The Ariel Helwani Show - Massive UFC 324/Zuffa Boxing reaction, Sean O’Malley, Dan Hooker, Travis Barker, Alex Perez, weekend news

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Ariel Helwani begins the show with a recap of UFC 324. Joined by The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll, they cover the night’s main event, how it could tie into Conor McGregor’s return, UFC bonuses increasing, Paramount’s first UFC broadcast, the suspicious betting activity around Michael Johnson vs. Alexander Hernandez, and Cameron Smotherman fainting at weigh-ins, before touching on Zuffa Boxing’s debut (03:03).Alex Perez stops by following his big win over Charles Johnson at UFC 324, talks about the performance, missing weight and not being eligible for bonuses, overcoming difficulties in training camp, being confident about re-signing with the UFC, and more (1:31:17).Sean O’Malley returns, discussing his UFC 324 win over Song Yadong, the feeling of being back in the win column, his daughter being at the fight, landing significant shots to Song’s body, UFC’s increased bonuses, wanting a rematch against Petr Yan next, and more (2:02:03).Dan Hooker is back, breaking down his loss to Arman Tsarukyan, including his nose being broken by the weigh-in head-butt, explaining why he accepted a short turnaround against Benoit Saint Denis, his beef with Paddy Pimblett and their war of words, signing a new contract, the next edition of 1 Minute Scraps, and more (2:33:21).Legendary musician Travis Barker describes his love of combat sports, explains how the UFC promo he recorded came together, then gives his thoughts on UFC 324 and some upcoming fights, and more (3:06:35).Ariel wraps up the show with UFC 324 viewership numbers released by Paramount and some other news and notes, including Dana White’s latest comments about Tom Aspinall, and your Super Chats (3:41:50).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the air. On this Monday, January 26, do that. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great. And let me emphasize the word great. It is great to be inside our New York City studio. And why am I so happy to be here?

Why am I emphasizing that word? because my friends we have a streak dating back to 2009, 2009, June of 2009, to be exact, this program, which originally was once known as Fight House Radio for just three weeks, then we switched over to the MMA hour, then we became Aria Hawani's MMA show, then we went back to the MMA hour, and now it's just the Aria Hawani show.

Streak that dates back almost 17 years now. This June will be 17 years. We have never had a snowy, day. So what I mean by that is we have never been canceled due to the weather. Now of course, back of the day we were only on once a week, then it was twice a week now. It's three times a week. There were some commutes there in the ESPN days that were a little bit dicey. There were some sick days as well, but never, ever, ever. And we never canceled due to a sick day as well. Very proud of that. Never a snow day. It looked like this could have been our first snow day. Now, we were still

going to do the show, but it just would have been remote. It would have been very pandemic 2020. I didn't want that, you didn't want that. I'm not so sure about the team back there. I think everyone didn't want that. There was one person who I think was pulling for that, but that's not here nor there. In the end, though, we are here. We powered through. There was a lot of shoveling to be had. The northeast hit by a pretty gnarly snowstorm. The south of the United States as well, I saw some scenes out of Georgia and Tennessee. of ice everywhere and power lines down and people without power. And so I do wish everyone well, hope everyone is safe and sound. Hopefully if you live this part of the country, you are okay.

If you're at home, hopefully you're able to watch us today. If you're at home with your kids, hopefully you're not driving yourself crazy, trying to figure out something to do. The kids here in the tri-state area, they are all off from school. I actually found out yesterday about that. So no real suspense. But we are here and we are here because there's a lot of talk about. A lot has happened since you and I last spoke. Obviously, we did the post show on Saturday, but since I last sat in this chair, a lot of freaking things have happened. The Paramount Plus debuts for both Zoufa boxing and the UFC have come and gone. Zufa boxing on Friday, UFC on Saturday. Overall, if I'm a Paramount Plus executive, I probably am very happy on this Monday.

We'll get into all of that and more how it looked, how it was presented, the flow of the night, Obviously the fights themselves, lots to get into. And it's a tremendous four pack of guests that we have on today's program as well. At 2.30, Alex Perez is going to join us to talk about his big win over Charles Johnson on Saturday. At 3 o'clock, Sugar Shadow Malley is going to join us to talk about his first win in almost two years. March of 2024, to be exact. His last win was against Cheeto Vera in Miami, UFC 299. Here we are, UFC 324.

Co-main event, Sonia Dong, Sugar Sean, gets the win, back on track. Is he next in line for a title shot? Talk about all that and more. At 3.30,

the hangman, Dan Hooker is going to stop by. He's in action this weekend. This weekend is 325. UFC 325. Back-to-back numbered events, which is a great way to start this whole

Paramount Plus endeavor, pardon the pun. Alex Volkanowski versus Diego Lopez, the main event. Dan Hooker going up. up against Benoit Saint-Denie. Obviously, he has a bit of a history

with one Patty Pimbley. Want to get his thoughts on everything that's been going on. We haven't talked to him since before the Armandserokee in fight. So stay tuned for that. And then at 4 o'clock, the greatest drummer in the history

of American music, Travis Barker, massive M.M.A. fan, supporter of what we do here, featured prominently on Saturday, had him once on the program in 2019. So here we are a little over six years later. Great honor to have him on again.

Talk about how he was so, you know, so involved and featured in Saturday night's proceedings. His thoughts on everything. He's a massive, massive MMA fan, big into wellness, big into training, running, boxing, jiu-jitsu. Great guy. Met him. Not sure in person, maybe once.

But nevertheless. Very excited to have them on the program. So them's the guest for today's program. And very excited to get to get into everything with the boys. I've blocked off a lot of time at the top of the program because I wanted to get into everything that transpired over the past few days. I do off the top of the show, I do want to send my commiseration, excuse me, to Frankie because I do feel for him on this Monday.

So I'm sorry, Frank. I'm sorry, commiserations. I hope you're doing okay. Yeah, man. Thanks. Yeah. Are you doing okay? Yeah.

You're not too upset. What would it be upset about? Hanging in there? Not too torn up? I feel like at this point you're just kind of waiting for the punch line, right? You're just kind of waiting for the... You know, I thought there were a couple times where you were trying to say like you didn't want to come in today. And that's okay.

I think everyone had that right. I don't know how you got that impression. There's a couple of comments in the text thread, you know. Like I said, I don't want to come in? No, I was like, hey, my lights just flickered for four seconds, you know, I'm a little bit nervous. I did tell you about my lights flickering, right? Yes. Like, were you feigning concern about how we were actually doing?

No, no, but you told me about that. Then what the fuck, dude? Like, the lights were flickering. Yeah. There was a brownout this morning. Like, that could affect Manhattan as well. so maybe you should know these things. I'd have never heard of that term before, Brownout.

Okay, well, you'll unfortunately learn about it in the wrong circumstance. It's like, well, shit, why did the power just go out? Well, I've heard of a blackout. What's a Brownout? I suggest we Google things sometimes, man. PC, have you heard of a Brownout? Do you guys have brownouts over there?

Sounds like a category on Pornho. My God. How does it always go back to the blue here, Bitsy? How is it? Brownout could maybe be like you drank. too much and I'm like that. Looks like Pee's

internet's having a brownout over there. What's going on? For the record, I'm aware of brownouts. So what's the difference to you to blackout and a brownout? Fair play. Fair play, Rick. Temporary. Brownout is more temporary. A blackout is...

But do the lights, do the, does the power go out in the brownout? Temporarily, yes. Okay. So you guys experienced that? Me? This time, no. But I've experienced it before. There was... Oh, in your life. In New York City.

Yes. I couldn't find it when Googling, but there was one time in New York City where there was a really bad one, and it shut down systems, and, like, people had to, like, leave their houses. It was so bad, and then it turned into a blackout. Wow, wow, wow.

Okay, but you didn't experience it this time. No. I was good. I think we're doing Frankie Dirty here. What, what? I think he's keeping us updated. He was keeping us aloof on the situation. Next time, don't even bother asking.

I just won't show up. I'll be like, it was a brownout. Sorry. Wow. Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't realize, I just thought, you know, I appreciated the oversharing. It's oversharing.

You literally asked, how are you guys doing? Yeah. And everyone said, good, good, good. And then you were like, well, you know. Next time, just don't even bother asking. It's cool. You know, I didn't notice that Connor and I, we actually didn't answer right away. Oh, I noticed that.

You didn't even check in and be like, hey, are you guys good? I haven't heard from you. To me, I thought the silence spoke volumes, like, it's all good. I was waiting. I was waiting for at least like two to three PC. Just so you know, we have a separate text read. So you're wondering probably why you didn't get this because you don't have to make. I'm just Googling Brownout to be honest with you just to make sure.

And I said, is everyone good? Clear your browser history after. I got a few I'm goods. I got a dissertation on Brownout. And then I got nothing. And then I was like, all right, I feel like we're safe here. I was actually concerned. I asked multiple times.

And it just, you know, I got a, you know, I have to read the situation. That's all. Frank, you're not upset at me, are you? What's there to be upset about? Okay. All right. So we're good. Just don't ask again.

It's literally not worth the time to explain it then or now. Well, I do hope everyone in the tri-state area who survived the brownout of 2026 is doing okay. It's funny, like brownouts happen all the time. Like any time that the system is actually being like stressed. But it's not. So everyone came up this morning, turn on their heaters and then brownout. Like it's a well-known thing. So my concern is we come in here.

Oh, shit. The mixer's not working. The switcher just got shut off again. You're right. You're right. But no. No, you're right. No, no.

I'll fuck my brown out. You're right, you're right, right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. Thank you for overshare. Actually, thank you for being the only responsible. No, no, it's oversharing to answer your question.

The only responsible. I feel like me and Andy answered everything over the weekend, like instantaneous. On the availability of electrical power in a particular era. Okay, okay. Dissertation. It's just that in Ireland, like if you're talking shit, someone might say you're talking brown. Do you know I mean? Brown.

the mouth, talking shit. I was also like, I wasn't too reactive because I just felt like whatever the crew decided is what I was going to go with. I'm the closest, I have no excuse. At the end of the day, like I could just walk in if I had to. It'll be something, actually.

Yeah, it'd probably take you a little over an hour or so, right? That's like 45 minutes. In the end... I'll hope it if everyone made it in. We can now all say, we walked to work, we made it through the snowstorm, backwards, shoeless, we're here. I'll know both ways, bro. We're here for all of you.

here for all of you because it's not the same when we're at home and a lot to get into, a lot to discuss. So let us discuss. Let us discuss. Let us get into things, guys. The Paramount Plus debut for the UFC. Let's start with that one. And I want to get into the broadcast and, you know, some of the criticism. There's a lot to get into. I first want to just say this. Ptze and I broke down the fight and I want to get G.C. and Rick Stott's as well. And, you know, in the moment at like one o'clock in the morning, I said that Justin Gachie versus Patty Pimblet was an entertaining fight. I think I said a phenomenal fight. I enjoyed it. I was I was locked in from beginning to end and there's a lot to take away from this fight, you know, regarding Patty's toughness, his chin, the fact that he never

gave up, the fact that he was never, you know, knocked out. He has famously said, scousers don't get knocked out and he stayed true to that. Justin Gehche, who, you know, I thought was towards the, the end of his career coming up big in a spot like this. It felt like everyone sort of felt like the UFC was, you know, building this up to make Patty look really good and get him that interim title and then, you know, maybe book that massive fight against Iliate Tuporia. In the end, Justin Gichi becomes the only man to win an interim title twice in his UFC career. He won it several years ago.

He wins it again now. And he derails all those plans. Just like he derailed the potential plans to have Tony Ferguson fight Khadabed Ramagamadav. That was the first time he became interim champion. He defeated Tony that first show post-Penadeghans. not post, but post break within the early days of the pandemic, that May of 2020 show in Jacksonville. He defeated him then. He won the interim title and then he ended up fighting Khabitur Magamadov. A big win. But, you know, I actually in our, you know, in our hunkering down yesterday, I chose not to

watch any football. Very proud to say that I didn't watch a second of football. I could not do it. Congratulations to all the Seahawks fans out there. I wish you all the very best. And I have I hope that you win 55 to 10 in about 13 days. GFY, to all the Patriots fans out there. That's my sentiment towards all of you. And yes, I'm very bitter. And yes, I'm a child when it comes to this. But that's who I am.

I have no problem being who I am. I watch the fight again, guys. And Pizzi, I do kind of feel like we missed one note on Saturday when talking about this fight. I really do feel like it was a very, very sloppy fight. It was a very, like, there were moments where it was like, punches like this. And I'm not going to sit here and break down, like, technique. I'm not that guy. But, you know, I saw Josh Barnett tweet about this. I saw Matt Brown tweet about this as well. And I saw them get, like, here's Josh's tweet. Wow, that was one of the worst UFC main events in a while.

Two capable and dynamic finishers fighting like a couple of newbies. Such a terrible display, stretch over five awful rounds. This was a match for the prelims. Now, we've had, okay, here's Matt Brown. That was one of the most entertaining, quote, quote, championship fights I've ever seen. But I've seen better technique at local shows, no hate. I'm just saying we've had very dull main events as of late. This was not that. But I do think there is something to be said. And we did say, Ilya and Armin Terriqin are probably at home or, you know,

Armin was there. Who knows where Ilya was licking their lips. I really do feel like that was the sentiment because it was just very sloppy. It was very, very sloppy. If you go back and watch it, it was kind of all over the place as far as the technique was concerned. entertaining as hell. Fight of the year candidate, no doubt by the end of the year. But I do kind of feel like in the moment we were sort of, you know, drunk on all of it.

And if you go back and watch it, I actually feel a lot more like Josh and Matt who were sort of on an island as opposed to everyone else who was going gaga over the fight. You know what I'm saying, PT? Yeah. But I mean, like, it's not like we're sitting there going, what a technical masterpiece. But Justin Gage and Patty Bimbled. You, as you said, you pointed it out like this wasn't a very technical fight at all. the things we praised in this fight were Gagy's zombie-like durability

and pretty much Paddy's as well I can't remember at any point us going well look at this fantastic display of technique what it lacked in technique it made up for in excitement in moments in flashes of you know massive shots landing people taking massive shots sometimes that's the way it's going to be

I think a casual audience honestly would prefer that over a technical masterpiece. I've watched so many technical fights where I was like, well, that was amazing. And I go on X. And everyone's like, what a load of shit. This is bullshit. So I mean, what do you want? You know, this was a very entertaining fight. Even the guys, these guys who know much better than us, Matt Brown, Josh Barnett, while they might highlight the lack of technicality to fight had, they also said this was very exciting. So what really do you want? Like, I think most people would prefer that.

I think from Paramount's point of view, they prefer that. I think UFC incentivized this kind of fight over a technical masterpiece. So, yeah, I don't think we said anything contrary to what you've said at the top there. No, no. I mean, like, Marab and Peter Yan, I think most people are like, all right, you know, they're not popping that one in first into the old BCR. I get exactly what you're saying. I just, I guess the interim title, the decision to make an interim. title fight at this point of time was somewhat debated, polarizing whatever. And I guess the thesis

here is I feel like there's a massive gap between Ilya and Armin and the two men who fought in the main event on Saturday. Now, they're probably in the top four, top five at worst. But, you know, I just think that we know who the top guys are and the one with the interim title right now is not in that conversation. Do you understand what I'm saying? And I know this may seem like I'm being overly critical of him, and I'm not, because I think it's an incredible story, and the fact that Justin has been able to rebound after the Max Holloway loss, I didn't think that was going to happen. I'll be the first say. I thought Patty Pimba was going to win that fight. I thought he was going to win that fight. And honestly, there's another discussion to be had. I think Patty was a little

too overconfident going into that fight. It felt like Patty was showing up for his coronation. It felt like everything he was saying and the sentiment, and Justin talked about this in the aftermath, he was overconfident. He thought it was going to be the Chandler fight all over again. And maybe this will end up being the best thing to ever happen to him. Patty is not, like, has not been exposed. Patty is 31. Justin is 37 going on 38. Patty's got plenty of time.

Some of the best fighters in UFC history have lost. We've talked about this ad nauseum. This was his first loss since 2018. Jared Gordon fight or not. That was considered a win. So it's a win. That was his first pure loss since 2018. So he's going to be just fine.

He'll get back on track. I have no doubt about that. Usually when you have an interim title fight, you say, all right, Tom Aspinol, Sergey Pavlovich, yes, I could see a scenario where this guy is the best, and that was sort of my takeaway. Maybe I'm not doing a good enough job of explaining this. Maybe I'm going to be on an island and called a hater here, but Rick, do you understand what I'm trying to say? I understand what you're trying to say, which is that the UFC unnecessarily elevated the stakes of this fight, right? They made this an interim title fight, and I have to imagine this was just to make sure that it was the final fight of the night. And I have two points here.

One is, I don't, I totally understand if everybody looks at that fight and goes, it was extremely exciting and it wasn't very technical. But I would ask, did anybody say it was going to be technical, right? Like, Justin Gehie is not a technical fighter. Patty Pimbley is a very kind of funky, unique style fighter. Like, I don't think anybody expected technique going into this fight to the point that, like, when Justin Gichi has fought better technicians, like a Raphael Fazeve, like a Dustin Porre, who are very clean, very technical strikers, he has been successful against them by not being technical, by doing exactly what he did on Saturday night, which is being relentless, unstoppable, and tougher than everybody else other than Patty Pimbley, right? I have to probably give Patty the edge in terms of toughness here. But I didn't expect that from Justin Gachey, nor did I expect that from Patty Pimbley. I've been pretty low on my opinion of Patty Pimlet's technical prowess and probably where his ceiling is at.

It has elevated from on Saturday night just due to how tough he was and how he was able to hang in there with Justin. But I don't expect that from either of these guys. I do think it would have been interesting to see before that an Amanda Nunes and Akala Harrison, who are probably better I kind of did expect it from Patty I did expect it technique I thought I thought Patty was going to win I really did I thought he was going to win and when Patty wins

it's not some clinical performance it's not Iliate's Aporia right you're not looking at his left hook and going that's the one you throw he's a very odd fighter his rhythm is very weird very technical on the ground though to his yeah the grappling that's a different story

but we didn't really do that I was going to say it looks clinical for him when he takes to the ground yeah I went back and watched the fight as well Ariel he never really made a concerted effort to take this fight to the ground and he just chose to stand and strike with Justin Gaci despite getting dropped in the first round. It looked like he was about to be finished. Get dropped bad in the second round as well.

Looks like he's about to get finished there too. And then comes out in the third round. Credit to him has an unbelievable third round just staying on the feet striking. But like I really would have liked to see what he could have done if he had taken it to the mat. Gachi deserves credit for this. Sorry, Peezi, just one second. Gachie deserves credit because, and he talked about this in the in the post-fight press conference,

he didn't throw a lot of light kicks, and he felt like the light kicks, and his coach, Trevor Whitman, felt like the light kicks allowed Fiziev to take him down. He didn't want to give Patty that because he knew that Patty is better than him on the ground. And so he didn't give him those opportunities, but still,

I would have loved to have seen some kind of exchanges, especially early in that fighting, especially after that first round, in which Patty tried to show that he was that much better on the ground. I think he would have and could have had some success, PT. Yeah, absolutely. The one thing I said, like, on the post-fight show, and I'll stand over here,

is that he's improved drastically as a striker. And having watched him from 2013, his striking back then was just basically to set up a takedown. He is standing with UFC fighters here. He is standing and he's trading with him. I never thought he would be able to do that. Obviously, my field of references a lot longer than most people's of watching for a very long time.

So maybe that has to be factored into me saying that, but I stand over that completely. He is a much better striker than he was. previously and like you know he has a striking game for for 25 minutes on this this fight whether you think it's technical or not he stood there and that's a massive improvement from the guy that I started watching in 2013 2014 all right so what do you guys think the winner of this fight is getting and what do you think the losers of this fight is getting the winner is Justin Gaichie he's

the interim champion historically the interim champion fights for the undisputed belt but just as Tom Aspinall that doesn't always happen and you could have a scenario in which in this case the guy who is a holding the interim title, Armant Sarukian is next for the champion. Do you guys think that Iliate Tuporia is next for Justin Gaci? Let's start with that one. You don't. What do you think happens here? Armand Syrucian versus Ilya, Justin Gajee versus Connor McGregor. Okay, that is an interesting one, and I don't hate it. And I think that part of the reason why Dana kept saying, okay, there's a lot here regarding Connor, but I think part of the reason

why Dana kept saying we're going to wait until after this event is, because if you sit back you're like, why do you need to wait until after this event? The big fish for the White House card is Connor McGregor, right? That's the big dog. That's the big draw. What does he have to do with this event? There's no 170-pound fight. You wouldn't necessarily factor him into the title picture at the top of the weight class.

But yes, I do agree with you. I do think he factors. I just don't know if it's against Gaichi. Because if it's against Gaichi, is Connor fighting a 155 for the interim belt? Or is it just interim title be damned? They're going to fight. I don't think he can make 155. So you're going to have Gage.

I don't think he needs to. Just do Gaichi versus him. And no interim belt at 170. No, who cares? Okay, so I think you're close, but I think you've got the wrong guy. Yeah, I think it's going to be Ilya versus Gaci. I think they're going to give him that shot. What I was going to say was Patty versus Connor.

Oh, sure. I'll take that too. If I'm Justin Gagia, I'd feel some type of way about it, but I'm fine with that. Why? I mean, that should be my opportunity, right? What if it's, what if it's, I won the fight? What if it's Patty versus Connor, Gachi versus Ilya? Oh, Gachi gets the title shot.

Okay, that's fine then. I'm not convinced that Armist. Dana very clearly does not like Armist Rookin. Justin Gage just put on a barn burner. Like, whether technical or not, the fans loved that. I'm sure Paramount Plus loved that. And you're getting to put them up against the guy in Ilya who's a superstar who's going to give another barn burner.

They're going to stand there and strike and someone's probably going to get knocked out. I'm with you guys. I do wonder if the UFC wants Justin Gaci as their long-term champion, right? or the champion, like, to get that opportunity. Who do you think wins that fight? Ilya's going to beat him. But, I mean, stranger things have happened, yes? Sure, sure.

It feels like with Armin and Ilya, you're getting a fight that no matter who comes out of this, you get somebody who's going to be around for a bit and is going to be a very good champion for you. Does Dana want Armin as his longstanding champion? Like Marab, he'll come around to it. Like, I know where, I know it's very popular for this, like, they hate Armin's Rukin, and it is true, and we see it, right? Dana White doesn't talk glowingly about him. He said the same things about Marab de Valishvili.

He's an idiot. He's this and that. And then he saved the day for them. I think you can get over that. I do wonder if you want to put Justin Gachi in that spot. It feels like not the optimal play for the UFC. I would rather have Armin and Ilya fight for that belt. And to your point, right, when you put those two in there, you know who the best fighter in the world is going to be.

You know that there's technique there. You know that this is going to be illustrative of, who the best lightweight on the planet is. Whereas with Justin Gaci versus Ilya, it's potentially not. A couple of fun notes. The lightweight division of the UFC right now has three champions in it.

Ilya, Max Holloway, Justin Gaci. That's wild. In an era where we're hearing about on the boxing side, they want to get rid of belts and stuff like that. The lightweight division has three champions in it. Number one. Number two, the only male American champion right now

is Justin Gachi. Like if we're actually not going to include Max Holloway, if you want to, great. But as far as like the actual divisions, that's a wild thing as well. Who would have thought, you know, a little less than two years after he was brutally knocked out by Max Hallway, we'd be in this spot? Number three, one thing that was floated to me regarding this White House card is, are they going to try to make it America versus the world? Would Donald Trump and this regime want a scenario in which an American is getting knocked out on the White House lawn? I never really thought of it that way.

And I know this has kind of been brought up, but there is something to that. Right? So if you do Gai Chi versus Ilya, knowing in the back of your mind that he could get knocked out by Ilya, there's two routes here. Gachie versus Zillian makes sense because he's the only male American champion. But he might get knocked out. And I know they don't tend to book that way. But does the White House, does the, you know, the president, like, you know, the people involved? This is the 250th celebration of America. Like, it would be not great. It would be a bad look. And everyone would clown on them. Yes. And so I do one. I wonder if it's going to be, not squash matches, but a lot of like one-sided bookings, if you will. I wonder. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I do know this, though.

It's about to get really interesting with Connor McGregor in the UFC. It's about to get really interesting. And it's starting to feel like pandemic 2020 vibes. And what I mean by that is, do you remember there was a time? I remember Amanda Nunes fought Felicia Spencer. And I remember he was going off on Twitter. He was talking about, F this, I'm going to retire all this stuff. And I remember he called me.

and I wrote a whole article for ESPN.com. He retired in 2020 because they wouldn't give him a fight. And they wouldn't give him a fight until they could have some kind of attendance. And that attendance came 2021 in Abu Dhabi, January of 2021 against Dustin Porre, if you remember. They didn't want to have him at the apex in front of no one. And so I remind you, when that White House card comes around, June 14th, there will be no pay-per-view, there will be no gate. And what I'm hearing is there's going to be no sponsors as well.

So it's going to be a different, it's going to be gigantic as far as brand awareness and whatnot. But as far as sponsors on the cage, it's not going to be like that because White House and, you know, it gets a little tricky with that. And so is there a chance that Dana White is doing all of this, you know, we're moving on from Michael Chandler stuff and all this stuff to kind of prepare us for the fact that there's going to be no one for Connor to fight or that they won't be able to come to terms with Connor. He was asked about Connor's comments on that Roblox stream. He was asked at the Post-Five Press conference what he made of it. And he's doing the thing now where I don't hear of anything. I don't buy that for a second. I believe he hears of everything.

We live in a day and age where someone can text you a clip and you can watch it in 30 seconds. Come on. What are we talking about here? This is your day-to-day life. I know you've got a lot of other things going on with your day-to-day life. I feel like we're moving in that direction. And I know we've kind of gone from 324 to here. but it's all very intertwined

and I do wonder, I'm not saying Connor will not come back, but they've got a pay-per-view in July, I'm hearing July 11th, maybe they save them for that and sell tickets and gate and all that stuff and more. I think it's about to get really, really interesting. Now, on this day, when Dana White himself has said, Monday, we're going to start

matchmaking this card, and so today they're going to sit down, are they going to try to find, and I don't know the answer just yet because it's still a little bit early in the game, a way out of Connor because they can't make any money off of this return. There's only so many fights left. One, two, three, max.

You know, just historically he hasn't fought in, you know, what, almost five years. It'll be five years in July. I think he's going to try to find a way. And so if he is involved, I could see a scenario where it's him versus Patty. If it's not Chandler, I think it should be Chandler number one. If it's not Chandler, Patty's probably number two at this point. And then Gaichi fights Ilya and Armand's going to have to fight someone else because they just don't seem to be huge fans of his.

I've kind of fallen on that as far as how. I think this is all going to play out, but of course it can twist and turn a million different ways between now and then. What do you think, Peece? I think it's probably the most interesting thing he's said in years. Who? Connor about the contract situation. I wonder, you know, there was all kind of talks of unionization and stuff back in the day, and they were like, these are the kind of guys that need to be behind it. Someone like a McGregor, and I don't think he's speaking for a collective. I think he's speaking for himself. But I, I, I, I, do think it's very interesting given that you know vulcanowski's on this show talking about

paper viewpoints nobody really knows what's going to happen we got the update on the bonuses and everyone kind of feels like that's that fosso close now this is a very interesting position for him to be in he's still they have never replaced him in terms of being the biggest superstar on the sport so i think it's it's just incredibly interested in the ramifications this contract negotiation as far as he's concerned could have on the sport i don't know if it could, given that it's very individual to him. He brings in so many eyeballs, brings in so much money that they're no longer reliant on.

But I think it's very interesting. Look, I don't think McGregor is in a situation where I'd put him as a favor in any fight right now. But those are fights that, you know, you're talking about Ilya and Armin watching that fight at the weekend. He was definitely watching it, as you say, rubbing his hands together going, I think I could do one of these lads.

But of course, they're going to have to come up and fight him at 170. That's one of the stipulations. Like you kind of have to take, you have to kind of take whatever road he wants you to go down if you're going to fight him. Do you agree that of the realistic options, Patty's probably the biggest. Like I heard from Shaheen, like our traffic was insane on Saturday for this fight. Patty's a big time draw. Dana White said afterwards that this exceeded expectations by double. And we'll see what that means for Saturday, 325.

but I feel like of the realistic options and of the potential winnable options, Patty's probably the best one. Again, I feel like it should be Michael Chandler. I think the way Michael Chandler has been dismissed, I went on the whole rant on Thursday, I'm not going to do it again. I've said my piece on this,

but the way he's been dismissed is so disrespectful to him. The guy has done everything and then some to be the ultimate company man. If they are, in fact, for whatever he's going to move on from him, Patty is probably the best option and the fact that he didn't win that fight, the fact that he's not a champion

as opposed to Justin Gitchie, I actually feel like increases his chance. of getting this fight. Yeah, and look, he took a hell of a beating there as well. Like, that is not, like, as far as McGregor's concerned, one of the most notorious knockout artists the sport has ever seen. He's like, coming off that fight where he's ate so much punishment, like, as we can see in the picture there, like, this is the most effed up I've ever seen

Paddy Pimble after a fight in my life. He'd be thinking, yeah, this is great. The other thing is, like, it's a tough position for the UFC to be in. Like we heard what Dana White said about John Jones, can I rely on John Jones? We all know how active McGregor was in his pump, but he is not that guy anymore. He is made more money than anyone in the history of the UFC.

There is a big issue in terms of, can this guy get through a camp? So if you are completely relying on him being the big sell for the White House, are you willing to do that? Like, what happens if it goes wrong in the same way the Chandler fight did a few years back? Like, that's a serious thing that the UFC have to think about. Rick, what did you make of the G.G. situation where on Wednesday, he basically says, like, hey, you know, I'm not making any more money for any of this. Daniel Korme is out here saying I'm making more money. Now, again, we talked about this on Thursday to a degree, but more happened since. Basically, what transpired was Dana White on the Pat McAfee show said, you know, we made him an offer. He didn't respond. All right. Then Gaichi shows up at the press conference and is asked about it and is like, You know, I'm just here to talk about fighting.

So clearly someone said something to him, which was a little bit disappointing, but, you know, the big dog is sitting right there, so I get it. Then at the post fight, he does the thing where like, look, I'm happy, I won, hopefully I have a good manager who can renegotiate for me now. I'm happy to be here. I have, what, 15 bonuses. It's tied for the most with Dustin Pori and Etz and Barbosa with half the fights. I'm the man. I always deliver. But then also implied, like, yeah, you know, it was kind of taken out of context.

I don't think anything was taken out of context, to be honest. Like, you sat there and were asked about bonuses, took the question in a different direction, and said, I have 14 bonuses that haven't equaled a million and seemed upset that his money didn't go up. I remind you, A, just because you are entering the Paramount era, it doesn't mean that all the, all the purses are going to go up. You have existing contracts. They can bump them if they want because there's no rhyme or reason for anything. And the easiest thing to bump were the bonuses.

and we did find out on Saturday that the bonuses were increasing from 50K to 100K. So 50K for two performance bonuses used to be the deal back of the day, 50K each. Now it's 100K each. And for the two combatants in the fight of the night, 100K each. And in addition to that, they've done away with the discretionary bonuses, which were all very kind of loosey-goosey like, hey, we're going to hook this guy up. We're going to do right by him, give you a 5K here. 10K, 15K, whatever it is.

Now, you get a finish, you're getting 25K. Regardless of how you fought in that fight, you get a finish. It doesn't matter what kind of a finish it is. You're getting 25K. Unless you misway, just ask Alex Perez, who did not get a bonus. So I know there's a lot there,

but Rick, what did you make of all of that? Because this is now another story. There's so much going on right now from the new era, the broadcast, and the title, and the White House, but this was another big story that was playing out over the weekend. I thought it was interesting,

but much ado about nothing. because Justin Gachi doesn't have leverage. And that's a major problem, right? If Justin Gachi goes out there and first of all, I had an issue and I said this on Thursday, it wasn't a shot across the bow. He didn't call out Dana White. He called out Daniel Cormier. And if he really wanted to make a statement, he would have said,

Dana White and the UFC are not paying me enough. Instead, he said, well, D.C. is talking about the money going up and he kind of deflected it. And then we see in the post fight. He's again kind of skirting around it. He doesn't have leverage and he knows it. And again, I said this on Thursday, I will repeat. I'm not blaming Justin Gachey, nor do I think he should be playing the dangerous game of going directly after the UFC because he does not have leverage. There's only one person whose comments on all of this fighter pay stuff that I care about, and that's Connor McGregor.

Well, there's two people. There's Dana White and there's Connor McGregor. And the reason I care about Connor McGregor's thoughts on this is because he's the only one with leverage. When he talks about on a Roblox stream, my contract is null and void, he's the only one with the ability to go, no, you actually do need to pay me a different amount because I'm the only one. one who actually sells pay-per-views. Paperviews were down bad last year. I can't imagine there were many champions who were making a ton of money by selling pay-per-views. The UFC, obviously, wasn't making a ton of money by selling pay-per-view and this pivoted away from that model. And so there's nobody out there who's really going to be too hard done if all of a sudden

the UFC is like, ah, we're moving away from pay-per-view. There's going to be some extra money and not ask about it ever again, right? Volk was on talking to you and he kind of didn't know what's going on, but is Volk really going to be the one to rock the boat and do it? There's only one person who stands to benefit in a major way from pay-per-views in 2026 or previously in 2025, and that's Connor McGregor. So when Connor McGregor comes out and says, I need to renegotiate my deal because this is now null and void, that's the only one that's going to have any waves, ripples, anything. There is a realistic scenario where upcoming, when it comes to the White House, Connor is the one that says no, right? We're acting like it's just going to be the Dana White

it's going to be like, do I trust Connor McGregor? What if they come to Connor McGregor with a number that's not sufficiently offset? Oh, yeah. Because this pay-per-view is not in place anymore, and he says, take a hike. I'm not fighting for that. I'd never fought for that. I stand to make so much more money than that, and you're trying to. And we're also in a scenario where the UFC might not need Connor McGregor as much as they used to,

which is an even more fascinating thing, right? Because pay-per-view doesn't exist. Do you necessarily need somebody like Connor as much as you needed them when you needed to sell every single place? They probably want them, but do they need them? They used to need them. Now they want them. You're paying $1.1.1 billion.

You need people to sign up for your service without any pay-per-view, and that's why this event isn't going to be on CBS. But this is a long game. Sure, sure, sure. In the past, when you needed people to buy, it was one night. And you could put Connor McGregor on that poster, and you know that that one night you're going to make your money's worth. You don't need them as much now.

You might only get two fights out of them. Hell, you might not get any fights out of them. So I don't know that they need Connor McGregor in the way that they use. to need him. And I think that he's the only one who has the ability to leverage us. So returning to Justin Gaichi for a second, I didn't really make much of it because, again, I knew that he was going to come out and be like, all's good. He got two bonuses. Everything's fine. I'm moving on. His contract's not going to change. Hopefully he has a good manager. But Connor McGregor's comments on the Robox stream are the one that I actually thought were

interesting. They do have to offer him three fights a year. That's what Dana White always like. Yeah, yeah, for sure. G. What did you make of the 50K to 100K? Does that suffice in your opinion? It's nice to see. It's certainly better than nothing, but with how long it had been at 50K, sort of the stagnation in the rise and the bonuses, it feels like it's long overdue. Like, it's nice to see. I like that, you know, fighters are getting incentivized with 25K for each finish they get. Now you know, you know, that someone's getting a little more, you know, extra pay on top of it. But I mean, it's not, it's not game changing. I don't think, you know, we're all good on fighter pay. Now these guys don't need any more money. But I do like to see that they are kind of catching up with. the times. It's the fact that like it was what 50k in like 2013 as well, 2012. By the way, back of the day it was even higher. Like the famous Connor McGregor line is 60 G's baby. I know. It actually went down. Which is just insane. So like it's nice to see and like I saw some people being like,

you know, that that's good. It's squared away. I think Pete's said he got some responses to his tweet being like this is a good thing and people were just like, yeah, man, that's it. Like fighter pay is all good. I still think they still need to fight for more pay, but it's nice to see the UFC catching up. I get a little bit annoyed at the bonus talk. We get so hung up on the bonus. And like, first of all, that's four people. It's so discretionary. Okay, now I know you're adding the finishes grade.

If they came out and said, you know, because he keeps talking about, oh, we got some kids that came in here and they broke it down. All right, like, if you would have come in with a whole new model and said, all right, we're going to bump everyone up. Your entry level pay is going to be 25 and 25. First of all, I hate the show and win, but they're not getting rid of that. So now it's 12 and 12. We're bumping everyone to 25, 25. And if you have X amount of wins, you're going to get this. And if you have this, you've got to get this.

Like, give me some... What is the big formula that you're talking about? Like some very quick math. Can we do some very quick math? And by the way, they've done this. This was like the Reebok and the Venom policy. You look at how many fights somebody's had. You reward them based on that.

And then you just go on from there. It's not different. Let's say you're giving out 400K bonuses. Let's just say for the performance bonuses, right? Each fight event. Yeah. So 400. K times four is obviously 400K, right?

Yeah. Now there's 43 events. So, one second, 43 times 400 is 17 million, 17.2 million, right? Now, there's going to be those 25Ks as well. So let's, what are we going to say? Like on average, another 10, you want to just throw another 10 on there? If every card finished, like, if everyone got to finish, it would be a maximum of around 10 million, I think. Okay, let's.

Oh, so if every fight that you'll see. So it's already gone. So it's going to get close to like 600 fights in the year. That's, yeah, it's roughly like 14 million if every single fight had a finish. All right. So let's call it 14. Okay, 14. That's 31.

31 million. 31 million in this big number that we're all going crazy about. Reminder, they're getting 1.1 billion with a B from Paramount Plus alone. That doesn't include their deal over in the UK and Ireland with T&T sports. That doesn't include their deal with Rogers. That doesn't include their deals in other territories around the world. That's, we keep focusing on the 1.1. 31.1.

Oh, that doesn't include sponsorship, venom, crypto.com, the litany of sponsors on the cage. Like, it is absurd that we get hung up over this and we start going crazy and cheering and stuff like that when as of right now, and I've asked a bunch of managers, there is no like blanket, hey, base pay is going up, entry level pay is going up. There's none of that. There are some that said, yep, they didn't renegotiate. They did give us a bump. They did offset for pay-per-view.

They looked at international paper view. They looked at what you drew in the past. They came up with some number. You don't have much of a like to stand on. But it is all very willy-nilly seat-of-the-pants, you know, back of the napkin type of stuff. There's no formula. There's no nothing being presented to anyone. And so, yes, this was nice to see.

A reminder, it's not that far off from what they were doing 12 or so years ago. 12 or so years ago they were doing stuff that was closer to 100K than they were. They were at like last year, the year before, during the whole ESPN era, to be honest. And so I'm actually happy they got rid of the discretionaries. I thought that that was very weird. The discretionary bonuses, like DC has talked about getting a million dollar check in the back. And I always kind of felt like that was a way to sort of keep everyone at bay. No one wanted to ever speak up because you were hoping that you would get those checks.

I've not heard of one of those checks in quite some time. Heard of bonuses. nothing anywhere near the Millies from back in the day or what like other fighters have told me back in the day you know you saw a few fighters tweet out about a three what was it a 3,000 Steamroller Steam Rolla

I saw another fighter and Dana did save 5 to 25 so it was a little bit lower than that here's the this is like weeks ago too December 16th yeah 3,000 again they don't have to do that but I think it's all

very calculated. It's a way of being like, oh, there's going to be something waiting for me. Don't speak out of turn. What a time. It's, you would think at this point, as I said on Thursday, the sport is being treated like a major league sport, except the athletes, the fighters, don't get the benefit of what major league athletes get, which is being treated with the same type of respect, having a collective bargaining agreement, having a seat at the table, having revenue sharing, all that stuff and more. And I don't want to make this into that once again, It gets tiresome. Make it into that.

No, I don't want to. That is the right. They don't have leverage because they do not work together. Oh, 100%. And by the way. They're waiting for this check. Ally Quinta, did you see Ally Quinta's Instagram post? Ally Quinta posted after Justin Gichi's comments of basically a conversation that they had many

years ago when they were scheduled to fight each other, at least in talks. And he's like, hey, let's work together to try to make this better for both of us. And Justin's response was, you do you and I'll do me. and it didn't work out for Justin. Well, by the way, that's how most fighters feel. And it's a shame. It's a real shame because there were some savvy ones like Al back in the day who would try to speak out about these things. And a lot of them were like, nah, you kill what you kill, I'll kill what I kill and I'll eat.

What was that, Pizzi? It gets to a point. And Ben was talking about this on the crack on Friday, where it feels like we came out in the fighters, you know? Yes. And we get this pushback from people for bringing this up who can see. the sport every week and they're just not interested in it. You know, they're not interested with with guys who walk away from this sport with nothing with health issues and things like that.

Like, they don't care. They just want to watch the fights and move on, which is fair enough, I guess. I think it's true to say they don't care, but the reason they don't care is because there's not an alternative, right? They're kind of in the situation that they're in. The PFL doesn't have enough opportunities to grant for them. And, you know, after the big Francisigano signing, there really isn't anybody who's able to take on somebody who's a top level UFC star and pay them what they're worth outside of

the world of boxing. So there really isn't an opportunity for them to do anything else. You have to be in the UFC if you want to achieve what you're going to achieve and you have to accept the terms of what they've determined. I think of it more as like apathy than not like they, I think they care, but I don't think they have an option, right? They don't really have a choice but to exist in this system. It would require a massive change.

or require a massive upheaval where they have to collectively come together and decide that they need to make a change. But it's such an individual sport. I can't see it. We've now seen a $1.1 billion per year broadcast deal come and go and nobody's said much of anything. Justin Gachi is getting plotted for saying like DC misled me. We saw a class action lawsuit come and go. It's been settled and nothing change. There really isn't an opportunity. Like, if these are not the things that are sparking the idea for the fighters to enact change,

the UFC will just continue to operate this way. And as a business, they should. There's no reason for them to change what they're doing because they're creating record profits for their shareholders. So unless somebody stands up and does something or a group of people stands up and does something, they really are kind of shit out of luck. Like, I think they care, but I don't think they can do much. Let's talk about the broadcast, guys, because there was a lot that was said about the broadcast, a lot of intrigue into how they're going to change things.

Overall, I'll give you my thoughts first, and then I want to hear yours as well. Overall, I thought it was a great night for the UFC in Paramount Plus. I know there's things that you can nitpick. A lot will change over time. But my issue sometimes in the past with the UFC is they don't make things special. When need be. And they have at times, but I feel like you go to a country, it's a little bit different. Like, tell us that you're there.

Make it different. Make it special. They have their formula and they like to stick to it with the walkouts, with the presentation, all that stuff more. And that's why when UFC, I think it was 300, had a bit of like an old school feel. We all loved it because it was a little bit different. And so I felt like they did a great job of making this feel special. That intro at the beginning of the main card with the drapes and the look back over time.

And then Bruce Buffer made it feel special, made it feel different. They did not do this at the beginning of the ESPN deal. And going to ESPN was a massive deal for the company. I didn't feel like they made it feel different special. It was almost like the train was rolling along. I liked it. Now, there were people, and I was looking at it as well, that we're commenting on the fact that the main card was scheduled to start at 9, and the first fight only happened at 930,

and the last fight ended by the time we started our post show, PTC and I. It was around like 1250. Like, it didn't feel different. It felt a little, you know, dragged out as an OTN writer predicted last week. I think it will be a lot tighter. It was the first one they wanted. They wanted it to feel unique. They wanted it to feel special.

The Travis Barker involvement, the music, the Blink 182, whether you liked it or not, I appreciated the effort of making it feel special, making it feel big, making it feel different, making it feel unique. Now, did everything hit? No, not everything hit. A lot of people were upset about the fact that there were too many commercials, that there were too many ads during the walkouts. You didn't see all the walkouts.

In between rounds. I agree. I miss that stuff. I love that stuff. I love the walkout. obviously. I love the chatter in between rounds. Let's send it over to this corner. Let's send it over to that corner. Even the replays. We didn't get a lot of that until the very end of the card, the last two in particular. But as Dana White pointed out, like, what is it? 899, 1099, whatever the hell it is,

they have to offset, you know, what they paid, $1.1 billion a year with advertisements. That's the only way. So if you are expecting a clean broadcast now that it's on Paramount Plus, I'm sorry, your shit out of luck. It ain't going to happen. Because guess what? When they were charging you $80 on ESPN plus, you were getting adverts as well. So now you're just going to get more. And you better get used to that.

But there is a workaround. Like, there is a world, I would imagine, where you do the walkout and you do that L bar thing, which they did a couple times. Like, you know, Arnold Allen is walking out. Why can we hit with the L bar? You have your Jiffy Loob sponsor. Everyone wins. We get to see the walkout.

We get to experience it. maybe the broadcasters lay out, I don't know what it is, you put the ad there and that's your way of going to the ad. They have to recognize that they are going to upset a lot of fans because these are important parts of the fight game. The walkouts are very important. In between rounds, very important. You can't treat it like a regular broadcast and there aren't a lot of breaks during a major UFC event to throw to commercials. They have to get creative. It can't be your regular, let's go to two minutes of commercials or a minute of commercials because you are going to take away what makes fighting fun.

And what makes fighting fun, you've already stripped away the personalities with the uniforms. Don't strip away the walkouts. Don't strip away the interactions between the coaches and the fighters. This will be a big mistake. I thought it was a great night for Paramount Plus. There were no issues with the stream.

I do have one issue. Can I bring up my one issue, guys? I have a feeling I know what it is. There's no pip. There's no pip. No pip. It's a big, big problem. There's a big, big problem, guys.

Walking my dog, I have the freaking thing on for seven hours. I need to answer it. text message, check an email, do something, all right? You need to figure this out, Paramount Plus. You figured it out on Friday. I had the work around. I went on CBS Sports app. There's the watch thing there. I was able to

play and swipe up. Oh, thank God. Go to Paramount Plus on Saturday. Not working. CBS Sports app, it's not working. They made me go to Paramount Plus and I can't do the PIP. You know what I'm talking about? I don't even know what's the word, Frank? Swipe up and then it goes picture and picture. Yeah. This is a big deal.

Don't watch it solely on your phones? That's not the point. do you sit there for seven straight hours? No, because I don't have it on my phone. My point is, when you watch a card at home. Yes, TV. TV, what if you have to go? What if you do something?

I mean, I might throw it on. What does that mean? The PIP, to me, like, I get you want it, but like it isn't, it isn't a heartbreaking. It is a huge deal. Okay, you don't have a dog. You got to walk your dog. You put it on, you go put it in your pocket. Someone text you, you want to check something.

How many times you watch it, too? How many times you walk in March it, too? to throw out a card. Twice? Three times? By the way, day card, I'm not at home. The entire card. I'll give you a soccer. I'm at stuff. What do you want me to do? My phone's going to be like this. What is this?

You're right. It's a huge problem. It's a problem. It's a massive problem. There's a way. There's a way you can do it. Every app on the planet. Netflix. Netflix does this. At the lower tier, at the non-ad-supported tier, sorry, at the ad-supported tier, you cannot do PIP. You cannot swipe out of it.

I'll pay paper than prices for the PIP. You can get out of, you can do it. I think they should probably try to think about it. That's not on Paramount, though, because I got the higher premium one. No, I know. I'm saying they do this at Netflix at Paramount, no matter what tier you're in. Wait a second. Wait a second.

This is intriguing. I don't have the higher one. What are you getting for the higher one? It's just ad free. And the ad free is only for when I'm watching shows. Yeah, it's not for live. Oh, so you're still getting those commercials instead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so what do you guys think? Local CBS. So if you're on the lower one, you can't watch your local CBS. and Paramount Plus. And you know I gotta have my local CBA. You got to watch football, come on. Oh yeah.

Okay, okay. What'd you guys think? Rick, what'd you think? I think it was relatively the same, but like you, I think we're missing something real with the walkouts and the in-between rounds and the corners. Would you sign up for a longer broadcast where they went to commercials more between fights, but they did not interrupt action?

meaning we get walkouts we get corners but those commercials are loaded between fights how can you do it between the fights oh between the fights yeah fine longer

this broadcast is going to be massive now by the way they didn't they didn't waste a lot of time between these fights I'm saying you build in additional time you get what you want as a fight fan we get our money would you sign up I thought my L bar idea was

the golden one do that for every broadcast though because video commercials cost more money and they're making more money on them you can't just do

L bars you have to do some commercials what if they said we're gonna that's fine but instead of three hours this broadcast now going to be four hours

because you're not going to lose any corner you're not going to lose any walkout no no no now we're ending it at 1 a.m. again? Listen you got a sacrifice

somewhere you've got a sacrifice somewhere no no no no no all right well get ready to never watch a walkout again enjoy. By the way, I can,

those little packages that they play, you know, lose them. Yeah. The ones they hate doing that shit. Arnold Allen is on a four-fight winning, no, get rid of that, I don't need that. I know what the fight is. Not everyone.

No, I'm actually not going to lie. You know where you save the time is that instead of the first fight, and I know they did the promos and everything like that off the top. They're still not getting that first fight to like 10-15 normally. Let's get to that first fight at 10.05. We've now saved 10 minutes. We need the stand up at the beginning. Like, I love those guys.

But all I ever get from DC at Joe Rogan is, this card is insane. The energy here is nuts. It's insane. It's nuts. Let's just get on with it. How about, how about? Okay, okay.

We do the KSW intro, where the announcer is giving it the big one as they're walking in. Here comes Arnal. He loves meal deals, all this kind of stuff, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Max Holloway didn't go too well,

but guess what? He's back. he's back he's pissed and you know what I mean his dad's a weightlifter as they're walking in that gets rid of that video beforehand

oh sure by then when he hits the Harley Davidson check zone or whatever it's fucking called these days and Bob's your uncle wow I love it you guys are just

getting UFC employees everywhere fired huh taking away their jobs all the promo makers I've never said that all the people who are doing the standups now they don't need

as many coordinating producers now they don't need as much to pay as much to these people the number one the number one talking point I feel like after this show

the ads. Yeah. And by the way, I do think it's much to do about nothing. I mean, God forbid, we pop up with some packs.

People are going nuts over here. Like, we don't charge you shit. Dude, dude. You know? People fucking hate ads. It is crazy. They're entitled.

Unless they're sitting there watching normal television like an NFL game and then you will get, you will get five minutes of ads every 10 minutes you're going to get that. Every single possession, you're going to get that.

And everyone's like, yep, it's just the NFL. That's just the way it is. God forbid you get two minutes of ads here. It's your hair's on fire. Okay, but I'm not joking. You could adopt the NFL style. You could literally just go to commercials between action and then...

I mean, bro, they were doing that. They were more commercials. They were going to commercial all the way up until both guys were in the octagon ready to fight, and then they were going to commercial in between each round as well. I'm saying, don't do that. Take those out. Put them in between the fights, and you just watch longer commercials. You just go to commercial less frequently, but for longer periods,

and then you get all your action. Can you sprinkle in a 30 seconds here, a 30 seconds there, a minute there? Where? I mean, in between those fights. No, I'll be for real. I feel like I really only need the walkouts for Co-Main, Maine.

Same with the corner. These are important. These are important. Main card only. I care more about the corner stuff than the walkout. Same. I definitely do as well.

Pete, do you agree with it? I feel like the walkouts are... I'm the last person to ask about this stuff. I don't care. I care about the corner. I like the walkout, but like, dude, You're talking about like the first guy walking out of the main part.

It's just their song and them walking out. Yeah, I don't care about those. There's something to it. No, I just mean. But you were, you were saying the corner is important. I love. If we don't get Leon Edwards' moment in his corner, I agree. That's fucked.

That's fucking. God trams, spectacular sale. And then it comes back right into the middle of him being like, he's bullying you, son. No, you don't even get it. But you know, like injuries happen in fights and they're in the corner, and they're in the corner, like, what's gone. Like, that's a very important part. It's all very important.

Don't make me choose. I think walkouts are important. I think in between rounds are important. All right. Get ready for commercials. More between. That's the way. Four hour broadcast, baby.

Let's do it. Start the card at eight. Yeah, set the card at seven. That'd be incredible. I don't know. You have to give or take one way. Well, ultimately, the give or take is recognizing the fact that you're not being charged $80 for this card.

Oh, for the fan percent. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I think they'll figure it out. I'm actually very bullish on this entire thing. I think this is a great deal for fans. I think putting Kate there was a great idea, Kate Scott. It made me feel like, okay, they want to have their sort of imprint.

I'm talking CBS Paramount, but also adhere to UFC. The UFC, you know, I was expecting maybe a little freshening up of the graphics. I know people don't care about this stuff I do because Dana White said it himself. We're going to have a new graphics package. And to the best of my knowledge, it looked the exact same. The music is different. Great. They're sticklers.

They still play face to pain. Like, they're sticklers. They still have the da-na-na-na-na-na. That's from like UFC 1. So I wasn't expecting wholesale changes. I thought it looked crisp. In fact, I was talking to Andy.

I don't know if you want to weigh in on this, but Andy, who like works in this world, she was telling me the cameras look better. Yeah, I agree. I think the cameras look better. What does that mean? What does that mean by the cameras looking better? I just like them better.

Like, you can look at two, like you can tell what's a Canon or what's a Sony, right? If you've been doing this for a while, like to me, it just looked really nice, very nicely lit. I thought it was beautifully lit, honestly.

Okay, this is good. And a lot of that is down to the Paramount Plus crew. So I like the blue backdrop for those backstage interviews. Like, there's some little differences. I think overall, it was a great night for them. The big question was the stream. Would it hold up?

Would there be any issues? They've done live sporting events before Champions League. There's NFL on there. So I didn't think that was going to be an issue. But there were a lot of complaints about the ESPN Plus stream in the past. It felt like everyone, for the most part,

came to the realization like, yeah, the ads are annoying, but oh, by the way, I didn't have to pay $80 for this, and next week I don't have to pay $80 for another numbered event. Overall, that's a great night. If they could just figure out that PIP, and trust me, I'm not in the minority on this one. I think a lot of people actually agree. I think a lot of people who have things to do during these seven to eight hour cards don't want to sit there at home and, you know, sit on your couch for eight hours. Or, like, sometimes, you know what I'll do sometimes during the card?

I have my Peloton and I'll put my phone here and watch it and then I had some other people be like oh if you go on Amazon and sign up for Paramount Plus I tried that as well I don't know what you're doing anyway and so you're on the thing

but then during a commercial I want to swipe out and then I have to swipe back in and all this oh what a nightmare it's an absolute nightmare I'm not gonna lie it's an absolute nightmare

but I think they'll figure that out too I think they'll figure that I'll get that it's a great night but this is an absolute nightmare yeah well just that just that

This is an absolute nightmare. There's more. Okay, here's a nightmare. Saturday. By the way, overall, I'm giving them like an A, right? Like, were there any? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm very curious to see this Saturday. If we got another four-hour show, then I might start changing my grade. Okay, fair enough. Well. Nightmare. Okay, so I was running down all the stuff. Like a lot of shit happened leading up to this card.

Other nightmare. Wait, wait. Sorry, before we move on. Yeah. From Ben Heffner. Encoder to the show. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Legend.

It says Paramount's true 1080 versus ESPN 720 was so much better. So he's seeing the resolution was a better resolution. These things matter. It looked crisper. I thought he had something on the pit. If you could swipe and it'll probably be clear because it's smaller. Is that how that works? A couple hours before the show, it's a deja vu scene.

Tweet start percolating regarding Alex Hernandez versus Michael Johnson. And what's the difference this time? This time they pull the plug. Now, I've tried to ask what happened. I'm not getting much intel. But Dana White did confirm in the post-fired press conference that it was due to this. And he basically said, I'm not going over this again. Sorry, we're not going to do this shit again.

In fact, we have the sound right here. Here's Dana White being asked by I do believe John Morgan about what led to the cancellation, a very different play, if you will, from the UFC brass as opposed to back in, what was it, November when they let the Dalgarian fight play out as opposed to pulling the plug before. We did have a fight cancellation today. Not a lot of details on the information of what happened there. There's speculation that maybe this was a wagering flag. What can you tell us? That's what it is. It happened again. We got called from the Gaming Integrity Service and I said, I'm not doing this shit again. So we pulled the fight.

And he deserves to be applauded for that because one of my big points in the aftermath of the Delgarian situation was, why did you let the fight actually happen? Like you had questions, it seemed a little shady, you spoke to both of them, not worth it playing out and suffering this black eye on the sport because of some, you know, who knows, some questionable betting activity. This time they pulled the plug. Now, he was later asked, but I do believe Mike Bonn of him a junkie, like what happens to Johnson and Hernandez? And he's like, I don't know. which like who's going to know if not him but neither here nor there at the moment

how did you feel about this GC you're our expert when it comes to this did they make the right call my understanding was it wasn't as egregious as what we've seen in the past the minter fight the Dalgarian fight so A is that accurate and B did they make the right call

yeah that is accurate we actually talked about it on Friday evening before the fight got pulled and you asked my opinion on it and I was like it's a little bit suspect the fact that he that Alexander Hernandez went from like a minus 150 on Wednesday to Friday evening. It was a coin flip on the odds. But I feel like in the past, having done this for four or five years now, like constantly stalking these odds, we see that happen. You get, you know, heavy money coming in later in the

week. But the fact that the UFC pulled it after that line movement before Dana had officially announced it was very suspect. I think they did the right thing because a lot of people, now that, you know, we've had the Derek Minter situation, we had the Isaac Dolgarian situation, When things like this happen, you see a lot of people start alerting to it on Twitter. Say Alexander Hernandez had come out there, got knocked out in the first round by Michael Johnson, whether it was any fight fixing going on or not, you have this same thing happening again that you had with the Isaac Dolgarian fight. So probably the best course of action in these moments is just wash your hands of it, pull the fight, right? I feel like that's as much as Dana said, and I feel like he's right with it.

If your integrity unit is reaching out to you and being like, listen, man, like this is sketchy, I feel like, especially when it's a prelim fight. It's not like we all, the card was canceled because we lost Alexander Hernandez, Michael Johnson. What was interesting about it was, of the other times that this has happened, probably the two most well-known fighters, right? Like Hernandez and Johnson aren't Bulgarian or Derek Minner, those types of guys and guys who have been in the UFC for quite some time. So I would hate to think that they were involved in anything or that anything nefarious was going on. but yeah, I mean, that wasn't a great look, right? I have to pull a fight before the debut due to this reason.

They never said that beforehand, but everyone put two and two together, and then Dana White said it afterwards. One of the thing I will point out that that's interesting is that the Miner and the Delgarian were both Sunday afternoon insane line swings. Saturday. Saturday afternoon, I'm sorry, Saturday afternoon line swings. Like essentially as the fights were getting ready to get started, this was like Friday evening and then it ends up getting pulled when?

Saturday morning? Saturday afternoon, yeah. Saturday afternoon. So it's interesting to see that they're going about it in a different way. They're not waiting until the last second. And again, no one's saying, the reason I'm, I'm tying my shoelaces here, they got untied, I'm sorry. No one is saying anything. No one is saying anything.

I've reached out to both parties involved and no one is saying anything right now. So I'm really curious, but it's not the best thing to happen before your debut on Paramount Plus. Another thing that isn't the best thing to happen before your debut is what happened at the way in. We had Alex Perez Miss Wade. We had Davidson Figuredo misweight. But those were kind of common, if you want to call them, common weight misses. What happened to Cameron Smotherman was uncommon and downright scary. Here's the scene at the Wayans, the morning weigh-ins.

Smotherman walks off and collapses. Absolutely collapses, falls face first, and doesn't, you know, just fall. I mean, like he smashes his face. on that riser there. We have other angles here, and it's all very, I mean, this is crazy in its own right, like the way they just turn him over. Like, that is awful stuff. I do believe we have more.

Let's just run through everything that we have here regarding Cameron's mother. Here's him getting, you know, helped up and then just sort of like helped out. And I think they lift his legs up. But this, I mean, I was surprised, to be honest, I was surprised they didn't bring out a stretcher for him. Guy fell face first and looks out of it even here. This is downright terrifying. Look at him. Look at the state of him. Very scary stuff. I've often felt like we're playing with fire when it comes to Waynes and we've seen some scary scenes, but nothing. We've seen people like look wobbly. We've seen people look awful. No one has ever fell like that. And maybe someone

should have been closer to him, but I don't know if there was anything that could have happened to avoid that. Asked his team if he would come on. They said as of now he is not saying anything, but he did post a video explaining the situation and giving an update on his condition. Here's what Cameron had to say. All right. I obviously have gotten a lot of messages and I appreciate all the genuine concern about me. I'm completely okay. I'm good. I'm not entirely sure what happen. I see a lot of, you know, people online saying, oh, it's crazy weight cuts, stuff like that. I genuinely didn't cut very much weight for this fight. I came in, you know, pretty low. But even, you know, over the course of this week, I haven't cut much weight. I'm not entirely

sure what happened. And I have some more tests and stuff to take in the coming weeks to, you know, get to the bottom of it. But, you know, for other people, you know, saying it must have done a crazy cut or something like that. I cut very, very little weight. Yeah, I'm not sure what happened. But, yeah, I appreciate the concern. I'm completely okay. And, you know, I'll hopefully be back soon. I apologize to my opponent. And, yeah. Yeah, his teammate, Adrian Yannis, told me he got stitches on his chin.

Dana White's saying afterwards he didn't lose any teeth. The fact that he says, like, it was not a bad weight cut, almost makes it scarier, right? Right? Like, what the hell? Then what happened here? And so just once again, shining a light on just how scary this can be. There's a Michael Bispin clip of him on the T&T Sports Way in show talking about how easy it should be to make weight. And then literally right behind him, Smotherman collapses and falls face first. You just hope and pray that nothing tragic would ever happen. And luckily, this wasn't a tragedy. We've seen some scary situations. There's the story of Henan Burrow hitting his head while getting out of a bathtub and that fight being canceled.

And, you know, we've seen the Hamza Shemayev situations and other fighters looking awful having to cut their hair and whatnot. But that one, the way in which his head just sort of bounced off the riser there was super scary. And so again, there's so much attention on this card. And it just felt like there was just so much that happened. Oh, by the way, I forgot about Mark Smith tearing his ACL in the middle of one of the fights in the Tebow-Gotiate fight.

A referee tearing his ACL mid-fight is unlike anything we've ever seen. At least not that I can think of in the UFC. So, just a... Didn't buffer tear his ACL? We did. UFC... Doing the spin for 300?

200? 200? 200? 200? 200. Yeah. By the way, I was going to say, just in September, remember, Brian Ortega passed out for 30 minutes. Like, I'm surprised we haven't seen it this public, more often than this, like just fighters.

And I know he's saying it's not a bad weight cut. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been helped by the weight cut, right? Even if it was something else, even if there's some other thing going on, and I hope there's not, and if there is, hopefully you can get it checked out and corrected, dehydrating yourself to the point of that level of exhaustion and not having water in your body can't help whatever that is. And it had to affect it. It's not good.

It's just not good. One championship fighter died due to dehydration before a fight. I think another fighter died in the exact same situation you said in Brazil. I was talking about UFC, by the way, as far as tragedy. But yes, of course, we've seen, we've seen some awful scenes for sure.

Yeah, like it is the thing. Like, it is the most dangerous thing, technically about it. At a PFL fighter, go to the hospital, a young woman, a Brazilian woman whose name is escaping me at the moment. What was her name? PFL, or was she a Beltor fighter?

hospital Bellator Diane Silva she was her botched way cut as it's being put here led to an induced coma and the promotion didn't say much about that

so we've seen some very very scary situations no doubt so let me be clear as far as the broadcast was concerned and even the fights top to bottom I thought it was a great night for the UFC I would like to also talk and I want to say that because we're fair and balanced here.

We're the number one unbiased combat sports outlet on the planet. In fact, I noted this on Twitter yesterday, number one in Google search for UFC 324 and WWU Saturday night main events. So shout out to the whole team, Shaheen, everyone who's working on the dot-com side of things and the great team at Yahoo Sports. We keep a real here. We tell the good, we tell the bad, the ugly, everything in between.

With that in mind, I wanted to talk also about what happened on Friday, which was the Zufa boxing debut, on Paramount Plus. And this was obviously a huge story. It's their first boxing show and it was at the apex and it was sort of the unveiled new and improved apex, but still not in its final form because they say that by May or so, they'll be able to hold 1,100 or so people in that venue, which is obviously massive upgrade. Dana White said it was around 300. Could have even been a little bit more, according to our own Chuck Minnall, who wrote a phenomenal piece on it. He went all the way to Vegas just to cover that event and then went home.

I had some troubles getting home due to the weather, but I love the fact that Chuck was there and his piece is gray and I highly recommend watching it. My thoughts on the Zufa Boxing debut were boxing actually looks, looks, I'm not talking about sounds, looks better at the apex

because the ring covers up more of the screen and it doesn't look so empty around it. The ring is bigger than the cage. And so it actually looks better. It does not sound better because there's less high moments. There weren't many stoppages. The only two stoppages were kind of like wonky ones.

There weren't any knockouts. There's less like holy shit moments. And so it ends up being like kind of sustained dullness when the fights aren't that great. And these fights were okay. There were some okay fights. Julian Rodriguez, who I actually saw in action in June,

had a great win over Aebus Griffin on that Jake Paul, Julio Cesar Chavez, junior card, Roger Meriwether. These are some good prospects. And again, this is what they told us it was going to be. But it never really felt like it was popping.

The uniforms have made its way over to Zufa boxing. They have branded gloves, although they did allow some fighters to wear non-ZUFA branded gloves, branded shorts, no sponsors on the shorts. In fact, they didn't see any sponsors

on the cage as well. And the colors were a little bit dull, the gray, the black. It just felt like it was lacking a little bit of life, a little bit of pop. And so it was interesting seeing the boxing, you know, public community react to all of this. And my feeling was like, welcome to the life of a UFC fan dating back to 2020.

We've grown used to all of this, this sort of sterile, dull vibe, if you will. It was really interesting to see people react to it. And my general take was, yeah, not great, not a great viewing experience, but I'm also not going to judge them on this first one because, as I've said a million times now, there are some very smart and successful people running this. I don't believe that this is Zufa Boxing in its final form. And I do believe that what they want Zufa Boxing to be is evolving every single day. And so initially we're told they're going to take over the sport of boxing and then we're told it's just contenders. And then they signed Jayapitaya. And then we find out that they've made

an offer for Bam Rodriguez as well. And it's like, all right, what is this going to be in a year? Not quite sure. But I know that it would be. foolish to bet against them. And I know that they are bringing what they know, which is the UFC model to the sport of boxing. So whether you like it or hate it, you better start getting used to it because it's not going anywhere. It was really interesting to see a lot of fighters be like, oh, man, I want that Zufa boxing belt. And I don't know if they asked them to say all this, and I don't know if they prep them beforehand. But it did generally seem like a lot of the fighters were very happy to be there, that they were happy with the experience, that they were happy

with the way in which they were treated. They were happy with, you know, the PI and the stuff that was accessible to them. They were happy to be there. It did not seem fake. It really didn't. Do I love watching fights at the apex, whether it's boxing or MMA? No, I don't. I feel like it's soulless.

And I think that while the boxing ring takes up more of the screen, it's actually worse for boxing because the fights are a little bit longer and there are some sustained periods of dullness. that maybe you don't get in MMA, a fight like Patty Pimler versus Justin Gaci in boxing would be universally hated on. But in MMA, we love that sort of thing. We love those bar room brawls. So the standards are a little bit different.

Overall, though, I kind of feel like all this is sort of like, work in progress, obviously, but I feel like all, they're sort of, it's not like a sneak peek, if you will, but it's like, it's the pilot. It's like the early. days of a sitcom, it ends up looking nothing like, like, if you look at the early, like, Seinfeld episodes, and in particular the first one, it ends up looking completely different

and feeling different in the laugh track and all that stuff, changes and evolves. This will look different over time. But their vision on what Zufa Boxing is, like Zufa Boxing to me is a content play. There is a McDonaldization of combat sports going on with TKO in particular. It's all fast food. And, and there'll be big events like Crawford-Kinello, and they'll, they'll, they'll bring Jayao Patao, hopefully to Australia, although his debut is going to be in March at the apex, according to him. And they'll do big shows. I've no doubt they want to do Fury, Joshua, and all that stuff.

But it's all about filling those dates and that content, and they'll have another show on Sunday, and then they'll have another show after that. And it'll just be like monthly, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and maybe even more than a month. And it's really about just flooding Paramount Plus, flooding their partners with content. And some stuff will stick out,

and some will just be, filling up the dates. And so trying to compare it to a like a big PBC or a big matrim or a big, you know, top rank is a futile mission at this point. They're just flooding it right now. It's just content. Building up a library, getting fighters fights, getting people to come over and compete for them. And none of that really bothers me. It's so early days. I do want to bring up one thing. And I'm having like an internal struggle about whether or not to bring it up, but I feel like I have to bring it up at this point. I feel like I have to. I feel like I have to. I feel like I wouldn't be true to the audience.

Spin it out. If I don't do it. I have a feeling I know what it is. But go ahead. I just have a question. I just have a question, guys. Okay. Do you want a real answer or is this rhetorical?

I want a real answer. Okay. Because my feelings are real. All right. What the hell happened to Max Kellerman? Yeah, I had a feeling. What the hell happened to Max Kellerman? There was once a time early in my career where I was telling my parents, I want to be the

Max Kellerman of MMA. He's the best. He was the best. He was a truth teller. whether it was on, I followed this guy's entire career, read everything about him, cable access, IMAX, the ESPN days, the HBO days, the Fox Sports days, everything. And I understand that he was bought out by his deal. And I'm not going to talk about his personal deal because I hate when people talk and misspeak about mine.

But what we know is he parted ways with ESPN. I think that's a very fair and accurate thing to say. And we know that he was brought back to be a part of this. And that's a big coup for them. to have a broadcast team call fights at the apex where it's Joe Tessitore, Andre Ward, and Max Kellerman, that is an all-star team. That might be the best booth in boxing right now. That's an all-star team. There's a way to be appreciative about the opportunity.

There's a way to hype it up without shilling and going over the top. When he starts the broadcast saying that he has literally been waiting for this moment his entire life to have someone like Dana White come in and save boxing, it feels over the top. When he starts the main card saying the same thing, he said the same thing twice, it feels over the top. When throughout the broadcast, he is continuously talking about TKO and Dana White and and Nick Con and all these people that he has close personal relationships with. Nick Con was his agent.

I get it. He's appreciative. That's his guy. I get it. The loyalty. I appreciate that. I get it. You can do that without going over the top, without sounding like a shill,

without hurting your credibility. When you compare Callum Walsh to Roy Jones Jr., you are hurting your credibility. You just are. When you compare him to Roy Jones Jr. in the ring and he has to correct you and they're like, eh, I'm a little more Joe Calzagia. And then you kind of double down on that,

it makes you look like a shill. When you're at the press conference and you're saying, we wouldn't be here unless Turkey Al Shake was born, it makes you look like a shill. Max Kellerman, I want you to understand was the biggest truth teller in all of boxing. He weeded through all the BS.

He never showed any kind of bias to any promoter. He was the guy who would get up there and give you a soliloquy on HBO boxing and tell you like it is to see this form of him. And now I know he works for a promoter. But you could still kind of be that guy and work for the promoter. You could still do that. This is over the top. This is over the top.

And dare I say, unlistenable. He is insufferable on these broadcasts. Ward isn't. Tessator isn't. None of them are. Molly Karam, Kregal, I don't know. Why does he feel, guys? And if you don't want to weigh in, that's fine. Why does he feel like he has to go over the top like this? Why does the guy who was known to be the biggest truth teller of them all? The guy who pulled no punches, the guys who told you like it is. Why is he doing this? I don't get it. Because he's collecting probably by far the biggest check out of everybody you named. And it's so disappointing. It's not disappointing that he's getting paid. And I still believe. that there's a way to weave through it without doing this. Do you guys agree with me that it sounded awful?

Oh yeah. It's not just you. It's not just you. I think everyone does. I think to Rick's point, I think the check is big. It would want to be. To do a 180 on who you are, basically. It's very sad to see.

It's sad to see. I actually, I talked to a lot of boxing journalists. I just wanted to see if like, what did you think of this? You know, like, we obviously are used to a UFC package to a certain degree. And that was the first thing they all said. I asked four different journalists and they all said the same thing. It was too much. Like, it's crazy that he's on there saying these things.

And it's like, you can be really excited about this, but you don't have to take it to that level. Like, and there are people that are excited about this. There's no doubt about it. I even saw Thomas Carty talking about how excited he was to be there and hoping that he could be involved in this card. And there is a feeling within boxing that, like, the more fights the better. We want as many people putting on shows as we possibly can. But he's going to a different planet with it completely.

And I think it becomes disingeneworthy. ingenuous at that point. He can be excited, but he's taken it to a level where you don't believe it. You feel like it's scripted and you feel like he's going out of his way to please his Paymaster. Yeah, because look, he was out of the game. You know, whatever happened in ESPN happened, he's out of the game. So I understand there's a sort of like, I'm happy to be back. I'm excited to be back, right? There's all this stuff that comes into play.

I get it. I understand it. I experience it. I hate talking about other broadcasters, but it's like it was firing me up on Friday because we heard it for Crawford-Kinello and I sort of thought like maybe he got it out of his system and it was worse on Friday because it was worse because like whatever sort of enthusiasm he had for Crawford Canello you could say like all right it's warranted it's Crawford versus Canello here you are comparing Callum Walsh to Roy Jones Jr and I'm sorry Calam Walsh is not Roy Jones

Jr and I don't think he'll ever be Roy Jones Jr he can end up being a great fighter God bless him I'm I'm wishing the best to him but all of that and just like the general demeanor the general vibe the general tone of the entire thing was very off-putting. And I hope someone is telling him you are doing more harm than good. The UFC, Dana White, they love him. Dana White said it himself,

he's been trying to get him to work for the broadcast for UFC. He tried to get him to work for the UFC for three years. He couldn't get him all that stuff. They love him. You are doing more harm than good going on like this type of rant, doing this type of stuff,

having this type of demeanor, having this type of slant to your commentary. I don't know what to make of it. Starting the prelims and the main card with the same, I've been waiting for this my whole life routine, which set me off because he was always the guy who was like, let me tell you how it really is. Let me explain to you what's really going on.

There's no way you've been waiting for this. You're trying to tell me when you were like breaking down Al Hayman's influence in getting his fighter overpaid on HBO, deep down inside you were praying that Dana White would come in and do the same thing in boxing? well then everything you said was a lie. Then you're a phony. Which one is it?

Or can you come out and be like, it's the dawn of a new era? We've always wondered what would happen if an entity like this would come in and change boxing. There are some radical ideas. It's very exciting. It's exciting for me for, you know,

considering I haven't been in the game for, you know, what, six, seven years now, popped up on top rank a little bit, but this is exciting. As a longtime boxing aficionado and lover of the sport, it is exciting for me to be here. I can't wait.

to see how this plays out. I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to be one of the voices bringing this to you. Let's go. I'm sitting back just like all of you. Revved and ready to go, as Dana White once said. What's wrong with that as opposed to, like,

I have been waiting for this my whole life. Like, what? What is going on, man? What is going on? When you see Callum Walsh in there and he's fighting like Roy Jones Jr., you have to admit, like it enraptures you a little bit. You get intoxicated with it.

Come on. What did you guys think of the presentation? Did any of you watch it? I watched it What'd you think I'm not talking about the color and stuff I'm talking about like

Apex uniforms It was the UFCification of boxing Like there's no other way to say it It was exactly what I'm used to Except they've transposed

Boxing onto What I am already Very familiar with Which I think is going to work For a lot of people I will say though As you've pointed out earlier Like

It's devoid of some of the things That make boxing interesting Right It has made it has made boxing more into the UFC which has eliminated anything interesting from itself I don't know how that goes over

but dude I love I love the person I love the trunks I love the showmanship and I mean we're talking about I don't know what to make of it yet though because then we hear yes but then we hear like

they're gonna have Jayapataia and he's gonna be unifying belts and all the shit I don't know what to make is gonna fight at the apex it's confusing the shit out of me I don't know hit the apex in front of six people Yeah. What are we talking about?

I think Chuck Bendett all summed it up perfectly in his article. Yeah. What do you say? Do you want to form? The entire article. Oh, yeah. He's just talking about Max Kellerman with the glazing, the black gloves, no, you know, you have the uniformity of the UFC now. They're selling the merch outside. By the time Callum Wash is getting his interview, everyone had already left the arena, the 700 or 300 people there. Yeah. Yeah, they had Theo Vaughn there. Like, they called in some favors, right? Like, there's no way Theo Vaughn is choosing to go there. Nate Diaz was there. Shout out to him.

I can't imagine if you're a diehard boxing fan. You want nothing to do with UFC. You know, there's that segregation sometimes where it's just like, I only like boxing. I don't care about MMA. I cannot imagine you watch this product and you're like, over the moon. You can't wait to see what they do next.

Ultimately. Go ahead. Chucks article. Uniformity is part of it and uniformity isn't exactly soulful. Nothing was, except maybe the opening video montage that paid tribute to boxing's best over the generations to Metallica's Enter Sandman. There was Mike Tyson,

Avander Holyfield, Chris Eubank, George Form and Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hernes, Muhammad Ali, in both colour and black and white. Homage to all that stood before, homage to where Zufa was daring to go. Yet none of those fighters were competing in a warehouse. They were at large among the people, at electric venues,

in places where thousands of people could galvanise them with energy and enthusiasm and curse them with actual fits of human passion, wearing trunks that became iconic heirlooms to collectors and robes to match, flash bulbs, entourages. Frank Sinatra acted as a photographer to attend the fight of the century in 1971, doing whatever it took to be there. Atmospheric has always played a part in boxing's lore.

It's better to cut tension with a knife than to karate chop indifference with your hand. Wow. I mean, what a guy. What a wordsmith. The man in the freaking hat. Why do we any of us other bother? Like, why does anyone else bother?

You know what I mean? He is unbelievable. Spot on, on the nose, nailed it. And, yeah, there it is. If a Zufa boxing takes place at the meta-apex or the meta-pec. funny. Title of the article, that's going to be, you know, best article headline of the year at some point.

He's incredible. He really is. Man, this is something that you see online. The soul of these organizations and events seems to be dissipating. And it's a bummer to see. I know there's billions of dollars at play. And I know there's very smart people and everyone's making a buck and everyone has this grand plan of taking over.

But man, as fans who have to digest it, as people who cover it, you need that soul. You need that. It's important. And it's important not to sell out. You could still make that money, in my opinion. You really can. So let's see. Let's see what the next one is.

Dana White, not getting too high, not getting too low regarding all of this. And it's going to be interesting to see how he divides his time. He said there's a new broadcast crew that's working on this, a new production team. so we'll see the way in which that they are able to break this down. We've been speaking for about an hour and a half, and I didn't even run down the results from Saturday. You probably, I would hope, have seen our post show, but very quickly here, I'll tell you before we get to our very first guest of the day.

Shout out to Adam Fuget for the win starting off. Excuse me, Ty Miller. Wow, I just did the same thing that Bruce Buffer did. Holy shit. That is crazy. When he mixed up the two. And people going crazy. Like, Bruce, how many have you?

these has he done? He mixed one up in his life. Crazyness. Anyway, Ty Miller with the win. Josh Hokit with the win and the very interesting post-fight promo against Denzel Freeman. Seemed like Dana White didn't like it. Alex Perez, more on him in a moment, would tremendous win over Charles Johnson in the first round. Nikita Krilov defeating Modestis Bukascus in the third round. So the first three fights all ended via some kind of finish. Then we got to the the decision portion of the card. And I was shocked. I thought it was going to be five for five. Atiba Gautier, I thought was going to finish Andrei Pouliyev within the first 60 seconds. Somehow Puliav survived and they went the distance.

Unbelievably so. Gote is still abused. Umar and Manga Mada Mada Mugamagamato defeated Davidson Figurado, the unanimous decision. John Silva defeated Arnold Allen for unanimous decision and wrote him like a surfboard, which Arnold didn't really seem to love. And I don't think he loved that he brought him in during the post-fight interview, but that's John Silva. Natalia Silva defeated Rosamunis. We suspect she'll punch her ticket. Now to get a title shot against Valentina Shevchenko.

Waldo Cortez-Acosta stopping Derek Lewis in the second round. A bit of an anticlimactic stoppage, but nevertheless, a huge one for the Dominican-born Waldo Cortez-A-Costa. Sean O'Malley defeated Sonia Deng, hard-fought victory, unanimous decision. And as we said earlier, Justin Gae with the unanimous decision victory over. for Patty Pimlet. Let's go to our first guest of the day. He had a massive win over Charles Johnson.

Was somewhat emotional in the aftermath as well. He is Alex Perez, and he is kind enough to join us right here and now. There he is. Hey, Alex. How are you? Yeah, man. How are you doing? I'm doing great.

Thank you very much for joining us. Congratulations on the win. What does it feel like on the Monday after a big fight like that, a win? You talked about kind of feeling the pressure going into your last fight on your UFC deal to now kind of have that monkey off your back. What is the feeling? It feels great. You know, obviously a lot of pressure.

I go into a fight. I miss weight one and then knowing it was my last fight on my deal. So a lot of pressure, you know, coming up. My son was in the audience, his second time being there. So a little nervous for him to be there. And yeah, man, but I feel amazing. He had a great time. You know, got everything squared away.

My management got everything. Start talking to Mick for me. so yeah, I'm good. So hopefully, you know, get a fight later this year. Okay, a few things there. First of all, how old is your son? He turns five in February. Oh, wow.

Does he have any idea? What's going? I'm sure he recognizes you in there, but how does he take to all of this, seeing his dad. Oh, he loves it. He's been around the sport since he was little. I used to take him to the gym and put him in his pack and play while I was training. He's growing up in the gym.

It's crazy because he hangs out with like Diego Lopez, Brandon Moreno. all these guys from the Eridium team and he doesn't even like he doesn't know like these are some of the baddest dudes on the planet and he just looks at them as normal people jumps on them like their jungle gyms and tries to wrestle them so he's been he's been around the sports since he was born and he loves it uh he's over there being a commutator telling me i guess he was tying the people around me he's like keep punching that keep punching and then when i won he went crazy all the people giving them high fives so it was cool to see all the videos and stuff so uh super like

Super good experience, you know. What happened with the weight? Just stopped sweating, you know. I think it was a quick turnaround. Mumbai didn't get time to relax or anything and jumping right back in the camp. I was actually lighter than I usually going to camps. And we got down that night and then we're like, okay, we're in a good spot. We're going to go home, sleep and jump back in at 5 a.m.

That's when the P.I. open. We got there at 5 a.m. Couldn't start sweating, you know, my wife and my nephew actually got in the sauna with me and was barely breaking sweat. We're in the hot tub for a while, barely couldn't sweat it off. And I was going to be able to lose the three pounds. I ran into Charles there at the PI. He was taking his weight.

And I just told him, like, hey, brother, I'm not going to make weight. I understand if you're going to take the fight. You know, he was always like, nah, man, like, we're going to fight. You know, I know you're trying. I know, obviously you can see that I was hurting. You know, so we talked in. the back and yeah, yeah, I just couldn't stop saying no excuses. You knew that this was the last fight on your deal and you knew that you were on a two-fight

losing streak. In between the way in and the fight, you know, Friday afternoon going to Saturday, did you feel like they're all big, they're all must win? But did you know that you were kind of behind the eight ball because they don't love when people miss weight and you know about, you know, where you stand going into things? 100%. You know, coming off those two losses, you know, not making weight. era my back was against the wall you know with my friends my family my coaches were in the back

just telling me hey bring that Central Valley kid out you know bring them out to Las Vegas you're not from here bring that grit bring that dog that you used to bring in and let's get after it and you know those words stepped with me and I went out there and just did my thing did you feel like this was must win

for your career in the UFC did you feel like if you would have lost there would have been nothing to discuss and and they would have told you thanks for everything Oh, 100%, you know, and I wouldn't blame them. It's a business, you know, I'm a business owner myself, so I know when you have to make decisions. So if they were, if I was lost, I would not make weight, even if I were lost and everything, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have been surprised if they would have cut me, you know. Like I said, it's a business. I understand. I don't take it personal. I'm a business owner myself, so I know you have to make some tough decisions, even if you don't want to. Like said, they've given me every opportunity. They have done nothing but right by me. and giving me multiple opportunities. So like I said, like I wouldn't have, I would have been upset on myself because of what, you know, what I could have done. And I wouldn't have been upset at the company make or anybody.

Shout out to Asai Republic. I believe that's the business that you own. I'm a big fan of ASEI. I have to say, I've never been to ASEU Republic, Alex. I'm a bit of an ASEI. There it is. I'm a bit of an ASEI snob. I feel like I've been to Brazil and I've had their ASEI and I feel like it's phenomenal.

and then I come to the States and I feel like it's a little bland, it's a little water down. Why is I say you Republic the one that I've been missing? And can we get it here in the United States? Do they have what not in the United States, the northeast of the United States? So, you know, the New York area. So one, it's pretty like I have a lot of obviously Brazilian friends and they say it's pretty similar. Okay, okay. I've never been to Brazil and try this.

So they're like, hey, it's pretty similar. Like it's not too far off. Obviously, it's not the original. So, yeah. So they tell me I take their word. it. We're going to, they're expanding out there. You know, there's going to be, there's a lot of them popping up, you know, right now I know they're doing Texas, it's done Florida. So they're moving out there right now. They're trying to do one in Vegas, I heard. Okay. I got one in California,

you know, hopefully in the next couple of years, I'll open up another one. But yeah, man, if you're ever out here, you got to try it. It's, it's amazing. Where is that one? Yours? So that one's, it's in the city of Orange. So down the street from Disneyland and, Anaheim, like the baseball team, the Angels. Yeah, their stadium. So about 10 minutes away from there, right from between a college, Chapman College and like a shopping mall. So a prime spot.

Love it, love it. Well, good luck to you with that. Great performance in the fight. First round finish. Charles seems to disagree with the stoppage. Why is he wrong in your opinion? Man, honestly, it's not my job. I would have kept paying him.

They just put, you know, Herzlop just threw me off. I know Charles and I was hitting him and I was kind of thinking in my head like when is this rep going to stop and he was stumbling a lot but like I said as a fighter I understand where he comes from you want to fight to the you know to the death and this is what we do um I'm glad they stopped it when they did you know I don't want to hurt him anymore like Charles is a great one he's a great father but he's a great person in general I've known him for years and like said I don't disagree with the stoppage I thought they could have stopped it sooner but like I said he's a fighter he's you know, always advocate to, you know, go out there and let him get finished, get knocked out,

and I can't disagree with them because I'd probably feel the same way. Yeah, I agreed for whatever it's worth with the stoppage. Even in the aftermath, like you could see, like he wasn't quite sure where he was. He was stumbling. I thought it was the right call, to be honest. We just showed the photo of YouTube backstage. What was that like? It was good.

Like, me and Charles always had a great relationship. We've trained together back 20, like 8, probably like 2014-15. He came down on Team Oyama. We lived at the fighter house together. I was driving him to practice because he came down from St. Louis. He didn't have a car, so I was driving him to practice. He's a really good dude. He was one of my main training partners when he was there for about three weeks.

He had a big fight coming up. He was under the same management for a while. We've always kept in contact. We've always been cool. Nothing but respect to him, his team. Me and Charles have always been pretty good friends. When we actually signed the fight, we actually pha-time each other, and we took a screenshot when we talked about it.

like as soon as we signed the fight. He's a good dude in general, like just family man, great person, always a good energy, just a wonderful person. Your post-fight interview, very memorable and emotional, you talked about the pressure that you were feeling and how this was a difficult training camp for you. Can I ask you to expand on this a little bit? What made it so different? And why were you so emotional in the aftermath?

I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted to, like, go out to California. know, my son, and just, you know, just personal demons. I do it. I feel like a lot of fighters do it with not believing in myself. And, you know, I have always having that doubt, especially coming off of two losses, knowing my job's on the line, most likely, you know, things like that just meant the mental aspect of the game. The fighting part is the easy part. It's all the mental part, getting ready, getting prepared.

And I was battling a lot of demons, you know. I question myself a lot. I remember texting a couple of my coaches. Hey, dude, I still got this? Can I still do this? You know, constantly? Overtraining for sure. I overtrained because I was like, man, this guy, Charles is a workhorse. He's outworking me.

And I don't like knowing that people are outwork me. So I'm at work, trying to outwork him, even though I don't know what he's doing. You know, just it was such a mental battle for me. And it took a tool, you know, it took a real toll on me, my family, my friends. They can see things changing and stuff like that. in me just the way I got and they were able to help me dig myself out of those bad spots. You know, I was able to call my management anytime. I was able to call my coaches and text my coaches.

My wife was there by my side. My son, seeing my son, you know, being around him, just seeing him be happy, play with Christmas. He had all the boxes. He said playing with the toys, he's playing with the boxes. He kind of made me realize, like, a lot of the time, like, we look at the bigger picture, like something so simple can make us happy. just little things like that

so it was just a mental mental mental battle have you ever experienced that before where you were doubting yourself where you were wondering if you still had it? I have but not to this extent you know I'm obviously getting older

I've been I turned pro I started fighting in 2010 I turned pro 2011 you know and you know I've been in this game for a long time outside the UFC

in the UFC so I've always had doubts I don't you don't people with time like oh you're actually really you know, you're like, you're one of the best guys in the world. I'm like, man, you guys are, I don't know what you guys see because I don't see that inside myself, you know, so sometimes it takes, you know, people to see that and tell you and remind you that, hey, you are one of the best people in the world.

You are this good. You can be a champion. So that's what everybody was doing behind the scenes, you know, working behind the scenes to get me back on track mentally. How did you not let that break you? Like, I feel the pressure when you're talking about it. There's so much. There's so many eyeballs.

on this particular card, state of your career, you've got a family you're trying to provide and stay in the UFC. How did you not succumb to all of that? Short-term memory, for one, you know, I wrestled. So, you know, we wrestled a weekend. I was believing short-term memory. And then two is just having my team, my people around me, my team, my family, my friends, my wife, everybody just holding it down for me.

Like, you know, they did a lot of stuff behind the scenes just to check up on me daily. Like if it wasn't my friend Billy, you know, my friend Billy. Bigelow, it was, my nutritionist Paulina, if it wasn't Paulina, it was Coach Colin. If it was Colin, Jason Howland, Jason Howells, it was Jeremy. If Jeremy was Jacob, you know, obviously my wife every night when she came home from work, she would check on me, asked me, and she knew things were like were off. She would ask me, you know, push me to talk and stuff like that. And then just being around my son, obviously, you know, obviously everybody's going to be like, oh, you're doing this for your son, you're doing this for your

son and just seeing him and being able to provide every opportunity I can for him to wrestle and do the sports he wants to do and be able to do all the fun things he wants to do can not help uh they definitely help me obviously you know you didn't make weight but you were okay we did see a scary situation with Cameron Smotherman uh did you did you see any of that play out when you were there uh I did a little bit because he was right behind me okay so um me and Cameron we're we're we're not best friends where we're you know we've talked we've trained together in the pass and I seen him he wasn't heavy or anything like usual like I've always talked to him five weeks he's like pretty normal and behind me he was in line and uh like I'm getting ready

I'm like shaking because we're at the arena because it's a T-Mobile and uh they have they have hockey there so like it's really cold so I'm shaking and I see like someone like try to like sit down right next right next to me when I'm walking up the steps and I look and it's camera so I'm like okay and then uh he you know he didn't look too hot in the back kind of just out of it but then he sat down and then as my wearing in and walking off the stage and all of a sudden hearing a big old like thud on the ground was like oh man and they're like oh hey we need uh the medical team out here someone just passed out it was like oh that was scary very scary and and i'm always kind of afraid that something like that is going to happen or something even worse than that um do like

do you have any theory as to how that can be avoided or do you think that that's that that's just part of the game and you have to try to be as smart and safe as possible. I mean, with the UFC, they give us nutritionists. They do everything. I think no matter what, any rule you try to make with the cutting weight, I think people are always going to try to find an advantage, right? So I don't think there's a right way to do it. Hydration tests.

I mean, you name it. You know, I know California does this whole thing where you can gain more than, like, cut one of 10%, gain more than 10%. And it's just hard because everybody, everybody's body is different. everybody puts on weight different everybody loses weight different everybody walks around different weight so it's just hard to put everybody in a you know in a in a like in a square you know like you can't put everybody in that same box basically you know so it's just hard no matter what I think there's never very good never going to be a way around cutting weight you just going to be have to

be smart about it you know use your resources the ufCPI I mean they do all the testing and stuff like that you know you can use them they have nutritionists you can hire your own nutritionist I just don't really see a weight going around the weight cutting. I mean, obviously, you have to be safe and figure out, you know, what your limit is. You've been in the UFC since 2017. This was the first Paramount Plus show. Did it feel any different? Did you notice anything different about this one because it was the start of a new era?

Not everything was pretty much the same. I thought they were going to give us something like, you know, UFC Paramount gloves, something like that. But now, everything was pretty normal. I mean, I was lower on the car so I didn't really have too much media or anything like that So maybe the other guys, I seen that they did the face off With the Paramount and between them Yeah

I know those guys did that But for me, it was just a normal normal day Okay You mentioned that your management have Have already talked to the brass about extending So do you feel confident that you'll be sticking around? Yeah, I feel confident You know, obviously the performance shows a lot

I'm going out there finishing Charles he's tough he's never been finished and I was the first one to do it so I think that that made a statement and they want to see finishes

especially in the latter division so you know they just kind of all worked in my favor so I feel very confident that I'll get another fight do you feel is there any part of you that is ever going to consider

moving up to 135 because in the past there have been some some mishavings with, you know, making weight, do you feel like it's time to start thinking about that? Eventually, I do want to make one more run for the title at 25s. I feel like I could make it, like I said, I think the quick turnaround just kind of mess me up. I'm not as young as I used to be, so the weight doesn't move the same. I feel like I can still compete at 25s.

I can still make the weight. I made it in Doha, you know, no problem. I was the first one on the scale or second one on the scale, I believe. So I can make the weight. Like I said, I just need to be smarter about like, hey, obviously not taking a fight so close to it, give my body some time to rest, relax, and just get all that stuff done.

But eventually, yes, I would like to compete at 35s, but right now I got some unfinished business at 25s. Yes, of course. Remember you fighting for the belt several years ago. I'm wondering, who do you consider the best flyweight in the UFC right now? Obviously, the champ is Josh Van. He won the belt in a bit of a shocking and weird way.

So I'm just, you know, considering all of that, who do you consider to be the top dog at 125? I got to go to Pantoja because he woke me out pretty quick. So I've got to go Pantosia. But I mean, Josh fans out there, like, it's just so hard and hard wait because anybody can be champ at any given time. But, like, as you've seen with Pantosia, you know, his last fight, things happen in the cage. But I think Betoja is the best. You know, I'm not taking anything away from Josh.

I think he's great. I think he's come up the right way. I think he's killing it. You know what I mean? But I think Pantosia is still the best. right now like you said you've been very busy and probably want a bit of a break i did notice that was your hand iced up and leg iced up when you show are you okay or any serious yeah hands good a little swollen uh gonna get an x-ray on my hand uh and in my foot uh yeah when i

went to kick charles he took a like uh he slid his knee uh his leg back and i my foot landed right on his knee so i kind of banged up so i'm gonna get an MRI on that but I'm able to walk on it, so that's a good sign. I'm able to make a fist with my hand, a little bit of pain, but still swollen. So just kind of get x-rays and get cleared up and then, you know, get back to training, get back to work. Well, I wish you the best, man. Congrats on the big win. I'm sure it feels fantastic on this Monday.

Hopefully everything's okay with the hand and the leg and everything like that. You can take some time off. Hang out at the Aseille Republic in Orange. I'd love to check it out and try it one of these days. Hopefully you get some good news with that new contract and can continue your UFC career. So again, thank you for the time. Alex. Congrats on the win. Appreciate it very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it for having me. Thank you so much. There he is. Alex Perez with the big win on Saturday. Obviously, Charles Johnson has a history with Josh Van. Last guy to beat Josh Van. Josh Van reacted to the loss by won Charles Johnson on social media with a cheeky one.

Uh-oh, there goes the rematch. Josh was all over. the place there. He was going back and forth with Manel Cap. Charles Johnson had a great moment at the ceremonial way-ins, a frontrunner, I would think, for feel-good moment of the year. He was up there with his daughter. It was awesome to see. Here's his daughter. Look how happy she is. Look how cute she is. Seeing her dad up there. And she got to sit on his shoulders. Look at this. I mean, isn't that great? Loving the moment. Tremendous hair. I wonder if they both. both had it braided by the same person.

Seemed like the same type of style. That was great stuff. So shout out to Charles Johnson. I'm sure he will be back. I know he was upset with what transpired, the stoppage. I thought it was a good stoppage. And I think that his demeanor afterwards would suggest that it was a good stoppage. In about 10 minutes time, Sean O'Malley is going to join us.

While we're sticking with social media here, let's run through a few other interesting tweets from this past Saturday. here's Ilya to Pitya Pembla, loss, 2-1, Justin Gaechie. Little Sausage, the only thing you had to do was beat a 38-year-old guy. You just lost the biggest paycheck of your life. You were going to get rich if you want.

Justin, all I could say is, congratulations, and I'd like to tell you to get ready, but you're screwed no matter what. Golly, I can't wait for Ilya to come back. That tweet got 102,000 likes on it. Jeez. And I guess that means the world, can't wait for Ilya to Porya to come back,

hopefully sooner rather than later. Here's Isamachachev weighing in. It was a poo-poo Patty Day on social media. What was brought on a platter turned out to be inedible. So I think he was referring to the title shop being brought to him on a platter, and I guess it didn't go down. Did you guys feel, Justin talked about this, did you guys feel like Patty was overconfident, or is that unfair?

Is that revisionist history? I think that's a bit unfair just because why wouldn't he be? He's undefeated in the UFC up to this point. He's coming off a massive win over Michael Chandler. Obviously, he has a ton of self-belief in the fact that he was going to become champion. So I don't think that that's why he lost the fight. Yeah, I also just don't know how that manifests itself. Is it that he didn't try to take him down, that he was just too confident in his hands?

I don't know. Did he look past him? Did he not take the threat seriously enough? It feels like they both look past each other. They both had their laundry lists of what they were going to do. Yeah, you guys were talking about that. Yeah. it did sort of feel like the Patty Coronation show, in my opinion.

And whether he bought into that, we'll never know. I thought he was very humble in defeat and said all the right things. But Gaichi felt like he was a little too overconfident. Here's Habib Nirmagameh Maghamedov tweeting about Justin Geichi, saying, Justin Gehche, absolute legend, my congratulations, what a fight, and don't forget Justin almost 38 years old. So there's a former opponent of Geichi,

giving him props. Here's Armand Sarukian weighing in, and you knew he would say a lot about all this. He was in attendance, after all. This clown couldn't beat Gaichi on antibiotics. Gaei with the thing on his neck. He had more. He had more. Here's Armand Sarukian weighing in. That's what happens when you're gifted opportunities and pushed up the rankings artificially, a completely undeserved title shot for Patty. Congratulations to Justin. He showed real heart, and unlike others, he'll step up and take the fight with me, respect. but I'm sure he doesn't want that fight next. He obviously wants the one and only Ilya to Poria next.

So we'll see. We'll see how this all plays out. Dustin Porier caught some strays over the week because he did pick Gaichi to beat Patty on our program on Monday. Here he is saying, welcome to the big leagues, Patrick, one up for the legends. John Silva with the big win, guys. John Silva with the big win over Arnold Allen.

He was very emotional all week long. here he is telling the world saying Doubt me now I don't really feel like people were doubting him to be honest There was a nice exchange between John Silva and Arnold Allen John Silva and Arnold Allen exchanging some pleasantries

Arnold saying good to be back after the layoff Had fun out there against a great opponent felt I did enough but that's the game Been here before Hope you enjoyed the fight Love putting on fun fights But I've not given up on my goals of being champion Lord Silva weighing in

Thank you so much for sharing the Octagon with me, Arnold, replying. Likewise, brother. Thanks for the fight. I am not a surfboard, though. He didn't like that. Disrespectful, guys? What do you think?

The surfboard edit that came out after was rough for Arnold. He did my boy dirty, man. Did you see it? I don't know if I saw that. It literally turned into him being a skateboarder and John Silva like... Oh, that's right. He like, Ollie's with him and it was tough, man. A little bit disrespectful.

Yeah? It's all right, though. Yeah. It's all right. I felt for Arnold. We love Arnold. I love John Silva as well. The main thing for Arnold, I hope he can be consistent.

I hope he can get two more fights this year. Fought in January, two more fights would be phenomenal, right? I need to see an Arnold Allen W. I need it like an Xbox. I know, I know. I know we got the gig of one, but three of the last four, I need to see one go through the hoop for our boy on Mike. He was so entertaining all week.

He was doing like the voodoo stuff. He was showing him a tattoo on his leg. I don't know what that was about. The cat. Yeah, the cat. Fish. Fish. Fish.

Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Plus, it was a great fight, too, man. Oh, it was a really good fight. Yeah, it was a really good fight. Yeah, he jumped on his back. I was like, yeah. Yeah, disrespectful.

Disrespectful. But, you know. The most awkward thing is always when a dude wins a hard-fought fight, and then he brings the other guy there, and you can tell the other guy wants nothing to do with that scene. Orney wanted out, bro. He was like, man, let me get that fuck back to the locker room, please. The only thing worse than that is when they put the loser

on their shoulders, right? And the guys like, get me off. Please get me off, right? It's fucking horrible, yeah. It's so uncomfortable to watch. Or when they're standing there for too long and trying to raise their hand and you see their head go down as their hands going up, they're like, I don't want to fucking do this.

Or when, like, you say, like, this is one of my idols, I grew up watching it, I have so much respect for him, and then you ride them like a surfboard during the... Oh my God, yes. During the fight. Sugar Song, who'd you guys score that for? We both scored it for on Mali. We both scored it for O'Malley.

One and three? Wasn't confident going into the scorecards, yeah. Yeah. That one was close. It's good to see Sean back on track. Song is a tough out. But Sean coming back to the old music, which we like, who sings that song again? Lupi Fiasco.

Lupi, yeah, superstar, right? Yeah. Came out to that. Look good. Hair looked good. At round three, he looked great. He looked great. I was wondering where that was the whole fight.

Like he, one was close. to a song, but three, man. He put it on him. Those knees are nasty. Corey in attendance. He has the history with Yan. Marab says he's going to be next for... I don't know how they're going to play this. You think they do Sugar versus Corey? You think they give Sugar the title shot? I don't know. I think they got options.

I like how... The White House makes a lot of sense, right? I agree. I like how Sugar called out Pyotrion. He was like, Pyotrion, you want this rematch? Unless, of course, Marav, you know, they... respect to Marab, he can have it before me if need be. I like that. I really did. He wasn't delusional. Yes, but you know, there's a lot

of people would be like, you know, I've got that history with them. I think sugar at the White House would be great. Again, we don't know if this is in fact true, but Marab did say no Russians allowed on the White House card. We don't know. We don't know. You could still have O'Malley at the White House. You just fight

Corey. It doesn't have to fight for the title. He said, he said, if Jan's fighting someone else, I'm chilling. I mean, we're about to talk to him in two minutes, hopefully. But I would love to be. I would love. to see that fight. I just don't know if that's what he wants. I love that fight. If Marab was still the champion, that fight makes all the sense in the world, right? That is the fight. I mean, at the White House.

Although, I don't think, Corey seemed to suggest that I got the sense, I didn't even follow up on this, to be honest. That's how, that's how off the breaking news train I am these days, but I got the sense it was Aeman, unless he was throwing me a curveball. Well, when you pressed him on it and he completely shut down, I got the sense that you were right. Yeah. I'm curious. So if he has that in the works, then it's probably not. Anyone who has a fight in the war, like even Izzy, I asked him about it. I was just kind of curious what his stance was. But I feel like unless it's like a super quick turnaround, I feel like they're not. If you're fighting in the next couple months, you're not going to get the White House car. You think they still put Derek Lewis on that. You first said, I want to beat Izzy and be on that car. No problem. I guess it's a quick one. Can't put Derek Lewis on. You don't think so.

What was that? What was that? Tell us, tell us. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't know. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I know, what was that? It was a bad ending, right? I'm serious, what was it? Like, he didn't, he didn't even touch him. Like, it looked like, it looked like he just, he just went down and just quit. Like, the jab barely even grazed him, and he went down, and that was it. It felt like he was broken. Yeah, I mean, he never had Waldo Cortez-A-Costa in any sort of danger the entire fight, and then went out like that. Der Kloos is 40. Yeah, he's 40, dude. He has so many miles on him in the fight game. Well, let's not pretend that when he was 30 there were in performance. like this too. There were some bad ones. It's just Derek Lewis.

Put him on there. It'll knock somebody, give him a more favorable matchup. Let him knock somebody's head off and it's all game. I don't think this rules him out. I think Trump loves the guy. Of course it doesn't rule him out. He's Derek Lewis. He's 40. He's got a million UFC fights. The performances don't really matter. They'll put him on it and everyone will be excited. But that is the kind of fight that he should win, right? Like, it's not like Waldo's taking him down and doing a whole bunch of wrestling. He should at least be competitive. Right.

There was no competition and then to go out like that. Waldo called out Curtis Blades. You like that? I'm down. I kind of feel like that makes the most sense, right? Keep climbing that ladder, man. I like it. Tough test, though, with the wrestling, man.

We haven't really seen Waldo. I know, I know. I've really pushed in the wrestling. But it's really like the last guy before you're in that discussion. Amazingly, like a year ago, he was nowhere near that discussion. Now he's calling out Curtis, former title contender. You beat that guy. You're now in that discussion with the guns of the world.

give me Waldo Cortez against Rico Verhoeven sign me up that's the one that's the one is Natalia Silva next for Valentina I guess yeah because there's limited options but I don't think she did a ton of favors for herself on Saturday night

you didn't like it it was an okay performance and I think there are some people out there that I'll disagree with the judge's scorecards oh really yeah it wasn't one of those ones that really put the stamp on it Right. I saw a video of Rose with fans afterwards. This is courtesy of her manager, Brian Butler. She was very, very, very emotional, talking to the fans, meeting up with them, crying. I'm probably bringing this up at the worst possible time because we're framing up our next guest. Yeah, yeah, just show it just as context. Here she is, like, sobbing while talking to fans right after the fight.

Kudos to her for meeting with them and being grateful. She talked about how grateful she was to still be in the UFC, but it's hard to watch. Hard fought fight. She has aspirations of fighting for the belt being a two-division champion. I mean, golly, this is heartbreaking. Her manager said that he asked her if this was okay to share and to film and all that stuff, but it says a lot about who Rose Nami Yunus is, and I hope those fans help lift her spirits a little bit and make her feel a whole lot better. My God, I fucking love her.

Rose, I fucking love you. Tough scenes there, but we do wish the absolute best of Rose and a hard-fought battle against Natalia Silva. Speaking of a hard-fought battle, what a performance, co-main event, the Sugar Show,

all the way back now. It is all the way back. Y'all must have forgot. Like the great Roy Jones once said, trying to write him off, he says, nope, not yet. I didn't get the script. Trying to write me up,

didn't get the script, back on top, and perhaps fighting for the best. belt next. Who would have thunk it? He's kind enough to join us on this Monday afternoon, the one and only Shugha Sean O'Malley. There he is. Hello, Sean. You're back, baby. How are you? Oh, Uncle Ariel. It feels good, man. It feels good to win, but I will say I was watching that Rose clip as you were playing it right there. It feels good to win, but it feels way worse to

lose. And it's crazy how every time we step in there as fighters, it's like the wins, they do feel really good, but the losses feel way worse. And you wonder, you're like, man, you could just end on a win. Life's good. But yeah, no, losses are tough, and it really felt good to get back in the wind calm. Yeah, so a lot was made of the fact that this was your first win since March of 24. Did you miss this feeling? Did you forget what it felt like on the Monday after, where you can kind of just sit back and be like, yes, did it, winter circle. Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. It, uh, yeah, no, it feels really good.

definitely, I took winning for grand and I felt like I just my entire career. I won one, one, one. I just kept winning. Even as an amateur, you know, I just felt like I always won. And then that first Cheeto loss, like I always came out mentally undefeated. I just didn't feel like I was coming off a loss at all. And so these first, you know, coming off actual losses or, you know, coming off the actual loss made winning feel that much better.

So, very grateful. and yeah, it was good. By the way, side note, where do you get a chair like that? It's so nice to look at and it looks very comfortable. Did you paint that yourself or did it come like that?

It's not comfortable. It came like that. I don't remember it just popped up one time. I was fucking random ass ads. They know you. It's like the Google knows you. And I just, I was like,

I need that chair, so I ordered it. But I don't even know. Yeah, I don't know. I just clicked it, bought it. Here it is.

And where are you right now? because it seems like you're missing some furniture maybe behind you. Yep, I am. I'm at the new house. I've built the house. I've been building a house for a little over a year. Actually, a little under a year.

And slowly been moving stuff in. And, yeah, I'm going to probably stay here for the first time tonight. And I'm excited. Wow, wow. Okay,

so this probably adds to the excitement of what's going on. Oh, yeah. Right? Oh, yeah. 100%. I was like, regardless,

Win or Loo's, I'm excited. You know, it's fun to have something to look forward to after a fight. And I was like, well, winter, lose, I get to move into my new house. It's nice, but way better moving stuff over with a wind. Is this in the same plot of land where you have like the animal condominium? Yes. Okay.

Yes. Wow. So what happens to the old house? Some people have junk storage rooms. I have a junk storage house. Wow. I think I'm going to turn it into my daughter, a little homeschool area. You know, a nice spot for when people need.

to come and stay. But yeah, I may throw my podcast studio in there. You know, I definitely want to use it. It's too nice, too big, too beautiful of a house to just not, you know, not use. So I want to put it to use. Wow, wow, wow. It's good to be the king. It's good to be the king where you can have, I mean, just for whatever you want.

Can I ask about homeschooling? Why that decision? I don't know. I don't, my daughter is my, she's just like, she's me. She's like, I don't want to go to school. I didn't want to go to school either and I don't blame her so I don't know

she does Jiu-Jitsu four or five times a week right now she's doing singing lessons she did swimming lessons for a long time she wants to go to gymnastics I'm like in my eyes those are those you know that's that's very important skills and she's you know

she's getting a bullet point where she's wanting to learn to read and stuff so we're just gonna you know give her options and you know I definitely yeah I don't know public school We'll see. I don't know. We're figuring it out.

Okay. By the way, was that her first event that she attended? It was her first event that she attended. Wow. Yeah, the New Jersey fight was like the first one. She really kind of understood what was going on. She called me after the fight. She said, Daddy, why did you lose? She does Jitsu, so she understand I got choked and itched my neck. So she asked me, I was like, okay, she really understands what's going on. And so I'm like, you want to come to my next fight?

And she just freaked out. She was so excited. Wow, was that a tough call for you to make? No, no, I was excited for her to come. I know what's, especially fighting a guy like song, it's like, no one's beat song and just looked super impressive. No one's dominated song. Song's such a, he's so fast and hits so, and he's so, I don't really know if he hits that hard

because I didn't really get hit by him. Like, I didn't get cracked clean and think he hits hard, but I've watched his fights, like, I've seen his highlights. I know he hits hard, so. It was a, it was a dangerous. if I was a risky fight to bring my daughter to. I'm like, I know what could happen.

But I was confident I was going to go in there and be able to outskill him. Was she shy? Because I noticed that when you called her in, she kind of ran back, I think to Tim back there. She not want to be shown on camera? I think that was a lot for her. You know, those cameras are big in her face and it's loud. And yeah, so she was a little shy, which I was kind of surprised. But, you know, she straightened her hair, wore a cute little dress.

And God damn it, it was. It was a great moment. What did she say afterwards? You said after the Marab fight, she asked why did you get choked out? So what did she say after this fight? After this fight, she asked me why I didn't bridge? She said, I got to come down. And she said, why didn't you bridge?

I was like, didn't think about it. Wow. That was one of the first things. Well, she said, Daddy, did you win? I said, yes. And then she said, why didn't you bridge? It was funny. Wow.

Did anyone tell you how she was reacting while watching you? I'm always wondering, like, how kids react to seeing their parents. in there, especially at that age. Yeah, Danny, my wife was saying, she's like, God, I wish you would add a mic on her, because she was commenting, like, saying the funniest stuff. Wow. She told me one thing she said, I forgot, but I'll have to ask her,

but she said she was being pretty funny, like, commentating. Was she nervous? I don't think she was that nervous. I don't think she was. She didn't say she was. She said she was excited. Okay. Were you nervous knowing she was in attendance?

No, before every fight, I look in the mirror in the bathroom in the back, look right into my eyes, like deep into my fucking soul and I have a conversation with myself before every fight, just, you know, and I just remember saying,

I'm not fucking losing with my princess watching. Like, I'm just not, it's just not an option. And the way I, I just got to show, I just got too fast,

too sharp, too focused, faint footwork, focus wins me this fight. And I was just, well, it's going through a rewind. And if anything,

it, you know, gave me an extra little boost. How long have you been doing that for? Since I, since I was an amateur, since I could remember, it was just like, you go pee so many different times

when you're in the back. You're hydrated, nervous peeves, whatever. You just pee a lot. And I just would look in the mirror and just look, you just look into your eyes. And it's, it's an interesting moment. It's like a powerful moment and it feels it's like you're just

committing to like whatever, if something breaks, tough it out. Fifteen minutes. You have 15 fucking minutes. Whatever happens. Like, that's all you got. 15 minutes. Then if something needs to get fixed, you'll get it fixed. But just tough out whatever happens.

I'm always curious about those moments before because I don't think that the general public knows just how nerve-wracking it is back there, especially when you are later in the night and you have to wait and you're seeing people come through either with jubilation or heartbreak attached to them and whatnot. When you're back there, are you speaking out loud to yourself? Is it just a moment alone in the back?

Is it with other people involved? What is that like? For me, the closer the fight gets, the calmer I get. So driving the arena, you know, who you have that little tingle feeling, that little like this nerve feeling. I kind of always put into my mind. Like that's just,

that's me transforming into sugar. Like that energy I'm feeling, I'm storing that. I'm using that for the fight. And the closer to the fight, the calmer I get. But that conversation specifically just in my head and, you know,

me to me. And then, yeah, very calm in the back, quiet. Don't talk too much. Just kind of. lay there, do a lot of breath work like that whole time I'm focusing

on my breath, breathing into my belly. Just kind of expanding my lungs, preparing for war. And it's, yeah, it's an interesting. It's very present. You feel very, very, very present back there. I'm happy you brought back superstar. It just felt right.

It did, it did. You know what? The fight where I didn't, when Trump was there in New Jersey and I fought Marab and, I came out to the real, you know, American song. Like, it was such a cool moment. And if I would have won, I feel like it would have went down.

It was like, what are the most legend? It just like when I put my hands up, it hit. That one would have been, it wasn't cool because I lost. But if I would have won, it would have been fucking epic. But yeah, Superstar felt right. It felt good. It hits. And the crowd knows, sugar's about a walk.

Well, there's very few songs that when I hear them, I think of a fighter. And that one, I think of you. You've made it, you know, synonymous with you. So I hope you stick with it. with it because it just feel like you're you're just perfect for it. And it was great to see you back in there and it was great to see you fight that way. Are you happy with the performance? Are you happy overall with the body of work?

I rewatched it. And understanding and knowing how dangerous song is, I am happy with the performance because I went out there and I did what I needed to do. I landed more shots. I did more damage against a very, very, very skilled, tough, fast. hungry like that was the best song you don't this was the biggest moment of song's career and uh he said that you know the best he's ever felt so i went out there and beat the best version of song and uh got the job done so yes and no i rewatched it i'm like fuck i could have let my hands go a

little bit more he's such a powerful counterpuncher and he's so fast the more i let my hands go the more risk you know there is coming back so part of the lower output was you know my game plan you know the less i throw i know he's going to counter less. He wasn't very offensive. So it's like, you know, I knew, I knew what kind of fight I wanted to do. I wanted to land shots, get in, get out. And that's what I did. I landed more damage. And yeah, I think, you know, he got a couple takedowns, did literally zero damage with the takedowns. And so I think the judges got it right. Okay, I was going to ask you about the second round. Did you think he won that round? Did you think it was tied going into the

third? Um, it wasn't even really, I don't know. I get, Tim told me in the corner, he said, hey, it's 1-1, go to the third. So,

um, I, from that, from the him saying that I did, from me just being in there, I don't really ever think of it. Like, I don't know.

I probably should do a better job thinking about the rounds and, like, like, like, I need to go out there and get, if Tim would have told me, hey, you're down too,

you know, maybe I, I'll definitely would have, fucking probably went more crazy and, you know, really went for finish. But, um,

Yeah, I mean, the second round, I think he took me down. I think I was down on the ground a little bit longer. I don't know. I'd have to rewatch it again and pay closer attention. But in my mind, right after the fight, I thought there was 0% chance I lost that fight. I was convinced I won that fucking fight. I won that fight. That was my fight.

That's what I kept saying. I was going through my head. I didn't think. I wasn't nervous at all that they were going to give us a song. But now looking back after everyone's perspective on it, like rewatching the fight, seeing people's tweets pop up saying, hey, Sean, down to 2-0-2. I was like,

damn, that's, it's crazy because in there, like I didn't, he didn't hit me at all once where I was like, where I felt like it did any damage

or hurt me at all. So in my head, I'm like, I'm definitely, I definitely won, like I didn't get hit. But looking back, there was a couple times

he landed, he kind of landed on my arms. It looked like he landed, but he didn't land. I think he landed one left hook. But from me being in there, my perspective, being in front of him,

I'm like, okay, I hit him, to bleed, fucking hurt, busted open his nose, landed a beautiful knee. The body shots, people don't really, sometimes you can see a clean body shot, but then there's times where I'm digging these keeps in his body, and I feel it land, but then I rewatch it on TV, and it doesn't look as damaging as I know it was. And I know those body shots were landing and digging and digging it, like taken away from his gas tank and hurting him.

But it's weird watching him back on TV where I'm like, okay, I can see how people, it doesn't look like I'm landing as much as I feel like I'm landing in front of them because it's just, you know, maybe it's the camera angle or something. But, yeah, it was interesting watching the back seeing those tweets pop up like songs up 2-0 and songs looking so sharp. And I was like, what the fuck are people like, I guess everyone has different perspectives. I'm not saying they're wrong, but from being in there and being in front of him, I feel like I didn't really get touched. He landed a couple of good leg kicks. I checked a few of them. but yeah I felt like I

won that fight. It was if you can call it close but I thought it was pretty clear. By the way speaking of your leg I saw was iced up a little bit afterwards. How was it feeling? What happened? My dude every single fight even after the Cheeto fight my feet just swell up. I throw a lot of kicks and I land a lot of kicks

on elbows and if you've ever thrown a kick and landed it on someone's elbow like my ankle right now is just swollen like right in between the foot and the shin like right there on the other foot is just swollen just from kicking landing on elbows. It sucks. It's high risk, high reward

those attacks, but they really affect and change how the fight plays out. And so is it just swollen or do you think it's more? No, no, it's just swollen. It happens to every fight. Every fight, my foot, my foot, I'm going to boot pretty much out there every fight. It's just, you know,

kicking something hard with your feet, it hurts. First time. Good. I'm moving around and everything today. I played a little pickle ball today even. Oh, at the dojo. Yeah, the pickle dojo.

Hell yeah. Man, you even played on that after, like, it looked like you were, you were needing crutches on Saturday. No, I just threw, I sit and threw it in a boot right after the fight. Dude, they walked you around that goddamn entire arena doing media. And it was just like, after the first round going on the second round, I felt it started to swell. And I knew it was going to, knew it was going to be sore.

But it's not, it's not too bad. It's just a little swollen. Okay. First time since 2022, not the main event and not in a five-round fight. How did that feel? It definitely felt different. You know, the last four fights were all about the sugar show, sugar show, sugar, show. And then going into this fight, you know, it wasn't even on the poster.

We got moving up to the co-main event. Someone's slack in there. I mean, they had to remake the poster. Why not throw the co-main event on there? I feel like someone should get in trouble for that. Where are we out on the poster here? Yeah, yeah, I agree. There was no, there was no countdown, which is fine.

there was no, I feel like me and it was, it was a big fight. It was an important fight in the division and, you know, Song wins that fight. It's like he's right there for a title shot, you know, possibly. And it's, you know, but yeah, I feel like the fight got, was kind of under the radar. And then at the end of the day, it was the most, most exciting fight. So I guess it is what it is. Did you feel any difference throughout the week, Paramount Plus, the new bells and whistles, all that stuff?

Did it feel any different for you? No, it felt very, it felt like another fight week. Nothing felt, nothing felt different. Okay, a lot of chatter talk about increased pay and all that stuff. Can I ask, like, are you benefiting from this? You know, you sign a contract and you fight, you have a certain amount of fights on your contract, and it's like, it's hard. Like, once you sign that contract, it's like you can't fight five times, four times, and then complain, hey, why am I getting paid this much? We sign contracts.

You fight contracts out. At some point, you renegotiate your contract. And, you know, I still got a couple of fights left. I think I have two more fights left in my contract. I'm sure, you know, UFC doesn't really like when fighters fight out their contracts because then you're a free agent. So I feel like I'm at a point right now. I signed a new contract before Aljo.

I think it was seven fights. I fight Aljo, fought Chito, fought Marab, fought Marab, fought Song. Got two more fights in my contract. I feel like I'll probably renegotiate before. my next fight and uh you know it would have been more regardless whether paramount got bought or bought ufc rights or whatever so i don't have any answer for you right now i'm i'm you know i'm hoping ufc's always taking care of me they've been very good to me i'm very grateful for the platform they give me and uh you know moving over to paramount supposedly supposedly there's going to be more

eyeballs so what's that do for me makes the sugar brand bigger better and uh you know i'm going to take advantage of that. But yes, I definitely would like to see, you know, the fighter pay get increased. I sell the bonuses got got moved up, which, you know, it's so crazy now these young guys coming in with, you know, I had, I think I have eight bonuses or nine bonuses. I'm like, damn, if that would have been 100,000 a bonus, eight, 900,000 would have been sweet. But these young guys are going to be able to start making money earlier. They go put on beautiful performances early. You can start making some real money, like $100,000 for a bonus is huge. So that's, I think they did a great job with that.

I was just going to ask, you think they nailed it 50 to 100, or were you hoping for more? No, I think that's fine. You know, yeah, I think that's fine. I don't really have. Yeah, I think that's fine. Okay. One last thing on song, I know you were asked about it during the week, but could I just ask, do you regret the mask thing?

Do you feel like in retrospect that was a mistake? it's to the people that I offended I feel I'm I'm I that was not my intentions like my entire career I kind of built it off this comedic humorous kind of pushing the lines like that's kind of what I built my brand up I feel like and I feel like that was not even in my mind I didn't even think all the Chinese are going to be offended by this didn't even cross my mind if I would have thought that before I wouldn't have done it because I didn't want to come off as that so I didn't my intentions weren't negative like to offend anybody it's supposed to be kind of a silly little thing um so I did you know I apologize to to anybody I offended but uh the amount of Chinese fans that came up to me and loved me and just were like and and even fight week before the fight I'm like I guess I didn't offend that many people or they're you or they're just lying but yeah um do I regret it I guess in a sense if I hurt people's feelings that's not you know not my intentions. Fair enough.

So what does this all mean now? Because you have the history with Jan. Did you see Jan's tweet, by the way, after the fight? Yeah, I was on the studio. He said something, but he just woke up. Yeah, there you happen or something like that. Yeah. Which, you know. Which is so funny. I couldn't quit laughing.

My abs actually hurt. After I read that, I was like, oh, my God, that little fucking Thailand fella is funny. I couldn't. Weren't you laughed? It wasn't that a good one? It was pretty good. That was good. That was so good. Oh, I'm going to start laughing again. Now that you have two days, because I know you talked about it a bit on Saturday, what do you want?

What does this win get you? Yeah, I mean, obviously, I want Peter Young. I want, the thing is, if there was a bigger fight, if I would make more money fighting someone else, I'd want that. I want the title, like, the amount of money I was making as a champion compared to not champion is significant. Like, I was making a lot more money as a champion. That's what I want next.

want Peter Jan next. I want the belt next. It makes it that much sweeter that it's a rematch. It was a close fight before. So yeah, Peter for the rematch is what I want. And if they go Marab versus Peter, I wait. If Marab wins, then we figure out what's next. If Peter wins, that's what I want next. Is there any part of you that wants to go before Marab? Me versus Peter before Maraub? Yeah. 100%. I would love that next. That's what I would, if I could pick in a perfect world, that's get me versus Peter next. That's what I want, yeah.

Do you think there's a chance they may do that? I don't know. I have no idea. I think, I don't know, Maraub, you know, I don't, I don't dislike Marab. He fought four fucking title fights in one year. You know, as a fighter, as someone that was, you know, recently champion, that's insane. That's fucking crazy. That's a lot.

He did a lot for the company. UFC probably appreciated that a lot. So I'm torn between like really pushing forward, give me that fucking fight and being like, what is, like, if that's what they do next, that's what they do next. I really appreciate that stance. You said the same thing in the cage because I think a lot of people in your position would have been like, I'm the bigger fight, give it to me, I have the history, I have the win, all that stuff. But you're saying if it's him, I respect that he's earned it. I feel personally, I agree with you, by the way. I think Marab deserves that because of how often he fought.

I felt like if Song would have won, that would have been the fight, I can see a scenario where they try to do you versus Yan next because of your popularity and how, you know, how beloved you are. And considering how the first fight went. Yeah. I mean, I would absolutely fucking love that. And if that's what's next, let's do it. Sugar versus Peter is a big fight. I think it's the biggest bant-o-well, I think me versus Cheeto 2 on paper, on numbers was the biggest bantamweight fight of all time. I do think me versus Peter is bigger.

Do you have interest in the White House now? Yeah, I mean, it's tricky because if it's not me versus, like, I do want to fight on the White House, but I also want the belt. I mean, if Peter and Rob do fight, it's like, they don't, it's not, when, when would that even make sense? Right. I mean, it makes sense if they're both healthy to fucking do it sooner than later to possibly get Sugar versus Peter on the White House. Because what is that, June? Yeah, June 14th.

June 14, so April. It would be tough to squeeze it in. Yeah, it would be tough to squeeze it in. I don't know, that White House card is interesting. I know they're not doing, I think I heard you say, and they're not really doing sponsors on the cage. They're not doing a gate. They're not doing attendance.

They're not doing all the things. Like, what does that mean for the actual card itself? They're not going to make money on it, really. And it's going to be massive. It's going to be historical, which is important too. So, yeah, I'm very curious how that comes. together. I haven't talked to the UFC about what's next at all. So I have zero idea. And I'm just just curious as everyone else. I spoke to one fighter and he's in a different position than you.

But he was like, I don't want to be. And he's in line for a massive fight. That's all I'll say. But he's like, I don't want that, man. I don't want to have to deal with the extra security. This is the biggest fight of my life. And it's a show for everyone else, but I need to win this fight. And so just put me in an arena. Like it's all well and good. I don't want all that other stuff. I don't want to deal with the weirdness of being outside and a bunch of like politicians there. I just, I want to fight in that normal environment that I'm used to. Do you get that? And it wasn't a political thing, by the way. It was just like, this is the biggest moment of my life. I want it to be as normal as possible. I don't know. I've fought outside before as a young

pro, as an amateur. I fought outside before and it's a little bit different. I mean, it is a little bit different. I don't know. I mean, I like these big moments. I prefer the bigger the moment, you know, the better I feel like I tend to do. Like the sphere, the one was, you know, I barely won that one. So that was close. But yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm, I'm, I wouldn't say no. If they offered me a big fight and a lot of money and it made sense, I definitely would, I would want that. Right after your post-fight interview, they cut to Corey, Corey Sanhagen, who was on the show last week and really wants to fight you, but I think he has another

fight in line. What is your appetite for that fight? If they say we're doing Marab, Peter, and we want you to fight Corey, are you interested? I would ask, I would say, can I wait for Peter Marab and let that fight play out? I want to fight for the belt

or pay me the same amount as I would for as a title fight and I'll fight Corey. For me, this has been a business since the beginning, since they won. I have wanted to make as much money as possible. Right now, the way my contract set up, I make a lot more money fighting for the title. Or pay me this, you know, I would, I would say, hey, at the end of the day, USC tells you what to do. It's not like I'm sitting there fucking saying, no this, know, this, no that. Like, I would ask, I would negotiate. I would say, hey, you know, is there any way I can make the same amount of money? And go from there.

Okay. So it's an interesting thing. I feel like that's the only other one, right? Like, I feel like if they said yes to that, that's the only other one that makes sense. Would you agree at the moment? Yeah, I mean, Omar's there too. Who's that? Who's that? Umar's there too. Okay, okay.

Me, Um, Mar, Corey, um, right there on the top. It's a hobby. A couple, whatever it is. It's a hobby. Shit, give me that. I mean, then there's that too. Like, I mean, the hobby's good, right? He's not, I don't feel like he's, he's not a Corey. He's not an Umar.

I don't even, you know, I don't even think he's as dangerous as song in a sense. So it's, you know, that's definitely a possible fight too. I feel like I could put on a beautiful performance against, against the hobby. What is he ranked? At the moment, I'll tell you right now. He is ranked seven. As of now, that could change. I mean, he didn't fight.

You're three, Umar's two, Marabs won. Peter's, obviously the champion. Someone asked you about Umar. After you're fighting, you're like, you don't watch in the back. Have you watched this since? I didn't watch. No. I heard from a few people that I was like,

God, it just wasn't like an exciting fight, but I'm like, Figy's dangerous. He's really good. He's very dangerous. Umar's, in my opinion,

a lot of two opinions, one of the best. You know, he hasn't fought for, he hasn't fought for the belt. He hasn't been champ, but everyone knows how fucking good Umar is. Um,

so it's, you know, they kind of priced, you know, I'm not surprised it wasn't the most exciting fight. Corey didn't say who he was fighting or you just aren't announced it. No, no, no, no. He was on the show and he insinuated that he couldn't hear me and he's like,

I got something. And then I said, does he look like me? You know, because people say, you know, and then he kind of laughed. So that was, you know. But I don't know for sure. Cory versus Hobb. Huh. I feel like Corey would press style on him.

You think so? Yeah. Okay. By the way, before I let you go, what's doing well? Well, man, Ariel, thanks for asking. Of course. Yeah, doing well is, you know, I'm coming out with my own wellness brand. My own, we're starting with supplements, performance electrolyte mix right now, little packets, high-end sodium, made with organic ingredients.

And of course, third-party tested Uncle Ariel, because we can't be fucking around. Oh, yeah. With that non-third-party tested stuff. So, yeah, we got, we're coming out. It's been a year. We've been working on it and really trying to dial it in, perfect, and getting everything squared away. We should be dropping a hard launch here in a couple weeks. We got a raspberry and a lemon lime packets right now. We're working on a mango. We're working on some

innovative stuff that I'm excited to share. But yeah, it's something I'm very, very, very passionate about and it's been a fun process and I'm putting all my own money into it. You know, we've had multiple, I have a big, I have a good network. I've met, met a lot of, you know, business people that were like, you know, bagging to invest, wanting to invest in this company. And right now I'm just not, I'm putting my own money, hundreds of thousands of dollars into this company because I truly, truly believe in it. And I want to, you know, get sales rolling before I start doing equity shares and stuff like that. So I'm really all in on this.

And I'm very confident, very optimistic. It's still a risky, you know, anytime you're putting, it's starting a startup of business, it's risky. but I'm very optimistic and happy with how the product turned out and I'm excited to share it with the world and the MMA community and all sports community. Anyone that works out can benefit from it. But I'm really excited to share it with the MMA community.

I love it. Where can I get it? It'll be, it's not, you can't get it yet. Okay, okay. It'll be on, you know, if you follow the doing well on Instagram, definitely be posting all over there. It's going to be on the website. We're going to get into Amazon.

I would love to get into retail. you know eventually sprouts targets stuff like that but uh yeah just online for now doing well dot health check it on the instagram page we're we're i'm putting a lot of effort into it a lot of content and and and putting a lot of just um a lot of my time into it and i'm very excited about it amazing well i'm getting swole these days so i feel like it would be apropos for me to to partake i don't know if you can know i'm on oh yeah i would love to send you some other no no no i want I want to buy it, I want to buy it, but I just wanted to know if I could buy it. Love that even more.

Yes, hell yeah, hell yeah. We shall support. Thank you so much, as always, Sean. I really appreciate you coming on. Congrats on the win. Congrats on the new place, the incredible chair. And I always appreciate it. I was telling the guys in the back, you know, I always talk about, Sean's never changed.

Always writes back within minutes, and that really means a lot. And don't see that often with someone of your stature. So I appreciate it very much, and it doesn't go on notice. So thank you so much. And enjoy everything that comes with the victory, the feeling afterwards. I'm sure is amazing. So well done. Uncle Ariel, thank you. I appreciate you. And yeah, thanks to all the sugar fans for the support.

I really, really felt it this week and this weekend. And it really means a lot to have true sugar fans. Like a lot of fighters, I feel like don't really have a true fan base. There's fighters. There's fans of the sport of UFC and they love the fights and watch the fights. But very few athletes get true diehard fans. And I really felt it this weekend. And I appreciate all the sugar fans. Thank you.

Hell yeah. There it is. Showing love to the fans as well. much love Sean all the best we'll talk to you soon really appreciate it congrats yep peace uncle there he is the one and only sugar Sean what a guy great to have him on on the pound for pound list of number one replies when you ask them to come on another guy on that list is the great dan hooker he is over in Sydney Australia UFC 325 just a few days away now he has a massive fight against Buenos Saint Denis he is kind enough to join us right here and now it's not waste any time

and say hello to the hangman there he is hello Dan how are you More than not my friend, now are we? I'm doing great. It's great to have you on. It's great to talk to you. By the way, I know there's a history like between a sporting history between New Zealand and Australia. Do you like going to Australia? Do you like being in Australia?

My wife's Australian. Oh, shit. Okay. My bad. It's funny. Like, there's obviously a bit of a sporting rivalry when we're playing rugby or any kind of sport against each other. But it's an Ansx, mate. We've got a war together.

New Zealand and Australia. We've been to war many times together. And yeah, when we're fighting people on the other side of the planet, the Anzac's get together and there's nothing but love and support you. Okay, I'd love to hear that. Okay, so a big fight for you, a lot to talk to you about. Can I just ask, this is a relatively quick turnaround. Maybe not for you, but just like on paper.

Fought in late November. Now, here you are. end of January, I know technically early February there. Why the quick turnaround? Oh, it just had a bad taste in my mouth after the last one, and I always wanted to be a part of this card. So I've got a call for my manager, my manager, Ash, and he said, do you want to fight in Sydney?

And I pretty much just have three rounds, and he said, I got three or five rounds, and he said, three rounds, and I said, count me him, baby, I didn't even ask who it was. I want to be a part of this card just because it's so close to home I say it's like a hometown it's like a hometown

fight but without the pressure you know And so at what point you hear Who the opponent is and then what is your reaction Oh yeah Yeah BSD, the fresh kid I know he's tough And oh man I was

Yeah I was excited by the fight Obviously after the last performance I was expecting they have to fight down in the rankings a couple of times. I was prepared to fight absolutely anyone. But to get, you know, a guy on a good street, he's on a good streak and he's only like a couple of spots lower than many in the ranking was a great opportunity.

Pretty much best case scenario, you know what I mean? You weren't going to get, you weren't going to fight up in the rankings. You had to fight down. but to get a guy on a wind street, only a couple of spots down. And there's an opportunity to put yourself right back in the mix straight away. You know, I can't see getting past BSD in a dominant fashion and then having to fight going any lower. That would be, yeah, it's a good opportunity.

A lot of people thought he was maybe the comeback fighter of the year after a horrendous 2024. He had an incredible 25. Have you been watching him? Have you been impressed with him? I haven't really watched too much. Like, I kind of leave that. I get like a general understanding of his game,

and I know he's a tough kid. And, yeah, I've been watching, I watch a field, but he's a tough kid. He's got some good skills. He's got a pretty strong game. But yeah, like, he's a tough kid. There's grip, there's dermatate, the determination.

there's no quitting them. That's not really my style to break guys mentally or even to like push them to exhaustion. That's like I'm not I'm not a grinder. And I don't really try to getting guys heads too much or break them mentally because I like I myself, I don't feel like I'm mentally that easy to rattle. I'm or try to physically shut guys off.

You know, you know the spots. where to knock guys out, where to get them to shut their bodies down. You know, the human body is an incredible specimen, and you just learn over time, like where you need to touch it at the right time. So turn it off, brother. I know, I know.

Cut it down. Both of you are very familiar with that. You mentioned having a bad taste in your mouth after the Armand fight. when you say that obviously any loss is not going to sit well but is there more to it with this one where you felt like I need to get back on the horse? I actually didn't process it till I woke up in bed this morning mate

it wasn't like I'll kind of just compartmentalised it it's not something I really processed and because I did get another fight so fast you don't really get into what exactly like went wrong and and it was fucking when this cunt fucking headbut me

at the way in and broke my fucking nose it pissed me right off but it's like you can't you can't get emotional at that stage of the fight like you're obviously

mate I was fuming like I wanted that back but you just have to brush it off you have to put that in your back of your mind but yeah I was steamed bro I was seen.

That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

that, that, that, maybe I missed it, I, I had not heard that you broke your nose.

You actually broke your nose. Yeah, they, oh yeah, they scan me, they scan me, after the fight,

they took me to the, they took me to the hospital, and just like, scan me after the fight, and they were like, oh, you've got a fractured nose. Wow.

I was like, there was the way in there, they had absolutely nothing to do off the fight. Holy. And then for this fight, they were like, oh, you've got to medically clear, because he had a fractured nose,

you've got to medically clear it for this fight, and I just flat refused, brother. I was like, I was like, you already let me have one fight with it, and now you're going to stop me from having another fight with it. I said, that was from the way in, bummer. They had nothing to do with a fight. Like, in what world,

in what world can you smoke a guy's nose at the way in, and then they just, like, I yeah he got me like kudos to him I'm not even mad at arm like it is what it is wow I didn't know I didn't know that there was no commission

did it bother you in the fight no no no I'll break up my nose so many times it didn't bother me it's not like a physical thing it's more it's more it's more mental thing you know like a guy getting one up on you

at that stage at that stage of the fight and he'd like yeah yeah yeah kudos to him he got he got it I feel like this is a dumb question

but I'll ask it anyway did you at any point consider not fighting as a result of it fuck no okay that's what I thought that's what I thought you're good yeah you're good

how's it now you could have you could oh my mom I'm very I reckon my days 20, 30 times over. It didn't used to be this big, mate. Well, welcome to the club. People always say I got a big nose. I'm like, it didn't used to be this big.

It's my worst nightmare, Dan. It's my worst nightmare because I have a large nose. I'm wondering if my face will combust. Yeah, you know. Brack him the snows. Yeah. Or maybe it'll be a blessing. Well, I haven't been able to breathe out of one side of it

since I was about 18 years old. Oh, geez. We'll go with. Wow. all those times that you broken it never surgery for what like that that just hollows it out like that so they they say it hollows it out and then it makes it like a lot weaker and then what you're going to sit out for you're going to sit out for six months uh not getting hit on the nose like gaizy went and got it done and then the very next fight he fight a hollyway and get spinning

kicked like right on the nose i know that that would happen to me I know that the day that I went and got it fixed, I would come back into the gym, my first training session back, and someone's just going to absolutely crush it. I know that. So I'll sort it out. I'll sort it out. That's a tomorrow problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you saw Armin in a hotel on the street, how do you think it would go? No, I actually like the kid, no. Oh, what changed? I've seen his little media run and him floating around. And when he, yeah, he actually puts himself out there. He's actually pretty funny.

Okay. That's good to hear. Yeah, he got me. He got me. What can you say? I'm going to sit around me and fucking pissed off a lot. Would I fight him again? Fuck, a thousand percent.

A thousand percent. The talk going into that fight was winner gets a title shot. Are you surprised ultimately he did not get a title shot? I'm actually like kind of laughing at it. that right because like they were saying when it gets a title shot and that like immediately after you know got my ass kicked and then I'm going oh no like I fumbled it I was like I fumbled a fumbled a fumbled uh I fumbled my title shot and then he didn't get the title shot and I was like oh cool I was like no one's getting a title shot anyway it was just all smoke and mirrors so I don't

that made it that made it uh actually made it a little bit easier yeah to get over it was just yeah I'm just curious how does that sit with you right because you're a fighter you're striving for something and then you find out

it apparently wasn't at play um no what are you going to do yeah or perhaps it was at play for you because they did say afterwards he did this

he did that he headbutted you maybe if you would have won you would have gotten the title shot not trying to make you feel worse but I don't know I just like I realize when I said that.

What? A title at, you get an interim title shot? Yeah. I reckon Ilya would have fought me because I'm old and shit. No, no,

maybe you would have been the one fighting this past weekend is what I'm saying. Against who? Like, so who do you then cut out? I think it would have been Justin. I think Justin would have been the cut out. You think they would have cut Justin now? Yeah, maybe

Yeah, you're right Maybe you're right Maybe you're right Maybe you're right And speaking of this Obviously a lot of A lot of coverage and chatter About you and Patty

Can we start just That interaction Seemingly backstage I think it was You guys talking to each other And you say that you hate everyone You know Who's ranked above you

And all that stuff Overall that week In Qatar Was everything cool between you guys Was there any type of history there? No, no no No, like, he's been trying to shit at me. He's been chatting shit for, like, and I say things back.

Like, he, yeah, that, like, before that, before he see each other in Qatar, like, he says, I'm dog shit at grappling. And I, like, he thinks I'm a shit fighter. I think he's a shit fighter. And we both, like, speak our minds and we're open and, like, who gives us shit? But I don't care if he, like, the UFC was freaking out. They're going, oh, you know, if Dan. and paddy you see each other at the hotel in katar i'm like what because he said i'm shit at jiu jitsu like i couldn't keep a flying fuck if someone said i'm should like i think he's shit and and and

let's leave it at that like who cares i'm not um there's there's nothing personal there there's absolutely i have no qualms about that do you feel like now it's gone personal because of the things he said and i can it's gone personal bubara like you say name name name name name name name a fighter in history that's ever made a rape joke about someone's mother. Like that's just, where as fighters, that's just a line that we don't cross. You say,

oh, hypothetical, uh, this and that. Like, you don't talk about family. You, you talk about family.

You don't mention people's wives, mothers and kids. That's just on the, that's on the no-go list in terms of everything. me. And that's like he got a, you know, he wanted a reaction, he got one. And so from that, I want to take this kid's head off. I just needed to make sure that that feeling was mutual, you know? He wants to say some horrible shit. I'm going to say some horrible shit back. So that's to ensure that when we see each other, that that feeling is mutual. And you've both said it's on

sight. So what does that mean? Like if you see him, you will fight him? I'll try to kick his head not even talking like it's it's literally on site talk about what talk about what talk about what what's said to talk about if that's it that goes for anyone anyone says that to me

anyone says that anyone makes a comment like that towards me I'll kick you ahead did you watch the fight over the weekend well I was actually on the plane I was on the plane right over here so I don't really catch it I think we caught like the last, maybe the last little bit.

What'd you think? What'd you think of what you saw? As usual, like, he looks like a baby giraffe, fucking elbows flying in the ear, jumping in the ear. He looks retarded to me when he fights. So he's getting some love for the toughness for not, you know, succumbing, not getting knocked out for taking those. Yeah, cool. Like, that's not the hard part. Like, the hard part is not fighting Justin Gagey.

Like, getting to Justin Gagey and having a fight with Justin Gagey, having a fight with Dan Hooker, having a fight with Dacin Hoker, having a fight with Dacin Poria. That is not the hard part. Like, getting there is the hard part. Like, he obviously, like, he's on one of these special UFC contracts where you pick your fucking opponents and shit like that. Like, he's been managed very well. And he's been shortcut over a lot of other fighters very well. But now he's in the deeper. And the hard part is not getting to Justin Gagey.

It's like now you had a five-round war with Justin Gagey. Well, your next fight's going to be a five-round war. Then there's going to be another five-round war. Then you have another war. Then you have another war. Then you have to fight Justin Gagey again. You know what I mean? Like the hard part is now there's no more easy fights.

There's no more fights where you're not taking. And it's a lesson that. I've learned the hard way for myself. Like there's no, for the rest of his career, there's no fights where you're just going to go out there and you're just going to skate by and you're just going to outclass the guy. That's it. For the rest of your days.

And he's going to learn that. The kids never had a war in his life. He's going to go back to his home. He's going to sit in his bed for the next month recovering. And that he's going to have to get himself back up and go out there and do the exact same thing next time. Did you think the fight would play out like that? Or were you expecting something else?

You thought Gichi would win? Yeah, I thought Gagia won't. I think he's a difficult man to put on the map. And then he surprised me that he didn't even try. But yeah, Gaghi is a lot sharper. a lot more technically savvy. Like there's some big holes defensively. There's some big holes defensively in Paddy's game.

He just, he just said good chin. But he just hasn't had, because he's had his opponent selected quite well. He and tear on his body from fighting these, like having to dig deep a lot and get him a lot. fight guys that can expose those technical difficulties, there's technical flaws in this game.

But over time, I feel like he's so long in the tooth now in his game that even those technical holes, those technical holes in the style defensively, he can't fix. I don't think he can even, they're so ingrained in him now that they can't fix. And he's been able to get through that

because he doesn't have the wear in tear on his body that a lot of these other fighters does, but when his body does go and he does get a little bit of wear in tear, I don't think I don't think the kid's going to be around for that long. Okay, I was just going to ask you, because he is 31, and people lose all the time in MMA and have legendary careers, and so I was going to ask if you thought that his ceiling is much higher that he can

figure this out and go on a run, but it sounds like you think he doesn't have many left in him. Oh, like, he was very well-developed outside of the UFC, you know what I mean? like he he took his time getting to the UFC he's obviously like I took my first opportunity to go when they offer me oh I harassed the UFC

when I was quite young you know I was 24 years old when I jumped into the UFC and just jumped into the deep end but I don't really have anything to protect like I was I turned professional quite young I turned professional at 19 years old and I was you know won my first pro fight and then

lost my second pro fight. My first, I was three in three and my first six pro fights. So I don't really have a manicured career, and I didn't really have anything to protect. So it's like a very difficult, very different circumstances. I feel like that's obviously the far harder way to do it. That's not the smart way to go about it. I feel like guys take care of their records a lot more these days. It's not really, I feel like early days, especially in New Zealand,

and Zincar, MMA, it was kind of like sync or swim. You guys were just fight pro, and then were just like my debut, my first fight I ever had. I hadn't even done it. I don't think I'd ever done a jujitsu competition, and my first competition was a professional mixed martial arts fight that saw on my UFC record. It was kind of just the sport at the time wasn't as well developed,

and it was just sink or swim. And I feel like now, now it's not like that. Now it's a bit more. The path to be in the UFC is like a lot, is a lot clearer. Could I ask though, just watching that? Did that give you joy? No, no, no, no. You don't hate watch it like that?

Oh, nah, that's yuck for you. That's yuck. I'm not a cuck. Is this who you want, though, regardless? watching someone else, you know what I mean? Well, I mean, you don't like the guy and you like to see him lose? For like what? I want a good minding.

If I'm watching someone else's good minding. That does absolutely nothing. That doesn't feel any better. Okay. No, I get, okay, now I get it. Now I get it. Is that who you want regardless of the result? I mean, obviously you're planning on winning, but win or lose?

No, that's the dumbest thing you can possibly do is, um, no, I feel like I'm, I feel like, like he pissed me off, I pissed him off back. That's always going to be there. But that's not something that I, that's why I had to piss him off back. So then I'm not just sitting around and I'm upset about it. He's going to take some time off.

We'll see how the other people are obviously. I'm not going to go back and shoot myself in the foot because I'm mad. That would be a mistake. There's some big fights. There's obviously there being a M. is playing out. Yep.

And Bubba! I guarantee you, between me getting through this fight, getting my hand raised and bears, the heat, there's still no one between me and Amar and that wants to fight him except me. You're saying run it back. I feel bad. I like Amman.

I know. He won me over the fan. That's crazy. But still, no one's, like, through it, that's the saddest part about it, is that, like, the best years of his career, are being wasted, bro. Wasted, bro. Wasted.

He should be fighting Ilya, right? He should be fighting Iliad. He should be fighting Iliad. Does he beat Ilya, in your opinion? Who don't want to see that? I would, I would, I would see that. Like, after, no, like, let's be real. Let's be honest.

Yes. Everyone put their, everyone put their honest hat on. Like, after watching Patty Gagie, like, who the fuck thinks Gagie can be Ilya? I said that somewhere Ilyat Teporea was licking his lips watching that. Like they, not, not, yeah. And I'm not saying this shit. No, but. Now, I'm not, I'm not saying this shit.

Like, I am at that level of shit. Like, I'm, like, I'm shitted some stuff. Like, look, I fought fucking Amman. And then he made me look like dog shit. He would make both panic. and Gaze look like that. And I feel like Ilya would have, like, I feel like right now,

and the sport is all about timing. The sport is 100% about typing and momentum, and guys when they're at their physical peak and stuff like that. Right now, who I would want to see in a fight is Amman and Iliah. That's a, that's a, bro, we'll flip the coin. I think that's a good fire.

I feel like that's a I feel like that's a close fight I feel like that's a close fight I think it's pretty clear who's going to win that fight who wins in your opinion that fight Armin and Ilya oh fuck who I'm on an earlier

yeah what did you think I was gonna ask you I thought I thought I thought I asked me Gage you no no no no no I thought I made that pretty clear no no no Armin and Ilya Armin and Ilya yeah it's a coin flip yeah it's a coin flip I feel like that's a good fight.

Obviously, Ilya's boxing as sharp as ever. He's on a hell of a street. He's been cleaning everyone up. He has the advantage on the feet. And then Amman all full of side quests and just strangling everyone around the planet. Like, he's, if he can get him,

that's where he can get him down. We flip the coin. I think it's a good fight. I want to see it. I want to see it. I do too. Does Dan hope? or have something to prove this weekend?

To who? To himself. himself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pissed off again.

I wasn't pissed off. Everything. This is what I said to the muscles. I said, as of late, I said, everything's been, everything's been pissing me off. It's better to be pissed off than pissing. on. I'm ready to go. No, I'm ready to go. I'm itching for this, man. I'm itching for this.

And, yeah, like, after, when I got back in the gym after the last one, I was like, obviously, bro, a year and a half sitting on the shelf was like, that's the longest I haven't fought in my whole, my whole life. That's the long as I haven't been in a fist fight. And so

to knock the ring road, to try and knock the ringrail stuff on Avan Seruki, and obviously wasn't a best idea. But once I got back in the gym. Man, I got my range. I got my timing. I was like, oh, that's where it was.

It's been missing for a year. I forgot where I put that. So, man, this quick turnaround, this quick turnaround's been good. Like, yeah, just the sport, you're a loser until you're winning. You know? So the longer I sit around licking my wounds and the longer I have to be a loser. But Saturday, Sunday. Sunday here in Australia.

Dan Hooker becomes a winner again. Hell yeah. And everyone has to be nice to meet once more. I think we're still nice to you. I mean, most... I think you've reached, by the way, that I don't know if you want to be there,

but you've reached that sort of Donald Soroni territory where people love you, win or lose at this point. Like, you've reached that status of, we know what we're getting, it's always fun. You know what I mean? And very few are in that. I don't want to say that after the last one, but maybe I'm just a fun guy.

You're gonna be. I mean, your co-main event of a numbered event here against a streaking guy. You thought you were getting Moikano and I love Hanata Moikano and I think that would have made a lot of sense. I was just timing it at Moikano

because you know he's gonna chat shit back. He does it to me too. He just says Dan Oka's name and he talks a bunch of shit just because he knows that we can't help ourselves. You're fun together. We're gonna buy it. He's fishing.

I went fishing. I went fishing and Moikano took a hook, line and sinker just as, just as usual. But you got a guy who's streaking right now, so I think that says a lot about you. Yeah, they're not going to put,

they're going to put two aging veterans in against each other. It'll be funny, though, which is chat shit, but that's not the sport. The sport is, the next generation is built off the carcasses of the last generation. The bones, the bones and the decaying flesh of the previous generation. Two last quick things

And then I'll let you go Gachi made some headlines Talking about Hey I didn't get an increased Paramount Plus All this stuff Anything changed with you? Ding Okay

That's good My manager answered the call Well Well play dad My manager My manager got back My manager Passed on the information

Wow And you know what I said I said So, quit selling you are sold. I will take the pay rise, my brother. Hell yeah. That's a good manager. Good for you. I'm getting paid. I'm getting paid. I'm getting paid. Okay. You sound happy. That's good. Good on Ash for answering the call. Well done.

And by the way, you were once a guy, I remember not that long ago, you were the one saying, like, you don't need managers, right? Apparently, it's good to have a good manager. I think, like, once you get, well, it's a bit different. I feel like early on, guys early on in your career, like, it's pretty much. set in stone like, come on, Errol, like you, yeah, yeah, we could, we could Google what, um, sure,

we could Google what a UFC fighter is making. And I feel like early on in a UFC fighter's career, uh, you're just pretty much they're negotiating for their cup, their slice of the pie. I feel like it's a little bit different. But once, once you get up,

up a bit further and you're in like this kind of territory and you're in total talk territory and, obviously not pay-per-view but you're butting heads with the UFC then I feel like a manager is definitely necessary because yeah I don't know it's just like a like a buffer between yourself and the fighter like fighters obviously have to focus on the fights imagine like going imagine going two for nail with the UFC

and being like days out from a fight and just like deep in contract negotiations and you're the one that's like being told that you're washed and shit, you know, it'll be a difficult position to be in. Last quick thing. This one's big. February 7th. Scraps? Oh.

You okay? February 7. Yes. Yeah. Tell us. We're taking things back to the backyard. One minute scraps, heavyweight edition, right? Super heavyweight.

My heaviest boy in there is 200 kilos. I don't know what is. 400 pound 400 something pounds is my biggest boy pros pros we got amateurs we got fucking street guys there's gonna be knockouts there will be chaos and you cannot miss it is the field set or are there still some slots open uh there was 32 and then i had a couple fallout um yesterday so i think i'm back down the 4 uh back down the 30 we'll fill them up we'll fill them up. Okay.

$100,000. We've got a lot of money on the line. Hell yeah. All right. And then you'll post it afterwards, right? It'll be live streamed on Kik. My sponsor, the doctor, he's got a KIC account. And so the whole thing will be live stream.

You just got to follow my social media and I'll be posting up the live stream. But yeah, then all the content will get uploaded. Love it. Thanks to the doctor on Instagram. Instagram and Facebook and stuff like that. You're the man, Dan. Thank you so much. Good luck to you.

Appreciate it as always, my man. You're the man. No, no, no. You are the man. And thank you for always getting back to me so quickly. I really do appreciate it and can't wait for this weekend. Wish you the best. Thank you, brother.

There he is. The one and only, Dan Hooker, the hangman. Back in action. What a fight. Oh, my God. What a fight. Dan Hooker versus BSD. And he's right.

It does say a lot about him. Usually in a situation like that, you'll have to fight someone who's on, you know, maybe coming off a loss, lost two in a row. The Moikano fight makes a lot of sense, to be honest. They have a history. They came BSD, who was on the shortlist

for a comeback fighter of the year. So shout out to him, shout out to them, shout out to BSD. What a freaking fight. And it's a great card as well. UFC 325, obviously we'll talk a lot about it. As the week rolls on back-to-back numbered events. It's happened before 89-90.

It happened a few years ago, but not often. And so a sign of the times. All right. Final guest. So excited about this particular guest. It's a massive honor for us. Spoke to him once before, and that was back in 2019.

So a lot of crap has happened since then. October of 2019, so a little over six years, to be exact. And he was featured prominently on the broadcast this past weekend in a great spot in the middle of the octagon, on the desk as well. He did some VO work, some narration. He was all over the place, music playing. in between, you know, fights leading up to fights and whatnot. It was really, really cool.

And it was cool, especially, I would never dare say that he's a close personal friend. But I know how much MMA and the UFC means to him. And he's one of the OG celebrity fans of the UFC when it wasn't very cool to go to UFC events. When it was way cooler to go to boxing events, he was there. And so to see him featured so prominently on this very first show of the new era, I know it was huge for him. And it felt it felt apropos. It felt like that's the guy that you want. there. If you're going to tag in a

celeb, that's the kind of guy. You want an OG fan to be there. So without further ado, let us say hello to the one and only the OG fan. Drummer for the likes of Blink 1E2. You know him. He is an absolute legend. Travis Barker. How you doing? Hey Travis, how are you? Thank you so much for

doing this. Really appreciate it. Of course, man. My pleasure. You're the freaking man. We appreciate you very much. We're all huge fans. Can I ask off the top, Travis, something that that I came across a few years ago and I have to say it's like a bit of a running joke among the team here but also with my sister

my sister as you probably can guess is a huge fan of your wives and also she probably fancies herself like a long-lost sister of the Kardashian crew that's the way she lives her life she loves you guys and you said on a podcast a few years ago you were talking about your sleep patterns

and you said you know I like to listen to this show called the MMA, or no longer the name of this show, but this guy R. Hawani, the host had no idea who I was. He thought I was on a TV show. He's like, oh, so you, and I just couldn't believe that Travis Barker, of all the things

accessible, and this sounds very self-serving, I know. But I just couldn't believe, of all the things accessible to you, that you listen to us talk about MMA and our little chair here, I just couldn't believe. So can you humor us for a second? Can you prove to my sister and to the crew that this is a real thing that you actually did say this and that you actually do do this?

Yes, I listen religious. honestly MMA and the UFC and boxing really everything it's like an escape from music for me so I'm obsessed I listen I listen to every episode

I usually fall asleep to it because it's just kind of like it's not something I need to like watch and pay attention to a storyline and I can just listen until I fall asleep and then I'll usually wake up and pick up where I left off if I end up falling

asleep but yeah that's that's my thing and i love your guys podcasts i love i love your show i love all your boys shows um i love all the post show um podcast you guys do everything it's amazing man it blows my mind honestly as someone who grew up listening to you guys and uh who has great admiration for what you've done and accomplished thank you for that thank you for saying that on that pod because that's like it's it's the truth it hurts me when you guys take two weeks off at the end of the year I'm like, what do I do with myself? But yeah, I mean, luckily there's a lot of, you know, a lot of people out there like talking MMA and UFC.

The question that my sister always has is like, at any point does your wife say, can you turn that guy off? He's very annoying. Can you stop listening to him? That's what she wants to know. So sometimes if we're driving, I'll be listening to it. But usually I'm a big fan of just the Apple wire earpods that come with the iPhone. Damn.

And that's what I fall asleep to. You don't like the AirPods? I think they're bad for you. I think like the Bluetooth's not good for you. Okay. I don't want to take any chances. And yeah, that's the only time I use them. And I can't really like fall asleep with those.

And any other time, like when I'm walking or running, I don't listen to anything. So I think those are the best as far as, you know, just listening. Wow. So when you go on your long runs and I want to ask you about your running and your fitness, you know, regimen, you don't listen to anything? Nothing. If I'm training for a race and I'm trying to like beat my PR, honestly I'll run to a metrodome, which is like a click where it keeps time.

And I'll find like the tempo I need to run at in order to beat my last record. Wow. You don't get bored? No, I don't. I don't. It's honestly the time of day where nothing's going on. My wife and I have seven kids. So if I'm not at home, I'm at the studio and I'm making music or I'm practicing music or something.

So when I'm running, the piece of quiet is awesome. How many miles do you run a day? Unfortunately, I'm injured right now, but anywhere from five to ten. A day? Yeah. Wow. How many days a week when you're healthy? Like five.

usually five. I'll take two days off of running. I was actually training for L.A. Marathon. And I was, I had this routine where I was always running like seven. And then I started putting on weighted vests. And I ended up getting stress fractures on my tibia. Oh, no. Because I just did too much too fast. So I'm out of L.A. Marathon. But I'll, I'll pick up something later in the year for sure. So now, now you can't run at all? Nah, so I'll do, I'll do lots of battle rope, like 20 minutes battle rope straight. assault bike and boxing, sitting down, just hitting a heavy bag, just because I can't do anything

weight-bearing right now, but rolling, a lot of rowing. Okay. Anything to stay moving. Because it's such a big part of your life, do you find you get antsy, do you find like you're going crazy because you can't do it? Dude, I'm the worst. Like, I can't idle. I'll go crazy.

Yeah, I always have to be moving or learning something or doing something. By the way, battle rope for 20 minutes straight? Yeah. That's absurd. Yeah. Well, I mean, you'll find different ways. Like maybe sometimes you'll focus on your shoulders, maybe sometimes more it's like forearms. Maybe for five minutes it's wrist.

So, yeah, you just kind of like tap out whatever body parts getting tired so you can keep on going and try to, you know, get that length of time longer and longer. And as far as martial arts, I know you've done jiu-jitsu boxing as well. What's your main one these days? I was doing a lot of jiu-jitsu right before I got hurt. Okay. Gene Jock Machado has a spot right down the street for me. And I would always run by his gym, and I ran into him at the coffee spot I go to all the time. And I just rolled in one day and started training again.

Wow. Do you go with him, like privates with him? Yeah, I do privates with him. Oh, that must be sick. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because we'll do hour and a half, two-hour sessions. and he's right down the street so it can work with my schedule at the studio. What do you prefer, jih Tzu or boxing?

I mean, jiu-jitsu is like such a mental game where you have to do a lot of thinking and remembering. And then striking and explosiveness and fast twitch, fast trigger, is really important for drumming. So I need both, honestly. Okay. And by the way, how is the sleep? Because in that pod where you were talking about listening to us,

you were talking about having trouble sleeping. So how's the sleep these days? Yeah, some days, it just depends. Like, the day after the fights, I don't know, I think I was so wound up after the fights. I was so excited or something. I don't know. I ended up like going to bed at like two and waking up at six, which isn't ideal. But then I caught up and I got eight hours last night.

Okay, okay. I just got an aura ring. It has changed my life, just keeping track on my sleep. And I think I come from a place with long studio sessions or being on tour. where I would think it was cool to get five hours sleep, but that's actually not cool. And it's really hard for your body to recover. And it's hard to do it for weeks at a time, you know?

Do you kind of laugh for yourself now? Like, I don't know, a 25-year-old, you being excited about having an aura ring and tracking your sleep. Could you have ever imagined this? No, never. But it's cool. And my wife was like, watch, you're going to be addicted. And sure enough, I'm like, oh, I did 20,000 steps today.

That's awesome. I got seven hours sleep. It's just informative, and it's stuff I really never knew before. It's very punk rock to track your steps. Yeah, some would say not, but like, yeah, punk rock's really doing whatever you want and not caring what anyone thinks. Amen. I like to think I'm pretty punk rock, even though I'm probably in most people's eyes,

the antithesis of that. No, you are. I mean, you're outspoken, and you know what I mean? You stand up for things you believe in, and I think, yeah, I think it's just more the way you live rather than a style of music. That's fair. Thank you. Thank you for that. So, okay, let's talk about your involvement on Saturday. How did this all come about, you being so featured prominently on this broadcast?

I think it was around November of last year. One of my buddies, Neil Law, who works over at WWE and TKO. He was like, you know, UFC's going to be in L.A. on January. I said, say less. I'll probably be there. That's, you know, hometown for me. And he's like, well, I was talking to the U.S. UFC and we were all talking, you know, together and we thought it would be cool to do something bigger with you to start off the new year with Paramount and whatever. And I was like, oh, yeah,

just whatever you guys think of, let me know. And I honestly, Ariel, I thought they were just going to be like, can you come, you know, or are you going to be there because we're in L.A.? I never thought it was this. And then they're like, no, no, no, we have this whole idea. We're going to present it to you. And then they presented it to me. And I'm like, are you kidding me? This is a dream come true. So it all came together really quick. We like figured out, originally it was like make a music piece for each fighter that's fighting.

But in the beginning, it was Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harrison. Right, right. So what we did is, you know, feeling this was like the track that they had thought of for Blink. And then go around and produce all this other music inside that song. according to this video they sent me. So I made it all at my studio and then

like 15 hours before the Maraup fight, I filmed it all in the octagon. We started at 1 a.m. and ended at like 4 a.m. Wow. Wow. And it was insane. For someone who has such admiration for the sport

and for the cage and just the history and all that to get that call, to get that nod, for you to be the guy, for you to be the one to usher it in. What did that mean? Dude, it was surreal. I was like, are you kidding me? And then just like, yeah, just, I was pretty, for me, it was like, just tell me where to go,

when to be there. And, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to go crazy. So I ended up going down there, probably played that piece maybe 30, 40 times. They got all these different camera angles. I think I just walked around the octagon probably. for five minutes and didn't say anything to anybody. Wow. Because it was surreal being in there and just, yeah,

it was the coolest experience ever. Yeah, we ended around four. I left a little blood in the octagon. I think I cut myself a few times. It just felt good. They were like, hey, get up on the cage. Just sit up there. And then it was just, it was like kid in the candy store, you know,

because I'm such a big fan. But all I can think of is Justin Gachie back. flipping off that cage and how I could barely crawl up and down it. You know? It was really awesome. Yeah, and he does it so effortlessly after a 25-minute fight as well. Yeah. Almost snaps his ankle every single time.

By the way, how did you cut yourself? I'll just nick my knuckles on a symbol or something. I've also smashed like my finger. Like all my fingers on my left hand have been broken besides my pointer finger just from drumming. Wow. You ever break it in the middle of a set and feel like, holy shit, I can't take this anymore? No, like usually it's, I'll cut it open,

but that actually gives me more energy. I get more hyped, more excited when I'm bleeding. But I have had a rehearsal where I'm like, okay, I'm bleeding. And then my knuckles swall up really big, like the size of a golf ball, and then I couldn't move it. And that was the last time I broke a finger while playing drums.

Was that your first time in the cage? Knock on wood, it hasn't happened again. Yeah, that was my first time in the cage. Wow, wow, wow. What was your takeaway? Because a lot of people say it's like, it's very stiff, right? It doesn't have like any sort of give. Yeah, I went up to the cage and I expected it to have more give or be a little, I don't know, it's hard.

It's cold. And it's the cage is a little like lower than I thought. Like I didn't think I'd be able to look over it. But it was just, yeah, I think I've said it before. I was telling Dominic Cruz when I saw him at the fight, like the fact you guys go out there in your underwear barefoot and just scrap with someone is, it's insane, you know? But yeah, I admire anyone who walks in there.

Of all the cool shit that you've been able to do as a result of being who you are, is that like, I'm not going to say it's number one for you, but like up there, that's got to be up there, right? No, honestly, honestly, someone else asked me that and I was like you know playing the Grammys with Drake Lil Wayne and Eminem was pretty

awesome and that is right there with it. Wow. That's I know I was telling my wife she's like that's pretty cool you get to go do that thing I was like babe you don't understand I'm like also the UFC doesn't really you never really hear about them like doing anything

with the musical artists right? Yeah no. I know like they're really against like people walking people out or um or really kind of performance like this. I was like, babe, this is unheard of. This is like, this is my fucking dream come true.

It's just like, yeah, there's nothing tops this. It's not like afterwards, I'm going to be like, yeah, I'm going to top this. There's no top in it. It's like the best of the best. Were you happy with the finished product? Yeah, I loved it. I actually didn't see it. I didn't see it until

about an hour before they posted it on Instagram. Okay, okay. And then it aired on the broadcast, of course. Yeah, but when I was there, I'm like, Oh, I'm going as hard as I possibly can, and I don't need to see it. It is what it is, you know. They had you on the desk there as one of the analysts. How did that feel for you, being next to those legends?

You probably watch this scene a million times, right? Yeah, like the Wyman and Cruz and Michael Bisping. Yeah, it was pretty cool. I didn't really know. They just kind of, you know, said, hey, are you down to come by? And I said, yeah. So it was a little, like, quick, but it was cool to just go up there and talk to the guys.

I ended up staying like two hours afterwards and just chopping it up with Chris Wyman and Dominic Cruz. Yeah, it was all such a cool experience this weekend. And then obviously you stuck around for the fights. By the way, is your wife a fan of the fights? Or does she kind of, you know? She is.

Like, we have fight night every time there's a fight. You know, we have a bunch of friends over. Obviously, you know, that's why your podcast is so popular. There's so many of my friends, like Tim Armstrong from Rancid. I have some regulars that were there every week and we watch every fight. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.

And my wife, you know, knows who everyone is and watches everything with me. So it's pretty cool. I'm always curious about how, you know, people with really cool jobs that require them to travel a lot, how they kind of fit in the fight watching. Like Steve always likes to talk about being in the back and getting mad at the app when it spoils the results

and all that stuff. He's big on that. What do you, like you're on tour. playing on a Saturday night, but there's a fight you need to watch or an event. What are you doing to watch it? Well, I'm hiding my phone if I'm on stage. Also, I'm not on my phone while I'm on stage, but I'm watching like prelims and up to the minute. I'm just warming up and practicing watching it. And then I'll stay after at the venue and just finish the fights. Because the bus is kind of iffy and I can't watch it on a plane if we're flying. So yeah. But you are watching it.

Oh, I never miss a fight. Wow. Everywhere, yeah, yeah. Do you ever do the thing, well, you'll go to sleep and then watch it the next day, or do you have to watch it that night? No, I hate that. That's so, I can't do it. I can't do that because you'll see something somewhere.

Yes, yes. You know, one of my best friends is a doctor, and he'll hit me with updates all the time. So if I'm not watching it real time, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get, the news is going to be spoiled somehow. But there's something about not watching it in real time that's not exciting. I agree. There's something missing. And the next morning doesn't work.

The next morning does not work. Yeah. You know what happened. Your body is telling you just fast forward to the end to find out the result. That's, you know, like, I know it happened. I know it's not a real live thing. Never. Because, like, you got to know.

I like watching everyone's walkout. I like, I like listening to everyone commentating during the fight, you know. That's honestly, I kind of miss it when I'm at fights. You prefer the TV experience? Well, no, no. Nothing beats a in person. experience, but when I'm there, it's like the one thing I don't have is like Joe Rogan. Right, right.

And Cormier just, you know, telling you everything, you know, you need to know. It's cool. And so what did you make of the main event? It was violent. Right from the get-go, you know, like, you know, I mean, everyone that, the whole card was pretty awesome, but the way they just went out there and just went, got to it right away. it was like they just banged right from the start. It was pretty exciting, which I imagined it would be. I mean, I knew that's what Gachi would do. But to see Patty just sit there and trade with him,

the whole fight when he has so many other skills in his, you know, tools in his skill set, like it was admirable. Did you think that was going to happen? Did you think the fight would play out like that? Honestly, I thought Patty might try to, like, shoot on him or a wrestle earlier, but he stood and banged with him. And I got to say, it's like probably the most exciting fight I've been to in person. Wow.

Wow. And you've been to a lot. Yeah, I've been to a lot. That main event was, it was just, it was incredible. That was such a great main event. Patty, a bit of a polarizing figure. What's your take on him? Do you like him?

Do you not like him? No, he's so good. Like, his walkouts are so good. He's so fun. he surprises me every time. Like everyone he's fought, he always surprises me. So, yeah, like, I do like them a lot. I like both fighters in the main event.

And it's always hard for me to pick against the fighter. But yeah, I just, yeah, his walkout was so good. And he's so exciting. But Gaichi's just, it was also really like a cool time to see Gaichi, you know, get the interim belt and not retire because I heard he was talking about retirement. I definitely want to see more Gachi fights. Do you think he can beat Ilya to pour you? Because that's what that belt gets you, right?

It's hard, dude. Ilya is so dangerous and his power and he's so explosive. I don't know. I think like if he goes in and bangs with him, he stands like a puncher's chance and he's, he's Justin Gachi. you know but yeah I'd love to see Ilya Armand that's that's the fight I really want to see that's okay so I was just going to ask you if you had

like what's your one dream fight right now that could be made that isn't on the docket and I'm not talking like you know some legendary fight some like fictional fight a fight that you really want to see right now this year um Islam versus Ilia

yeah that would be incredible you know because I feel like Islam's He's, that's another, he's just such a great fighter, man. Like, I don't see anyone, I mean, he has some exciting fights in his weight division, too, like Ian Machado and Carlos. I would love to see him fight Carlos, but like Ilya and him, because they were talking about it for a minute, I think it just got in everyone's head or it definitely got in mind.

That would be a really cool fight. But I love Armin, too, you know, whether he fights, if he ends up fighting Justin or, I don't know how it's going to work. but seeing Armin, Ilya, and Islam all fight in whatever weight class soon would be great. This is a Travis Noseball type of answer because that is the best story in the UFC right now, my opinion, like that triangle right there. And it's like the unknown what's going to happen right now, right? Because Armand didn't fight for the belt, you know, the end of them. Who's your favorite fighter right now? Like your must watch?

it's so hard I think they asked me that well it was so confusing when I was at the desk they asked me my favorite fighter and then my favorite fighter on the card so I'm like oh uh you know

but I think it constantly changes I love Islam um I am a big fan of of John Jones and just his legacy and um I love Peyton

um I love Sean and I love how how exciting and he's just exciting for the UFC. Let me see. I love Armin. I loved the Seraghan

Tom Aspinol fight, and I can't wait to see what happens with that. What do you think? What do you think about that ending? Tom catching some strays till this day. Yeah, it's rough. I mean, but I mean, like, but we've, none of us have been in there

and had our eye poked either, right? But we, I mean, we have, it's hard because we've all seen fighters get poked in the eye and just be like, yeah, let's go. You know, and I think that's what everyone was hoping would happen, but you're not in there. You didn't feel it. So, I mean, I agree.

I don't think he thought that first round was probably going to go like that. Because he's usually doesn't get touched like that. But Tom Aspinall, I mean, yeah, it always scares me if he fights Jones. Because I do love Jones, but I'm like, dude, Tom Aspinall, it's just a gorilla. and he's such a beast and he's so talented. Yeah, I'm interested to see what happened with the heavyweight division. But I would also love to see Pereira fight Jones if there's anything real, you know, if that's even being considered.

That would be so exciting. And then there's not like a belt attached. It's just a fight. And we see Alex Pereira go up. And can you imagine if he's, what would be the first? fighter there to have a belt in three-way classes. I love your knowledge, man. I love your passion for this.

It's so great to see. Can I ask, what do you think, Volker or Lopez this weekend? That's another one, man. I love Volk so much. It's hard. Like, I hate picking anyone. I could see, and from everyone I talked to, they're like, the best feeling is having a rematch

because you felt that person before, right? You felt their power. I could see Lopez figuring it out, but for Volk's legacy, I would love, I'd obviously love to see him win too, you know? Were you ever compelled to compete in a grappling competition or anything like that? Did you ever feel the need to do that? Did it ever occur to you to do that? You know, that's the one thing I never did is wrestle.

I think maybe as I get further in jiu-jitsu, it would be fun. I've like you know spard a little bit with boxing I love boxing when when Dom used to come out and train with us a lot he used to give me like 10 minute rounds to try to sleep him and I would just be swinging in air and it got exhausting it was terrible or he'd start wrestling me and then I was like really done so yeah I'm lucky like between him and Chito Vera is a really good friend of mine Ortega I'm I'm I'm I have enough fighter friends to know how hard it is and how talented and how much hard work goes into everything that they do, you know? Were you up there when Dom found out that he was being inducted?

Were you with him? No, I was just, I had just left. Because I knew you have a great history together. You sponsored him back in the day. That would have been awesome. Yeah, I know, Don's been one of my close friends for, I don't know, 10, 15 years. I used to let him stay at my house when he was having surgeries out in L.A. And we sponsored, I sponsored him through his whole rivalry with Uriah Favre.

That's what was so funny. When I went to go do his podcast, you know, I was there when Dom literally had a fight like Cody, T.J. Yariah, he was like beefing with the whole, you know, Alpha Male team. So when I did his podcast, like Yariah's there. And it was just so, it was so cool to see them just be. cool and have like you know a conversation about

everything and your ride is awesome too man I just went to his gym up in a sack and trained there when I was on tour. Did he feel some sort of way about that? They're cool now though right? Oh they're so cool yeah they were it was it was so nice to see that because I saw when it was going down

and it was heated constantly you know even me being in the crowd watching Dom fight like you could feel the just the air the thick air you know, around everyone's team and stuff. But no, everyone's so nice over at Team Alpha Male. And, yeah, the hospitality over there was really cool.

I'll let you go in a second. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I'm just curious. Do you follow boxing as much as MMA? I do. Okay. Who do you like in boxing? Mm-hmm.

I mean... Like this weekend, there's a huge one coming up. At the same time, there's Shakur Stevenson against Tiafima Lopez at the same time as Volkanovsky versus Lopez. So what do you do? Yeah, that's going to be a great fight. I'll watch both. I'll have both on it.

I'll go back and forth. No, I can't wait for the Dan Hooker fight. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just on right before you. What a fight. Yeah, his one minute, like, fights in the backyard are so entertaining, man. Like, I love, I just love all of the things we're given that we get to watch, right? Like, whether it's Dan Hooker throwing those fights in his backyard or, I don't know.

I see it as a plus being able to go back and forth. you know, to channel to channel and watch this weekend. Is it on at the same time? Pretty much. Yeah, it's on pretty much. Yeah, so the Australia card will be on Saturday night here, Sunday morning over there, and the boxing is at MSG. So it might maybe not completely coincide, but it's pretty much Saturday night, Saturday night. I love how Taptan you are.

I mean, like, you're very supportive of us, like on Instagram and stuff like that. Dude, it really means you have no idea what that feels like to see someone who is so, I'm not saying like famous or like successful just be a supporter of ours. It really does mean a lot. Oh, thank you, man. I love what you guys do. You're, you're so good at your job, Ariel. And it's like, yeah, it's just, it's my, it's my go-to. You're my, this is my escape. And yeah, I love all your shows and I, and I love your coverage of the sport. Thank you so much. Can I ask you about Run, Travis Run? Yeah. This is a 5K that you do? Yeah, we do, we do 5Ks. Man, and when's the next one?

I think the next one might be combined with a 5K, 10K and half marathon in Fontana where I grew up. And we raise a bunch of money for charity and we just bring everyone out. A lot of people come out and walk or run for the first time. And it's just it's unity, you know, spreading like unity, health, wellness. And yeah, yeah, everyone comes out. Like a lot of fighters come around with me. Everyone from every walk of life, you know, comes out. It's not, you don't have to be an athlete to do it.

You can walk it if you want. It's, it's pretty, pretty amazing movement. This is one of my dreams to do a 5K. I want to start with a 5K. This is one of my dreams. Man, next, do you live in New York area? I live in New York, yes, yes. Okay.

Yeah, I threw one out there not long ago. Oh, really? I had one of the best five case out there where this New Yorker was just on me, like, let's go, motherfucker the whole time I'm running. And I did so good. I think that was my first time I ran a 19-minute 5K. Wow. But yeah, the energy you have from the crowd and the people you're running with is just,

there's nothing like it. The next time you have one here, I would love to partake. That would be incredible. Cool. Yeah, that would be awesome. And Barker Wellness, what inspired you to do this? Originally, it was just thinking of things that I use and I need all the time. Like our muscle therapy cream is the best.

Like, you know, helps with inflammation. It helps with soreness. I use it constantly. And then we have like mushroom gummies to sleep. We have B complex, B12 gummies, help with the energy. We have a bunch of cool gummies, like creatine gummies that we're coming out with. So yeah, it's all non-toxic, all organic. And just the supplements that I take every day.

Wow. Love that. I love. it. Barkerwe Wellness.com. Okay. Sprauds. Okay. Last one for you. And it's one that I've always wondered. When I was younger and I was a kid going to Syracuse University, I was horribly depressed, horribly depressed. The drives from Montreal to Syracuse were someone like the darkest moments of my life. I was so sad. I didn't want to be there. It was a tough time. This is 2001. I used to listen to Adam's song all the time. And for some reason, that song spoke to me. and I'm not even quite sure why it was just part of the mood.

And there was one part of that song about spilling the juice, the apple juice. You know what I'm talking about? And I'm a son of immigrant parents, and they would always get so mad at us when we'd spill something. And for somebody like that would trigger me. My parents are the greatest parents, but I know what that feels like when your mom yells at you when you spilled a cup of apple juice. And I always wondered, what was the inspiration behind that song? Is there someone named Adam?

What could you tell me about that song in terms of where it came from? I think it was originally a letter that Mark Hoppice from my band got about a kid who was contemplating suicide. And the song was loosely based around that. And then there was parts of Mark's own life that he was talking about as well,

just feeling down or feeling depressed and just offering like a gleam of hope for when you're feeling like that or a song like that, that could be a tool, I guess, you know? Well, that song helped me and I think help with a lot of people is why I don't need to tell you that. If you would have told that kid way back when 25 or so years ago that I'd be talking to you like this, mine would be blown.

Awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you so much, Travis. Congrats on everything you've done. And congrats on getting that opportunity on Saturday. It was really, really cool to see you up there. And again, thank you for the love and support. It means the world to us. Of course, likewise, man, thank you.

All the best to you. There he is. The great Travis Barker, kind enough to join us on this Monday afternoon. What a guy. What an absolute legend. And an actual, legit fan of the sport of MMA. You could tell when you're picking Ilya versus Armin. You're not just going with Ilya versus Armin. You're going with Armin versus Islam, which has kind of been forgotten about. But remember, this time last year, we were all foaming at the mouth to see

Armin versus Islam, we thought we were going to get it if Balal was going to beat JDM that doesn't happen, Islam moves up and you know the rest. How cool is that, Frankie? How cool? As a music connoisseur, how cool is that? Huge, man. He did a great job. He's

really down to earth and it was cool being a part of that. Yeah, he's great. He's unbelievable. Like, we could have done a whole thing. He talked in that piece about, like, the Beatles beat. Like, he said this beat was made famous by the Beatles. Did you see that thing.

Yeah, yeah, his promo. Yeah, and like, I didn't even know that that was a thing. Like, I know nothing about music, obviously. Like, that he said that this particular beat, as they were setting, it was very, it was very well done, I thought, the way they set up Patty and then they set up Justin. And then he said this one particular beat, like, made famous by these five guys from Liverpool, tied it all together. I'm like, wow, I didn't even know, like, music was like that.

That, like, there's a beat that is synonymous with, just, just like a drum beat that's synonymous with a group, obviously one of the most famous groups of all time. I didn't know it was on that level. So that was great. What a guy. That guy's going to bed listening to you guys. I popped when he said... He said the boys.

You knew exactly what he was talking about. That was wild. He's going to bed listening to you guys. Talk about Frank's mom's ass. I got to make more about one of a pound for pound rankings. Yeah. Loving guys did the pound for pound greens. Dude, we got to do the 5K.

Let's all do the 5K. Did you, I didn't know it came to New York. I think it's been a couple years I think the postings he came to us last year with Chicago I'm in though you don't have to convince me I really want to do a 5K I was listening to him talk about it but I really I can't do a marathon

no chance hey that 19 minute 5K by Travis is crazy insane what's yours I mean back in high school I did one in like the 18s but recently I did a 19 and I'm talking like fully gassed out dying at the end of it like going hard so for him to do it at his age is incredible

So 5K is how many miles? 3.1. 3.1? I think I could do that in like, at this juncture, maybe 31 minutes, 32 minutes. A solid time, man. It ain't no 19.

That doesn't matter. It ain't a race. No, no, I know. Except it's actually, it is literally a race. We all doing it together. Rick, come on. He said you can walk. He said you can walk.

Fuck walking, bro. You're running that shit. It's a 5K. Come on. Frankie, you in? If you walking it? I'll just take the car behind you guys Come on Frankie you can walk

Frankie could be the New Yorker to Travis just yelling Come on motherfucker Frank can be the pace car Pick your shit up No my sister loves the Kardashians So she was always wondering Is like does she know who you are

Is that? Headphones Yeah headphones No but in the car In the car There's a world where Courtney Kardashian's been like Travis Can you turn this shit off?

Enough of these fucking guys Enough of them That was incredible. Thank you to him. Congrats to him. Really, really enjoyed that. We're talking about the Paramount Plus debut. We've just received some intel as to how it did. Shall we digest this, fellas?

Here we go. Frankie's some breaking news here. UFC 324 reached the largest household audience for a live UFC event in nearly a decade across historic linear and broadcast and now streaming. UFC is one? Wait, wait. I'm kind of reading.

Okay, here we go. It debuted with record-breaking 5 million streaming views. That's like an episode of this show. And reached over 7 million households in the U.S. and Latin America. The live average minute audience slash streaming views for the main card, 4.96milly. Global household, 7.18 does not account for co-viewing. Peak concurrent streams, 5.93. UFC 324 also reached more homes

than any other live UFC event in nearly decade across. Okay, I just read that. All right. That's per press release. I would say that's pretty damn good, right? Now, ESPN never came out with these types of stats, right? I think they did sparingly. I'm trying to look for some... I don't remember getting stuff like this. No, there was definitely ones like this. They would release

every once in a while for the big ones. Peak concurrent? 5.93 million? I love reading. this stuff. This stuff's great. I'm very bullish on this new era. I think it's going to be great. We just get that pip squared away. We'll be rolling. You should ask Travis about the pip.

If he ever deals with the PIP situation? I mean, he was at the fight, so he probably wasn't. If he's not going to Australia, he's about to find out. Yeah, but he said he watches on the phone. Yeah, the wherewithal. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. Of course. Anyone who, like, is a real fan knows about the PIP. why are you acting like this is like I was being mocked by a lot of people a lot of people are like

get an iPad what you want me to walk around with like my iPad I love how iPad's the go to like that's what I got a lot of it's the television no but you're out and about it's not 19 you know 86 it's called a mobile device

you want to be mobile right oh here's something from ESPN what is this this is from 2023 Okay, so they did post these things. This is from Jordan. It was every once in a while. Okay, okay. Okay, you're right.

UFC 291 was the most watched ever. Now, correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of this is like linear stats. I don't remember getting a lot of E plus stats, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, point is, seems like a great night. Give me a point of reference. What was like the pay-per-view? Sorry, the linear stats.

Oh. UFC 291 was the most watched ever Which averaged 2.0 million viewers across ABC ESPN and Deportes Okay, so Paramount crushed that already Yeah Wait, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait a second UFC 291

UFC 291 Was Justin Gaetia de Semporey in Salt Lake City? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Oh, got him too, you freaking nailed it But here's the thing, that was a pay-per-view So what the two million were for the prelums Yes, yeah. That's a good point.

Oh, here's the first line. The two most watch UFC paper view prelims ever on ESPN networks took place in 20203. So we're talking about prelims versus a main card. I know, but I mean, the only point of a comparison we're going to get. Sure. The most watch fight night of all time on ESPN Plus was Noce UFC Grasso versus Schifchenko. How many did that do? Doesn't say.

Yeah. Ah. And it says... Who is to check? Yeah, who is to check? Anyway, everyone seems happy. I'm looking at this thing here real quick. this um i don't see any zoo for boxing numbers are you i see any zufa i mean they gotta let those

come on okay because they were so big or what got a roll in yeah we're waiting on them to roll they're waiting for the plus twos you know oh that that's like maybe plus fives maybe plus hell yeah 30s all right just got to let them roll in it's got a little is there another one this weekend z o2 um sunday yeah what do you think of that you're you're a branding guy you like the ZO2, the ZO1, the look. No, I'm serious. I don't hate it. I actually do like it. I like the all black and I like the ZO.

Do you think they should have gone with a nut, like you like Zoufa boxing? I'm fine with it just because of the history bond, yeah. It kind of drives me nuts. I hear people call it Zuffa. Yeah, those triggers me. People used to call it that back in the day too in the MMA. You'd hear people saying Zoffa. Zuffa, like what?

Yeah, once we get into the like in past the O's like 09, once we get into like the 18s, like Z-18 is. going to go hard. To be fair to the... Why that? Yeah, Z-18 at the apex, Jayapitaya. Yeah, the O's are weird, right?

Yeah, the O's weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm going to be the guy that calls it by the individual numbers, not Z-18. Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Do we see a Z-1-8? Yes, of course. This is not going anywhere. This is not going anywhere. This is not going anywhere. And by the way, there's a case to be made right now with

Top rank not having a deal and Golden Boy not having a deal. Like, as far as American promoters, right now, are we living in a world where it's Zufa Boxing and MVP? Yes, at the moment. Isn't that wild? Yeah. That is wild. Like, who would have thought?

It's Jake Paul and TKO. As far as, like, American promoters consistently putting on shows. We don't know what's going on with Golden Boy. PBC's putting on shows, but it's just very inconsistent right now. the nature of their deal with Amazon isn't great. There's this ring thing, you know, like Eddie Hearn's going to be here tomorrow. He's going to be in studio tomorrow. I can't wait to talk to him.

You know, what's going to happen? What is it all going to look like? This ring deal as time goes on. And I wouldn't call them an American promoter per se. So it's a very interesting time. Okay, some other news and notes, guys. I had mentioned Tom Aspinall to Travis Barker. What a crazy sentence that is.

Dana White was asked about Tom and had an interesting remark and then Tom saw it, reacted to it, filmed it, posted it on his YouTube. Here is that clip. About me? I didn't even fight last night. Is Dana?

Do you have any updates about the eye of Tom Aspinall and is there a rematch in the works? Oh, Jesus. Don't let me talk about Tom Aspinall's eye. Apparently he just, he's going in for a second surgery or just had it or by surgery, I mean injections. I have no idea. Thank you, sir.

Get a quote from him. God fucking forbid I say something about it. Go ahead. Jeez. Catching strays in my own liver room on or something, aren't it? I mean, I don't know. If I'm Tom Aspinall, I just, I don't know how to process that.

I really don't. That is your heavyweight champion. That is one of the best and most popular fighters in the world. And the reaction is, geez, don't let me say anything about him. Last I heard, he had a couple surgeries. Well, injections. Like the whole thing felt dismissive.

The whole thing felt like he doesn't really believe it. If I'm being 100% on, if I am to read his body language and he will 1,000% say, that felt very dismissive. That felt like someone who didn't believe that his heavyweight champion was actually going through something. Anyone feel otherwise? No. It was exactly that. It was.

And by surgeries, I mean injections. That's like a direct shot at him. Yes. Oh, God forbid I say something. Yeah, no. Like flip it. It was just, if I'm Tom Aspinall sitting there, I'm like, man, what did I do to this guy? All I've done is stepped up to the plate and I got poked in the freaking eye and you think I want to get injections for fun?

Do you think Tom Asperall is getting injections or not surgery or not? Do you think he's doing this for fun? And the world has no idea how. much his life has changed as a result of all of this. Do you think he's doing this for fun? Do you think he's doing this to prove a point to all of you who thought he was faking? It's absurd to me. He could have easily answered that question like, to be honest, he's just working through things. Hopefully he'll be back. Wishing him the best will be here when he's ready to come back. Like what? Why did it have to be that? And shame on the media who's there like yucking it up,

laughing about a guy who's potentially staring at maybe never fighting again. This is a real thing. At what point are people going to realize this is a real thing? I thought that was gross. I thought that was gross. I mean, it's very hard sometimes to listen to these press conferences because they're like, what's going to happen with Alex Hernandez and Michael Johnson? You know, don't know.

You know? Sometimes I feel like he like, it's just, but that is someone's health. That is someone's health and safety. that is someone's future and longevity and you're just kind of dismissing it like that. I just, kudos to Tom for kind of, I think, laughing it off, but you could kind of tell he's bothered there, right?

I mean, he's like, geez, I'm catching strays on a Sunday morning. I wasn't even involved in this card. Now, of course, he was asked about it, but here's PT Carroll's article right now on uncron.com. Someone please remind Dana Whitehouse how serious Tom Aspinall's injury is. I don't know if he knows. I don't know if he's feigning ignorance. That just went up, by the way, so I'm looking forward to reading that.

I don't know if he's still annoyed, if he had grander plans, if this screwed up plans, I don't know what it is. But to react like that about an eye injury and say, oh, it was actually injections. What? Who's signing up for injections? Honestly, who's signing up for injections? How can you be so dismissive of your heavyweight champion? Forget heavyweight champion. Of any fighter who fights for you.

I mean, I really do feel for Tom, and you can call us biased. You can say whatever we want, whatever you want to say about us, he does not deserve any of this. The guy fought, he got poked, eye-gouged, and he's being made to seem like some sort of like malcontent, some sort of like fake, I don't know what it is. It's bizarre, man. You can protect him. You can change the narrative on him. You have to promote this guy.

At some point, you are going to have to promote this guy. God willing, he'll be okay. And you have just done three or so months of the opposite of damage control. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. It's, I mean, I can't, honestly, I can't imagine how he feels. We did get a face off. We did get a face off between Kamar Usman and Islam Khashav.

People were going nuts over this. Like people were going, look at this, look at the aura. Look at the tension. Oh, this is great. One last, one last ditch effort to get us to. care. One last-ditch effort to get us to care. It's so ridiculous they can't they can't help it laugh. The thing is so ridiculous they can't help it laugh. One last ditch effort. No, I'm sold. I'm going to go out on the limit say the UFC isn't this disconnected. The brass

aren't this disconnected from knowing what's right and knowing what the fans want. I'm going to go out on the limit and say, you know what, they're going to do what's right and they're not going to give a title shot based off. of legacy, a title shot based off of a lifetime achievement award, a title shop based off of one win in four years. I'm going to go out on a limb. Because Colby Covington deserves it just as much, if that's the case.

Same amount of wins in the same stretch of time. Now we're talking. Yeah. Give us that. I see that Colby's shot. Interim title? Yeah, fuck it. No. What do you mean? Real title. Oh, okay. Colby versus Islam. Armin continues to to produce

Bangor after Bangor. He's doing so well these days that even Dan Hooker is on board. Here's some new Armand content. Look at Armand on the plane. Look at this guy. Is this safe? Makes me nervous. On the plane. What you think he's going to bring the plane down?

I don't know. What part makes you more nervous than if you just did that on the street? It felt very shaky. That's a BJ. You think you can bring the plane down just by shaking around? I don't know. Look at this. I'm more worried about this. 18 pounds of Popeye's chicken. And he got Popeyes to respond.

I don't like that response by them. Why? No, disrespectful to DC. We don't need to dunk on DC. Of course Popeyes responded. Fucking hell. The Armandsrookian brand is bigger than the Popeye's chicken brand. Yo, that is incredible.

It's top tier content. I can let you know the great Armaturedian back tomorrow on the program with his favorite interviewer on his favorite show. He said it himself. He said it himself. It's not just me making it up, all right? everyone's killing it on social media these days. What about Alex Pereira? Who's this?

You guys told me about that other model last week, model. Who's he hitting Mitzwith here? What's going on here? Caminas? What's going on here, guys? What is this? It just looks like he's getting some training in. Is this Riz?

Is he Rizzing it up? Looks like he's sparring more than Rizzing it up. I mean, it's a former Riz, right? Frank, Riz or not? 5.9 million views on this? No, no, no, no. She has 5.9 million dollars. Oh, gosh.

Jira Dichmonds. Sounds like a... Athlete. Sounds like a Holland native, Dutch. Somewhere in that area. She also looks like she's done some BJJ before. Oh, okay. Choke someone out.

Oh, her and Jorge have done some stuff together. Okay, some co-labs, as they say. Oh, yeah, yeah. She was grappling with Jorge. Okay, shout out. Yeah. Somebody know what she does for a living. asking. I would imagine it's

mostly content creation. Okay, all right. Six million followers is definitely bringing in some cash. Alex? Do you guys see that video? I don't know if it was, I didn't hear the audio, but apparently like KSI was on some show and they showed his

YouTube studio. I didn't. And I don't know if this was, but it showed like the revenue and he's like, oh, and it was at one, what it said in this thing, again, I don't know if this was like a worker issue, but what it said was 110K a month. 110K a month?

Mm-hmm. I actually thought it would be more. That's less than I thought it would be. Yeah. I thought this is about to get real juicy. Oh, no. KSI's YouTube channel? YouTube channel, yeah, not the sideman channel, the KSI channel.

I don't know, 110K a month, and that's definitely just like a side income form at this point. Oh, 100%. But it's just amazing that you can, you know, you can make 100,000 just, like, his videos on his YouTube channel are just basically him speaking into a webcam. the sideman one is different you know what I mean um

yay or nay on the UFC 326 poster guys what do you say what do you say here it is you like it in terms of UFC posters I'll say yeah I don't hate it yes that's the bar can I tell you one thing that kind of annoys me Max's head no no I don't mind it

the M why what don't you like about Max's head I don't know it just like doesn't look like it's coming out of the M BMF title bout why is BMF and then title small up top and then like why is it all like loosey-goosey like that it's like offset like the BMF yeah text up there yeah it's all just like they're crazy yeah yeah chopped up yeah I like it title bout title fight hey like we don't use bout hey what I think they've been listening to the program can we put that back up yeah yeah yeah the block's gone oh oh that was that was my next thing yeah I like that clean yeah it looks

clean it looks good. Like that? It looks so much better without the blocks. They're still going with the Mars 7 set the British way. I'm cool with that.

It looks so much better than the UFC 325 poster. Yeah. You know, I like the Paramount Plus. The Paramount Plus logo has sort of like Panache, you know, the Paramount, the cursive.

I don't mind that it's on there, obviously. It's a nice looking logo. This is good. I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I like it. Let's keep this going.

This definitely took some real effort. Yeah. I couldn't tell. Are you being serious? Yeah. Okay. Three titles in the lightweight division guys. Yeah, I guess.

Dana White said that he is getting to work on the car. They're working right now in the war room, guys. They're working right now. Here he is talking about the White House planning post-324. One of the big things that's been thrown out multiple. titles for the White House. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Pause, pause, pause, pause. Okay, I forgot about this. I forgot about this.

No, no, no, this is even better. This is even better. Young reporter, I believe his name is Gabriel. He asks Dana White about multiple titles on the card, right? He asks him about multiple titles on the card. Listen to Dana White's response. Listen to how mad he gets about this question. Out, you know, across the schedule over the summer.

Did you hear me say that? That's the rumor that's out there. Oh, from who? Who's the rumor? Where did you see that? A lot of people on the internet. Okay, sounds legit. I literally have not fucking said one thing about the White House and that we're not even talking about it, thinking about it or anything until Monday.

He asked that thing about the White House card. He said it's going to be one of the biggest cards of all time. But yes, maybe specifically he did say they're going to wait until after this card is over. But this young reporter was saying multiple title fights and he got a little bit annoyed and then he asked who said that and he didn't really have an answer from people online rumors where have we heard this before multiple title fights on the white house card is it just rumors is it just internet innuendo is it just nonsense online where have we where have we well we're going to have a lot of events you know one of the things you're going to have here is some of the ufc press you're going

have the fighters coming over talking about the fights it's a big deal the ufc on june 14th it's going to be June 14th next year wait for it and they're building an arena the great dan white white's building an arena wait for it and they're going to have eight or nine championship fight the biggest fights they've ever had everyone's a championship fight and everyone's a legendary type of fight he's actually holding back fights right now oh for six months so he can do it for this uh the 250 i think 250 is going to be amazing i think the arena is going to be five or six thousand seats right in front of eight or nine championship fights we're holding fights right now the biggest fights, that's where we heard about it.

So who's lying? It was just weird, like jumping the... Kid didn't have it ready, but the president said it himself. He actually said it himself. Eight or nine championship fights. That's where we heard it. Do I think there's going to be eight or nine championship fights? No.

Do I think it's going to be the biggest card of all time? Maybe, but... I mean, like, what would make it the biggest fight of all time? I guess if you made like Jones, Pereira, I just don't think it's going to happen that way. I really don't. We've had some pretty big cards. UFC 100 was big. 200 was slated to be big.

300. You think? No, I was going to make a joke, but I don't feel like dealing with that. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We now enter that period. And the big question is, why were they waiting for 324 to play out? What was it about 324 that they needed to know? the answer to in order to start working on this card.

Dana White also talking about Zufa boxing. Over the weekend, he was obviously very excited about this. Here's a quote about Zufa boxing. Oh, okay. There's a Dana White Zufa boxing thing here on the list. Are you sure? We're going to chat. We'll effort it.

How about that? We do have Eddie Hearn talking about Zufa boxing. He's going to be on the program tomorrow. Here he is. Eddie, Eddie knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. He does a great thing of like compliment and then subtle jab. He's very good at it.

Here he is. I think, and I've said it before I say it again, I think Dana White, TKO, Nick Kahn, all these people in boxing, is great for boxing. These are very experienced, very powerful people, and they've seen an opportunity. I think one of the really interesting things when I look at the business is going to be how the UFC talent roster react to the amount of money that these guys are paying fighters.

I think there'll be a revolt from the UFC fighters, to be honest, because I think they'll be thinking, why are we making so much less than the boxes when the show and the business and the revenue is so much higher? So, yeah, it'd be interesting. I don't know if it's going to work out that way. You're starting to see some fighters saying, hey, they're making me, you know, they're giving me a pay raise. They're making me happy, all this stuff.

So I wonder, but I think he's trying to create chaos, some dissension. Reminder, Eddie Hearn, barring any travel issues, have we heard of anything, Rick, about travel issues? Nope. We'll be in studio tomorrow in anticipation of the Madison Square Garden card that he is promoting this weekend. Frank Warren, also weighing in on Zoufa boxing. This is fun. Here he is. Well, I don't like One Belt, because we've had that years.

in years ago and we know that just didn't work. But look, that's his vision. For me, it's not. I think that there are belts there. You'd get unification fights. They happen in unification. You find out who the champion is. And the governing body is independent

in its rankings and ratings. They decide who's going to be fighting. They put fights out to perspids and they go out on the open market and whatever. I think their vision is basically a UFC of boxing. Yeah. But that's his view and he's a very astute man

and a very, very clever man. As for the weights, I totally disagree with that altogether. And obviously... For obvious reasons, because I've been around a long time and I've seen guys who struggled to make weights. I've seen deaths in the ring from people who suffer from dehydration. And that's the reason junior weights were brought in some fights.

That's the reason you had the rings at a certain size and not small rings and all this. You know, at the end of the day, you know, it's about the boxer's health and well-being. Ultimately, if you're a boxing fan, I think it's a fascinating time. I think a new player isn't a bad thing, and I think a new player also raises everyone else's game.

Usually when there's competition, everyone ups their game. It's part of the reason why I wish that there was competition in MMA. There isn't really any competition, at least not in North America. So all in all, I think that, it's a great story to cover it's going to be a great time to cover this sport there's a lot of disruption going on there's

this new entity coming in and who is Turkey going to align with in the end fascinating stuff speaking of rankings our rankings are up right now over on uncrown.com the number one on biased combat sports site in the world

here's the men rankings Islam still one, Ilya two Hamza three, Pantosia 4 Tommy Aspinall 5, Jan 6, Pereira, 7, folk, 8, Marab, 9, Armin 10. Any movement there? I wonder. What about on the women's side of things? I do believe there is movement.

We've got Valentina 1, Kayla Harrison 2, Zhang Wei 3, Chris Cyborg 4, Dakota Dichava 5, Natalia Silva 6, McKenzie Dern up 1, 7, Manofuro, down 1. Aaron Blanchfield, up to 9. Sike O'Zawa, down to 10. So there you have it on the women's side of things. And perhaps the best thing that we saw in social media all week long, there was a young fighter named David Goldenberg.

Actually, not that young, right? I mean, he's kind of in his early 30s, I think. He's 33. David Goldenberg won on a tough enough card. Now, in attendance for this card, was Dana White, Hunter Campbell, other UFC employees? because a UFC employee is working his way up the ranks. What's this young man's name?

He scored a crazy UFC employee tough enough. There's a UFC employee named. Wait for it. Sal Everett. He beat a power slap veteran, improved to 2 and 0, and won in like, he won in like a matter of like four seconds, I think it was. And anyway, on the broadcast, he wins.

We went to this tough enough show. It's a great show if you're ever in Vegas, very intimate. They show Dana and Hunter up in the balcony cheering him on. He works for the UFC. Anyway, Mr. Goldenberg used this as an opportunity to get on the microphone and shoot his shot. And I think it might have been the worst shot shooting of all time. Take a listen. Hey, Sean Shelby, Hunter Campbell.

And who's the third musketeer? The bald guy, kind of looks like a bloated Mr. Clean. What's his name? Dean Don, Dino. Dana White. Better wake up, motherfuckers. Next big thing is here to get your checkbook ready. Let's make some money.

I mean, I heard that, and I was like, you clearly want to be in the UFC, and you decided to insult Dana White in order to get him to notice? Like, you know he had to have been back there being like, all right, I'm going to do a little reverse psychology. These guys like to swear. I keep it real. keep a real. I'm going to insult him. Call him a bloated Mr. Clean. Tell him to get his checkbook ready because he's missing out on the next big thing. And in case you're wondering,

if it worked, in case you're wondering if Dana White actually enjoyed this callout, here's what he had to say on social media, worst fight of the night, stunk the place up with his performance, and then talks like he put on the fight of the night. The fight after his was a women's fight that made his fight look even shittier. This guy I guess this is the name, Smilia Fairtex blows scrappy douche out of the water. Oh, I think that's another

fighter. Okay, blows scrappy douche out of the water. Or maybe that's his guy, Sal. Yeah, he's saying whoever it is blows David Goldenberg out of the water. Now, Dane Don, Dino!

That's a great... I actually watched it like 10 times. It was so bad. I mean, it's like, well, What have you called? Like, promotional malpractice? That is it. You are ruining your career by doing this. But, I mean, I got a good laugh out of it.

What about? That handle belongs to Smilia Sundell, who must be the women's fight he was referring to blowing out of the water. Because she fought on that. How do you feel, like, did we, the women's fight line? You know, like I, I, I, yeah, it wasn't the right. Yeah. It's almost like when Tony Kahn said that, like, like, that what do you say that, something about Tony Chavani and me

remember I was like well you just insulted your own guy you know like when you try to make a point by insulting someone he's saying even shitty women's fights are better than your right which is not the way to go he said I make Tony Chivani look like a real journalist so I'm like wait a second who's this insult towards

that was so weird like you could have just said that was the worst call out of all time and not take a crap on the women it actually I think it's up there for the worst call it is awful Do you think he thought that it would work? I mean, we see people...

Obviously, he wouldn't have done it. No, maybe he doesn't want to be in the UFC, and he's trying to like just... No, because he tells him to get the checkbook. I know, but maybe... You're missing out on the next big thing. We see people in the UFC cutting promos that they think work that don't, so... Yeah. There's Joaquin Buckley calling out Connor McGregor, and then there's David Goldenberg calling out Dana White.

Beno, Dino. Dina. Dana? Wake up motherfuckers! Get the checkbook! You want to be a decision, right? Won't be a decision. In the most boring fight on the card apparently. Wow, wow. Now, here's a thing. I'm the next big thing. He's

33 years old. Did it work, though, because we're talking about, everybody's talking about it, or did it not work? Like, I don't think he was getting signed by the UFC anyway. That's what I think. I think he thought, I mean, look, he's on the... No, he did not think he was going, well, maybe he thought he was going to the UFC, but the reality is he was not going to

the UFC. What I'm saying, though, is did the attention part work? You know, did we all tune into this? Maybe it was subliminal messaging and that Don was pointed at Don Davis, and this is to get a PFL guy. He's out. Oh, no, he wrote the

speech before Don was out. That was wild. That was wild. It was a horrible fucking promo. By the way, the first time I saw it on Twitter, I was like, what? What just that? Also, The idea that you know who Hunter Campbell is. Yeah, oh yeah.

But you don't know who Dana White is. Yeah, that is weird. But why would you think to insult him? I want to get Shale Sunn's thoughts on this promo. That's what I really want. Old guy. It really is promotional malpractice. I mean, honestly, it's not.

It's just a massive fumble. It's just a massive fumble. Trust me when I say, no one holds a grudge better than Dana White. If he hated that, he will hold that grudge. also like what like you Dana White does not give the vibes as a woman that would watch that and be like yeah get this get a contract

what's that thing that thing there's like better learn how to speak Chinese like people say that about people you're going to get cut from a game ready to learn Chinese yeah yeah yeah yeah getting cut from this guy you're going to get ready to learn PFL but yeah exactly you know is PFL even interested in a 33 year old

what's his record right 33 is still pretty young come no he's 2 and oh we're awaiting the results that already happened to tough enough it's on the back end akin to the Zufa boxing numbers, the tough enough results, they take a minute coming on top. Okay, he's 3 and O at 33 years old.

He's not got a lot of time here. Yeah. I'm O&O at 32, so I got the whole road ahead. If you get three fights in this year, you'll be equal to him, and you can shit on Dana White to his face and then hopefully get signed. By the way, what about Dan Hooker just casually dropping

that he broke his nose? Am I wrong? You being like, that's crazy, and he's like, no, it isn't. I do it all the time. I did not see that anywhere before. No, no. He mentioned that before.

He's like, yeah. But then what about the thing? He's like, oh, you got to get cleared for this fight. He's like, you let me fight that other one with the broken nose. So how could I, like, what do I need to get cleared for? I already fought with the broken nose. It is kind of a good point on his part. That was a wild thing.

I'm seeing here, Cubs Swanson saying he's fighting, or at least posted a graphic with April 11th, which is UFC 3-2. Didn't Cubs Swanson retire, or am I wrong about that? I thought we spoke to him about this. am I crazy? I don't know where to post it. I don't know if he said he retired, but he posted on Instagram?

Oh, he hasn't officially retired. I thought he said he was considered, okay, I guess not. Nobody officially retired. Yeah, slightly leaning April 25. All right, well, hey, Cubs the man. Shout out to him. Evan Vichaelos must be gutted.

That was his fight. Yes. And is he fighting like a week prior to that or March 28th, right? Yeah, two weeks before. usually we throw to super chats now but before we do that I just want to speak to Frank real quick

oh boy Frank what's going on man I'm sorry for what can we can we go to super chats I just feel like please please can we go to super chats what I just want to say I'm sorry what I'm actually being

I feel like I got us off on the wrong foot today. Speaking of feet, had a marathon of MMA hour in the Ariel Romani show this weekend. Most heated interviews when you break down

most talk subjects in general, best moments and more. Are we done? Frank. Nobody's dumb here, man. Come on. But Frank, I'm sorry. I feel like you're mad.

Very few drops today. I feel like this is your way of saying that you're upset and you have every right to be. So I'm sorry. I'm being sincere. They want me to keep reading. So I'm going to.

I will have the honor to help out Advent tomorrow. First of all, Sammy, Was it Sammy? Yeah. Who's telling you to keep read? Both. No.

Andy and Jordan. Are you mad at me? No. Are we still friends? You're making me mad by doing this. Why? Let's move on. Why?

I want to know if we're still friends. Can we finish reading this? What is what? You're being weird right now. All right, you're grounded. First one. You the guy paid 100 bucks. I might as well read it.

I read it to you. I want to answer it. 100 Swedish crows. Oh, wait. What? No, the previous guy. Wasn't it the same guy? I was Sammy. Sammy sent in multiple today. No, what was his first comment?

Yes, had a marathon of M.M.A. on there. I want you to the week, most heated interviews when you break down most talk subject. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And now another one. Why is it a different color? Different amount. I'll have the honor to help out at an advent tomorrow here, my home city in Sweden for Holocaust Remarment Station. Sammy's the man.

I love Sammy. We love Sammy over here. What else, Frankie? Thank you, Sammy. Thank you. Use Paramount. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. I tried this. You go on Amazon.

It makes you sign up for it. There's no login function. I tried to do that. Everyone told me this. You can buy Paramount Plus through the Amazon as a partnership. Yes. You can watch it. But yes, you're right.

You'd have to have two accounts then. Yeah, what the hell? Philly. This is a problem. You know people there. Can you ask them? I've asked, they tell me, you don't work here anymore, but. It's crazy. What else, Frankie? What else? Hell no. And by the way, can I just tell you, Frank? I really appreciate the way you're reading these. I think you're doing a great job. Dude, seriously?

What? Hell no, we do not care that much about walkouts and bad corner advice. Well, Mixed Marshall, Mike, I think you're in the minority on this one. You care more about advertisements than those things. Yeah. Bad corner advice, by the way, like, I like the corner advice, and I think it's actually useful at times. And it's given us some iconic moments. He's kind of crazy. Like, hell no. I want more ads. Yeah.

Wait, bad corner advice is also just important as good corner advice. So when we come here Monday, we're like, what the hell do they just tell them? Yeah, that's a great point. Great point. Good or bad. Whatever access we get to that stuff. By the way, you tried, Jordan was telling me he tried the multi-cam view. Oh, yeah. I dabbled a little bit, but correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's kind of cool if you can choose the audio. You know what I mean?

Like if you're like, oh, I like what's going on camera. Like if it's Tim Welch in camera three and I could click on that and now I get to listen to Tim Welch for a whole round, that's kind of cool, right? Yeah, but then you don't have to listen to the advertisers and then they kind of defeats the point. Well, no, no, no, but correct me if I'm wrong, if you go to multicam, no ads. Am I wrong? No, they have the ads in the... On all four boxes? Yeah, but the other ones.

Yes, but if you could choose the audio, then you don't have to watch the other ones. They only care about it running and getting in front of us. They don't. I don't think the advertisers feel the same way, Ariel. I thought they... I think they actually want their message to be heard. All right, fine, fine, fine.

What else, Frankie? What else? Thanks for bringing attention to the PIP issue. Oh. I couldn't watch my pets beat the chargers on the app on their way to the server. I like a fraud. I like the guy. I like the hand off.

New York for Cardo. It could not be a New England fan. Love it. New York Ricardo and also that doesn't make any sense for the pip issue. He got me. You did get me. Fair play, you got me.

I can't believe you'd read that, Frank. Can I just say one thing? It's sickening. It is sickening. The cakewalk that you guys have I mean like that you've received en route to the Super Bowl, it's sickening. It's truly sickening.

I can't believe it. I can't believe that you had to be Jared said. You guys were trying to convince me he's a gunslinger, he's a gunslinger. They were never going to lose that game. It doesn't snow? Jared Stenham throws five bucks. He's slinging it.

They win that ball game. You want to hear something even sicker, honestly? It's going to make you upset. Yeah. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson. Yes, yes, Sam Donald. Yes, I know, I know. Same draft.

I'm aware. Trust me, I'm aware. I'm aware. None of this makes sense. None of this makes sense. None of this makes sense. The Jets really fumbled, Darnold. Nah, he wasn't going to be that way.

their system. There's no way. Sanchez fumbled it off the bus. No, no. He wouldn't have been that. He wouldn't have been that. None of this makes sense. He's nice with the Vikings.

He's nice with the Seahawks. I know, but those are two different. Like, the Jets just were not equipped for that. Who's winning this game? The Seahawks are going to crush them. Yeah, I think Seahawks. 55 to 10. Can we get something like that?

I don't know if that bad, but they're going to beat them back. Seahawks win. We're going to the parade, staying in Muckle shoot. Let's do it. I like the good people of Seattle. I have nothing against them. I love all their teams, all the colors.

Yeah, they're all cool people. Like the Mariners, crack. There's some news from Ben Hefner in our tech chat here. Oh, about the PIP? Yeah, about the PIP that he said was in the YouTube chat. Oh. There's a manual PIP option in the P-plus app. If you tap video, use overlay icon in upper right with the diagonal arrow, and you can enable it.

So maybe PIP exists. What are you talking about? What are you doing? That's a lot what you just said. It's a lot. But it exists. I don't believe this. Wait, wait, I want to see.

I want to see. Pop up in a video now, let's see. Okay, but it has to be live, I heard. I heard if it's like a VOD thing, it, there is PIP. You have to have something live playing right now, right? No. Watch live TV, here we go.

Okay, I'm on CBS News 24-7. All right. Wait, what the hell? Now it's just, the PIP just worked. Yo! You just have to hit the button! No, I didn't hit anything. You just swiped?

I just swiped. I feel like for the UFC. Maybe it's different for the UFC. Oh, I'm getting a PIP as well. Yo, did they change it because of me. Yo, the PIP is working. No, no, no, no, this can't be. It can't be that.

It must be for the sports, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not for the sports. I'm saying it might be that they don't let you do it for the... This has to be because it's not live. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, this is live, though. We're watching live, but... No, I, bro.

It doesn't feel... This is crazy. Nah, no, no, it can't be that. How could it be that? Well, what did the guy just say? What would have been just say about, like, from this YouTube person? What'd he say? Someone put in the chat that there's an option.

You have to tap some overlay icon. What does an overlay icon mean? No, look, when you open it up in the top right, see that little one with the arrow pointing diagonal? That's the pop-off. That was not there on Saturday. Wow. That was not there on Saturday. Yes.

Now it works. No, no, no, no. See, I'm not convinced that this is going to be back for the UFC. I don't think so. That button was not there. On any paramount? No, on any paramount. Well, I was going live.

See, this is my concern. You're too excited. You think it's, you think it's just, you know, going to be across everything. Los Angeles. That button was not there. Yeah, I know. Wow.

I'll be there. Love Paramount Plus. You're too happy. Frank, are you excited? I'm very excited. It's crazy. Ariel Hwani. Yes.

People can change. What else, Frankie? What else? What was with the box around the P-plus logo on screen? Which box? Oh, you know what? I noticed that too. The bug had a little box. I felt like they could just have it like

translucent. Didn't they have a boxer on the ESPN logo too? It's crazy that people care so much about this stuff. I know. Who gives... But I did notice that too. It was like a little bit of like a see-through box. What else, Frankie? What else? Could use UFC PPE

for Premium Paramount Event. Now it's tied to Paramount. What if they leave Paramount? No, we can worry about that in seven years. That's true. That's true. PLE. That's the one. I don't know. I mean, it's an actual TKO term. Oh, what else, Frankie? What else? Is Dan Ike's new nickname, Dan 100K?

You know what? Didn't even think of that. I'm pretty sure he, like, tweeted that out. Oh. Doesn't roll off the tongue as well, but... I kind of think the whole thing was kind of silly, to be honest. Like, to base your moniker off of a discretionary fight night bonus? Not I like it.

Oh, what else, Frankie? What else? Number one, thanks for all the content. Number two, why can't UFC still offer a... her event or monthly slash annual add-on to have it ad-free. Three, what prevents the UFC from doing one-off pay-per-views if McGregor chooses to come back? Well, to answer number three, keep it over there. I guess nothing, I guess nothing other than, like, you told his pay-per-view was no more. They're going to want him to be on Paramount Plus because they want people to subscribe, ultimately.

That's what they want. They don't really want one-offs. They want subscribers. You know what I mean? One-off would be great, but they want subscribers. That's the main thing. why can you see still offer a per event or monthly add-on free?

I mean, that would be a Paramount Plus thing and you're welcome. I guess the highest, guys, I don't know what to tell you, but what's the highest, what's the highest, highest level? What's the highest level? Premium.

What is that? How much? How much is it? It was $120 for a year. $120 divided by 12 is... 10 bucks a month. What are we talking about here? What are we talking about?

You're getting at least one numbered event, at least, and then three to four fight nights for $10? Yeah, you can't get rid of the ads. It's built in the broadcast. It would mess up with the pacing and everything. You're just not going to get it ad for it. What else, Frankie? What else?

Sean O'Malley looked like a boss sitting on that sofa during the interview. Shout Sean, hope he is crown champion again. Shout Sammy. What else, Frankie? What else? Happy Australia Day, Mades. Down under on repeat. Oh, wow.

I should have I guess he's not His wife is And what else, Frankie? What else? Hey yo Ariel I need fight pass For old fights and P-plus

As well as they have taken The prelims off a fight pass Aussie fans And now pay more in 2026 I know Canadian fans are upset Ozzy everyone's upset I think at some point Very soon

And when I say very soon In two three years They'll find uniformity And be able to figure this all out For everyone And it will be all on one platform And I suspect they'll be P-plus But yeah

I get it I get it guys by the way, I mean, we're not really crying for you over here in the United States. Like, we've been having to pay pay pay pay pay pay. You know, the UK had to pay pay pay. The irony was UK had to pay pay pay pay per view over the weekend for Patty, and we got it on Paramount Plus, the first time that the roles were reversed. But, you know, them's the breaks, guys.

And what else, Frankie? What else? Ariel, thoughts on the reporter at the Australian Open, catching flag for asking the American players, all those political questions? Just curious on your opinion as a journalist. I mean look, I'm someone who sits here and talks to a lot of people every day from all walks of life. I'm not really asking those types of questions. And it seemed like this reporter who I think works for The Athletic or the Times, kind of one and the same. It seems like this person was, I don't mind someone asking, you're working on a story, right?

I would imagine he was working on a story, so you want to get different views. I don't, I'm not upset about it. I can understand why a player would be up there being like, man, like I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't in this situation. It's a tough one. I don't know. What do you guys think? Anyone have a strong opinion on this?

No, I mean, I thought she handled it well. She was like, it's not relevant. Yeah. It did feel like he was prying to get some sort of answer out of her. Yeah. I know he asked a lot of people. So I don't know if he's trying to do a story on like, this is how people feel about America overseas or something like that. But, you know.

I mean, he's framing it in like, how do you feel about reping the American flag with everything that's been going on in the last year? Yeah. Yeah. No. I can understand why an athlete is sitting up there being like, come on, man. Like, you know, if I say something in support, I'm going to get shit. If I say something going against, I'm going to get shit. And I'll get support and I'll get you.

But I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't in this case. So can you just keep it to the... I think it's different if you're having like a one-on-one with someone and you're able to like kind of talk it out, but in a press conference format, probably not the best place. It's kind of where I'd land. And I don't think it's the most pertinent thing to ask

and relevant thing to ask. What else, Frankie? What else? Travis Knows Ball, Islam, Ilya. Elia. Armin, trifectal. Hell yeah. Shout out. What else, Frankie? What else? And then lastly, Teporia said, UFC has other plans of Gachi wins. Do you know what those plans were? Connor at White House,

could this mean Armid versus Elia in April? I think everything's at play at this point. I think that they're going to, they're going to try to make something spectacular. There are people who aren't MMA fans who are very much in power that are going to say, bring us your best and brightest. And don't forget, Donald Trump was once a promoter. He worked for, you know, he worked with affliction. but the Trump Taj Mahal, like he knows promotion. He's going to say, so the general sort of matchmaking psychology and logic is not, in my opinion, is potentially not going to apply to this card.

But I'll tell you what, I can't wait for June the 15th. I'm tired about it. I'm tired of it already. I'm tired of all this. It's going to be fun. But it is a little bit crazy how, like we're skipping four or five cards just to talk about this one. card. Is there any chance that it's a bus that it just doesn't look cool on TV

and that we just talked about you know, a fight card for the past year and a half? No. No. They're way too invested to make it that. All right. I can assure you we'll have many more days to talk about all of this. So

have no fear. Tomorrow, Andre did I say Andre? Why did I say Andre? I was thinking of Andre Award. Tomorrow, Eddie Hearn in studio and Armand Sarukian and more to come as well. So stay tuned, but I'm very excited about tomorrow's program and OTN on Wednesday this week.

So stay tuned for that. Also want to remind you that on Wednesday we'll be doing our Royal Rumble Lottery. And I also want to remind you that on Saturday, it's the second annual uncrowned day right here at Yahoo Sports. Is that what we're calling it,

or are we calling it uncrowned Saturday? Uncrowned day. It's actually uncrowned day and night, so maybe we should call it Uncrowned Saturday. Because there's Royal Rumble during the day, and then there's 325 and Chakour against Tiafima. So I vote for Uncrown Saturday. Uncrowded. No, it's like Super Bowl Saturday. Super Bowl Sunday, you know what I mean?

I actually with you. I like Uncrown Saturday. It spans the whole day with World Rumble. Yeah. Uncrowned day doesn't like... You guys don't consider this a day? So like when it turns to night, that's not part of the same day. No.

Right. Right. Also, uncrowned day sounds like... weird. Like there's two D's back to back. Uncrowned Saturday makes it feel like Super Bowl Sunday. That's where we're sort of like I'm going to make a call here. I actually think it's called.

Is this like the influencer guy? Your day's. Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Shaheen is weighing in. What's Shaheen saying? Uncrowned Saturday. So, S.O. And so it was written.

If sheen says it. You did it. You got the PIP and now it's uncrown Saturday. What a, what a afternoon for me. Travis Barker's going to sleep tonight listening to you celebrate.

Yeah. Pippin on Crown Saturday. If only I could recapture the love of one Mysterio Frank. Wow, it's going to be awkward back there when I walk back there. Yeah, it is.

Sort of dreading it. I'm going to have to stand over here. Can we, uh... Hey, Frank. And do you know, Frank, well, is he messing around, or is he actually mad he's he's just looks like Frank it's right when have I been upset and not told you oh I'm gonna get a text tonight hey man hey man about that brown out comment earlier

really hope really hoping your cause here if you think he's upset with you that you're just gonna keep making fun of him I'm not making fun yeah yeah totally totally if you had any idea of the love and admiration and respect that I have for Frank in this particular moment it's not in an all-time high because I feel like the music is a little bit too loud and I'm sort of battling it. Yeah, you just raised it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But usually it's very high. Oh, now it's going very low.

Frank, did I ever tell you you're my hero? Everyone, if you're watching us live and you're in the chat, can we get a W for Frank? W's in the chat for Frank. W's in the chat for Frank. W is in the W Frank. Remember pre-show? You were like, and I got this ammunition, and I was like, nah, I was like, no need.

I didn't. You were like, what? What? I got nothing. I don't know what you're talking about. But, you know, what is it? I got nothing. Why are you so short?

Look, everyone. Dan, Dan, Dan, you know. Frankie? Frankie. Thank you very much, John O'Malley, Dan, Hucker, Travis, Parker, much love to all of you. Back to my day. W.