sounds weird baby no I get it but and I get it And this one I really got it. And it really made things a lot easier to be able to quickly change things or just understanding that really well. So, yeah, it's just, you know, I know all these is coming in now. You could ask him about as well because we've both said it to each other over the last few months. That's just great the level of communication between us all, you know, in that core team. and it just makes things a lot easier.

I remember you telling me one time I don't remember the flight off the top of my head, but you were like two ships in the night. Like that was probably the... Chabib. Wow, okay, yeah. Like there was no communicate. Yes, now I remember. We were talking on Long Island at the Bell Tour show.

So this is the complete opposite probably. Yeah, very much so. Speaking, chatting, texting, breakdowns. Yeah, let's just say everything. And I think I'm getting a little bit. we're together a long time, but I'm getting even better at, I sort of understand what he's thinking before he says it, you know, we're, we're kind of have a good sync going now, but, but yeah, look, just in general, um, communication has been great.

You, you were talking about the Bert Watson story, Sweden. I remember the, uh, the root canal, right? God. That's a great video blog. Yours maybe or his? You did a whole series of it in the locker room. Yeah, I put up his story. like before it was Dave and Graham, you know,

maybe as a professional team. It was me, my little app, my Nokia. In the back. I'll never forget, and I might have brought this up in the past, so forgive me if you've heard this before, but I'll never, ever, ever forget the second fight, obviously Holloway, right? Holloway's the second fight in the UFC,

so August of 2013. I'll never forget UFC, media, you know, they make us do stuff. Ultimate Fighter was going to debut later that month. This was the first show on FS1. and so they invited the media to go watch the first episode of The Ultimate Fighter

from a movie theater in Boston and so we're all there and who's sitting all the way in the back you and him. Oh yes, yes, yes. You guys just showed up and I was like these guys like it felt like you just wanted to take everything in

you just you wanted to do it was all still very new to you is your first fight in the States together in the UFC and I and we obviously recognize he was a huge deal by that point and I just there was something about the fact that like this had nothing to do with you this show but you guys just wanted to take it all in you hung out

with us you talked to us do you remember this i do i do indeed yeah simpler times simpler times but but but the mindset i know kind of now like actually funny enough we did go to the cinema a couple of weeks ago just the two of us wow and other people there are you close us too okay no but like are there oh there's other people there wow it was funny because the the movie's starting and you know connor has a pretty distinctive laugh. And I said something and he laughed. And I heard someone behind me going, your man sounds exactly like Connor McGregor.

Like I'm kind of smiling to myself. And then the ads are on. And there's one ad appears and he goes, I did a movie with him. And it was Roadhouse. It was the guy who played the bad guy's son. Okay. And it was one of the few heads kind of turning around.

But yeah, no, the point I was going to say, like simple things like that are very difficult to do now. usually it causes a lot of commotion but the interest in in in in in in in in a in a in in in a in a bit and he still would be interested in going to see the opening season of a of my fighter you know or whatever the case may be and but back then you know we could do anything we wanted to go anywhere without team is secure right now it's just you too you literally had no one else with you yeah but i seen it was a yesterday who's in an interview

he said something like, why am I back and it's the love of the game. And that's one constant throughout the few decades. It's the love of MMA, competition, technique, whatever way you want to describe it. That hasn't gone away one bit. I was literally going to just ask you that question because I asked him about motivation. He's been asked about motivation. Historically, you're out for five years. You come off an injury like that and then a secondary injury.

You've got the money, the silk pajamas, the boat, the house, everything. This doesn't go well historically because you just don't have. have the same motivation. And so what do you feel like it? He says love of the game. Love it again. What do you feel is the motivation? No, it really is that simple.

And like one thing I'd always say is that if you look at some, I don't want to disparage any fighters or boxers. I think I see it more on boxing, but like maybe getting very overweight in between fights or to take a couple of years off, you know, really being heavy. Yeah. And then it seems like most of their training is just trying to get themselves into the weight class. never mind improving or training whereas i mean i challenge you to find a picture of connor fast you know he just

he's uh maybe pride it's too big but you know no matter what he's doing always has the chef with him always eating perfect always has to dock with him getting his exercise in so he's always ready to slip back into that m mma training even though he's always doing it but certainly doing it to it obviously a much more intense extent these last eight or nine months. But yeah, I'm sure any MMA coach will tell you the same, that it's a hell of a lot easier to do this if the athlete is in near fighting weight, in good physical shape already,

and then you slip back into MMA training. And I think he only would do that if you have a little bit of game. Needless to say, last couple years tumultuous for him, and you don't have to answer for any of that. This is his story. but this is a friend of yours and you're still by his side, you're still supporting him, coaching him, and that's one thing that should be said about him. It's all the same people around him, right? No new faces necessarily. Maybe people added, but no one's been replaced from the coaches to the management and whatnot.

To see him go through a lot of things, to see him go through stuff, public stuff, even the sentiment I feel like at times in Ireland has shifted a little bit. How do you deal with that? How do you internalize that? If I'm being honest, like he's, you know, we obviously have a coach, fire a relationship, but he's also my friend for more than 20 years. So I don't get it when people say about sticking by somebody. Do you not stick by a friend during hard times or is it only during good times? So of course I'm going to stick by him during whatever times, good times, bad times. And there's been boat.

But yeah, I never understand the mentality of like, of someone saying, why, you just stick by him. Like, yeah, you're going to stick by your friend. He's going through a tough time. And he has. And it's great to see him. He's in a, in a fantastic spot at the moment. And long may continue. But, yeah, for me, there was never any.

You never wavered on that. No. Was there ever a time where you thought you might lose him? Lose him just like it would just go so completely left that you would never get him back, even as a friend? Maybe. Maybe there would have been moments, but not something you dwell on

and you always hope it can turn around. And we always like, probably don't go more than a week or two without being in contact, even if he's doing a movie in his way for six months. We're still, I know I tell this every time, we still have exchanges about some fight that's on the weekend or, you know,

some technical sequence or whatever. so because of that because of that sort of cause in contact that's never felt that it wasn't going to continue forever you know so um no i do wonder you have like a big brother like relationship with him you've told the story about going to his home and his mother and getting him out of bed and all this stuff you're his coach as far as fighting is concerned but are there times where he's going through real life stuff and that he he leans on you do you feel you know as a big big guy brother. He doesn't have a big brother. I see you've got Eric going in here. He'll tell you the same. I'm sure

is that you're, the coaching part is the easy part. The stuff inside the gym, like for me, MMA is pretty simple. You know, it's not the most complicated thing in the world. It's, it's, the real job of it all is to try and keep it all going, you know. And that's not just what Connor. That's, that's, that's, that's what all fighters. I could, I, I imagine someone like Sean Strickland keeps Eric busy.

Yes. But no, look, and that's just part of the, part of the, you know, it's an all-encompassing role. You're a bit of a big brother. You're a bit of a psychologist, a bit of a, you're obviously a friend. So, yeah, that's just, that's just part of it, you know. This is a New York Times story that came out? What did you make of it? I spoke to him about it.

I felt like it was more of a story on the, the doctor. involved than him. He's been quite open about the fact that like he needed to get back to 100% and he's going to do whatever he can to get back to 100%. Did you have a take on it about what was reported and about, you know, how he went about trying to get to 100%. Yeah, like he's out of the testing pool. He's a private citizen or every way you want to word it and somebody is leaking or I don't, I didn't actually follow it 100% but I think personal medical documents. documents were leaked or something like that. I mean, that person should be in jail or sued to the ends of the earth anyway. It'd be different if he was in in the testing pool. He wasn't and like he said, he was just following doctors advice.

This is what you've got to do in order to get back. He did it. I think this year now he's again the most tested athlete on the roster. Yeah, so I don't know. Mainstream media. Do you have to do you have? of concerns about the leg, about how it's healed? Not watching him spar the last couple months, that's for sure. There's nothing that it's precluded him from doing. No. Okay. No, thankfully.

What about the fighting style, the stand? Never into classified information. Because a lot was said about the stance changing the boxing, the this and that remains to be seen. Saturday night. Okay. Tune in. It's been addressed, whichever way. This is not a secret.

What's not a secret? Well, you guys know that people talk about, oh, he changes a stance. Oh, karate stance, Foxenstance, McGregor. Exactly, exactly. Motivated McGregor. He's got that look at Zion McGregor. Age McGregor, religious McGregor. There's many different variations.

There is. Is there anything you tell us about the stance? About the fighting style. Absolutely not. Okay. On that. But I can just tell you that, you know, I was going to do a tweet. I'll save myself to bother now.

I'll just say it here. That I believe what people are seeing in Connor yesterday in the media, and they'll continue to see as the week progresses. This level of sort of calm confidence is the result of what he's done the last six months. And I always have that joke saying that I could give the best rocky speech to a fighter, not just Connor, you know, the night before a fight. But he has to go to bed and listen to himself. And you can't lie to yourself.

And you'll start scratching away your confidence saying, I didn't eat right all the time. And I missed those few sessions. And I couldn't, I can't tell you you did them if you didn't. So true confidence is only born through hard work. And he really has done it the right way the last six months. And that's why you're going to see him and us all enjoying this week and being very, you know, calm, like I said. And looking forward to Saturday night.

and I will be spectacular and I will be great because I know how he's trained. I would say this last six months training and how he's approached it might be the hardest and most dedicated six months he's done since I've known him. I don't say that lightly. Wow.

Even Aldo, you know, all those. The way he has been the last six months has been different. Okay. It really has. and y'all can say what you like but they'll see I believe you will see the result of that work

Saturday night and you don't think it's just one and done you really believe he's you know he's got these two fights left he's talked about that you know I pulled him aside a couple of weeks ago and it was just the two of us in the house living with him at the minute

and I said honestly you wake up this morning because I'm doing 5% of what he's doing and I'm still feeling sore getting him. I said, you don't feel anything? He said, he felt like a ballerina. Nothing's aching, nothing's sore.

And like we're pushing him hard. Like, have you seen what he's been doing the last while without missing a single session? I said, really, nothing, no aches, no pains, you know. And he says, he doesn't feel anything. He feels great. And he rearing to go each, every session he's motivated to go. It's not like you're having to push him to do when.

really wants to do them all. So because of that, I would say it looks like there's a lot more left. Okay. You know, if he was kind of, you know, the sounds you make when you're getting out of bed. Then you'd be like, I don't know, maybe there's a time limit. But he, you know, he is blessed. And I think he's genetically gifted for a start. But he has had, you know, Tristan, the nutritionist and a chef. And he's really done all of that. to such a high level, I think that it's giving them longevity. But I do believe actually, I'll correct myself, I do believe it's mostly genetic. I just think he was gifted with this ability, that he can push himself hard and still be, just feel nothing the next day. You know, we say doms the aid onset muscle soreness.

And he just doesn't seem to suffer from anything like that. Long may it continue. And what about you? And I promise I'll let you go in a moment. You own Mixmarshalarts.com? The U.G? Yes. When did that happen?

Well, it was legendary website. Yes. Older than Google. That website existed before Google. Amazing. Amazing. That crazy. Yes.

96 or something like that. Holy shit. It was born. But yeah, so the company I'm part of, trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Yeah. Under the ticker M.MA. We acquired mixed martial arts.com. Wow.

A couple of, about two years ago now, think. So it's been relaunched. We actually use my interview with Laura Salko. So you can go to Mix Martial Arts.com now and see me and Lara chatting up there. But yeah, one of our, one of the companies that we acquired. So, okay, so you have all these other things. Along with BG link. How, how much of your time is spent at SBG coaching doing, you have all these other things you got going on, your family as well. I believe Connell Bluebell. No, what, he just got some, some, I just So he came to me at the beginning of the year and he said, if I do a battle outside the gym, do I get to keep the trophy?

Okay. So he calls Jitsu doing a battle. And he's obviously talking about if he competes. Yeah, yeah. He said, put me on one. And I said, no, he's only five. Okay. If you want.

And there's no pressure for me. No, I want it. So I'll put him into his first competition. And, you know, I'll give them the talk beforehand. Doesn't matter if you lose. You'll win or learn. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. blah, blah, blah, and he goes out and he smokes, he runs through everybody. So he gets a gold medal in the no ghee. We come back, he puts out his ghee, he gets a gold medal on that. And then he come up to be at the end of all. I hesitate to say this, but I think he's actually watching. I think Orla put it off.

Okay, amazing. And he turns to me and he goes, that was easy, bro. And I was like, no, let's not get too carried away. So we have to stay humble, Colin if you're watching. He calls you bro too. I know. My son does that as well. He's like, how it's sad for start.

Yes. And we remain humble in this. household. Amazing. So he's well on his way now. So yeah, he's the champ champ he calls himself now. Unbelievable. Because he knows he calls, he calls Connor. I don't know why he calls him this, but McCracker. Okay. Uncle McCracker. Okay. And he knows he's the champ champ. So he had his two gold medals and he told he was the champ champ. And this is your oldest? Yeah, so he's six in a couple of weeks. So this is his first McGregor fight, really, that he can remember. Yeah, and that's another part of all this. That's very cool. Is that over the last few months,

especially with Connor living in the gym and you know Connell trains three days a week so he sees him a lot around the gym and he's beginning to understand hmm why is the camera cruise there and he knows but mr. Beast on YouTube now so he's starting to kind of understand all this world knows about you oh and then he turned to me a couple of weeks ago because I was getting I was getting stopped at a few places you know picture whatever he said dad are we famous and I said no but we know somebody who's famous. I love that. Will he be watching on Saturday? Well, it's on 5 a.m. Irish time. So he'll watch it on Sunday morning. Okay, okay.

You're not going to let him stay up 2 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Well, it'd be 5 a.m. What it be 5 a.m. The Vegas Walk is 5 a.m. for us, yeah. I saw Connors with a gentleman, is his name Patrick,

a guy who's worked with Michael Jordan? Tim Grover. Tim Grover. How did this happen? This is like a life coach? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well, he's Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan. Like, I looked up his client's legend.

How did this happen? I didn't know that either. Okay. And a friend of mine is a basketball coach back home, shout out to Andrew. And he was like, do you know what you're with there? And I was like, not really. And, you know, he started rattling off all this to me that this is, he's, because I said to him, I said, what's he an expert in? Is it like movement or is it physio or is a mindset?

And he just wrote back, yes. So that's, that's his field of expertise. all of that. I don't quite know how it came about, but he just showed up one day. And like you said, I didn't know who it was. But there's an air about him. Okay. Notort of air. It kind of, he has that energy about him. And, you know, a lot of it is him just asking me questions. He, because he doesn't claim to be any expert in MMA. He has certainly has his areas of expertise, but MMA is not one of them. But he has his conversations with Connor at the end of session. and, you know, we can't offer much advice on MMA training,

but he understands human movement, and he certainly understands the competition of where to go in a competitive mindset. And maybe more importantly than all of that, is that, you know, obviously Michael Jordan, talk about a crossover star in the same ways we talk about Connor being a star outside of mixed martial arts. Michael certainly was too. You know, coming from Ireland, I didn't really follow basketball,

I knew of Michael Jordan. I didn't know who Kobe Bryant was because I just don't follow us. But Michael Jordan had that, you know, 23, wasn't it? Yeah, of course. And the Air Jordans. Back home in Ireland, everybody wanted Air Jordans. So he knows what it's like coaching somebody

who's not only competing at a high level, but dealing with that level of fame and pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all that comes with it. So it's interesting. Where we were staying in Newport, we were kind of next door neighbors, and we'd sort of have chats at the end of the day,

and he had some interesting anecdotes about that world. And, you know, he's also finding some parts of our world a bit head scratching coming from the basketball world. But, yeah, a welcomed addition to the team, and I've learned a lot from him. Is he here as well in Vegas? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, you're here all five weeks. Wow, okay. I wanted to ask you before I let you go, you, Scott Coker, Rich Chow, I saw a photo. What's happening there? Yeah. Obviously, we know about Scott. Yeah.

Rich has joined his team. Yeah. Are you working with them? What's happening? Or was it just a catch-up with old friends? I don't actually know. Okay. So you know as much as me.

We had a catch-up. I did think, I consider myself friends with Scott at this stage, and I was lovely to see him. But if I'm just going to have fighters on a show, I have fighters on lots of shows. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm not too sure. I'm not too sure what's going to come of it. Okay. It was just a hello, how are you?

Yeah, I suppose, you know, coming to Ireland, the say hello would be very extreme, whereas I think this was only an hour fly from. But it was lovely, you know, him and Jordan and his son and friends with as well. So he was there, maybe we were just there and we had a nice lunch and we chatted about old times and those old, you know, the original Bellator shows in Dublin.

And who knows, maybe there's going to be something down the road there. I think they're still figuring out. exactly how that promotion is going to look. But as I said to Scott, it's always great having them. It's great working with somebody that has done it, you know, that has come from martial arts, especially, but something about traditional martial arts. It's kind of nice about it working with somebody who comes in that background.

And yeah, look, you know, I'm obviously here with the UFC this week, but it's the more promotions out there as me as a lowly MMA coach. and for all those MMA coaches out there, the more high-level, big promotions, the better it is for the fighters. But, you know, competition is good for everything. So, yeah, I hope it really goes well for men. If I play some role in, that would be great too. And are you still doing the management thing as well?

Yes. Yes, I'll be meeting up with Caesar. Cesar, okay. He's in town this week. I'm still over from management. Everything was a little bit unhold for me. I had to be honest with the guys and say, look, I'm going to be taking a bit of a step back.

Just give me a bit of a breeding room. they're very understanding and get this fight done with this weekend. And then we have some big plans for a big push on the second half of this year. But yeah, Caesar was very gracious and giving me, like I said, a little bit of breeding room while I get this done. Lastly, your team notorious, pardon the pun, for fight predictions. What is the official one? Unfortunately, we're going without predictions. Wow.

Yeah. This is new. Yeah. You know, it's funny, like, me and Connor just laugh about this. We don't take it all that serious. But if he had to be super vocal these last few months and, you know, very heavily online, then people will be saying, oh, he's not training serious because look, he's, and he's talking all the time.

So this time we've kind of purposely all kept back. It wasn't a whole lot out of any of us. You might have noticed over these last few months. Because we're just, you know what? We're just going to put the head down to the work. Okay. And we said, you know, we're just going to keep our cards close to her chest and everything because no matter what I say, no matter I raise an eyebrow, oh, that's analyzed and that means this.

So we're just saying Saturday night, you know, on Paramount, you'll see a great performance. And it's great to be back. It's great seeing you. It's great to be in this chair again. And I'm just looking forward to seeing what I believe to be the best. ever do it when you consider all that he's done and the multiple roles he plays. I have a very strong idea on how it's going to go. I actually had a stupid idea. I was going to give you like an envelope and say, don't open this to fight. Like a gender review.

Yeah, or like a mentalist. You have it in your mind. I think so. Okay. I think so. And we, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to say too much. Okay, fair enough.

But we kind of have multiple scenarios. is to be honest. We have this, this and this. I'm already saying too much. We'll leave it at that. Great to see you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming in.

Good luck to you guys, obviously. This is nice. This feels nostalgic and it's all right. We used to do it on Zoom or Skype back in the day. Yes, Skype. God. On the Monday of Fight Week. Yeah, Zoom kind of kicked its butt.

But it's great to do it in person as we really kick off Fight Week here. So good luck to you and the team. Appreciate you so, so much. Rick, I have to go to a back, would you say, a quick break? Anyone? Okay. We're going to take a quick break. Audi Attar is going to be joining us the head coach, the, what, the head honcho, the agent, the manager, long time.

Not as long as John has been with Connor, but pretty damn long as well. His UFC career. He'll be joining us, Tyler Mint and Eric Nixick. Be back right after this. Don't go anywhere. All right. back on the program. We're here. Let me talk to this one right here if I can. Yes, I like this one. This shows the depth of the studio. So that was John Kavanaugh in studio. Great stuff. Enjoyed it very much.

Great insight. Actually gave us a little bit longer. So I appreciate him sticking around and I appreciate the extra time. Working through the Kings, working through the Kings. So let us know, let us know. Oh, I know everyone, like I said, like I said, you pick up a show and you move it from New York to Las Vegas, you're going to work through some stuff. That just happens. So, you know, we started off hot with an A-plus guest, if you will, an A-lister, if you will. But we are here, and the crew will tell me before we bring our next guest in, they'll tell me if we're good to go, good to proceed. I forgot, ah, forgot to get the signature. He's not still here, is he? Maybe not. A lot happening. A lot happening. These things happen.

in the sport. What's that? Okay. How's the audio guys? You guys good with the audio back there? Give me a thumbs up in the chat. Audio good? Give me a thumbs up. Thumbs up. Arryl's voice sounds sexy. I'll take it. Working through the Kings. Thumbs up, thumbs up. Great work fixing the audio. Thank you. Frank. Listen, working through the Kings. Working through the Kings. Working through the Kings. We're gonna do the gigs. That's what we're gonna keep doing. Okay. Hmm. We've got to get the signature there, Connor.

Without further ado, let us bring in the man himself Auditard. Yes, my guy. Look at him. Wow. Looking spelt, huh? I'm trying. I'm trying. How are you? I can see you. Thank you so much. I have two hands. I'll give you both hugs.

No, it's okay. Please, please, please. Have a seat. Look at this, huh? We pick up the show. We bring it to Las Vegas. I get two cup holders. That's right. Right, we're going to play poker as well. A table with the man's name on it. Yes, please talk into the microphone. We want to hear you.

Okay, sorry, there you go. You're looking. Tremendous. Trem. Trying to stay young and fit. Please talk it to the microphone. Don't be so shy. I gotta do the...

No, you know, you could be a little bit. Yeah, yeah, there we go. Yes, yes. How are you, sir? I'm good, how are you? It's so good to see you. It's great to see you. A McGregor Fight Week.

McGregor Fight Week is back. You haven't had one in five years. Wow, it's been, yeah. You almost had one two years ago? Yeah, yeah, we did. We did. But we're here. That's all that matters.

Amen. I think people want to, you know, find things to talk about and find all these little things to, you know, I'd say be so negative or pessimistic about. But for me personally, I'm a glass half full guy. Every time you look at things from a pessimistic perspective, not only does your brain go into a certain mode, but your body follows, right? Yes. So I look at what we've accomplished, not just historical. But like over the last five years, what we've been through, what we had to overcome and what we had to solve for and what we had to grow from, to me, that is a huge win. To me, those are the huge breakthroughs.

And then to like see it all come together, you know, from a business perspective and even just being here at Fight Week, that feels good. And so we're not resting on those laurels, but rather we go for things and we aim for goals that are not necessarily always traditionally looked at. the same way by everybody, right? And so I try to stay away from all that chatter and, you know, what's going to happen? What's the strategy on the fight? What are the odds? Look at the odds.

It doesn't matter, you know? At the end of the day, Saturday night, July 11th, people could witness a great competition and then we'll go from there. Everyone was dissecting. Where is he? Why isn't he unembedded, this, that, and the other? And then he showed up yesterday.

What was he like? Because I was talking about this with John. Like, he's there signing the autographs, like, is he happy? Is he not happy? Is he Zen? Is he not Zen? Can you describe what he is like right now? I think he's in a great space. I'm very happy to see all the progress. I'm very happy to see how he's looking at things, you know, life, his spirituality, his businesses, you know,

his desire to compete, his desire to continue to evolve and grow. And so to me, I think I'm very pleased with where he's at and I'm excited about this next chapter of our journey. So, okay, so the road to getting here is fascinating to me. I asked him a few questions, but you're the best person to ask these questions too

because I actually do think when I spoke to him, he said, ask Adi, ask Adi. So now we're here. I think that's just, that may be just the default response, but yeah, shoot, and I'll see what I can answer. When did you really seriously start talking

to the UFC about a comeback fight? Look, I think as you mentioned, obviously, two years ago, you know, we were weeks away from that matchup with Michael Chandler and unfortunately just due to injury we had to pull out. And, you know, the conversations continued, right? It's not like they ever were cut off and I'm in the business. It's not like I'm going away for time. I'm not trying to be, you know, necessarily always front facing.

but we're constantly having conversations and touchpoints with the UFC, right, on business. And so the conversation of Connor never goes away. And it was really his decision where it's like, you know, I'm ready. And so about, I want to say about a year and a half ago. Oh, wow. You know, is when we really started to say,

okay, well, if we're going to do this, you know, these are the things we have to do to get back, right? And so, you know, that's when it really started to happen, right? is like looking at it and saying, okay, because there's a whole process you have to go through. And as it gets closer to fight, that fight date, it becomes, I think, bigger and bigger. And the excitement grows. And, you know, everybody from all the UFC staff to the media to, you know, partners, you know,

everybody starts to really kind of lean in, if you will, because we have been out for five years. We did have an injury two years ago that pulled us out a few weeks ago. And that's never happened in O'Connor before. So this is almost like new territory we're entering into now saying, well, what's going to happen now? And everybody's not, yesterday, he was not showing up, what this and that or this and that? You know, there's all this speculation. And I think as we get closer to fight night, and when he finally makes that walk and the bell rings, I think everybody's just going to be settled in and excited to watch a great matchup on the return of the Mac.

So you say a year and a half ago, my theory has been on this. program, UFC didn't want them to fight on the ESPN deal. They wanted to be able to sell a new rights deal by telling their partner, hey, you're going to get two Connor McGregor fights. And so I think it's strategic not to have him fight in 2025 and to have him fight in the first quarter or first half of 2026. Am I right? Look, I could see where you're coming from and I definitely see that play from a business perspective. But the reality of it is, is if Connor wanted to fight every year, I think the UFC would love that. It doesn't matter who the broadcast partner is. It feels to me sometimes they try to strategically place them. Remember the pandemic. There's no question there's been

strategic gamemanship that has played out over the years. But you have to kind of look at the entire total body of the relationship. But as it relates to this return, it was really just when we were ready. Right. And so I think that he's ready now and he's ready to stay active. Now, going back to the previous years when we were wanted to get active and do the seasons and we were going to do a boxing fight than this. And yeah, there was gameship played. And there was certainly more interest for us to stay active at a certain point of time than there was the opportunity to fight regularly.

Right. So, yes, that does happen. I don't necessarily think that that played into this new rights deal that they effectively pivoted from ESPN to Paramount. I think the timing was definitely like, oh, well, is it because of that? And I would say for this one, I don't think so. How tricky was it? Because he talked about it before you guys got the deal done.

Like my contract is null and void, I believe, was the term he used. So how tricky was it to get over that hump to agree to this? Well, look, you know, we've negotiated with the UFC for almost, you know, over 15 years, right? So we've not necessarily always had an easy path, but we've always done good business. And that's something I'm proud of, right? I don't need them to like me. I don't need them to, but they're going to respect. the business and that's what it's about right so it definitely was challenging in terms of like

how do we do this in this new era without pay-per-view right and you could talk about what he's been out and the win-loss it doesn't matter like this is still an entertainment business and and the let's call them the kPI's the key performance indicators of those businesses have shifted and so he's still you know as a famous man once says everybody thought he was toast but he's still the bread, right? And so ultimately, that was our position in the negotiation. And, you know, credit to the UFC, is it, is it where I want him to go in terms of market value? No, but it's a, it's multiples over anybody, including in Zufa boxing, you know, multiples. And so it's a historical number. It's, but at the end of the day, like, we're not here to talk about those specifics, nor will I.

But I do think that in the end, you know, UFC definitely moved way more than that they ever have and probably wanted to, but nonetheless, I think the way I look at this is it's a win-win. Because him fighting Saturday night, July 11th, and him getting his hand raised victoriously is only going to set us on a path to make sure that the next one hopefully comes sooner than, you know, the April date that he... Yeah, would you make of that? So I think for us, it was really just trying to make sure that we don't get in a situation where gamemanship is played, right?

And so a lot of the negotiations were focused on, obviously, maximizing economics, but then making sure we could get him active because he wants to compete. You know, so why hold him back? And it's a benefit to all parties involved that he is active, that he is fighting, that he is part of the ecosystem, if you will. So I think for, from my standpoint, obviously we pushed for for a tighter timeline, but it could be tighter. It's just latest, right? And so it can't be past April, but it could be January if you guys all agree to it. Okay. That's unique, right? To have like two dates in there?

You know, look, I think all of Conner's deals have been unique, you know, and it's because of the value he drives, and that's what it comes down to, right? So ultimately, I think when you're negotiating anything, you can't go in there just trying to kick and scream what you want because you think you deserve it. You have the facts and the data to substantiate his value. And so anything that is unique, including this date kind of, let's call it, mechanism, if you will, it's important because that achieves our goals. And in the negotiation, we're both honest about it.

Like, well, we don't want the games, right? We don't, we, at the end of the day, this is what it should look like. And then who knows? We don't know where it goes. We may resign with the UFC, we may not. We're not even thinking about that now, right? At the end of the day, but I raised that point

because I know you asked him when he was on the show. And, you know, I think even in this, in the media circuits, You know, people always pick up sound bites and clippings and all that, you know, the world we live in today. But I could tell you around us, he's like, he's only focusing on Max Holloway Saturday. No, I get it. You know, and so like, but all this is so interesting. It's just not, and he hasn't been, and he hasn't been this accessible for so long. Yes.

But everybody wants to get these questions out. Totally understandable, right? And we owe it to the fans, like to us, like the fans are the people that make this sport great. I'm a fan still. Like, I still am a fan when I'm removed from my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, let's call it, my professional responsibilities for clients and in and around the business. So, but it's exciting because we're here, man, you know? Did they try to get you to sign more when you agreed to this?

Look, I think for them, it's just about getting here, right? And it goes back to my earlier point. I think everybody, them included, is like, is this going to happen? Is he going to make it? Is he not, you know, it's like yesterday. Everybody's like, he's not going to show. Yeah. He showed.

Right. Right. So ultimately, I think as we get closer to the fight, and as that bill rings, and as he gets his hand raised in victory, it's like he said it yesterday on one of his interviews. He said, look, we're happy, where we're out. And then we'll get through this, and then we'll see where we are. And so I think that's kind of how he's always wanted to approach it.

And I think that the UFC has been great partners of ours for years, and it has been turbulent, hasn't been perfect. It's not exactly as we wanted to be. but ultimately, you know, I think the way we approach it is, we're relentless too. We don't give up either. And ultimately, you end up getting into a right place for that specific dynamic or whatever it is. I'm not trying to get you to say, oh, we want to leave or anything like that. I hope you know that.

And he called me out on this. He's like, oh, you want me to leave? I'm like, no, I want every fighter to get as much as they possibly can. And I think he is the highest paid and most underpaid fighter in UFC history. And I believe that if he went into the free market, he could command so much more from a Netflix or anyone out there in this day and age, right, with the turkeys of the world out there and whatnot. And so is the thought, let's just see.

And maybe the answer to this question is coming back. But for the first time in the great Connor McGregor's career, he can actually find out what his market value is. Is that part of the process here? You surmised what I said very well. And so I'll just add to that. we're happy where we are now. We'll see where we are after Saturday night.

We haven't signed any extension, if you will, for more fights. We'll see what we get through and how it is and how much they want him and what they're willing to pay for Market Valley. And we do understand that if we hit free agency, we have a lot of opportunity. Look, combat sports is at its peak right now, but I don't think it's slowing down. I was with one client, Rika Verhoeven,

at the Pyramids of Giza for a boxing event. Then a weeks later, I'm at the White House for Josh Hokka's fight at the White House. And I'm like, wow, right? Just pinching myself to see where the sport has come from and where it's headed. We know that there's a huge demand for combat sports, not just fights and events, but, you know, media

and a lot of other content that the consumer is wanting, right? And that total market is growing, right? So, of course, we know that there's going to be great opportunities there. And that's why we're not bothered or rushing to get to an answer today, because you've got to get through the fight, you've got to get through the other fight, you've got to see kind of how things go. You can't necessarily predict out things like that, like you can do maybe in the stick and ball sports and combat sports.

There's so many variables that happen. And things just sometimes unexpectedly happen, right, that you have to adjust to. So yes, we do understand that there is a strong market value for us if we're a free agent, including doing stuff on our own, right? But we're going to wait and see. And we're not opposed to having discussions with the U.S. It's just all about, to your point, at that point in time, if it's presented, when we're there, when we see how these things play out,

you look at all options and you kind of look, you do a comparative analysis and you see where you land. And you use that in your negotiations as well. How collaborative was the process of getting to Max Holloway? because we heard about Prachas. There was maybe a little bit of a cup of coffee with a cup of coffee with Nate Diaz. And then ultimately we ended up on Holloway, who's coming off a loss. Like, did they ask you guys for a list?

Did they say this is who we want? How did we end up with Max? Connor was just ready to get in there. It didn't matter. Like, you know, and I'm like, it does matter. So let's slow down and be thoughtful of it. Because it's like allowing someone, I think, the opportunity to compete against him too is an honor in my opinion. I don't care what you think of him, you have to respect

that. Like at the end of the day, this guy's done a lot for our sport. He's done a lot for all fighters. Say what you want, think what you want. I'm not here to debate that, but in terms of what he's done for the sport, that's facts, right? So I think that the opponent has to warrant that, and not just stylistically and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I think the proudest one was an interesting one, the response wasn't good from the fans. So you look at the sentiment, and those, to me, you have to honor that as well. It can't just be about you thinking that you're the matchmaker,

and you're putting a matchup that you think is best for the shield or whatnot. The fans reacted to that one, right? And so when we looked at the list, obviously Chandler was number one because he really wanted to honor Chandler, right? He really felt like, and this guy did tough with me. We had this fight. And, you know, he has respect for him. And he's like, you know, it should be challenging.

He actually, we tried to push very, very hard for Chandler. And it just didn't make sense, right? And we pushed as far as we could go. But then when you look down the list, we're like, okay, but, you know, the Holloway rematch looked very interesting. You could look at Porre. You know, you looked at these different names. And Holloway just sounded very interesting.

Like, they fought early in their career. They both went on to have great careers. And this is going to be an interesting match. styleistically I think it makes for an exciting fight you know I think you know Max came into the Olivera fight and everybody thought it was gonna be a different style of fight than what it ended up being and that was again going back to the sentiment it wasn't well received it was underwhelming it and congrats to olivera he got the win he got the belt it's great right but from a you know

value driver perspective max was probably like what the you know like that's not what I was expecting from a fight. And yes, Oliver got the win, but I don't think he necessarily did anything for his career, per se, to advance his career. Because at the end of the day, these fighters still are price fighters.

They get more money, not just wins and loss and how they finish. It's certainly part of it, right? But it's also entertainment, right? So ultimately, like, I think when you looked at the dancing partners, we also wanted to create that exciting matchup, that the fans are going to love, that the fighters are going to be so hungry

and put their best performances out there because of the matchup. They get excited for who they're going to face, right? So ultimately, we know the opposing side is usually going to always be excited to fight Connor, but Connor has to be excited about it as well, right? Were you disappointed or wasn't on the White House or did you understand why?

No, we understood why. At the end of the day, like, he would have loved it, right? And I think early on, we were planning on that. Yeah. But that was before the negotiation too, right? So ultimately, I think when it all kind of came together, I understood the decision, right? I understood the decision, and I respected it at the end of the day.

You know, this is a rare chance to speak to one of the power players in the game. In your opinion, has the UFC done right in this new era of, you know, adjusting for inflation, so to speak, right? When we asked Dana, when the media would ask Dana, like, okay, 1.1 billion, things need to go up. Fighter pay, bonuses, we know the bonuses went up, and I think the fighter pay is slowly but surely going up. Do you think that they're adjusting accordingly?

I think they're adjusting accordingly. I don't necessarily agree they're adjusting fast or high enough, but I think that when you look at those two combined, that means there's progress and you've got to keep, from my perspective and where I sit, to keep advocating for the fighters, right? So ultimately, I think if we're able to continue to have dialogue, have open negotiations, not the old school way of how it was done, then we're going to, I think, get to better days

for fighters. And I'm excited about the future. Again, going back to glass half full, glass half empty. I could sit there and talk this, that, the other, that. Okay. Well, what are you doing about it? Like, there's so many people that have opinions that have done fuck all to progress. fighter benefits, fighter pay.

So when I hear these things, I'm like, okay, I have to respect the person saying it to me, right? And if I do, then it only helps me and hopefully helps them because it takes a collective of individuals or companies or athletes that all are striving towards the same, and rowing towards the same direction, if you will, toward the North Star. Sometimes fighters usually do that,

but then they work against each other. Sometimes they'll talk each other down. Sometimes I'm better than that, or I want more than that. So you have to work through all those realities as well. It's not as easy as, well, I know, calling out all the problems. And so there you go. Okay, well, what are you going to do about it? Like, how do you solve that, right?

And I think people get caught up more in the drama than finding solutions and looking at things through all the chaos and the stress and the pressure and the tension, still keeping a positive outlook, say, okay, all right, we're not there, but we're here, but let's get there, right? And so maybe that's just how I'm wired and those that are close to me are wired. But yeah, I think that that is, to me, a signal, keep going, right? Not there yet.

Positive sign. Not as much as we would like, but keep going, right? New York Times article, your takeaway. I think it's a guy trying to make something out of nothing. I think we've followed all the testing procedure. I think Conard has been tested about 22 times, give or take, in the last two years, 15 times this year. We've done everything right.

But clearly this is like, again, you know, you either love them or you hate them, but this is like a hit job. And it's either a hit job on us or the UFC. We have our suspicions on the parties, if you will. But UFC came out and said it. They think it's USADA. It's just, it's just. Well, there you go.

Did you feel like you thought it was out to get, Connor? I have a lot of people too, right? But it's like look at the timing of when it all happens. Like they're talking about stuff from five years ago, and they're talking about it right before the White House event, and they're talking about it right before the McGregor return. It's just, it is what it is. We live in that age, and you just, you know,

sometimes you pay it in no mind because you're like, that's just crazy, and sometimes you have to just set the record straight, And that's what I felt I had to do with the statement. And I appreciate Hunter Campbell and the UFC doing the same. I want to ask you the same question, a similar question that I asked, John, last two years, tumultuous, to say the least, right? For Connor, you stood by him. You've been there since the beginning. Why?

Why do you stick by him? When there's ups, there's downs, there's public downs, there's all kinds of things. You stuck by him. You've never wavered. Why? Two things. One, because, you know, I'm behind the scenes. What you hear in the public, it's not always true, just the reality. You'll hear things that

are positioned certain things. So I know the man. I know the real Connor McGregor, right? And there's a strong bond between us, having been together from the beginning in this journey, ups and downs and near breakups. And, you know, like, we've had our relationship, you know, journey, if you will, right? And he stuck by me and I stuck by him. And the most important thing, I think, is going through, I think, together, it either makes you or breaks you in a relationship. You know what I mean? And there's been so many things that are, you know, you would only think this shit happens in a movie,

but the stuff that's happened of so many people and forces that try to separate us over the years. And I'm proud that we stood tall and through that all. And I'm proud of the growth that he's having and the growth that I've had. And we're committed to that. So I know those things, and I know the things that we've done

and the steps that we've taken to fight the good fight, to be the best version of ourselves. And so I'm happy if I got off the bus right now. I told him that recently, I'm happy if I'm proud of everything. What does that mean? What does that mean?

I'm just saying like in terms of like, okay, well, we've been together, what, you know, 14, 15 years? I don't even know the exact number, but if this was where I had to get off and this was where I ended my journey of working with Connemer, I'm proud of everything we've done. And I want him to be happy and have the best tools he has and I want to be happy and have the best tools I have.

And that's all that means, right? So it's like it's not that I had to stay here for this and that. You know, we've done very well. We've accomplished and made history on so many different occasions on so many different, you know, goals that we set professionally, athletically and business-wise. So, you know, I'm just at, I'm at, I'm at, I'm at people. peace with everything. Does that make sense? Sure. I've done so much

good, I feel, for myself, but I've done so much good for him. And I feel like I poured my heart and soul into him and into all my clients, all my team. And it's thankless often, Ariel. It's not always appreciated, unfortunately, in this business, right? So that's part of the game. You've got to know what you signed up for.

But those that are, you know, appreciative, those that do stick with you, those that you can fight the good fight with and have breakthroughs with, it's more than a job, right? It's part of the purpose of why I got into management in the first place. Were there moments where you thought you were close to getting off the bus? I think there was moments where I was going to get kicked off the bus, and there was moments that I was going to get off the bus both ways.

So yeah, absolutely. And you would have been okay with that back then as well? And, you know, there's certain moments I probably at that moment in time thought about it differently, but through just experience and all the stuff that we've been through, you know, Yes, I would have been that piece. I would have. Because I know what I've done. I know how much I poured into him, to other clients, to the business.

I know that. And it feels so good sitting here with you today because in retrospect, I had to go through that. No, I had to go through all that. And, you know, it's like the difficulty was the last. lesson. It was the unlock, you know. It unlocks here, but it unlocks here too, right? And that to me is why I would be okay. Was there ever a point where you thought he wouldn't fight again? Yeah, of course. That injury was so serious, so serious. The pourier. Yeah. But post Chandler? It's, it's, look, the injury itself, getting to Chandler, it's like, oh, you know,

it's like, and then three and a half weeks another injury, and you're out, right? So you go through all these ups and downs in five years of a long time all these ups and down of course you have moments you're like okay i don't think i don't think he's going to fight again you know he probably went through those ups and that he was there was a point in time where i remember the doctor specifically telling him after look we don't know if you're going to be able to run to play with your kids like you you may be you know altered physically yeah right to live so of course you hear that what are you going to think right right so but man it's it's it's I'm so happy and happy for him and his family just to see kind of again fighting a good fight you know I want to be mindful of your time

I know you have to go soon you you gave me strict rules hard out um Riko verhoeven you mentioned him one of your guys I think he was he was wronged to put it mildly uh I can't believe he was not winning that fight on the scorecards. I can't believe the fight was stopped. Usik now no longer champion. I viewed it as, oh, he's going to run it back. Other people seem to think he's going to fight wilder. What is Rico going to do now? Well, look, I think the Usik rematch makes the most sense. Absolutely, but it doesn't seem like we're moving in that direction. I don't feel that Usig was it. Right. Should. Like, if I was him, I think he got out Scott free. He's like, let me. Exactly. I either think he's like, that was a lot harder than I expected. It's too risky. I'm not going to do it. And so there's

obviously thought on what is Usik going to do next? Is it Zufu boxing? Is it? What's going to happen, right? But I do think that that's the best situation. And I think it would be huge for Usik. It would be a mess. But if not Usik, what does he do? Look, if not Usik, I think you look at, you know, there's obviously Wilders, you have Wilder out there, you have Francis out there. But would it be boxing? We're going to stick with boxing? I think it's going to be boxing. Okay. I think he showed he actually could be a, a heavyweight contender in boxing, but But, and there's other names too. So, like, I think for us, it's getting Rico to come back,

and hopefully by end of year, Q1, you know, is the work. And there's some discussions being had right now. So, like, we'll see kind of where the chips land, if you will. Where does MVP stand with the UFC quite open recently going into his last fight? Which MVP? Michael Venompage? Yeah, sorry, yeah. Not the other, not the company. Different probably positions I'd have to answer.

But he was pretty open about, not liking the matchup, the walkout song, all that stuff. And I think he has one left. Where does he stand with them? Well, we're working on the fight. So don't have any news to break now, but we're certainly working on a fight for him. Look, there's certainly frustrations, right,

from Michael's perspective, and I get it. You know, Michael, you know, he's an exciting fighter and entertainer, but he has such a, you know, unique style that if people don't engage with him, then sometimes a fight just kind of looks lackluster. but it's not his fault, right? It's just either stylistic matchup, the way that the fight goes, and certainly there's times where he could throw more, right,

but then there's times where they're just running. And so it just hasn't resulted in exactly the Michael Vennepage performances that we've seen in the past. But I think that will change, and I think that this next fight is going to be important, I think, for him to show the world, remind them, right, how talented he really is. And then we'll see where we go next.

But he probably fights it out? I think, well, he's then to fight it out. And then we'll sit down and talk with the UFC, but we'll look at all options as well. Like I think it's just a matter of, for Michael, he wants to also make sure that the promoter and him are aligned. And I think that there's a good relationship there. Obviously, it's been, you know, tumultuous, if you will,

intense as of late because of Michael and the fights and the opponents we want. In fairness, too, like, we do submit tons of names that we want. They all got shot down. And most of them say no, because they don't want to fight Michael for his unorthodox ways. And Michael, up until recent even, was too kind about that almost. It's like, well, if they say no, we should we should say that. You know, like Ariel should know about that, right?

Because it's not fair to Michael. He's sitting there one of these tough matchups, really, really tough matchups. But they all don't want to fight him, you know? And so, you know, I think this next fight, I'm excited for him because he is going to go out there and prove to people who Michael Vennepage is. One of the most exciting strikers in mixed martial arts. One of the fun entertainers to watch. And just an all-around good guy. Like, he's just one of the good guys in the business, you know?

Two last quick ones. I think, and this is not a knock on them, but I think if Dakota Dichiva was in the UFC, she'd be a gigantic star. I think she's somewhat being underutilized, not pushed enough in PFL. Is she happy with the PFL? Look, Dakota's happy with the PFL right now. I mean, everything happens in its time. Yeah, when we signed Dakota. Dakota was in the European regional circuit for PFL.

So she's already in PFL, right? And look, this new deal we got her, she would be one of the highest paid female fighters in the UFC as well, right? Okay. So she's well compensated. And it was just a smart thing to have that continuity, and she's still young. I mean, at the end of the term, she'll still be in her 20s, right? And so ultimately, the idea is like, we'll see, right?

When we get to that point, of course, I think the UFC is a huge platform. I think that Dakota can be a household name. She's not only that good, but she's articulate. She checks all the boxes, right? And I think that she will be a household name. Like I believe she has the potential to be a household name. Yeah. And I'm very excited about her prospect.

So, you know, I'm I'm rooting for PFL. I'm rooting for MVP. I'm rooting for Scott Cooper's new promotion. It's good for the fighters. You want them to succeed. You want them to be healthy. Of course. And certainly, look, the UFC is the biggest platform.

You can't argue with that. You can't. So yes, if a fighter is on one platform and another platform, are they going to get, you know, more mind-share, have the opportunity to really build their brand, if you will? Yeah, of course. But having those other, you know, competitors, if you will, incumbents from a promotional perspective is very important for the ecosystem, very important for a fighter, very important to keep driving upward mobility and compensation and et cetera, right? So I think that, um, She's home where she needs to be right now, but I do think that the free agency market will heat up for her big time. Last one. Do you think the UFC brass wants Connor

to win or lose on Saturday? I mean, look, I think, look, I think when you talk about brass, it's so hard to lump people into a group because I never see anything like that, right? You don't? No, because you could have the brass, and within the brass, like, five love Connor, too.

Like, oh, God, he's always made it hard. for me, right? So, like, you can't necessarily say that, but if I, if I'm thinking what, like, Dana or Hunter, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I think they want him to win. A star is good for them. It's good for them. It's good for them. It's good for business. Great. Like, ultimately, I think what they want is a great fight. Great fight. Ultimately, I think they're probably, um, default response or feeling. He's like, I just want a really good fight. I want them both to look really good. Because that in itself is better for the promotion. Sure.

I want Max to win or I want Connor to win, right? So I think that Connor having a great performance, right, and it's a great main event and Connor winning is great for them. It's great for the sport, right? I don't see them not wanting that, right? We'll see.

It's always fun to talk business with you. Can you sign this for us? Sign this? Yes. We're going to auction it off. We're going to give it to charity. Of course. And is John still here?

Yes, he's still here. John is still here. You need his signature as well. Absolutely. I forgot. I thought you left, John. I just meant for strong. Okay, I appreciate it.

We're going to give us to charity. Good thoughts with John Kavanaugh. Now you know. Don't let it creep up on you. Thank you guys. Anywhere, yeah. Thank you so much, guys. Look at this.

Look at the cookie holder that they got me. Hey, let's give a shout out to Dandeline coffee. In my opinion, the best coffee. The best coffee on the Las Vegas strip. So if you're in the Las Vegas area, Venetian, go check them out. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for doing this. These guys don't do interviews all the time. So for them to come in as a real treat. Thank you all. And we'll see you on the weekend. On the weekend. Appreciate it. We'll do the interview with Connor in the locker room like last time.

There's a big thing happening. There's a big fight. Thank you guys. There he is. Adiatar, John Kavanaugh. Look at these guys. Looking fantastic. Thank you to our crew here for,

lighting and shooting this so very nicely. My phone is blowing up here. All kinds of messages. How are we doing? Frankie? Okay, but how's the audio? How's everything? Guys, how are we doing?

This is in my ear? Let's see. How's the audio? Hey, chat. Audio doing better? Yes, yes, yes. I'm talking into the mic. I was just saying goodbye to our guests.

Seems like everything's okay. Can anyone just tell me in the back? Working through the... All right. Frank is having a mental breakdown? Why would that be? What's wrong with the audio? I don't know.

I can't ask the chat because they talk shit. They make things up. Yeah. You guys do the... It's great thing, but you don't actually tell me the truth. You just tell me the thing that you tell your kids when you want them to be quiet. okay but just tell me is the are we need to take a break or not

do not take a break all right um you know what i'm just going to put it on how about that no it sounds great frank you're doing amazing look at that you guys do the it's great thing but you don't actually tell me the truth oh this sounds fantastic you guys suck nothing sounds better than when you listen to the show i i have it's the only it's the only

frank's doing incredible as always and he's killing Connor is doing great. You know, we're having a good time. We're working to the gangs. Working through the gangs. Frank is... But Rob is upset. I didn't mention him.

Oh. Frank is conspicuous by his absence, is what I'm trying to say. Like, I just want to hear him. Can I hear him? You got to let me cook, man. Hey, Frank. It's your birthday.

How are you? Great. Happy birthday. Oh, thanks. It's one of the best birthdays I've ever had. NGL. You excited for sushi tomorrow? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you know yourself. All right, you said our next guest is here. Matter of seconds, we're going to be joined by our next guest. He's one of the smartest men in the business, certainly when it comes to nutrition, weight cutting, dieting, all those things and more. He's the host of the Truth Serum podcast, which you can get on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, actually a former MMA fighter himself, a 7-1 record, BJJ Black Belt, was actually an entry contestant on Tough 19 and 24th. last fought in May of 2015, but has worked with the likes of Daniel Kormier, Chabibhna Maghama Madov, Wonderboy Thompson,

and of course the one and only Max Holloway. He is here helping Max Holloway prepare for this fight against Connor at 170 pounds. Is he here, my old friend Tyler Minton. Let's bring him in. There he is. Tyler Minton is here. It has been a minute.

How are you, my man? Great to see you. Thank you so much. Please, have a seat. Have a seat. All right. been a minute since we last spoke long time yes uh talking to the microphone make a love to it you can been been quite a while yes how long maybe over five years or so oh i think closer to 10

it would have been dc was it when dc fall oudstamere that long ago at 205 uh yeah i believe so in boston i do believe yeah wow you've still been in the business this whole time where the hell you been yeah so i don't work with fighters hardly at all anymore okay um probably um Who are you working with? So I have my own company still, Ethos Nutrition, where I do work with. I have executives, professional athletes, NFL, Major League Baseball, some UFC. But primarily beyond that, I also work now with a company called VHP Charlie Mock in Virginia Beach, and we work with active and veteran Navy Seals.

So I've now transitioned into working with special operators in addition to my own. Right. And when you're saying those types of people, Navy SEALs, active veteran, and they need to diet, like just so that they, obviously they want to be fit, but what are you doing with them and how is that different from what you're doing with athletes? Yeah, so you have three types of nutrition goals. You have health, aesthetics, and performance, right? So we have these active duty Navy sales.

Well, that's a very obvious goal, like perform better. You may be getting a call tomorrow and go and do some hero stuff, you know. So these guys were trying to help them understand, like, how to fuel their body and give them what they need and supplement sleep. Strength conditioning, everything. Like, we do everything for them to make sure that they are just the best operator they can be. You have your veterans, some of your retired guys, who will also come through the program. And with these guys, sometimes it's healing their bodies from the career of performance that they've been in.

So it's a little different than working with fighters, because fighters are typically just a weight cut competition. Yeah. And that's why it's so much fun. And that's also what was so appealing about, you know, coming back and working with Max again, you know, because we can, we can focus so much on performance for this. It was kind of an easy yes. When did you stop active? Because I remember the Habib and DC and Wonderboy and all those guys. When did you stop actively working with fighters, having a full roster? So I still, I still have

Steven as well. Okay. You know, Stephen's one of those guys I'll be with until he does retire. He's just, but he's reaching the end. Like a brother to me. Uh, maybe. I mean, I would imagine. Yeah. I haven't had, you know, that's a business talk that he has with them. I've not had, but, you know, I would imagine there's not a whole lot of career interest left in him. He's done, you know, done a lot. But I would say probably six years ago, honestly got married, have kids, have an eight-year-old, and a five-year-old, just, it got to that point that honestly I love the fighters that I work with. They are, they mean more to me than the paycheck.

And the way I say it now is for me to work with someone, especially if I'm going to be in person with them, they need to be able to provide something to my life more than a paycheck. Like it needs to be someone that I just want to be around because they're investing in me as a human being. And that's the ones I work with now. It's the people who are going to call me and call me on my birthday, call to say, happy birthday to my kids.

And you know, you want those people who just, they see you as a person and they treat you far more than just an employee. So yeah, once my life took the, took that turn into just being a father, you look at everything differently and how you spend your time and who you spend it with. And so you've worked with Max in the past.

All these fights, or was this, like, was there a break with him and then he called you for this particular fight? This is the first time in person. Well, I did Abu Dhabi. You know, I went, not for a full camp, not for a camp, but just kind of the last little bit there in Abu Dhabi.

Is it Tuporia? Yes, correct. And then I've done some remote with there and just kind of helped out as needed. But this is the first time actually going to Hawaii and doing a camp in like 10 years. Okay.

And how long were you there for? Four weeks. Okay. And how difficult is that for you? Like you have a family, as you said. So now you've got to leave for four weeks. It's difficult. I mean, it is because it's,

I love, you know, I love Max. I love what I do. And I'm very bought into everything, Max. He's one of the most amazing people I've ever met. I consider him like a brother. But at the end of the day,

it's still, you're a father. You understand this. There's nothing that means more. to me than just being able to sit on the couch and see my kids freckles. You know, like just staring at your kid's eyes. Like, there's no value to that. Or my wife is my best friend. You know, so it's like you're, you're asking me to leave my best friend for four weeks. And I remember Max called and asked if I'll be willing to do it. And I mentioned it to my wife and she said, you have to.

She just knows how much Max means to me. And, you know, like she loves Max. And again, he's just one of those athletes that just invests so much into people. And everyone that's around Max, he means so much to them, you know, because he lets them know how much they mean to him. So it was one of those. It was, yeah, I had to do it. So this is a unique one because he's not cutting weight. So what's like what's the science here? What are you doing? Because I know he doesn't walk around. What does he walk around at? Would you say? It just, it depends. It depends. I mean, we're going to cut weight. You are? We're, we're going to. We're, we're going to be cutting weight. I mean, Max is a big guy. There's two things I always get. When I post a

picture, when I post a picture with me in D.C., people are always kind of surprised. Like, well, he's not as big as I thought. You know, he's just compact. When I post a picture with me and Max, it's always, holy smokes, he's huge. I mean, Max is massive. Like, he is a, max is a very large 155-er, really, like now that he's had time to do this. And you know that, a large 55er is a 70 naturally. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we're still going to have a weight cut. But that being said, it's not one of those you have to fear, you have to worry about. So we've been able to focus purely on performance and say like, hey, like, how do we perform better in the next session?

How do we recover from the session earlier today and only focus on that? And when you can only focus on performance for a literal performance athlete, that makes all the difference. Yeah, I can imagine. Makes your job a lot more, I think, fun and rewarding because you're not worrying about the losing weight part. Exactly. And there's such a team with Max. Again, it's, it's, with Max, it's a family. Like, everyone has, has a role. And it's, like, his wife, Alessa, like, she's doing a lot of the cooking, like, all through camp. And she's making sure that he's following the plan and he's doing exactly what he should do and holding him accountable there. And then we have Ivan, you know, his head striking coach, who Ivan's the one you see out there with the Mitz and the guy, well, Ivan's like literally a chef, like an actual chef coming up. So, like, we're here in Vegas. And like, he's, like, he's. cooking for the whole team. Like Max can eat that too now. So like Max can enjoy the same food that his whole team's eating right now. And like Ivan's just making these huge big meals. So how does that impact you? Because sometimes you're making the meals. Yeah. Yeah. So we're kind of tag team and what it

needs to be like the more like the pre-workout, post-workout, snacks, breakfast. There's there's all kinds of different things. And Ivan's cooking these huge dinners every single night that we can all just enjoy as a team. You know, and Max gets to take part of that as a team. And it's just again, everyone, when, when Max fights, it's like everyone shows up. Like everyone does what they can to just make that life easier. Can you take us inside, like, what's he eating? Because this is a guy who typically fights at 55 these days, has fought at 70, excuse me, 45.

It didn't seem like there was a push that, oh, he's getting too big for 55, but you don't want him to look out of shape. You don't want him to be soft. You want him to be strong, as you say performance. So like, what's a typical day like for Max as far as his diet is concerned? Yeah, correct. So we're eating a lot of carbohydrates. Okay.

It's the primary fuel source of the body is carbs here. So we are getting those to the point that it's, I mean, there's times it's like uncomforted. Like, hey, yeah, dude, we can eat even more. It's just surprising because when you've had to worry so much in the past about hitting certain limits here, like we have maximums. Well, now we have minimums. Like, hey, we're just trying to hit at least this amount. True. You know, moderate protein, plenty of protein to still recover from those.

But we're eating very high carbohydrate. Because again, it's a lot of... What kind of carbohydrate? I mean, he's a Hawaiian voice. We're eating a lot of rice. Okay, okay. There's been a lot of things like pokey and, you know, a lot of fruit, fresh fruits, you know, pretty much all the kind of things that he enjoys anyway.

And the beauty is then, because, you know, like where we do have that flexibility to enjoy things outside as well, you know, it's like it was on his YouTube channel, you know, JDM came, Jack came in. Yeah. Yeah. Came in for camp and it was awesome. So we're getting ready to go around and experience some of the traditional Hawaiian foods and do things like that as well. So you also have that just, I guess that emotional aspect of it and why this has been

so much fun is there again, there's not a concern. Even though we are going to cut, there's not a concern of missing weight. You know, I've seen this guy make weight at 45 from levels that doesn't, they don't make physiological sense. he's just max and there's no one like him. So he will do whatever it takes. And now that we don't have to worry about that, it just relieves a lot of pressure

and you just get to have that emotional baggage off and just have fun. Do you kind of wish it was always like this? Absolutely. Would you be more involved maybe in MMA if there wasn't that weight cutting component and it was just about performance? Yeah, absolutely.

There would be a lot of fighters who aren't involved in MMA, still involved with MMA if they would have cut less. Right, right, right, right. You know, it's just such a, I don't know if the fan even understands. Most fighters are crossing two weight classes to even get to their weight class. So like a 45er may have to cross welterweight and then cross lot weight to get to feather weight.

You know, that's absurd. When you're crossing two weight classes, you put a fault at just to make that weight. And at the end of the day, it's a performance competition, right? It's a butt kicking contest. So we're asking people to go perform at their highest level, but then we're, they're putting themselves or management and coaches and and matchmakers, I guess, to an extent, are putting these guys in a position where they're having to eat to be underfueled, right? I mean, calories are energy.

It is literally a measurement of energy. To lose weight, you have to be in an energy deficit. So we're asking guys to be in an energy deficit, meaning less energy than you need to perform for this whole long camp. And now we're going to give them 24, 32 hours to rehydrate and say, now we need. you to perform at your absolute best with the most energy possible and perform at the highest level. That's crazy. No other sport does that. So I do. I think that so many fighters would see their career extended. I think they would get to have more of those crazy moments, the Max Geichi

moment. Because the more you can show up, it's it's it's it's probability and statistics. The more you're able to show up, the more chances you have of having one of those amazing high lots, right? And so many of these fighters put themselves in a position with the weight cuts where they can't even fight that often. So you've been in this a long time. Would you say it has gotten better weight cutting the athlete the way he or she thinks like it was somewhat primitive in the early days, right? Has it gotten better? Has it evolved or is it still kind of in the dark ages? Yes, it has gotten exponentially better. It has. How so? One of the best things that, I'll say the best thing. The best investment the you, the best investment that you

UFC has made since the ultimate fighter is the UFC Performance Institute. I think it's one of the absolute best things they could have ever done, and I still think there's so many fighters not taking advantage of it. It's like now you don't have an excuse. Like maybe you don't want to hire your own person, but you have Charles Stoll, who like Charles is the direct performance nutrition for the UFCPI, is one of the most brilliant dietitians in the world. It's like you have him at your disposal for free.

Like it's your fault if you're not. using that guy. So they have all the tools they need now to make it that way, but there still needs to be a bit of a cultural shift. And, you know, this might make some mad. I mean, again, I'll say, because I'm not really looking to take on many more fighters. I will take on some more, but I think managers are to blame for a whole lot of it. How so? Tell me. They put guys in position. You know, they'll put guys in a position where it's like, hey, we need you to fight this time. It's like, well, a fighter is a fighter. They're going to say yes no matter what. And fighters aren't the most cognitive when it comes to their own health. That's why they have a team.

They should have a team. They should have a dietitian. They have their strength coaches. These people should get together and make a decision on whether this fighter should fight it or not. But managers will oftentimes bring this fight to the fighter. And there's never even a discussion of like, oh, hey, how's your weight? Like, what does this camp even need to look like for you to weight. You know, so they're putting these fighters a lot of times in a position where they're just having to cut way too much weight and way too short of the time. And maybe that can be put on, you know, the way the UFC does things too. And maybe the fighter and the management, I'm not trying to blame managers, but maybe they, maybe they know that if they say no, the fighter gets put back,

right, you know, back in line. And that is, you know, a likely possibility. So it doesn't happen where they, from your experience, hey, opportunity, short notice, et cetera, a fighter says, hey, let me talk to Tyler, let me talk to my nutritionist, if this is safe, if this is smart, that doesn't happen enough in your opinion? That rarely happens. And I won't say, like,

now that we even kind of say it like that, that's on the fighter too. The fighter needs to be walking out of weight that can do that, right? Like, they need to be walking out of weight where they can make that decision. You know, because again, at the end of the day, when the manager presents it,

a fighter's going to take it, no matter what. I do wish sometimes that managers would sometimes hold that fighter more accountable and say, hey, I had this fight offer, but I'm not going to let you do it. But me and your team talk, then you can't safely make the weight. And I would love for you to have taken that, but I care too much about you to let you risk that. So we're taking this off the table. But let that be a lesson to you. Start walking a ladder. Yeah. Have you paid

attention at all to one championship and their hydration tests and all that stuff? Is that something that should be adopted here? They're the only ones that do it. And I'll be lying if I see. say like I completely understand what they're doing and if it's exactly on the up and up, but based on what you know, what do you think of it? Yeah, so I have some one at one of the athletes like Jackie Bunton. So, you know, I'm very familiar with the process. I don't think it really fixes it at all. Doesn't.

Why not? You still see some things like there's still fighters cutting weight multiple times in a week, you know, just to make weight, for instance. You know, like with Jackie, for instance, it's, she's professional. So she sees it as like, I just got a walk out her. You know, like I got to make sure I'm walking ladder, so I'm not cutting so much. But you still have a lot that are just cutting multiple times in a week and finding ways to kind of cheat that hydration. My wrestlers have been doing it for years.

I think the only fix to weight cutting is to increase the opportunity. So add more weight classes. I really think that's the only way you will ever see smaller weight cuts. Okay. So the thing that some people criticize boxing for, too many belts, too many weight classes, from a safety standpoint, it's better for the fighters. 55 to 70s, a massive jump.

Yes. 70 to 85, massive jump. 85 to 205, massive jump. You could probably stick at least one in between, if not two. Yes, and that is the way I would do it. Again, I understand why you wouldn't want to. The promoter doesn't want to, yeah.

Yeah, I totally understand why promoters wouldn't want to do that. I'm just saying if you want to really have an impact on weight cutting, that is the only shot you have is to just increase the opportunity of athletes to fight it other weight classes. So if you're saying the last time we spoke was DC Vulcan, if you're saying that, I'll have to verify. It was around that.

No matter what it was around that. So this is pre-morning wands and ceremonial wands. How do you feel about that? 9 a.m. to 11. So you know back in the day, obviously there was just the one way in in the afternoon. Now you've got the 9 to 11 usually, and then there's that, you know, period of 36 or so hours. Does this help anything? it hurt some fighters it helps others okay some fighters because some will now there's kind of a joke

among fighters i didn't miss weight i just ran out of time and it is it is true like a lot of guys if they had more time they would have they would have done it but it's like well you missed yeah um so i do think some i think it's gotten better now that they've gotten used to it but i think some especially at first would just run out of time because they were they were like well i'm just gonna wake up early on Friday and cut it all still you know like used to they just cut Friday anyway but you wake up your your body's not really ready to raise that core temperature and start sweating immediately and so I think a lot of people struggled to make weight with that I think it's just poor planning on the timing because I think most fighters are doing it right now

do the majority of their cut Thursday night and wake up on weight or they just do a little bit more Friday morning some are still doing it on Friday all on Friday morning but they just know their bodies and that's fine. But what it does do, if you're doing this correctly, it gives you more time to rehydrate and refuel, which is ultimately the most important thing because we're trying to get your health back. We're trying to get you fully refueled,

you know, trying to get all that fluid around the brain again. So I do think it was a great move. I think, you know, fighters just need to be smart about their timing. Has there ever been a situation? You don't have to tell us the fighter, but where you felt this was getting to be unsafe and unhealthy, the weight cut, you know you're a fighter yourself

and you know if you bring this up you're going to be shunned right it's sort of like a fighter and a fight they get mad when a corner stops the fight don't stop it

let me go out of my shield if I don't want to keep going keep going but you think this is unsafe unhealthy what they're doing yeah and what do you do in that situation I tell the fighters

I've told coaches before okay I don't think they should do this okay and a lot of times it is I've never once seen a fighter outside of some really crazy health things happening. I've never seen a fighter at the weight that they were supposed to be at for camp miss weight. This doesn't happen. When a fighter misses weight, they just weren't at the weight

they should be. When they started. Yeah, when they started. Because it's again, when we're looking at weight loss throughout camp, you know, like, I tell fighters, like, we want to show up fight week, no more, men, women are, women are even less. Men, we want to show up fight week no more than 10% over the weight class. Ideally less, but no more than 10% over the weight class. And, So then I tell them, you know, like reverse engineer that. Do the math on that times point one. You know, I'm not going to go into the formula. They can Google it.

Okay. But 10% over the weight class to show up five week. Then reverse engineer how much weight they need to lose every single week to get there. And it could be like three or four pounds some of these guys. I'm like, do you realize like how much of a calorie deficit that requires? Like when we're looking at it is around 500 calorie deficit a day for a week. It's 3,500 calories. That's a pound of fat.

that that's a pretty pretty solid number so we're saying you need to be in a 500 calorie deficit a day to lose a pound a week you got to lose two and that's going to mean a thousand calorie deficit it's like when you really start putting the math to it it starts to raise eyebrows and you know i've talked myself out of a lot of work with fighters over the years too it wasn't that i just started i started firing fighters it was just when fighters would call i would be very honest and say like I don't think you're in a good position well do you think I can make it like I think you I think you probably will be able to make it but I don't think you'll be able to recover and fight through full capability and I don't want to put my name on that because again I care

about the average yeah um so I do think that there's there's you know when you start putting it into terms of math or what I'll do sometimes is like okay if we show up at this like how much weight did you cut last fight like I like 20 you know 15 pounds how long how many hours in the honor hot tub did it take to do that and then they'll tell me like okay well now you're five pounds heavier so think how many more hours we have to do that and you start talking to it in sweat time yeah yeah yeah that means you wouldn't have to spend this much more time doing it they start really thinking so it's just it's just getting the fighters to understand and it's it's not healthy there there is no no weight cut that is healthy it's possible you mentioned women by the way is there a big difference yes really how so

I tell women to just assume you're going to get your period. Like just go ahead and assume it. At some point. Oh, in, like during five week. Oh, really? Just assume because we don't, you don't always know. Okay. And the cycle gets thrown off by stress. Okay, okay.

The cowrie is being dropped. Sockle gets thrown haywire anyway. I can't tell you how many times women have, like, well, I just had it two weeks. Or I just had it two weeks ago. I won't get it five week. Bam, surprise. Wow. So I just tell, just expect it.

Because if we expect it, we kind of know. And then once that happens, they can't be exposed to the same amount of heat. Like the same amount of heat that they were exposed to before in the water or the sauna will have a much greater stress response now if they're on. What's stretch response? Stress response, they'll start to release antideoric hormones. They'll actually hold the water.

Cortisol will increase. We'll just see their body will literally start fighting against what's happening because their body temperature's already up. Their body's in a very stressful, traumatic. I mean, it's a very traumatic thing. Right, right, right. Right, right. So they're already in this position,

and now they're going to expose themselves to high heat to try to push this sweat out. Like, it's not a good thing. So I very much encourage women to walk, you know, much lighter. Okay. You know, ideally, I'm not like, if we could be around 6% over the weight class when we show up five week, pretty confident in that. Some of the things that you still see fighters doing, and certainly in the old days, like, I remember a bike in the sauna, right?

Like all these things. Has that gotten better? Have they gone smarter? Are they still doing crazy shit like that? You still see some of the craziness? And I mean, I'll be honest, when it gets to, when it gets to the point that maybe they were so heavy that you've done everything right. But now we're just at the last few minutes and we have got to do something.

You still sometimes pull out those things. We just got to sweat, man. You know, we've got to figure it out. Dude, I remember times with D.C. Oh, my God. One of these days, I'm going to just write a book on camps with Cormier is what I'll call it. Oh, my God. And Cormier at light heavyweight, not heavyweight.

I'll probably do it on my deathbed, like, so he won't kill me. Were you with them in Buffalo? Probably go before me. Yeah. You were there in Buffalo? Yeah. What do you have? I believe?

Buffalo, the towel. no that was the before me that was the first i got hired rumbled johnson you were the next one yes okay yes yes yes yes yes okay yes yes yes yes yes okay yes yes yes yes yes yes yes and that was there with i remember i remember all that going down and just like looking and like watching all this happening thinking what in the world just just he was like four or five pounds over then he goes back and he's under that's that's that's that's that's that's It was so good. Man can cut weight.

It was so good. No one saw it coming. That was just wild. Right in front of us. It's, but I remember times with D.C. My first time with D.C. was the John Jones 2. Okay.

And we woke up on weight. He looked amazing. I mean, there's this one picture that I have, and I love this picture. And he's just looking outside the window. He was actually listening to, I can remember this.

Wow, I hadn't thought about it, but I believe I can fly. Wow. Like, he was listening to this song just, like, really, like, emotional and just, you know, like, kind of getting his heart and mind ready and do, like, he just has, like, these, like, he has abs. Yeah, yeah. He's got those big, like, powerlifter abs. He just looks so good.

You know, but then he gets older, you know, some of these, you know, fights were a little bit shorter notice, so then some of the last 205 ones got a little bit tough, you know, and I remember times we were just right down. to the wire like we we got to do this and you know the same thing with DC there's a team of people and I remember there's times like we have the we have the sonnet here and we have a bicycle here and like we we got someone on each handlebar and someone on each pedal just helping him go I was trying to just keeping him moving so sometimes when it gets to the end there you just got to do

whatever it takes but yeah gosh I'm getting getting nostalgic I miss I saw DC yesterday every time I see him like I just I uh there you couldn't pay me enough to go back and do one of those camps especially now stressful and again i have a wife from kids but uh but man was he a good student like would he listen yeah yeah yeah he really was he wouldn't sneak in like uh you know some donuts or something there there i would imagine there were there was some some some sneaks in there but he was committed and dude just trained so hard but yeah i i'm yeah i miss i do miss those camps I love DC.

Like it's that was the first really big name I ever worked with. And I learned lessons from from DC. Again, I've not really thought about all this and just kind of getting in a nostalgic moment. Because I'm kind of old for this now. Like I'm a veteran in the way of that's just some of the lessons I learned from him that have put me in a position where I'm at, you know,

like like working with seals and and everything. As far as dietetics go, I have a very top notch, job and a very good name in the dietetics world and a lot of that comes from DC. Wow. Like some of just the business development and things he used to teach me. I remember one time, if you can let me digress. Of course, of course.

I remember one time there was just embedded was just there and DC was like, come over here, come over here, T. He'd always call me T and just sit down here. All right, just talking to embedded and just doing stuff. And I remember I said, I was like, what was that for? He's like, you need to find every opportunity to be on camera. He's like, dude, like, get there. Like, like, you're working hard here with me.

Like, let them see you doing the work. Like, okay, you know, because I actually tried to stay out, you know. And little things like that. And it would be like, hey, like, always, you know, put the fighter first. But like, man, you got, you got, like, you have bills to pay and such. Like, it's like, man, make a name for yourself in this. And DC was kind of the first one to really push that and help me. and you know he's you know dc he's a he's a he's a he's a he's a stressful friend to have but

but he's you can't get caught slipping um in fact he saw me yesterday and all this media is filming there's signs everywhere that say quiet please filming in progress he sees me and he screams my name and is just talking to me as loud as he can and all the media people stop yeah i'm like what the heck he don't care yeah he's just uh dc does does does what he wants but uh but man he's just such a big heart means a lot to me. I mentioned your fighting background as well. Talked about your record before you came in. When you're with someone like Max for four or so weeks,

do you help at all with training or is it strictly diet, food, nutrition, all that stuff? Yeah, I'll jump in on training. Okay. I will. Not as much with smaller guys. Right. You know, with D.C., there's a picture of me with my nose crushed. He literally, you know, every time my wife elbows me for snoring, I'm like, that was D.C.

breaking my nose. I would do a lot with him. But even this one, I jumped in on some sparrington up and some grappling. I'm a jih Tjitsu black belt, so I can provide some, you know, I can provide some good resistance

when it comes to on the ground for sure. But there's no part of me. I fought at Walterweight in 185. I'm actually a little bit lighter now than I used to be when I would cut to 170. I'm 198, 200 pounds right now, float between that. But there's no part of me that can,

mimic honor of Gregor. And is there a chance that he feels and looks so good at 170 that he stays at 170? Or do you think this is just for this fight? I can't speak to that, the business side, but I can speak

to just Max as a person. I think he finds wherever they want him. Like I really do. Because earlier when I was talking to John, he's like, yeah, you know, he looks good, we're expecting the best, but he's never been hit by a 170-pounder. And yes, Connor isn't a traditional 170-pounder, but I don't know. Like, as you say he's big he looks healthy he like you think there's a chance where he's like man life is good at

170 maybe i'm just going to stay here um i mean he's been saying again i can say this i don't i don't like to talk about fighters kind of personal opinions and things like this but he's been saying this you know all week is like he dude he's even interested in Islam he's interested in just whoever like max just wants to fight and he wants to fight the best so if someone if if someone is considered like better or so there or the the the media or the general general public thinks there's that can beat Max, like he wants to fight him. You know, so that's he, I could see him doing anything. But, you know, John's not wrong when it comes to there is something to be said about getting

hit by someone at like a heavier class, but there's also something to be said about being at a heavier class and not having that weight cut to weaken your neck and pull fluids from your brain. And at the end of the day, he's Hawaiian, man. There's just something about being Hawaiian. There's some of the toughest people on the planet. So for, let's say today, could you tell us? Like, what's he eating?

Are you allowed to share that with us? I'm just fascinated by what the choices are when he eats. Yeah, to an extent. Like we did a, again, a high carbohydrate smoothie this morning. Okay. I'm just kind of get today started. We'll probably do something like some. So when I think of a smoothie, I think of fruit.

Yeah, we'll do carbs that you put in the spoon. Depending on what the session will be, but we'll do oats, fruit, honey, mix these kind of things. Like it'll be dates, whatever. we need to kind of get that content up. We'll go with that. Like lunch could be something like rice and a lean meat. Okay. It's pretty much always what it's going to be.

Yeah, at this point. It's such an easy, versatile kind of thing. Does it have to be brown? No, in fact, we usually do white. White's easier to digest than brown. Interesting. Yeah, it's kind of a... In general.

Yeah, in general. You would suggest it for the average folk? Yeah, there's a, there's a slightly greater fiber content to brown rice. It's a very, very small amount, but there's also some any nutrients in brown rice that aren't with white. So, okay. So a super scientific,

um, complex model here, but this is, this is brown rice and this is white rice. They just take, and when I say white rice, everybody will ask, apparently I sound really,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But white rice is just, they just take the husk off and that's, okay. I mean, it's the same thing.

It's just huskless. Okay. Um, but in that husk, there are some, like, any nutrients. So some people,

you know, will even have some, like, gut irritation with that. So white rice is actually a little bit, like, easier digestible. Okay.

So yeah, completely okay to do that. And we'll do, like I said, we'll do a lot of it. And then we'll do, again, we'll do some snacks that could be anywhere like Greek yogurt with a lot of berries. We'll throw some chocolate in there, honey, bananas, you know, granola, nuts, like whatever you go, you know, get that calorie content up and keep that. And then dinner will look a lot, you know, a lot like lunch. Okay.

And we're doing a lot of, of rehydration shakes. You know, it's hot, it's hot in Hawaii. It's hot in Vegas. What does that mean? Sure. Like, what's in a room hydration? Just a lot of plenty of sodium, potassium. calcium carbohydrates.

Okay. From a supplement form or we'll do a lot of like fresh, fresh squeezed juices. We do a lot of like coconut water with watermelon and sodium or salt and mix that up. Again, it's kind of just anytime you've had a really hard session, you've been sweating a lot, it's really nice to get some like fresh squeezed,

you know, watermelon juice. Yes, yes, yes, yes, you know. So it's, again,

it's feeding a performance athlete. And that's, that's the beauty of it. Nutrition, nutrition is a, I mean, it is a science. And fighting is,

is the one the one sport that just often doesn't really see it so much as that. It just kind of becomes a diet. Like it's just feed less, like eat less. And even the guys who are cutting oftentimes just aren't eating enough. You know, they're not eating enough to perform at the level that they should and still make the weight. So you'll see fighters sometimes show up to fight week and be unable to cut the weight and make the weight purely because they were so under recovered. Their bodies are just done because they were just starving themselves during camp. And again, so like,

we're not, we don't have to worry about doing that whatsoever. We're just, we're just feeding to perform. As an aside, not necessarily for the fighters, but just for the general public, just curious, all this creatine talk that I hear about. Good, bad, like it, don't like it? Great. I think

everyone should take creatine. Okay. Like, what should a regular dude who's in his 40s take? Five grams is kind of like, Creatine monohydrate is kind of like the barrier of entry. Morning night. It doesn't matter. Same time every day.

Just water? Yep, just mix it with water. I tell a lot of people just do it in the morning because it's easier to remember. You can have it stack. So if you always do something in the morning, like you always go get your coffee in the morning. We'll keep your creatine next to your coffee. It's just easy to remember that way. Fighters oftentimes, there's some really good reason to look closer that 10 grams a day.

We tend to see it. a little bit more of the barrier of entry to the cognitive and the brain health aspects of that at 10. And creatine's long been known purely for its performance benefits. You know, like they make your muscles work harder, faster, stronger for longer. But now gladly, you know, I'm happy about this, but now what you're seeing creatine talked about the most for is the brain health. You know, it's being used in studies and people to work with Alzheimer's, dementia, any, any TBI-related related sport fighting, these guys should just be doing it constantly. Okay.

Like it should be a big, big, I think fighters should be doing it all through camp, five to 10 grams. I think then if their head is compromised in the fight, like they should go higher dose for a very short time, like a week, and then just go back down to their maintenance dose. But it's very safe. I mean, it's still, you know, make sure you get from a third party company. They'll have that third party still of approval.

You know, if you're a fighter especially, take anything that's not. But yeah, it's a very safe product that it's shockingly effective. Peptides? Oh, cool. Yeah, that bad. We don't know. We don't know.

Wild West? That's kind of the thing. Athletes stay away. Stay away. Yeah, I mean, number one, it's, you're, you're floating in that great area. Is it a PD? Yeah. I mean, we could have the argument of, you know, what's a, what's a, a PD?

What was it? I think Chil Sonin said everything. he does is to enhance his performance. Right. You know, breakfast, and it doesn't matter what it is, everything's, right,

it's, it's, I do it to enhance. But, but the thing with peptides is, there's, there's no long-term human research on it. You know, that,

that gives pause for sure, but that's not always a, that doesn't always mean it's bad. There's, it just means that they've not done that yet. And they might not ever, you know, like,

like, there's, there's, there's, the argument that could be made of, of, of who is going to conduct that long-term research on something that's not a pharmaceutical.

You know, so you get into that gray area. But again, you know, we have to look at safety and efficacy when it comes to that. And if we don't know, I would just feel really, again, especially with athletes, I would never tell an athlete they should do it because we just don't know. Okay. Just don't know. I do think the biggest issue you're seeing with them, though, is there is one for almost everything. There really truly is one that can help with just about everything. So it's kind of

putting people in the position where they're looking for shortcuts again. It's become super popular. It's like, yeah, you could take a peptide to help with this specific thing or you could just like move more and eat a little bit less, you know, and it's, and I get that that's, that's complicated and it's, it might be harder than that. But I do think a lot of people are going to peptides because there are benefits. I mean, there are, there are some that are absolutely extraordinary in what they do. So people are going to these instead of just exhausting all of their natural resources and options first. Okay. And then when they get, yeah, they're using a shortcut. It's like the GLP one stuff, right? Yes. Yes, but to be fair, though, I think that could be one of the greatest

breakthroughs ever. I think it can be great. Yeah. How? If, if, because the main thing these are doing, they're lowing blood sugar and doing things here too, but they're taking the food noise away, right? They're literally making people just not hungry, not think about food. So if I have the average person, the average person who is overweight or obese, they are that way because they're eating a energy rich, so high calorie, energy rich, nutrient poor diet. Well, now I'm going to give them this thing that just makes them not hungry. If they don't change their habits, they're going to eat the same things they were eating.

They're just not going to eat as much. So now they're eating an energy poor, nutrient poorer diet. so they're still just getting super malnourished. But if you take someone who's overweight or obese, you have them take this drug that is going to reduce that food noise while they're developing all these habits. Because why does anyone give up on a diet?

Anyone gives up on a diet because they're hungry. I mean, just go back to the old ways. So now we have this thing that it can take care of that. So now let's spend this time while we're taking this GLP to develop the habits necessary. It's where when we get off of it, we have a whole new set of habits. And then you get off of it and you maintain those new habits.

And when it comes to that, I mean, I've had general population clients with amazing success. Okay. Starting them and getting off of them and continuing to lose weight. But again, the problem is people are just taking them, not changing their habits.

And they're not resistance training. They're not, you know, eating high protein, good quality carbohydrates. They're still drinking a lot and drinking a lot of calories. And these people just gain that weight back and then some. which will always be the case.

Right. Are these kinds of things that you're talking about on the Truth Serum podcast? Yeah. Are these the types of topics? It's more like for everyday people, right? Yeah.

And I have some, so I'll have people on. Okay. I'll have people on as well and we'll get into what that person's expertise is, you know? Like I might have,

you know, a Strength Coach on. We're going to talk strength. I had Eric Nixick on. We want to talk about coaching. So we'll talk about that. And then I'll have standalone episodes too where we just get to the nitty-gritty of simplifying the science.

Because I like to say that that's one thing that I'm good at. Maybe it's the country boy in me. I'm a very simple, simple man. I think that the most important thing we can do as professionals and experts is simplify the science and make it palatable and tangible for people to understand. Because if I want to, if I'm going to talk about nutrition at this level that only other nutrition nerds like me can understand, I'm not helping anyone.

I'm just talking in this echo change. So like I want to take it and make it as simple and and digestible as possible that anyone can understand it. And if they don't, I'm going to try to figure it out. If I have to get crayons and a piece of printer paper, I'm going to put it in a way that they can understand. And that is the kind of the goal of that podcast. You do that. You do it very well. I appreciate that.

So good to reconnect with you, man. I'm really, really happy to see you part of this again. It's nostalgic for me too. It's a while. Seeing faces like yours and Kavanaugh and everyone. I know you're on opposite sides of the fence for this particular. one but this is great so you're here with Max and then you go back to the seals afterwards Virginia Beach yeah I'll be back to VHP and the real heroes doing that thing

it's it's man it is it's again not to not to go off on a hole but it's it's working with those guys has been one of the it's a blessing oh it really is it's something I felt called to do when when it was first presented and it's been it's just been amazing you're helping people who just appreciate it they need it I mean winning and losing looks a lot different yes yes living and dying yeah so I mean they see that and appreciate that and I feel like I get to serve the ones who serve so do me a favor and sign this for us will you yeah yeah do you mind we're having all our guests right anywhere you want over there oh yeah yeah and and then we're gonna donate to

charity anywhere go do whatever you want Tyler Minton is his name yep there he is truth serum podcast you can get it on YouTube you could get it on Spotify, Apple, right? All those spots. He'll be there with Max Holloway. Where will you be on Fight Night? Watching. In the arena?

Yeah. All right. I love it. Thank you so much. Great to reconnect with you. Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate it. He is the man and he's doing great things.

Check out his podcast as well. The boys are going to walk you out over there. Thank you, Tyler. All the best. Thanks for stopping by and reconnecting with us. Great to catch up with him after all these years. He was a big time part. Oh, we're going to lock him out there.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Great stuff there from Tyler, who I think just saw our next guest very briefly as well. How are we doing? Is everyone doing good? Everyone doing good? We're having a great time. Are you having a fantastic time?

Happy to be here. Wow. So many, so many text messages, Andy. I'm so popular today. Well, it is your birthday. It is my birthday. It is my birthday. Would you rather not have a text message?

No. No, it's nice to be loved. You want to read them on there? Let's hear him. Let's see. Hello. How are you? How are you doing? Wow, there's a lot going on here. I'll tell you that much. But everyone is so nice. And we're doing it. How's the audio sounding chat? Do you guys do you guys? This is so great. Oh, that sounded nice. I love that you ask the chat now instead of asking. I don't believe you guys, but here's the problem. The chat is lying to me. I know they're lying to me.

Ariel, let's see you play darts. Okay. ADHD, happy birthday. Give me a thumbs up in the chat, will you? Come on, guys. Why is Frank hiding? Frank, are you hiding? It says, no, I'm not hiding.

Sounds amazing. I'm pretty sure it says is Frank. Yeah, I'm like, what are you reading? No, no. I think you were asking why I'm hiding. I was maybe editorializing a little bit there, Frankie. But we're all good. Everyone's saying we're good, yeah.

How dare you? I think it was fine. Yeah, I think it was fine too. I think we're doing well. We are ready. Okay, let me take a little sip. After our last guest, PTGC, Rick are going to join me as well.

We'll talk a little Las Vegas, 329. I think Media Day is happening now as well. And we're also headed over to the MMA Awards. So stay tuned for all of that. That's going to be a lot of fun. But anytime we come to Las Vegas, we always try to link up with one of the very best coaches and one of my favorite people in the game. He is the headman over at Extreme Gouture, very busy.

One of his fighters competing on this UFC 329 card. Kai Kamaka, the 3rd, left the UFC, came back, had a nice run, won his return fight, fighting Luke Riley on Saturday. But he has a tremendous roster of guests, and he's joining us right here. Now, yeah, there he is. Isn't this nice? It's sort of like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, right? This is fucking my home.

Thanks. Thank you. I mean, thank you so much. Please, have a seat. I heard a big pop there when Tyler walked out. Was that you seeing Tyler?

Yeah, because he mentioned you as well. Yeah, I like Tyler a lot. Have you ever worked with him or you're just buds? Yeah, we've worked quite a few times together. Okay.

He's really good at his job, man. Like, he's an asset when you allow him to do his job, right? Like a lot of times I think when nutritionists and people come in, other coaches want to kind of take over or keep that. That's what you hire the guy for, you know, let him do his job and he's amazing at it. He actually mentioned something very briefly. I want to ask you about it.

Like he says sometimes a fight gets presented to a fighter and the nutrition aspect doesn't get considered. Like the manager, the fighter don't consider. Shit, like how much do I weigh? How much do I have to cut this, that, and the other? And he wishes it was a little bit more collaborative. Yep. As coach, agree or disagree?

100%. that's something that has worked really well with the PI. You know, we work hand in hand with them, whether it's the physical therapy, the strength and condition, the nutrition. It's all built in one shop, you know, so it's very nice. Like right now we're working on getting Dan Igay down to Bannonweight, and every day we're talking to all three facets of the PI. So we know what our practices look like, what his calorie intake might be, his energy

systems and all those things. but having somebody like Tyler involved is super important because it allows him to do his job at the best of his abilities too. Why is Dan going down? It's something we talked about in the past. You know, when he fought Calvin Cater, I remember looking at Calvin and Dan in the cage and thinking to myself, man, that's a big featherweight.

And there's been some other, like Sean Woodson, there's some dudes that are big dudes. We went back after he fought Cater and we tested to see if he can make it down to 35, and Charles didn't think it was a good idea at the time. And then we retested them again after the Melchie cost of fight, and he said, I think this is obtainable. So we just got to get rid of a little bit of muscle mass

and see how it goes. So we're actually doing a mock cut on Saturday. Oh. Yeah, so we'll cut down to 140, and then we'll spar and see how he feels. Oh, wow. Go from there. Is that the protocol when someone wants to move down?

I think it's a good systematic protocol, right? Kind of see how you feel, see how the cut goes, and then furthermore, like go spar or do a hard activity after to see kind of how you feel. Now, he's not going to have the rehydration that he would after like a regular normal cut, but we'll have about, you know, probably about 12, 13 hours in between. So it should be good. Okay. How are you?

I'm great, man. Good to be home. Life good? Yeah, everything's good, man. Home game? We have Zach Reese and Kai Kamaka. Yep. So a lot of good guys.

And then Joe Banzula just lands tonight. So he'll be in town. Oh, wow. Summer League. Summer League. Oh my gosh. You're going to train with him? Yeah.

Yeah, train with Joe. Wow. What do you do with him? A lot of times we'll just do like just MMA stuff, really, feet to the floor. General. General stuff. If he's working on anything specific, then we'll kind of dial it in. But I actually linked him up with Mark Delagrotti.

So he's training with Delagradi out in Boston now. Oh, really? Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. He's awesome. Like when Joe's on the road, bro, like he'll, all right, I'm in Denver. You know, where do you got? And I'm like, all right, you're going to L.A.

Marshall. You're going to go train there. He'll do that. Oh, yeah. And he'll just walk in. Yeah, well, I'll call Elliot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll go and train with Elliot or he'll go to, like, when he was in Philly,

he was like called John Marquez. And they're playing the 76ers. And I was like, hey, don't green light my guy, bro. No, I got him, man, we'll take care of him. Wow. Yeah, so he's like that. He's training everywhere he goes. And so when he's here for Summer League, like, how often will you train with him?

We'll train this entire week. Oh, really? Yeah. So apparently, like, a lot of his obligations for Summer League, like, he doesn't have to do a whole hell of sure, yeah, he's not coaching. He's not coaching. So he's able to come in and get some work in. So we'll work today.

We'll go to dinner tonight. He'll be in tomorrow for sparring. He's not going to spar, but he'll come in and watch rounds and stuff. Oh, wow. So, like, that's how we actually met. He wanted to come in and kind of learn how we corner and, like, how he can manage his timeouts better and things like that. That's when they lost to the heat in the Eastern Conference finals.

Yes. So they hit me up and, like, hey, Joe wants to meet with you and kind of sit down. So it was myself and Brad and Dan Ege. And we met for three or four hours. man and kind of talked about the cornering the timeouts and how to manage those things oh that's fascinating i didn't know about that aspect yeah so so like when he'll go to sparring tomorrow is he trying to he's a very cerebral guy right i i'm not a celtics fan but i i do appreciate the way he handles things the media the players etc so he will talk to you about the psychology about the approach

especially when you only have like a minute exactly to get the word across exactly like how do we structure the the the corner the one minute in between you know and of course course like in NBA you're going to have 15 people in a huddle right for us it's the fighter and two coaches and one on the outside um but how do you manage that energy systems during that time and kind of what we go through right the breathing process and the instruction and then maybe it's a motivational thing or passing it off to the other coach um you know he had sam could sell with him that time too so he's like so when do i pass it over to sam or when do i do this or this or that he's like one thing you mentioned too he's like jason tatum always has something he wants to say

But we don't ever want to run over top of each other. And I was like, well, just make it more systematic to where it's like, hey, I'm going to take the first 30 seconds. But what you have to say is very important. I want you to be able to have the floor. But I got to say these things first, and I'll pass it over to you. So it became more of a system for him. I love that.

I love that stuff. I texted you after Manel's win, Manel Kep's win. I was so impressed because honestly, I didn't think it was looking good for him. Right. I thought Horaguchi was controlling the fight. and then seemed like a slight adjustment and then all of a sudden the game's over. So what was your assessment of that?

Was that going actually as you expected and there was no concern? Well, we thought that they were going to come out and wrestle heavy. That was something that we thought. Round one I thought was pretty close back and forth. From a coach's standpoint, I would have edged that round for Horaguchi

just to play it safe. Round two was obviously Horoguchi with the wrestling. Some of the things that Coach Sal and I noticed we were having a hard time with was the lead hook out of open stance. Horiguchi was throwing it more of a Russian style over the shoulder, and Minow was having a hard time reading it, and Horiguchi was doing a really good job of landing it into his fit-ins. Something that we saw on sparring as well,

that Manel was staying in South Pole too long. So after round two was over, we kind of talked about, hey, maybe we got to move back to Ortho, just because we were having a hard time reading that hook. And the moment, Manel moved to Ortho, you know, Coach Sal called and he's like, hey,

right cross is coming in, and Manel Reddit, boom, hit him with the right hand and that was a wrap, you know. So it's amazing when you have a guy at that weight that carries that type of power, right? Like he can equalize the fighter or win the fight in a moment's notice. It's something that's very, you know, comforting to know that we always have that on our back pocket, especially in that weight class. He's always been a very good fighter,

but it seems like he's elevated his game. What's been the difference? honestly i just think his his mental side of things to be honest like i i i think he's he's always been committed right like he's and he's been a world champion in the past but he'll he'll he'll tell you like he's out he's you know he's not parting but he's out hanging out and you know doing the extracurricular things but now especially after the macaa fight i feel like everything has dialed into focusing on being a real champion and you know being around francis and being around guys that have been in the gym that have realized that full potential and seeing that firsthand and

what it takes, I think it's truly helped him a lot and just really narrowing down everything that he does, right? Like, hotel guys, when you go to the grocery store, bring a shopping list, right? If you go to the store without a list, you're just buying shit you don't need and walk around aimlessly. When you show up to the store, have a list, be in, be out, do all the things that you need to be done and get the hell out of there. Okay. So it's very important for him to just kind of make sure that he's focusing on the things that are important, the tacit hand in the moment, and I think that's what he's been doing and it shows. What happened with Ali?

I told him Argentina was going to beat Egypt. That was it. And he had a problem with that, of course, as a proud Egyptian. No, I mean, dude, we're brothers, man, and, like, we're passionate. And unfortunately, like, you know, you get an argument with your wife. It happens in the house, right? This happens more in front of people, so it became a little bit more out in public. but you know we've been friends for 15 years we argue we fight we bicker and literally we're over

the next day so it wasn't it wasn't that big of a deal i saw a picture of you guys having dinner yeah manel's manel and all he set up a dinner we went to dinner and you know um and to his credit man like he said he's like look dude i'm sorry i made a mistake um i'm a man he's a man i think forgiveness needs to be something that we uh we practice a lot more um i also step outside of my myself and look at where he's coming from, empathy and understanding, like, his situation and his point. And I can understand some of the things that he's upset about. But again, when it happens in public, it now, you know, people talk about it and people know, to be honest with you, I didn't take it personally. I understand what he's upset about. And then,

but it really has nothing to do with me. Right. So, but we got to, well, it's all squashed. We have too much to lose, man. We have too many guys in common. We're on the brief. We're on the of a title fight with Manel. But we're all good. Are you comfortable telling us what happened, or would you... It's really, like, to be honest with you, I don't really know what, like, what happened, right? Was there a punch thrown? Nothing that affected me.

Okay. Great answer. Yeah, nothing that bothered. That's pretty intense. Yeah, but, you know, this is a fight game. It's the fight game. I mean, with all due respect, you're the head man at Extreme Couture. you are one of the most respected and like people in the game. Why are we getting to that point?

You know, I just think there's some things that are lost in translation amongst other guys in the room that needs to get squared away. And at the end of the day, that's my job, right? Like the gym, the relationships in the gym fall on me. So I need to do a better job of rectifying those relationships and making sure that we're all on the same page and that we can all work together to achieve a common goal because it's not about us, the coaches, the managers, is about these fighters. And they need to have a good place to be able to train and not have to worry about any drama or bullshit

outside of the training. And the sport's hard enough. Can I ask you bluntly because I did see Manel and Sean going back and forth. Is that the root of the issue here? I think that that's some of the stuff. Okay. Has that been squared away?

No, Sean's been in Florida. But will that be a problem if they're in the gym together? You know, Sean's one of those guys where it's like even with the Porrier thing, You know, like he said something, and then he walks it back. Right, right. You know, because they were publicly tweeting each other. At least Manel was tweeting him.

And I didn't even know that because I was in Baku on a whole different timeline. And then I got back home and I was like, and then Kai was telling me, he was like, did you see Manel and Sean go back? Yeah. Yeah. I, damn it. You know, so that's, again, that's another conversation because it doesn't look good for us as a gym, right? And like I said, that falls on me.

I need to get that under wrap and make sure these guys are all on the same page. They share a mat together. They don't really train together. They're obviously in different weight classes. You know, when we were out in Australia, those dudes had each other's back when Sean fought Izzy and Manella's on the card as well. But we need to get back to that.

You don't have to say names. I'm just curious, in your career, has there ever been a time where fighters like, I don't want to be in the gym with this guy? And if so, how do you navigate that? Yeah, I mean, it's going to happen, right? That does happen? It does happen.

And I think a lot of it, which was unfamiliar, territory to me when it comes to religion, right, or area where somebody's from, right? And my thoughts on that are when you walk in that gym, we're a church, right? Like, everyone's welcome, everyone's equal. We're all wearing the same uniform. We're there to help one another. If you guys don't want to train with one another, that's fine. I have no problem with that. But we're not going to spit venom back and forth because this guy was born here or this guy was raised this religion. And none of that matters.

For me, under our roof, we're all one. We're all the same, and we need to treat each other that way. You mentioned Manel on the verge of a title shot. It seems like they'll do Van Pantosha. Do you think he waits? Yeah, definitely. Okay, so he doesn't fight anyone in between. Yeah, that was part of the conversation, too, before the Horaguchi fight, right?

Like, do we wait? And Manel's a competitor, I think, just knowing that he lost to Horaguchi nine years ago and wanted to get that back. He's a different fighter. those elements came into play and Hora Gucci I think deservedly so needed that opportunity as well. So that's why we took it. But after that win, I think he's, you know, from what I'm hearing, Van and Pantosha September and then possibly us December or sometime in the new year. Yeah. I feel like they're going to do Sean versus Hamza too. And I feel bad for Imavov. Yeah. I think he does, in fact,

you could have made the case that he deserved it before Sean. You could have made that case. I know that Sean had the win over him, but like the winning streak and all that stuff. How do you feel about that? As now the guy for the, you know, who's with the champ, that it's not necessarily going to the top dog. I don't have any feelings about it. You can't worry about that, right? You just need to know who the assignment is. Exactly. Yeah, you're a mercenary at this point. But is it, is it tough though as the guy who's trying to build careers and get guys to realize their dreams where when you get to the very, very top, it's not necessarily a meritocracy anymore. And so now you're kind of helpless, right? Yeah. And I think we've been on both sides of the fence on that. Um, you know,

when, when Sean lost the canoneer, it was one of those, well, I don't think I'm ever going to get this opportunity. But for me as the coach, I'm like, listen, we're a win or two away just because you've never fought Izzy. Izzy's already cleared all this out. And then we go and beat Abuse on a short notice call or beat Eminoff and then a boost and then look, boom, you get your title. So I think for us, it's like control what you can control, be in the room, stay ready. And when you get that call, you're able to say yes. You know, even in the, even in the Izzy fight, when Driekis turned it down, they gave us, what, six weeks? Yeah, nothing.

But we're ready to go. Right. You know, and then we took that opportunity and he was able to win. If it is, Hamzat, how do you feel about the match of running a back? Do you think it will look dramatically different than the first fight? No, I think, I mean, I think there's some adjustments that both. guys need to make you know obviously it came out about Sean's shoulder injury yeah um and then uh you know i think some of the stuff about the bad weight cut and everything else the narrative for homzot on

that side so there's some back stories there that that go on but uh you know i welcome it man i love the challenge i think homzad is one of the best in the world for a reason and uh i want to compete against the best so if that's the guy then you know so be it how is the shoulder better he went out to weighs the well um set him up with brigham out there and all um Austin. He got some stem cells done not too long ago, but he seems to be doing fine. I talked to him a couple days ago. Talk to Johnny yesterday. He said everything's great, training hard. So I'll head out to Austin next week for those guys and hang out and watch him fight. For Johnny Eblins fight. Yeah, yeah. Are you cornering him? I'm going to go support. Just as a friend.

Wow. How often do you do that? Very rarely, Brad was supposed to be on the OKC card, hurt his shoulder. Okay. So he's off. So I was like, I got a weekend. I'm going to go do stem cells myself. and Johnny's been such a great asset to the team, right? He's an ATT guy, but he'll come out and train with us and kind of cross-trained. So I just want to be out there to support him and Biaggio is on the card as well and, you know, go get some stems, have some barbecue and hang out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw another video in which Sean's like, get this guy over to the UFC and then we're

going to fight each other now. Yes, which I actually believe him when he says, though. Oh, yeah, 100%. Like, he's not the type to be like we're friends. Like, if we're going to fight, we're going to fight. Oh, Ariel, pay-per-view rounds. Oh, really? Pay-per-view.

Wow. I can imagine. Like literally, when he was getting ready for Hamza, we had Johnny out for the last two weeks, and we sparred at a different time, so the rest of the team come and just watch those two spar. Really? Yeah, it's fun.

It's fun to watch. And they both just helped each other immensely. Five rounds? Five rounds, yeah. And they just go at it. They just go out it. It's just sit back and grab your popcorn, man. Johnny's that good.

Johnny's very good. Like if he was in the UFC, he's top five off the jump? Yeah, I think so too. I think so. And, you know, knowing Johnny, as long as I have now, he's done a really good job of his blend, meaning his wrestling into a striking, into both stances. He's really evolved as a mixed martial artist.

And you can see that, and what it's done is it's elevated Sean in being even better because when they first went, you know, Sean got the better of Johnny. But when I remember watching those rounds, it was Johnny was very out of cart. It was like, all right, I'm striking. And now I'm going to wrestle. And it was just no blend in between.

But now his movement, his footwork, his level change, all that stuff he ties in and gives Sean a lot of problems, but would make Sean better. We haven't talked since Francis's win. We talked the week of the fight. What did you think of the performance? Obviously, another spectacular knockout. But I do remember Francis telling me like, yeah, you know, he was a little tougher than I thought he was going to be. We expected that.

We trained with Linz before in the past. So we knew he's going to be tough. and I um you know common coaches and everything else that it was going to be a tough fight but with that being said I'm glad he got some some some cage time in you know I'm glad he got some some time in there and and uh ultimately found the finish towards the tail in there but it wasn't like we saw a lot of adversity but it wasn't like just he's going to go out there and just mow this guy down you know um and it was it was great to have a camp right like it's good to have him back in the room the energy like he's he's just a different

guy as of late, you know, and I think he's in a really good place mentally. I feel like he loves everything around him right now, and he appreciates that. And I think everything that he's been through, he understands the fragility of life and enjoy the moments and smell the roses. What do you think he does next? I don't know. We talked, we talked last week. He just opened up a gym, I believe, in Cameroon, right? An academy of some kind. Yeah. But nothing on the horizon. I had heard some rumblings of Despine, maybe. Could be.

Right. Yeah, it could be. I mean, that guy looked great. You know, that could be an opportunity for him as well. Yeah. I know that the RICO thing is in, you know, they talked about that. Yeah, we'd love that. Yeah, so that could be an option.

So we'll see what they decide. Did you watch the RICO fight? I did. What did you think? Man, I thought he was winning. I thought he was winning, too, and I thought the stoppage was bogus. I thought so, too. Were you surprised?

I know you know him a little bit. He's trained with you guys, but were you surprised he looked that good against Usik? No. I think for us, coming into boxing, if you try to outbox the boxer, you're going to have some problems. But if you can kind of stay to what you're good at

and cause some disruptions and be unorthodox in an environment where boxers are used to this clean style, you know, not a lot of stance switching and things like that, That's what like when Francis was fighting Tyson Fury, it was like, man, if you just go out and try to outbox this guy, we're going to have a long night. But if you stay in the realm of like, all right, I'm going to drop step, I'm going to switch step, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. That's going to cause some confusion. So when Francis started moving over to Salpaw, you can tell like, you know, Fury was like, oh, wait a minute.

Like now he's not in the regular stance. And then now we're shake stepping over to a new stance. And he's like, wait a minute. So you can see him kind of processing what Francis is doing. So for me, I think if you can kind of stay on what you do. really well with the kickboxing in MMA and not try to get in there and go like, oh, I'm just going to go jab for jab with this guy. And then it's going to be a problem, you know, so.

Would you like or like, if you were guiding him, stick with boxing after that performance or Rico? Yeah. I mean, wherever the money's at. Yeah. Just go for the money. Too, make your money. Yeah.

Make your money. And he's a great guy. He's a really good guy, man. I love training with him. When he comes out, I hold pads for him. He helped us in the serial gone camp, you know, And it's funny how this is like such a business, right? It's like Francis and him are friends.

But they're like, hey, let's make some money together. You know, let's go get paid. There's no animosity there. It's more about like maximizing your full potential and making your cash. Speaking of Saraghan, a hot topic right now, back of the head strikes, herb Dean, all this stuff. How do you feel about all this? Because there's one side where it's like, hey, fighters are moving. It's hard to call it.

There are other sides where it's like if it's repeated. Like I felt in the prayer fight it was repeated. It's one thing if it's like one or two, but it felt like it was a lot. But I understand it's a tough, it's a tough subjective thing when they're moving so much. So what do you think? Yeah, I mean, under that rule set,

when they come in the back, you know, Herb always clearly tells you, it's like if your head is turned this way and the guy begins to throw his punch and then you turn your head into it, he goes, that's a legal strike because he started his punch where your head was turned. Now, if you turn and you land it once,

he's going to warn you, that was the back of the head. And if you landed again, that now you're targeting that area, right? So it's all under interpretation in that moment. And again, he's got the hardest job in the world, bro. He really does. I don't think serial is a dirty fighter. I don't think that's the case. I just think that, you know, he's been the victim of some unfortunate circumstances

when it comes to like the eye pokes and some other stuff too. He's been the victim or is he the one victimizing? Yeah, exactly. Well, there is, okay, so there's a, there's a theory to be. had that maybe he gets a little overzealous, and maybe a little reckless, that his intent isn't malicious, but maybe he's just not careful enough.

Yeah. That's possible, right? Yeah. I mean, dude, you're in the middle of a fight, so you're trying to put a dude's lights out, and obviously you don't want to be targeting illegal areas. And again, it's like,

you know, the fights over and you're still punching the back of the head, that's a dirty fighter, right? Something like that. Yeah. But to that regard, it's like you're just trying to go out and get the finish so you can be a world champion. Like, I understand his situation too. But again, that's on Herb and his

definition of what is the back of the head and where are those strikes landing. You know, it's tough. What about point deduction? How do you feel about that? I have long said, warning in the locker room, foul committed in the fight, there needs to be a penalty. More often than not, you see refs saying, don't do that, don't do that. If you do that again, how do you feel? Dude, we have kids. You keep putting your hand in the cookie jar and you're not going to slap their hand, they're going to keep doing it. Right. You know, so, and, and you nailed it. Like, in the back, they'll tell you this is your hard warning. Yeah, that's the way it should be. That's the way it should be, right? But it's not always like that. No, not at all. And I think

that's been some of the issues, the inconsistency at times. So, for example, you'll watch tape on a fighter. You'll see them do something. You'll bring it up to the ref in your, in your locker room, you know, debrief, and you're like, hey, can you make sure you keep an eye on this, this and this. one of them being like fence grabs stuff like that what are you going to do if you grabs the fence well if you does this

I'm going to do this and then the fight happens the fence grab happens and they don't do anything they never do anything ever like bro you literally just told me right and so that that's kind of where you

you definitely have an issue if you already communicated those things in the back and then it doesn't happen I feel like more often than not it pays to cheat why not right at the Shire Bullitt yeah hair grabs

yeah And nothing happened. Nothing happened. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're 100% right. I think if you start to do that more often, guys are going to be more cognizant of the rules

and making sure they're not committing a foul because in a three-round fight, dude, a point? It's huge. Huge. And I think that's part of the reason why they don't take the point away because they say that. But yo, like fouls are fouls. Fowls or fouls.

Even if it's a point five. Like there has to be some repercussion, I think, and I don't think that happens enough. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, we've been on both sides of those. where I had Kiefer Crosby in Shanghai. Took an illegal knee.

Mark Goddard took two-point deduction, right? Because it is illegal knee. But restarted the fight right away. And he's like, well, he doesn't get five minutes in between. But I'm like, bro, he's concussed. It has nothing to do with the two points. It doesn't even know where he's at. Like, can we get a second to talk to him and even see if we want him to continue?

There's things, I think, for fighter safety that needs to be addressed better. How was Baku, by the way? I liked it, man. What does it like there? It's considered Eastern Europe. Okay. You know, but it was beautiful. And they're big MMA fans.

Huge MMA fans. Like, the entire community was out in full effect, man. It was really cool to see the entire, the entire community was rallying behind that promotion. That's probably one of those where you're like, I probably never thought I'd be in Azerbaijan. Never. I didn't even know how to spell it. Yeah. I didn't even know how to spell it.

I was like, and then. What do you have? What's the travel, by the way? I went to, where did I go? I went to L.A. to Istanbul, Istanbul to Baku. Okay. Yeah. And then on the way home, pit stop in Istanbul, got some tread on the tire.

Oh, did you do that? You went back. You have to go back? Is that part of the process? No, no, I just had a little film in back here. A little Turkish delight, man. Yes, yes. How long is that, by the way?

How long you have to stay there? I was there for a day. That's it. They had me in and out. In and out. Yeah, they're awesome. Same spot. Now hair time, man.

I saw Sina shaved his head. Did you see that? No. Because he had to go back. Oh, did he? Yeah, well, he did it once. Uh-huh. And he said this was like round two.

Oh, okay. Yeah, they didn't have to shave mine, so I'm good. Holy smokes, look at that. This is like the wavyest I've ever seen it. But I had to cut the mullet, so I was a little bummed about it. Okay, okay. For this particular thing? Yeah, because they just take this donor hair and they put it back.

Put it back. Yeah. Are you done now? Dude, I'm done. I'm going to have that Fabio. Okay. Is that the goal? I don't know.

Okay. Can I ask you about the main event on Saturday? You have no dog in the race? From your analytical eye, can you break down what you think is going to happen? I mean, I'm excited to see Connor back. You know, he looks healthy, he looks committed.

Being on the Connor card, having fighters on the Connor card just raises a sock for everybody. The MMA space is better with Connor McGregor in it. You know, I'm rooting for him, right? I don't have a dog in the fight.

I just want to see a good fight. I want to see him, healthy. I don't want to see him go out and be able to compete and put on a good show. Five years out, though. It's tough. Injuries, all the other stuff that he's done, more often than not, that doesn't go well. Right. Max has fought eight times since his last fight. Crazy. And his last fight was in March, I know it was in a good performance, but he's still very much in his prime. He's not getting smoked by guys. He's knocking people out. Do you lean Max? I lean Max. Okay. Definitely. Just because of all those scenarios, right? But like, I think a committed focus Connor McGregor is very dangerous.

How do you feel about Max at 70? Does that matter? I don't think it really matters. It's like when Myron fought Sadiq, right? We fought them at 55, but they're both 45. Yeah. And then I remember Myron's like, I feel way better at 55. I'm like, bro, you fought a 45 or just a different weight class. Yeah, it's because Connor's not a real 170 pounder, right? Exactly. So it doesn't, it's a wash. Yeah, I think so. What about the comain? Like I said, so the comment is Patty Pembleau, Benoit, Santanyan. I said, I love the fight too, but I said if I was guiding Patty, I don't know if this is the fight that I'm coming back to after the Gaichi loss,

because Benoit's so violent and so good and looking so good as of late. Am I wrong? I don't think you're wrong, but I think I take a page from Moikano. How he fought BSD. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. I think that would be my game plan if I'm Patty.

I'm taking a page from the Moikano. a fight and looking to how I can get him to the ground, put him on his back. And that's Patty's Forte. That is Patty's Forte. Right. He's good there. You think you could do it? I do. Yeah. Is this a quick turnaround in your opinion after a fight like that to come back in July or is that enough time? Like when a fighter gets thoroughly damage, what is the appropriate amount of time to stay away in your opinion? Good question. I don't know the extent of his injuries. Yeah. I don't know how he was feeling during that time. And sometimes with a guy like that,

it's like he gets out, maybe physically doesn't look great, but he's fine. He might be fine. And then matchup-wise, I think this is the right fight, right? Like a good, perfect matchup for both guys. So it makes a lot of sense to me. Stylistically, I think it's a good matchup for Patty. Okay, you like it?

I do. Okay. So what the hell do I know? What about Gachie? Are you shocked that at this stage that he's doing this? I'm not. I'm not. I mean, I picked Ilya to win, but I'm not shocked by it. I think, you know, Gaei's durability, his toughness, Trevor Whitman, I think all those things combined, you know, I wasn't surprised, but I'll tell you what, man, Francis was all about Gaichi winning that fight.

Really? All about it. He just felt it? Dude, Gachie's going to smoke him. I'm like, no. Really? I never would have thought that. Yeah, yeah. And he did. And, yeah, Francis put a couple of things. bucks on gaichi oh really yeah he was talking a lot of shit for about a week you weren't there right no no i don't have anyone there yeah we weren't to just see that as someone who's been in the sport for so long to see the sport at the white house and how it looked how did you process that it cool man i thought it looked cool too the walkups were sick yeah i don't i don't really understand all the back and forth about it i thought you know to be honest with you i thought they did a great job i thought they

they did it very classy you know i thought all those um i thought all the fights really went off great, right? All finishes, weren't they? Yeah, yeah, all seven. You know, so I don't think you can ask for a better card, a better showing, to be honest. I thought everybody went out there, did their thing, and yeah, I don't think they'll ever do it again. Right.

But I thought it went great. All right, so you have two fighters on this card. Zach Rees, you said, Kai Kamaka. What a story, Kamaka, gone for like, what, five years or so? Yeah, five years. Came back. Tough guy, Luke Riley, a teammate of Paddies. Yep.

Undefeated. Yep. Give us the breakdown. You know, great fight. I think Luke hasn't really fought anybody of Kai's style. Yeah. Not necessarily stature, but Kai's style. So I think we really have to implement a full MMA skill set in this fight, right?

We're going to have to score some takedowns. We're going to have to be able to show level change and do all these things. Tough kid, man, tough out, both of them. So I'm looking forward to it. I think it's a fight where really Kai can showcase. his skills and show what he's capable of, you know. So I'm excited for him. And like you said, this kid's been through the ringer when it comes to the personal side of things and the business side of things. And I couldn't be more proud of him and sticking through it. Yeah, I remember this time

last year, International Fight Week, he's fighting on a tough enough card in front of probably, I don't know, a thousand people. Yeah, exactly. And now here he is on a Connor McGregor card. You know, five kids. Wow. Five kids. There was that video, I think his wife waking him up with, or they woke up at his daughter. Daughter. Beautiful. Yeah. And what makes it so beautiful,

and I don't think a lot of people really understand is, is those kids and Amber are in the gym every day. Oh, really? They're in the gym every day. They're, the support system, you know, that they have for one another and just, you know,

Kai getting back to the UFC was a great story, but I think, furthermore, it was a big win for the family. So when you saw that video, you know, really tugged at our heartstrings. Oh, beautiful.

because they're all invested, right? Like, we go to work and our kids go to school and they're doing this. Those kids are in the gym, homeschooling. Oh, wow. Yeah, hitting the bag, training, doing stuff every day. So, seeing him back in the UFC and, you know, realizing his dreams and his full potential, man, really means a lot to all of us. Do you mind signing this for us? Of course.

We're having everyone who's stopping by sign us. What's that? Money plays. Sure, something like that. You play poker? No. I don't know how to play. All my money.

But we just tried to make this look like. Play a little blackjack here and there, but. I don't know how to play that either. Yeah. I appreciate every time we're here, you always make some time for us. Always, bro. Thank you so much, coach. You're going to come by with you later.

We got Joe Mizzula in. He wants to meet with you. I would love that. I have a few things to say to Mr. Joe Mazzula as a Knicks fan. Dude, your video with after the Knicks one, I was like, I felt that, bro. Oh, dude. I felt that. I felt that.

I'm still on a high. That's all. That was awesome. I'm still on a high. But I do love and respect the way he conducts himself. He's a great guy. But that's, you know, that's 33 years of pain. I know.

My kids were like, what happened to you? I'm like, sorry, guys. It's deep, it's deep. I'm like that. I get it as a sports. I get it, right. Yeah, 100%. Thank you so much.

Good to see you, brother. I appreciate it. Come by, come see me. I will. I will. I'll do my best. Big old seat. Sorry.

No problem. There he is. The head man over at Extreme Couture. The one and only, Eric Nixickick, always so kind and gracious with his time. Anytime we're here, he makes some time for us. going to be out there with Joe Missoula. How about that? Freaking love that.

I'm going to call up Mike Brown. I say, hey, Mike, we need to go take this guy down. The hell wrong with you. Let me see here. Man, we're just crushing it here. Oh, wow. The whole crew. Coach is here?

Coach is back? Oh, thank you. Wow. Thank you. Wow. Pizza's here. Dear hell, honey, you guys are very in unison right now. Happy birthday to you.

Thank you. Let's go. Thank you. All my dear. Should I be on the sound with PT? Yes, make a wish. Make a wish. It came true.

It came true. Thank you guys. Frankie. Put it right here. Put it right here. Wow, PT, you flew in for my birthday. Yeah, you're such. Made that in Ireland.

Let me get this shot right here. Ready a shot. Ah. Oh, there's a paper. no straight in no kissing all right I guess no one else is having that cake

yeah I guess no one else is eating it enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy oh wow I don't you I didn't really think of that you know on the the concept of a cake was a great idea yeah now I'm like enjoy man they have a fridge in your in your hotel room

you'll be able to feast on that all week how are you working wow the gang's all here where's Rick He dipped, man. He's out. He's out? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. That's amazing. I always used this pan at home as well. That's the one. Yeah, historic.

I have, wait, PT talking to the mic, will you? Oh, he's frank. I don't know if this is, this is two, this is three. I have two as well. Oh, guys, what a day so far. Is the audio working? No. Hello. Is everyone okay? Oh, I got it up my nose. Now, we're actually not okay, man. Oh, what's wrong? Everything's great, man.

They're so annoying these guys. Very low, and, you know. energy liquor. No, no, I'm like, hey, guys, everything's fine. Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. You know what I mean? Everyone's, like, looking around and shit. How are you feeling? Well, I think, what did you say earlier? Were the liars, but then the chat also lies to you as well. Yeah, everyone, everyone, everyone's lying to you. Yeah. Was the audio okay? The audio sounds fantastic. Amazing. I mean, Frank? How's Frank back there? He's in gray form. He's always just so

happy that Frank. No, he's been very, very quiet. The entire trip, though, not just today. He's been, yeah, yesterday. He was really, like, you know, he was kind of picking fun at me about my chopstick usage last night. Did I even know, it was that? No. I was trying to take it up with HR, but. HR? Yeah.

I am. This is great, guys. How do we feel? Feel good. We're in Vegas. I feel good. Boys are here. Rick is somewhere.

He's probably walking. Next to go. Yeah. What about Missoula showing up to the gym, huh? Let's get some of that, maybe. Send Casey over there, get some footage. You should go train with them. Knicks versus Celtic.

Like I'm a little. Summer League is on. Summer League, yeah. They had the highlights of a game up and I was like, wow, this is happening right now. And he's like, no, that's a... Now, it wasn't the highlights. They're just rerunning Hawks, Knicks, game two or something. Oh, one of my favorite...

Oh, no, game two. No, we lost that one. Guys, we do have some news and knows. Shall we get into it? Let's get into it, man. Sorry, I close my computer here. That's a very new looking computer. Did you get a new one again?

It's actually a very sore subject because it's not new. It's five years old and Frank. the room, Pizzi. Frank keeps telling me to freaking get a new one, and now it's not opening. Could you believe it? Oh, here it is. Okay, we're loving life. We're all here. The gang's all here. I got a birthday cake. I got to blow out the candles. I'm opening up my

little thing to Mabababre here. Okay, okay. I feel very far away from G.C. Can I just say it out, like, the distance? There's a separation also. I... No, you look great. I feel like I need integrity to talk to the mic, but... You look fantastic. It's unnatural.

Oh, look at that shot there with my cake. No, I screwed that up. All right, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the McGregor Money Shorts. Well, now, those aren't the shorts. Correct. Good decision, though. Our fashion director, G.C., loves to weigh in on the shorts. Yay or nay?

I don't mind them. They're fine. They're better than the Money Shorts. The money shorts were... The money shorts were ridiculous. Tacky? Tacky's a word for it, yeah. Though we do have the big shot on set with the money shorts on.

Interesting. Yeah, they're fine. What are those symbols? Do we know... What is the Celtic Cross? The one on the bottom? It's like a Celtic, um,

artistic, profession of a shamrock it looks like to me. What's the one, like, like, what are those flower things? That looks like, uh, no,

I have no idea what that is. Those are, those are four leaf if they're shamrots. Yeah, they're four leaf. Okay. Like stylized. Yeah,

I respect the three leaves. Do you know what the thing about the money thing was? It was unfortunate because he was obviously on your show talking about like, like, you know, I don't want to talk about financial stuff. The next day they obviously just deliver them a load of money shorts. And you're like,

ah, not ideal timing, UFC. you know. Symbolically, it wasn't the right move. Okay, those are whatever to me. The Bobby Green shorts are actually sick. Have you seen the Bobby Green shorts?

Oh, I like these. That looks like the bandana look. That is fucking... How Bobby Green got his own shorts, I'm not quite sure, but I think he made a trade, right? No, he didn't make a trade. He demanded to get a bonus, and then Dana White said,

we're going to take care of Bobby. Don't worry about it. King is going to get taken care of. He got a pair of custom shorts. I'd much rather shorts. Yeah, as cool as those are. $100,000 sounds. Nah.

That's, that's, that's, wow, bro, black bandana shorts. Imagine walking in the gym with those shorts and feeling the way you feel. Those are worth every penny of a hundred feet. That's immortal.

That's immortal right there. What else? They might be, honestly, they are sick. They're my favorite shorts, I think. I don't know, I don't know. Tuporias are great. Those are actually one of the coolest ones

I've ever seen. I do agree that they're good. It actually showed like a little bit of creativity in my opinion. I talked about BSD. I talked about Max Holloway. They're actually hanging out. Let's see this together, guys.

What's this? What's this? What do we have? Max Holloway. BSD. I think they were at the apex. No, not the apex. The PI.

So they're kind of forming an allegiance against the UK and Irish duo of the B sides? Well, is B side? Well, like, Paddy's the star. And Max is a pretty big. Okay, let's see. Let's see.

Oh. What are you doing, man? You're good? Okay, okay. Sizing them up there. I wouldn't say that's an allegiance now. That doesn't speak... Oh, hang on.

Can I say something? Go ahead. One dude here is fighting at 55, another is fighting at 170. Yeah? The dude fighting at 55 looks bigger than the 170. Okay, but like Max, obviously. 1.45 most of his career now. I know.

It's just amazing. BSD's a big boy. Yeah, he's huge. I don't think there's going to be a massive size difference between McGregor and Holloway come fighting. Not at all. Everyone, like, keeps on talking about. talking about how massive Conner is and I get like he's looking good. I would be shocked.

Yeah, I don't think it's going to be. From like a visual standpoint, but also from a weight standpoint. Yeah. I agree. And I could foresee one of them maybe coming in at like 168 or something. Not even like 170. It's more of like just to emphasize we're not going to wait. Yeah.

You know, and I'm all for that to be honest in the sport. But it is, it is intriguing, right? Like if you would have asked me about this for you a couple of months ago, I'm like, oh, Holloway. Like, no, no problem. but the more you hear the guys talk, like this is, this is what McGregor has always been magic at.

And right from the beginning of time, like beginning of his magic run, is ability to make people believe. Like, it's actually amazing. Considering everything he's been through, like I'm looking at, and people are just absolutely frothing at the mouth for this. It's pretty exceptional,

considering all the hurdles I've been in the way. You haven't been here for 24 hours. I think you've been here for like 14 hours. So it's unfair to really ask this question now, but we're going to talk throughout the weekend on Monday. What is the, what is the, I, I see everyone complaining about there's no buzz, there's no buzz, there's no buzz. I don't think anything's really started. Yeah, it hasn't.

Right? So how would you describe it? Wait, wait, I'll tell you what. Even at the height of his power, we used to have these conversations on Fight Week. I can remember standing outside the David Copperfield Theater in the MGM before he fought, Nate Diaz. Believe it was the second time, you might correct me on this. I think it was the second time. And Chuck Mendenhall and Shahin Al Shadi are standing in front of me.

They're about to go in. I was working for like the Irish Mirror probably at the time. They were with MMA fight. And I was like, they were like, oh, how's it going, Pizzi? What's the buzz black? Like back home and I was like, you know, it's not quite what I expected to be. And they said the same. They're like, you know, it's just not the same way.

And then in the day of cover field theater was the bottles. Remember the bottles? And it was like, everyone's like, oh my God. This is all I could think about the fight couldn't come quick enough. That's the kind of impact he has. Like I think we will get that. The more we see them like together in the same. same spot. We're going to always be, you know, compare and believe me, I'm the main guy doing this

comparing like the heyday to this day. Definitely going to be a lot at that at the press comments, you'd imagine. And then the face off. So I think it's all going to get elevated. I think once we get to the presser and then once you see what kind of crowd is at the way in, then we can fully compare and contrast. What do you imagine for the way in? Because we have if it's going to be like one of those like the Aldo one where it's like a sea of humanity. I don't. That's unfair. It's not almost unfair to compare it to that. You don't think it happens anymore? I think it will still be bigger than anything they do. Like, you know, like any pay-per-view, anything like that.

But that's a very unrealistic expectation to be like the biggest star at the height of his power. Yeah. It's going to be like that. I still think it's going to be very big, though. Oh, Rick is here. Oh, Rick. Hey, Rick. Thanks for joining us.

Where are you been? Grandma's dead. You know that reference? No. Where have you been, bitch? Hello, boys. How are you? I'm good.

I'm good. I mean, like, a bit of a schvitz. Yeah, I mean, when you have a guest in your house, you got to take care of them. You got to take care of them. This is the gig. You know what? I didn't realize that you guys brought actual forks. You haven't had it yet?

No, I took the fight. We put his whole face in there, yeah. There's a mosquito on that. Oh, perfect. Can't believe I got a true customs. I was going to let you guys. Where did you get this? My mom made it.

Pizzi brought it. Oh, is that, man. Ah, it's ice cream. Or is it just frozen? Teary miso. Cold, it's cold. Yeah, I don't know. Remember what happened to have been with the Tereamasoo.

be careful. Yeah, but you know what? Is this Tier Misu? Oh, yeah. It's actually my favorite. My mom makes the best tiramisu. What about Wimaz? Pizzi's mom knew.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, whatever. Comes out. Coffee.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rick, how's it been? Fantastic. Yeah. Why do you guys lie so much? What? We don't lie. Fantastic.

What do you want us to do? Actually, Andy's in the back right now. She's switching up the plugs into Jack Zee. Yes, I like that. I like Jerry. One, one. we actually have no idea. if it's going to work, we're just going to troubleshoot from here

on out. We'll let you, we'll keep you up there. I like that. That's exactly what I want. She's in the mix. She's always in the mix, Andy, back there. I don't know how she actually does her job. A two, five, five, two, that's where we're directing the traffic. Is that how I sound? I used to think that she was just talking to herself. I don't think Pete's even heard that. Yeah.

These headphones, Frank, what the fuck. Yeah, Frank. He can't hear anything. I, with the Frank, man, he's... Is he dying? Is he dying? I'm not, though, course and I did. I'm taking a lashing that I did. It's funny that I heard he loves to take on the chat. Everyone just blames Frank. They think he runs everything.

Yep. Video, audio. Well, the audio is especially. Graphics. It's always frank. It's always frank. I actually think that that's a sign of like a compliment. Like they view him as this very important figure.

He ticks it that way. He loves it. No, no. This is not my fault. You guys should continue to blame Frank. Okay. Everything. Perfect. Perfect.

The gang's all here. How great is it? It's the last time we were all here in this vicinity. The launch of Uncrown. Wow. September 224, shout out. The legendary... The launch 1,000 ships.

Yes. The legendary Pizekarro Marab prediction. He knew it all along. Why you hear this week's one? I'm waiting with faded breath. That's right. Well, speaking of Marab, he actually made some predictions

for UFC 329. A great segue there. Do we have this clip? Let's play it here in a matter of seconds. Mr. Marab do Ljaville predicting UFC 329. All right, Marab. U.S.C. 329.

Brandon Weevil or Lani Kavana. Brenda Roywell. Incorrect. Colis-San-Hagan and Mario-Bautista. Wow, it's gonna be a great fight between Corey Sanhagan, Mario-Bautista, but I have to go with Corey Sanhagan. The BSD, Benoit versus Patty Pimbled. I go Benoit Sandini.

And then... What's the one for Foyt-E? ...Wattano McGregor versus Max Holloway. Wow. I love Kanah McGregor so much. much. I have so much respect for Max Holloway. I want to Kahnemogregor win because he's been away from fighting a long time and he he done so much for this sport and he deserved to win this time.

All right, there you go. That was a bit of a non-prediction. I want Kanna McGregor to win. Yeah, he's not with my heart. No, it's not a prediction. You didn't like it? You didn't like the rival one. Yeah, I don't like it. Lani is the man. Yeah, he is the man. And I think, but I do think Roy Val is going to be pissed off that they put him in the spot. I'm taking Rodok.

Oh, yeah? What do you mean by putting him in the spot? As in, he's on a two-fights kid. Lonnie's ready to go. He's on a big spot. He's a big card. But it's going to feel like you're feeding me to the young gun to put him.

I know. We're both agreeing with he's going to be like, what are you doing? I'm trying to make a point and you're just making the same point. I'm back in you. Welcome to the show, Pizis.

It's great. It's great to have it. Wallach I have already. So you think he wins? I forget what we're talking about now. Lonnie Kavana. Lani Kavanaugh wins. What's with this nodding your head,

sincere nod as if like, you know, all right, kid. Who do you pick? Who are you picking? Notice that Ptze's wearing shorts. Yeah, I mean. Oh, he's everybody got out of here. He was like, oh, fuck.

Ariel's going to kill me for this. No, I just noticed. The shirts are, could you get a full fit check? Look at this. Yeah. I don't know what's better. Pitsis's flexibility is, We get a side by side of him and Andy

Aspin all from last year. Andy, send a yellow t-shirt, mate. I need to complete the look. It's a phenomenal look. What was the issue with Rick? It just doesn't look at that. He said Lonnie's going to win. I was like, okay.

Pizza came out on the front foot. Yeah, yeah. The second he got here. Right down like these have a whole little vibe in-person voice. They literally. Oh, they love me on Zoom. They love me on Zoom.

To be honest, we never actually speaking person. You're all on the same screen as far as I'm concerned. What about Josh Hook? guys. Let's take a look at this. Have you seen this footage? I have not. I haven't seen it. I love when PT doesn't see anything. It's perfect. Josh Hokit out on the

the hard court. Yeah. He's an athlete this guy. Look at this. He didn't call bank. He did not call bank. Okay, can I say? Oh my God. He says he missed that on purpose, only to nail this. That's wild. The walk is incredible.

Look at this one. Look at this one right here. A little step back. That one actually was clean. That was clean. That was clean. He's an athlete. There's something about the way he's throwing it up there in the first two shots where it's like... That was not Hooper.

No. You think he's messing around? Probably because the last shot was clean. The spin move into the foul line jumper was good. What about Shafka Rahmanov, guys? Shafka Rahmanov is on the comeback trail. He's not fighting for the belt next. We obviously know that Ian Gary is going to be fighting for the belt next against Insamach.

We see him, though. It's just the way we're like looking at it. Working out. okay promising looking good man you know so sad about him

in the crowd in Azerbaijan wasn't there yeah oh man like what if right I just

I'd love him to come back man I feel bad for him looking at him on this knee machine yeah oh it looks like he's struggled

orchard we're coming up on a year and a half since we've seen the guys crazy right also Rick laughing because we're watching like two

we're just what are these 100 inch TVs a hundred 20 inch TVs they're giant they're beautiful I need to go get some sun. No, listen.

No one can see what we're seeing. I don't know how we could show it to them, but there's two massive screens in front of us. The best part is, as I'm locked in interviewing, they're coming in and out. Of course, since you guys have been here, they haven't gone out once. But throughout the interviews, you can imagine.

Is he making it up? Gigantic. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Dustin Porier does an interview with Diary of a CEO. He's putting his part out there on his sleeve. And here's Sean Strickland coming out and calling him basically a wuss.

Ah, mental health, depression. Bro, you're a fighter. Suck it up. I'm paraphrasing, but it's complete nonsense. It doesn't matter who you are, what you have, how rich you are, how famous you are. Everyone could deal with mental problems. And then apparently he speaks to Dustin. And in classic Sean fashion, ah, let me walk it back.

And now we have to applaud him. Because now he's a big man for standing up. Hang on. Let me read the tweet. I spoke to Dustin, and he is legitimately messed up by his actions. I thought he was just doing PR cleanup, to be honest. I guess not everyone is a POS like me. So, yeah, I repent and I'm sorry, Dustin.

Hope Budlake does the right thing with this one. He deserves to help. Maybe speak to him first. How about that? Maybe speak to him first before calling him a wuss. But he does this every time. Yeah. Insult, called out, walks it back.

Insult, it's like literally with every single situation. Yeah. Dustin Porre and him don't have a beef. Maybe call him up first. That, to me, is commendable. Call him up. How are you doing? What's up?

Maybe don't call him a low life for going through an issue. But didn't Strickland have a very well-publicized kind of issue on a podcast where he- Yes, the Ovan. Yeah, he got very emotional talking about his past. It seems like a bit of a weird thing for him to poke his finger in the chest or someone about it. The way he's kind of constructed it, though, is that he, at first, interpreted it as like Dustin is just making excuses for it, utilizing that as like a shield, and then saying like, no, he's genuinely affected by this. But like you, I just think maybe the

reaction can wait. Doesn't have to be the first second anything comes to your mind. Or you watch the clip. Let me react right away. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no. I mean, so I feel for Dustin. I feel I didn't watch the entire interview. I saw some clips. He's obviously going through a very, very hard time and alluded to the fact that some sponsors maybe, you know, he mentions Bud Light, you could see why that would be an issue, right? What was Strickland saying with that? Hope Bud Light does the right thing?

So in the interview, I don't know if he referenced Bud Light, but he did say he's lost some sponsors and Dustin's a Bud Light guy. I mean, it makes sense to look at that. So honestly, what it seems is that like Dustin probably told Sean and Sean's now putting it out there. I mean, it's an issue with alcohol and it's an alcohol sponsor.

Of course. It makes sense for him. But is it, is it Sean's place to put it out there? That it's Bud Light? No. You know? If Dustin...

What is doing the right thing? Oh, I guess... Bring them back. Bringing it back. Yeah, yeah. I don't think he needs to be the sponsor for that. Dustin. Yeah.

After that incident. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, you could understand. You could understand why they would feel some sort of way about it. So how do we feel about being in Las Vegas, guys? yesterday we went to one of our favorite spots can we give him a shout out

yeah china pabloano I want to give Eric the waiter a shout out what a gent he'd see fucking love that guy he wants us to go back tonight just so he can have him again China Poblano it's a mix of Mexican and Chinese yeah it's a fusion

but it's separate dishes love it very unique never seen anything like that before they certainly don't have that in Blanche they do yeah fun enough good um beautiful image of the Dalai Lama there at one stage Rick was showing you yeah yeah yeah yeah So we were all very tired. I was going to say another word, but you told me yesterday not to say that word anymore.

Don't say the word. Can I say bollick? Yeah, yeah, you're about. But not the other one. Not the one. I was about to say it. They know. They know.

They know. They know. They know. They know. They know. They know. So we're all very tired. But now feeling good.

Rumor on the street is Pizzi woke up at 4 a.m. That's right. To go to the gym. Just ran though. Yeah. Listen, not bad. Yeah. And now you're open at 4.

I didn't get enough up now. I didn't go to gym of 4. my article that's up now on ground go ahead and then i went to the gym and then can i tell you what i did then tell me so it's quite peckish and i said peckish what does that mean i'm hungry oh okay all right just let the story flow and you might pick up something you know what i mean all right so i go downstairs so edgy right can i just fucking talk now here you go again i'm trying to tell a story i'm trying to tell a story a real looked at me and rick for like confirmation on not knowing look at me i'm telling the story all of you never heard of that word all right you know now okay

like a chicken pecking. Okay, go, go, go. So I go down into the lobby and, you know, we can't give away our location. We don't get my location. Yeah, yeah. Of course, course, please. And I'm like, I don't have any food in the room. I'm going to have to get some food here.

I say, can I, like, you know, can I get this sandwich or whatever? And she's like, which sandwich? And I was like, that breakfast one, please. And she says, yeah, no problem. And I said, but can I see you have some bacon over here? Can I get the bacon on it instead of the sausage? No. And she said, absolutely not.

Pre-made. Pre-made. Hang on. All right. Hang on. So then she takes out the sandwich from the drawer it's in or whatever, and she hands it to a dude wearing a full fucking chef's outfit with a hat on, with the chef's outfit,

and he just puts it in the microwave. And I'm going, what are you getting dressed up like this for? Why are you dressed like that? Imagine leaving in the morning. You're leaving your house. And the kids are kissing some good boy. And they're like,

Jesus, that must be a Michelin Star chef. Now, he fucking puts microwave sandwiches on. Well, maybe he made the sandwich, and now he's just bringing it home. Where are you wearing the hat if you can't give you stuff? Maybe he made the sandwich to begin with. Bullocks.

This is... $50. He's not going to survive. This is not going to survive here one week. This is the third time I've heard this story. Every time the vitriol towards the fake chef gets more and more intense. He's an absolute disgrace. He always got his layout and then he says, and then this fucking guy came up in a full chef's outfit.

The energy? We got to bring it down. But the heart of the story, the pudding on the chef's outfit to micro, I'm totally with you. I'm on the same page. I'm on the same page. Imagine what Eric from the restaurant last night would think of that.

Yeah. So, so. They make the fresh guacamole at the table. Oh, tremendous. There's no microwave just shortcut. Never saw cheese and guacamole until last night.

We need the two guacamoles, do you think? Yeah, for sure. I don't think we need to do that. That was Rick's recommendation. I was in the bathroom when that happened. So actually, it's not.

You came back and you said, you got the two guacamole and you guys said, yes, we already got it. So I had nothing to do with it. But I know, I know that's how you felt. Okay, okay, okay. I actually regret it

because it's one of my favorite restaurants and I ate nothing. Yeah, feeling so tired of it. You're just talking too much, I think. We could have used you. We could have used you last time. Yeah.

Frank was just talking on my ear. He's just like, and this happened and this happen. And he tends to do that. And then he got upset because we started trying to have a conversation when he just hadn't seen him well. He gets offended when I'm trying to spread the love.

Sorry, I'm in the way. I did see that. You guys, it was trying to, it would be like me and Pete's trying to talk over you and he's like, I guess I'm just, he doesn't just do this. He goes like, all right, I guess I'm not here.

Is Frank, like, can he not speak or is he just? I think he's just going to let you guys talk. A lot of quiet allegations on Frankie. He's abstaining. How's the cake, man? The cake is phenomenal. I want to try it, but I don't want to reach it. I don't think you should at this stage.

I'm going for it. I don't care. Give me a little bit. Give me a shard of chocolate. Frank, is cake on the headphones bad? Thank you. No, man. That's probably helpful at this point.

Why you so loud of my ear, though? Because I'm yelling. Oh, okay. That is a great cake. So I guess we're just not going to worry about the table anymore. Table's fucked. Oh, fuck. Wow.

Shout out to intern Josh on this one. Wow, thank you, Josh. Wait, did somebody dip his face in or is this photo shot? I went straight in. He went straight in. Wow, yeah, that is an ice cream cake. Yeah. Oh, is it?

No, it's not. It's not. It's just chilled out. Mama Carol. We have so much to get to. We're going to the MMA Awards. Have you ever been to the MMA Awards? No.

You're going to love it. wait until you see the food spread with the chefs oh i can't wait you can have a great time did you bring your tugs yes did you bring the tucks for real ptze no this is the first time i've ever gone with anyone from the show

it's always been john bier as my date we can't john bair be here last time we're here john bair was here yeah i didn't ask him but not only am i going with someone from the show i'm going we're going like nine deep let me tell you something if we don't win Best show. We're fucking storming the state. I'm gonna do the Kanye thing.

Yeah. Who were we? I don't even remember who we're up against. I don't even know. Embedded and broken? This is supposed to happen in December. Yeah, yeah. And when we, it absolutely lose.

Boo. We're in the same category, best programming with contender series. Embedded. Rogan. It's always just weird categories. It doesn't make sense. Fuck them. Yeah, fuck them.

Tomorrow. sushi. Omikaze. He's out. Why? You're out? Frank put me on the pressure and he was like,

are you sure you want to do this? It's really expensive. In the end. You know what I mean? I was like, in the end. All right, Frank, I won't then. Sorry, Irish people,

you know, we don't deserve nice things. So, made me feel awkward enough about it that I had to back out. Thanks, Frank. Hope you have some fucking nice fish tomorrow. Who are you speaking to? Where are you,

you're just pointing up into the ceiling? In the end, only three people excluding me were about that life. It's just, it's just us three and Frank? They kept, they kept, I'm glad Frank is

doing it. That's fucking crazy. I mean, it's just four of us. It started with eight and now there's four. I couldn't be more excited. I'll eat for them. It's going to be unbelievable pizza. You said you only eat monkfish and cod?

Exclusively. What the fuck is that? I'm contracted the monkfish. I don't even know what a monk fish is. Then it's the sphere. Pizzi's energy when he gets to Vegas is at a level that I just like can't even fathom. Someone's going to have to make sure I don't.

If he was at the yoke. Someone's going to be okay. We're going to the Wizard of Oz, his favorite movie of all time. Favorite at the sphere. There's also a problem There might be a problem with me at that Okay, hold on. You at least like the Wizard of Box right.

I enjoy it. I enjoy a favorite movie of all time. That's like very lukewarm. I mean, it's fucking, really a movie. It's okay. Press conference and stuff. It's pretty good. We'll find out.

We'll worry about that later. Then we've got, well, we've got another show tomorrow. And Chale Sunnan's going to join us. That guy himself. Owen Roddy is going to join us. Oh, I'm Roddy. Striking coach for Connor McGregor. More to come.

Full slate of guests on Friday as well. live show Friday night 730 Demetrius Johnson on and on it goes And we have some other things behind Am I missing something important There it is

What am I missing? I mean we'll be here till month We're gonna be here Tuesday We're doing a show Monday We're doing a watch party on Saturday Of course I mean the deck is stacked No pun intended

Post show You gonna be there? Hope so Summerlee we're gonna squeeze in I'd like to Missoula Can't do that I need Mike Brown

What? He's here Mike Brown's here Mike Brown is here Mike Brown is here Mike Brown is year. Well, they're in Vegas. No, for the summer. Wow. So I need to, that's, that's, that's, head coach of the New York Knicks. ATT, yeah, I know. I mean, you say that close personal friend. You don't have to, you know, pretend like you don't know. Is it weird that there's four people on this set and only, obviously, excuse me, only one has wished me a happy birthday. Me? No. I just walked in with a hook. We walked in with a cake. Nah, I didn't get a text. I didn't get a text. I didn't do it. You know, like, Eric said, don't do it. I only got a text from GC and Frank. That's it. I'm a big birthday text.

but never got one off you last year. Getting a cake presented to you by both of them feels like. You think it trumps it?

I think that's a Whose idea was the cake? Me. It was everybody's No, I need to know. Piz's mom. We asked Pizzi's mom

to make it and she brought it. He's texting people on the side. Can't be bothered. Take a phone number. Ah, yeah, fucking can't a piss.

This has been a great day. This has been a wonderful day. Oh, do we have super chats? I forgot about that. Do we do super chats here? Yeah. All right. Thanks for my name.

He's reading them? Yeah, why not? Oh, Jesus. There he is. Sorry, my... Frankie! My ear drums almost blew out there. You want me to turn your down?

No, no, it's okay. Listen, it's fine. On the beat. I'm getting older. Eric said Gable can beat, Cyril. Yes. I tend to agree with him. Thank you.

See, I'm wondering how you feel about his take. Peace and love. Can I just say that moment, I was on a plane, and as soon as the beat went live, I shut down everything. I was like, I need to watch this. And then the Shaheen. and Eric moment at the end. I was laughing hysterically. That Shaheen found himself in the Jackman web and didn't realize for a few minutes.

And then Rick becomes animated because he knows he has him. He's like, oh, I can't believe, you're in the web. Sheen still doesn't know, eventually realizes. And then just goes, all right, here we go. Magic moment on the show. I need, we need a live heart monitor on Rick on on Saturday when Elisha Ellison scuffs that first take down. And he starts putting the jacking on Gable Steve's Okay. It just starts spinning back fist.

But I'm waiting for the John Anick on Saturday. Elisha Allison landing at will on Gable Steven is he here to upset the debut? Oh my God.

But Rick's just like, oh fuck, what's happening? On the flip side of the coin, getting a win over Elisha Ellison, I am going to treat this like he just won

the UFC championship. Triple ground. I will say he is a minus 4,000 biggest favorite in UFC history. Is that true? Yeah. Holy crap.

Yeah, Beau was like two at some point. Yeah, people forget Alexander Romanov against Chase Sherman. What was that? Minus 8,800 as well. Oh, my Lord. The only win for him is just eviscerating Elisha Allison. I got good news for you. It has to be like a two-minute beatdown.

I've got great news for both of you. If it goes around, Rick has to quit the show. If it goes around, Rick has to quit the show. But that's on main card, right? No. No. So it'll be pre-watch party. Yeah, but we can have a phone on it.

I think we should have a camera on him. What else, Frankie? What else? I want him to beat his chest when Gable Steven beat the chest. I will. Like me reacting to the Knicks. Also, Alex Allison is a muckle chute veteran.

I know. That breaks my heart. That breaks my heart. That breaks my heart. I'm in Lance Gibson. Frankie, what else? G.C. I think you need to postmates a Sennheiser mic ASAP from Best Buy to save Frank's life.

Why me? Ariel learns this mic is trash. No need to have Ariel read this. I love the irony of Frank having to read this one. These headphones. Frank. I watched you work on the fly in the back there. You absolutely killed it.

Don't listen to the chat. Fuck the chat. They do not understand how difficult it is to set up a live production. Yeah, Frank. This was nothing yesterday. This was literally nothing. Empty room. So was the empty room over there.

What Jordan, Andy and Frank did, Rob, a whole team to set everything up. Preston Jordan as well. Rick did, you know, whatever. Unbelievable work, Frank. I commend you. I commend you, Frank. Yeah, Frank, we can't you. You guys were just like driving around out there going to like,

getting food, hanging out. Did a great job. I do as I'm told, Jordan. At one point, it was, go get the coffees. Rub my feet. That was weird when I walked in or rubbing his feet. It was weird, man. Well, fair point, they have to out.

Thank you for that. His corns as well, get the corns. What else, Frankie? What else? The same person, Rebecca, great work team fixing audio so quick. Well done. Same person. Thank you.

Yeah. Shout out. What was made back there? Someone else says, happy birthday, Halawani. Thank you. Great. The beat. yesterday?

Great beat, yeah. I agree. The man in the arena. Wait, it says great MMA beat yesterday. Why did you say the beat? Oh, got it. You're trying to be understood, understood. You can call it a NBA beat, but it's fine.

All right, yes, yes, yes. What else? What else? H. Can you get Pizzi and McGregor to make peace? I don't see this one. Did you just make that one up? It's what Frank wants the most. Keep saying it to me.

Please. Peace and love. Frank goes, should we do this one? I said, Petez said no mention of any peace, only war. And I was like, oh, wow. Geez. He's like Eddie Hearn and, uh, I love it.

And David, I love the fuckery. We will, we will make peace. Everyone, life is too short. We're going to come together and sing kumbaya. And some people don't have to make peace. It's as long, from our perspective, and I don't want to speak for Pizzi, you don't have to be friends with everyone who you cover. You just have to cover them fairly and accurately.

Correct. And unbiasedly, is that a word? Unbiased. No, yeah, that's right. Unbiasedly. Unbiased Lee? Yeah. Really?

Anyway. What would you spell that? Would it, would a T or D? No, D. Unbiased? L.Y. And I think P.T. does that as good as anyone, if not better. So he doesn't have to be friends.

I don't have to be friends. No one has to be friends with people. Like Frank is friends with none of us. God, I don't have to be friends with Frank anymore. Frank has friends and he's still good at his job. The problem happens when there's an issue and then that issue bleeds into the cover. You know what I mean? And that's when you cease being a journalist.

Like Stephen A. Smith and LeBron. No. Boy. Yeah, no, that definitely did. So Stephen A and Jalen Brown would be a good example of that. But is Stephen A. a journalist at this point? Wow. No. You know, he's more talking head,

correct. Opinion guy. He does cite like, my league sources tell me this, that the other. It's a gray area. It's all very gray. What a cake? What else was great, though? Shout out to the cake.

And lastly, saw the, the UFC 329 countdown great watch, I believe Max Holloway activity gets him over the line, but you never know when Connor turns up. This is what I'm talking about. The more you hear like John and you hear like Roddy's going to be on tomorrow, it just

starts like, oh, maybe they have, maybe they're right here, you know? I've never seen a fighter that can do that. Never seen a fighter in my life that can make people believe like him. With the recent runs of upsets as well, you just have no idea all the stars being suddenly cleared. And he's coming back now.

I was going to say Jake Paul. Yeah, Jake Paul makes me believe. I was like, there's no way he's being the 60-old. All of a sudden, he's like a plus 400 when he should be a plus 40,000. Fair play, Rick. You know what I mean? But yes, it is fun to relive some of that and to kind of buy into it if you want to buy into it. I think that's a big part as well.

Jake Paul makes us believe in him. I think Jake Paul makes a lot of people believe that he can win when you don't agree. No, I think. Just look at the lines for these fights. Jake Paul's more like, he's right about the lines, but I did not believe. But Gregor also, like, the line is coming down. So I guess people do believe. I see your point.

Yeah. It's like, plus 180. But fuck, I mean, I... Jake Paul should have been a plus 20,000 in that fight. Yeah, he wasn't. Me and Rick agree. He was like, yeah, you guys, I'm just saying the general public. Yeah.

He was like below a thousand, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was. That's crazy. That's, I mean, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. Popular fighters have a way of just like people want to wager on them. Patty Pimbley is somebody who gets that all the time.

Interesting analysis there from Eric. Take the fight to the ground for Patty. I do actually think Patty has an advantage on the ground. But I think both of them are incredible frontrunners. I think if either of them get ahead, it's over. I agree with that. Gents, it's time to go. We have much to do.

Let's call it a day. We're going to be back tomorrow. Happy birthday in person. Huge deal, sign it in person. I'll send you a text later. Send you a text later. Oh, yes, sir. Ma, he loved the cake.

He did. He did. He did. I did. Today's been great. Working through the Kings. We're going to do it. No kicks. It's been amazing.

Four guests in studio. More tomorrow. More Friday. Saturday, Monday. On and on it goes. We're just getting started here in beautiful since city lost wages. Nevada. You like that when I say that.

You like that one. I always hear a chuckle out of you. I always hear a chuckle. Oh, it's a fake one. Damn. Wow. We're starting to see... Do you know, it's going to be a tough few days for me. It's going to be a tough few days from me here. How about that Argentina, Egypt?

Wow. Thanks, guys. Appreciate that. It looks like I really dug in there. Same thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Each other's nose. Dr. Evil was cake? What was it? I don't remember. He was a latte.

It was a latte. It was a latte. I loved when he would call his son. Scott. Remember Scott? Yeah. What was his name? I don't think he don't.

Seth Green, but I don't think he, like, It was a high pitch, yeah? No, it was the girl. It was the lady. Oh, oh, yes. Fraubisina. Yeah. Awesome.

Who does number two work for? Remember that? Good stuff. Pizzi's just not in for it. What's going on, Pizzi? You're all right. The Vegas heat is getting to you, huh? The AC.

RUDdy used to be my brother with the AC issue. So ask him for the commiserate. I nose would close up our eyes, everything. Only one day in. I am going to be. I can't wait for Saturday. around this time. He was asking Jordan, how do you use it today?

I was like, what number do you put it on? He was like, are you fucking serious? I was like, yeah. Thank you, John Kavanaugh, Tyler Minton, Audia Tar, Eric Nixig. Thanks to you, thanks to them. Back tomorrow, save time. This is that be somebody here.