The Ariel Helwani Show - Massive weekend recap, Michael "Venom" Page, Costello van Steenis, Iwo Baraniewski, Shanelle Dyer, UFC London results

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Ariel Helwani is joined by The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll to recap a busy weekend, but first they check in on GC, as he makes good on cooking Venezuelan arepas for the crew (07:42). They transition to UFC London, breaking down Movsar Evloev’s win over Lerone Murphy in the main event, whether Evloev or Jean Silva will fight Alexander Volkanovski next, and the overall response to the card from the UK fanbase (12:45). Next, they touch on Jon Jones’ latest statements regarding negotiations for the White House card, Conor McGregor’s potential return in July, and more (48:01). PFL middleweight champion Costello van Steenis joins to recap his finish of Fabian Edwards at PFL Madrid, talking about fighting on the same card as his brother Gino, Real Madrid stars showing up to the event, wanting to fight Johnny Eblen again, believing he can beat UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev, and more (1:15;12). Iwo Baraniewski makes his show debut following a first-round knockout against Austen Lane in London. He discusses the big win, training with fellow Polish fighter Jan Błachowicz, hoping to have three fights in 2026, getting his start in judo before transitioning to MMA, Jon Jones being his favorite fighter, and more (1:36:22). Michael "Venom" Page is up next, talking about his UFC London performance against Sam Patterson and admitting frustrations, before explaining what potential improvements he could make, whether his recent string of decisions adds pressure, his recent comments about fighter pay, why he felt disrespected with his placement on the card, having one fight remaining on his contract, who he wants to fight next, and more (2:00:14). Shanelle Dyer speaks to Ariel for the first time, reflecting on her impressive UFC debut, then discussing having attended the past six UFC events in London as a fan, starting in Muay Thai after having reservations about MMA, why she parted ways with PFL, getting a post-fight bonus, the story behind her “Nightmare” nickname, and more (2:29:09). Ariel reacts to more news, including the latest verbal jabs between Dana White and Eddie Hearn, Anthony Joshua training with former foe Oleksandr Usyk, BKFC teasing a massive event, Arman Tsarukyan linking up with IShowSpeed and Khamzat Chimaev, and more (3:06:48). The show ends with your Super Chats (3:33:38).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Earth Monday, March 3rd 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be here on a somewhat cold and rainy Monday afternoon in New York City, although it is spring, and that is very exciting. It was a wonderful weekend. Wow, it was a wonderful weekend. I actually spent the vast majority of my weekend in Philadelphia, of all places.

Chester, PA to be exact. right next to where the Philadelphia Union play of MLS. And I have to say I had one of the most amazing weekends that I've had in quite some time. My son Walter and I were traveling back and forth. Saturday, two hours down there, two hours back home. Sunday, two hours down there, two hours back home. He played in the soccer tournament. Actually scored a goal in the final two minutes of his semifinal to beat the fifth ranked team in the state,

which was very exciting. Everyone jumping on him. People are jumping on me. The parents jumping on me. And, you know, I'm surrounded by, and I think other parents out there will recognize this. I'm surrounded by a lot of parents right now, including my brothers, who, you know, their kids are getting older. They're moving out of the house. And they keep reminding me, enjoy this time, enjoy this time, enjoy this time.

So these soccer tournaments, these long drives, these bonding moments, us going to Shays to get a cheese steak, you know, just stuff that I cherish. And at the end of the day yesterday, at the end of the weekend, I was just reflecting how lucky and how grateful and how proud I am of him and my kids and just to be here in life with them as their dad and to go through these things. Just amazing stuff. So I know a lot of parents out there will relate. I know a lot of younger people out there have no idea what I'm talking about. But trust me, there will come a time where you will do anything to be at these games and be with your kids. And you would choose to go to those things much more than any event, any road trip, any type of work thing. This means the world and is so special and so much fun.

That's my little soapbox parent moment for all of you. We do have a lot to discuss. We had a big event over in London. Somewhat controversial, curious to get everyone's taken. It was controversial as far as the main event and the scoring was concerned. But also, let's be honest, that apathy, that malaise seems to be bubbling a little bit. And I recognize that it's a roller coaster. It goes up and down, up and down.

I don't think we'll see that for this weekend's card in Seattle, but I was feeling a lot of it from the great European fans, the passionate and devoted English fans as well, who have been served and who have shown up time and again. I do believe this was the 17th UFC London event, and look, the gate over four million. So they're not going to cry about that. But these are things that kind of build up over time,

and in two, three years, you tend to see the byproduct of today. You tend to see the byproduct of that malaise over time. This is the byproduct of two, three years ago. It takes some time to build up. So we're getting into all of that. Obviously, PTC knows the thing or two about that market, about that fan base. Can't wait to get into all of that and more. Let me tell you about today's program.

And then we'll get into our news and notes. It's a jam-pack day. It's going to be a jam-pack week as well. The boys are going out to the Seattle-Washington area back into the week. So lots to be excited about. Back end of our program. We're going to be joined by Chanel Dyer, who had a tremendous win on Saturday in her UFC debut in London, big time prospect. A lot of people think she is a future title contender, future champion.

A lot of people very excited about her. She is coached by the one and only one punch, Brad Pickett, who had a great night. Nathaniel Wood had a great night as well as a coach. Chanel is someone that a lot of people are high on a former PFL fighter, went to Contender Series. He's actually lost her contender series fight, but UFC's so high on her, signed her up and a tremendous, tremendous win on Saturday. She got a bonus as well.

So we'll get into that. First time I get a chance to speak to Chanel. We'll speak to Michael Venom Page, who was one of the more talked about fighters going into this card and also coming out of the card as well. Obviously, he was on boys in the back. When I was in Italy talking about the state of his contract, the state of his career, not liking this matchup against Sam Patterson.

You saw the fight. You saw that. it wasn't your typical exciting MVP fight. He's upset about it. He is unhappy with it. His contract is coming to an end. It's not over just yet. We know about how he feels about things.

As far as his relationship with the UFC brass, he did walk out to that Michael Jackson song. All I want to say is that they don't really care about us. When I heard that, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought he was diplomatic in the post-flight press conference about that song choice. We'll dig a little deeper into all. All of that and more will speak to MVP at 3 o'clock.

Ivo, excuse me, Baranovsky, hopefully I'm getting that correct, the Polish rising superstar, who had a great win against Austin Lane on Saturday as well. He was phenomenal. He is someone that people are very excited about coming out of Poland.

Obviously, Yanbochovich is getting towards the end of his career, the end of his run, and it seems like they've got a new stud to get excited about. So he'll be on the show for the very first time as well at about 2.35 and at 2.15, the reigning defending PFL middleweight champion, Costello van Stenis, who successfully defended his title on Friday night in Madrid, PFL Madrid, solid show for the PFL. A lot of superstars in attendance from Real Madrid. He defeated Fabian Edwards with those elbows. Kind of came out of nowhere. Interesting game plan from Fabian. In this fight,

just like it was an interesting game plan for Mofsar on Saturday. In the end, though, for Fabian, part of his undoing was his, I don't know, his willingness to wrestle so much. And he got caught with some elbows in transition as he was trying to take Costello down up against the cage. Costello scores the knockout, big win for him. And now PFL turns its attention to a rare head-to-head matchup with the UFC this Saturday. This didn't happen often. Why? Because they were both under the ESPN umbrella.

But on Saturday, March 28th, they're going head-to-head. PFL in Pittsburgh, UFC in Seattle, PFL card not bad. Johnny Eblen against Brian Battles, solid, solid fight, Dalton Rosta on the card as well against Impak and Saganay, a bit of a middleweight tournament, if you will. Obviously, I would think that Eblen would have the inside track, considering he was the former champion and he was also close to beating Costello over the summer in July in South Africa. But let's see how it plays out. I think that PFL is kind of sitting back and saying, okay, whoever looks the best of these four,

The one who kind of shines, the winner who breaks through, whatever the case may be, that guy will get the title shot. So let's see. So we'll talk to, Costel, about all of that and more at about 2.15. There's your lineup right then. And there, I'm excited about today's program. Some new faces, looking forward to getting into all of it. But first, let us get into the weekend and the week that was since we last spoke. Of course, as always, the boys are here with me.

Everyone here, Pizzi, Rick. Hello. DC, not here at the moment. Hello, Pizzi. How are you? Oh, good. How are you? I'm doing great. Okay, okay, okay. Now I remember Pizzi. Now I remember, as you may recall, the World Baseball Classic wrapped up mid last week. There was a very important bet on the table between the pride of the United States,

Connor Birx and the pride of Venezuela, our very own Andy. In the end, Venezuela winning. Do you remember what the stakes were, Pizzi? Do you remember? They're making a repos. then I would say it. The loser has to make arepas. And so I do believe over at Cafe G.C.

He is making areas as we speak. Welcome into Connors' Kitchen, boys. Yeah, we got the, I think I got the dough made. I'm already a little bit lost. I need Andy's help. What consistency am I going for here with the dough, Andy? Let me see, can you just, like, work it, though? Really?

Work it. Let's see. It's a feeling. Don't worry, people. Don't worry people. These are clean hands, freshly washed. Okay. So I got to say in the beginning, I saw you grab a fork, stir it with a fork.

Okay, so I watched the guy on YouTube and he was like, get it a little bit mixed up with a, with a spoon first, and then you need through it. Week. Also, with this, like these, these, these look like they're about baseball sized. Is that what I'm going for on the dough? Yeah, that's definitely what you're going for. The consistency, actually, now that you're needing it a little more, put maybe a tiny bit more water. That's more water, yeah. A little more water. Yep, there. Oh, he's ready with water. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Come on. This is a full.

fully this is a fully stocked kitchen back here. We got two different fillings today, boys, right here. This is pre-made at home. This is a roast chicken with avocados, mayo, mustard, cilantro, a little bit of pickle in there, some hot sauce. It's Andy recommended and Andy approved, and then we're just going to have a plain cheese one for you as well. Wow, wow, wow. Pizza, you're jealous? I'm so jealous. He'll always do the fun of shit. Yeah, I'll never hear. I'm so jealous. It looks magnificent already. I'll just eat it the way then. I'm a little bit nervous.

I can't lie. The dough is tricky. So we'll see what we have. And like as these get made, you know, we'll check in. I'm going to ask you. I want to ask, I want to ask you see. She said put a little salt. Yeah.

Don't be shy with the salt. There it is. He's got everything. I want to ask you an old school question. How long did it take for you to make that chicken thing over there with the avocado? The chicken roasted for about an hour and then mixing everything up took another like 30 minutes. Okay, okay. Like 90 minutes.

And then what are you doing? You're putting in that thing over there? This, we're going to bowl this up. Yeah. Which is going to create the shell. We're going to fry these up. It's going to be delicious golden brown. And then we're going to open them up, stuff them with this.

And then we're also going to have some cheese options as well. Oh my gosh. Can I just ask Andy? I mean, Andy, is a proud Venezuelan to see this site right here. Your great country's flag represented, Mr. G.C. With the cooking with Vogue apron, by the way. Shout out. I guess you can't really see it.

I got the belt. going there. Shut up. What are the emotions here? You must be filled with pride and joy. Oh, man. I was so excited when I saw that he brought all the flags. Because originally I was like, I have a flag that I can bring. We can put it up. And he was like, I just went ham and bought all the and he meant it. He meant it. I still got a couple more flags. There's treats the all. You'll have to see that when the final product comes out. Is this what we're thinking here, Andy? Like this size? Let's go a little bit bigger. A little bit bigger. Okay. And then I just put the, I'm just going to put the balls in each and then smash them down. Yeah, get the balls in there. Yeah, so we'll have you do.

It's just having to do. It looks like a mutts a ball, by the way. Just in time for Passover. Oh. Oh, what do we got? What do we got? Sorry, we had a bit of a technical issue here, guys. Wait, wait, wait, we're working on it.

We're working on it. Can we go to the backup camera? There we go. There it is. How do you feel about those particular round things, Andy? So I feel like he's, you're doing a pretty good job, but what I am going to have you do at some point is shape one as if you didn't have the adipeda because that is, I wouldn't say it's called cheating, but it's definitely a shortcut. So usually we would put these on a pan, like a, it's called a Budare, but it's like a pan. Cast iron is the closest thing that I can say it would be like.

Okay, okay. And then we would cook it on there. At my house, we do that and then we throw it in the oven. Obviously, this is the cafe at work, so we can't do all that. I love hearing the sizzle. next best thing. And he's crushing. Honestly, crushing it. I love hearing the sizzle and I love seeing like the little stubble on

Vogue's chest over there. It's really... Shout out to him. I know. I would be shirtless under this, but it would be an embarrassment. My physique compared to Vox. And just for the record, is there anything in the balls right now or you do that after? Put them in after. Yeah, we're going to open it up afterwards. Well, this is phenomenal. Okay, so

we'll check in with G. He's slaving away. I'm even happier now that Venezuela beat the U.S. because it would have been very hard for Andy to do this. and TD the show at the same time. She could have done it. She could have, but it would have been a little bit challenging, so this is perfect. We'll check in with them throughout, and I do believe we will

try them in honor of the great country of Venezuela who defeated the U.S. last week in the World Baseball Classic. So this is very fun. It's a great day here on the program. I want to talk about the main event, though, guys. First things first. Mofsarev-Luev, or as everyone's calling him now, Yivloev, defeating Lerone Murphy.

You know, I actually rewatched it this morning, as many people did, including Rick. Very interesting, though, to listen to it with the commentary, because the commentary was telling you that he needed a finish, Mofsar did come the championship rounds. In the end, he didn't. He did lose a point. One judge had it 47, 47.

The two others had it 48, 46. I rewatched it this morning, so I feel very confident in saying who I thought won the fight and how I scored the fight. Guys, I scored it three rounds to two for Mofsari Loev. first round, fourth round, fifth round. However, he does lose the point in the fourth round after the second nutshot, which I thought Mark Goddard did a tremendous job.

He said, I don't want to be involved. You're making me involved. I have to take the point away because it was the second nutshot. And so as a result of that, I feel comfortable, very, very comfortable in saying that I thought this was a 47-47 draw. I don't know how you have it four rounds to one. I guess I kind of know you can maybe go first round. third round, fourth round, fifth round

for Moffsar. I had second and third for Lorone and it was a very, can I say it was a very frustrating and somewhat depressing fight to watch and I'll tell you guys why I thought it was depressing.

It was very clear to me if you didn't know the backstory, if you just know who Moffsar is, right? You just know his style you know a good he is taking fighters to the ground, his grappling, he's suffocating, right? If you just knew that

but didn't know about the whole title shot, drama that he was passed over and all this stuff. I honestly think that you could have thought and you would have been fair in thinking that this fight was fixed. And I'm not saying it was fixed, but it was so bizarre to see this guy

who is so good at grappling, not shoot once until later in the fight. What was going on here? And there were many opportunities to do those. There were many entries open for him to take him down. And you notice after, so he did a once in the third, I do believe, point taken away in the fourth. And you notice, within less than 30 seconds of the point being taken

away, he says to himself, all right, I need to wake up here. He takes him down with ease. Why he did not do that in the first, in the second, throughout the third as well. I'll tell you why. It's because something was planted in his head. And there were interviews of his manager, Ali Abdel Aziz, just totally like slagging him off as if he was the UFC brass, saying, hey man, you're not very exciting. You're not getting a title shot because you're not very exciting. try to do something on the feet. I thought he looked uncomfortable on the feet, the looping overhand shots,

the spinning back fist shots that were never landing that seemed somewhat uncomfortable for him. This guy is a dominant grappler, and he was not doing what he was best at, and as a result of that, the fight was looking the way in which it did. The first round was super close.

I had Lorone winning the second and third. You even heard Mike Brown say to him like, hey, once you get him up against the cage, you can take him down. Don't worry, don't worry, I got it. It was very clear that he thought to himself, I'm going to turn it on when I need to turn it on. Let me see if I can knock this guy out.

It didn't really feel to me like he respected what Lorone was bringing to the table and felt like he could win the fight whenever he could. If he asked the commentary team, he was losing the fight going into the championship rounds, but clearly he wasn't. Clearly, two, the judges had it 49, 46, take the point away, you got 4846. And obviously one judge did not had it 48, 47. With the point deduction, it's 47 47. but I thought it was a very uncomfortable

it was a sad thing to watch here's a guy who's undefeated at the top of his game this close to fighting for the belt who really let's be honest should have fought for the belt already. He should have fought for the belt if we're being 100% honest either in February or last year

saying hey I need to betray all of that I need to abstain from doing what I'm great at what got me here what got me to this undefeated spot both guys going into this fight by the way, 36 fights under their belt, never been beaten before. That's an incredible combined resume.

And he was just up there turning into a sort of kickboxer. It was bizarre to watch. It was an awful game plan and it could have backfire tremendously. And here you have the byproduct of the UFC not giving title shots to those who are most deserving. We are in the day and age of the UFC giving title shots to the most entertaining, to the ones who are going to sell, to sometimes the least deserving. And so while a lot of people are rolling their eyes at John Silva saying, hey, I'm next, I'm going to do this, I'm that, I'm going to give the contract to Hunter Campbell, all that stuff. I'm not rolling my eyes. I think there's a very good chance. In fact, Dana White was asked about John Silva and he was playing coy. Now he plays coy either way, hard to really get any sort of read out of that. But John Silva, funny for the belt, next is a strong possibility. Obviously it should be Mofsar, and obviously he's done enough. And even if I had it 47, 47, he's, He gets to win. You got to move on.

It's a tournament. He's the most deserving guy, obviously. But in this day and age, you're telling me that it's Fedocomplee that John Silva's next? Absolutely not. Excuse me, that Moffar is next and that it's not John Silva. Absolutely not. That's the world that we're living in here. That's what the sport has become.

And that's why there are people in the world of boxing who say we can't have a Zufa boxing belt because there needs to be some kind of meritocracy. I know that it's screwy in boxing as well. I'm not an idiot. I know that Manny Pachia gets a title shot after being away for five years and he's 47. It's crazy, he gets ranked. Ryan Garcia is coming off a loss. I'm not going to pretend that boxing is perfect.

But here, in this world, on this side of the fence, it's just two or three guys who are like, yeah, that fight makes more sense. That fight is better. And so what you saw was, in a very sort of awkward way, a Mofsar, who clearly wasn't comfortable, who maybe even his corner didn't feel like this was the move, trying to do something outside of his comfort zone to seal the deal. It didn't work, clearly. So he had to go back to the bread and butter to,

actually seal the deal back into the fight, and he wins the fight. Pizzi, your post-fight Pizzi, you did a great job with the post-fight wrap-up. It was old-school crack Pizzi there on Saturday night, which I loved. It was great to see, and I think the fans appreciated it as well. Have you had a chance? Well, okay, for those that missed it, how did you score it, and how do you feel about that score on this Monday afternoon? I scored the first three rounds for Laurent, then four and five for Evaluf. And, yeah, I think it's an acceptable score card. I do think, the only clear rounds are two, two, four, five, Lorone for two, four, five, Evloev,

and I think one and three are very close rounds. And I believe that the judges were split on the first round. Derek Cleary gave it to Lorone and Ben Cartledge and the other guy has escaped me now, Clemens, I think. They gave it for Lorone. And like, that's the reality situation. I don't think it's a robbery either way. You know, this is just an incredibly close fight.

And that's the way the cookie crumbles. Like, and I think Chuck, I don't know if you saw Chuck Mendenhall's column about this. I think he put it very, very well. I'm going to read directly from it because I felt, this is how I felt watching the fight. So I think it did skew me a bit. He's speaking about Evelwev's lack of wrestling and the fact that we were expecting that from round one. He said, it was a weird fight.

The fight game's version of a card trick that makes you think back to when you, back to what you just saw. Did we bamboozle ourselves by fixating on what we weren't seeing? rather than what we were. And I do feel like there was an element of that as well. I agree with you that Laron's a better technical striker as well. So maybe I'm watching the first round and I just think his technique is better.

I think he's landing better and that's why I go from there. And the third round, I think Lerone's winning the round up until the end where Evloev has a big flurry that seems to land dramatically on Lerone just before the bell ends. So yeah, I think it's a confusing fight as well as that with the point that you mentioned.

I don't think it's a robbery either way. I think I was just geared up for Lorone to win the fight. And, you know, when you're jumping straight on to do a show by yourself and you don't have beautiful people like yourself and Rick to check me on what I'm saying, you can go to run away with yourself. But I think it's a close fight. I think the only crazy take here is,

this guy definitely won. How dare you say this or that? This is what happens at the highest level. And I agree with you too that it is quite depressing that we're in a situation where these two guys, Two guys could have fought for a fight, fought for a title before this. They didn't.

We see a guy changes style, perhaps to help himself on those title stakes. And the reality is we're coming out thinking, I don't know if he's going to get the title shot. And I was saying this a lot on the post show. I don't know if he's going to get the shot. I believe in meritocracy. I like that.

I would like to see these guys fight for titles. But the reality of the situation is John Silva might be a more attractive option for the UFC. Yeah, I mean, now Lerone enters a, a category alongside a fellow Brit, Arnold Allen, who was undefeated in 10 straight fights. Lorone, unbeaten, had the draw in 10 straight, and doesn't get a title shot as a result, which is just a sad state of affairs. Rick, you watched it, then you watched it again and scored it differently, correct? Yeah, the first time I watched it, I had Lorone winning the first two rounds and Movsar winning the final three,

which with the point deduction would mean a draw. So I had it 47 47 in real time. watching it again, I felt pretty strong about MovSar edging the first round. I watched it again and I'm not about to, I know this is very common to say like the commentary influenced me, this influenced me. I just watched it the first time and had it that way. Watching it the second time, I had the same commentary on and I thought pretty clearly that I had Movstar winning that first round. And so that would mean, and then the rest I had the exact same way. So I had Mobsar winning one, three, four, and five for a 48-46 card. Who's fighting for the belt next, in your opinion?

Well, I think you put it perfectly, which is, or actually, you said earlier, you feel like it could have backfired. What I would actually argue is it did backfire. And that is, if you are Evoev, right? And ultimately, you're going to wrestle anyway, right? You're going to end up having to wrestle in part of the third round. And then the majority of the four, fourth and fifth round, you didn't all of a sudden overnight become John Silva. You are not a Tasmanian devil of violence. You are not this like whirlwind striker. You're still not a better striker than Lerone Murphy. And so it was a half measure, right? You kind of, it seemed like in the first two rounds he was trying to make the point that I can stand what Lerone Murphy and beat him

at his own game. I think he had some success in that realm. As I said, I gave him the first upon rewatch. But if at the end of the day, you were ultimately going to have to go back to the wrestling, you didn't accomplish the goal of showing your dominance, which you've shown to this point, right? Very few people have been very competitive with Moussar. Al Jemin Sterling had a very competitive grappling match with him, but most of the time Moussar is controlling these fights. He didn't have that dominance again.

And then if you look at the other side of it, he didn't prove to be any more exciting. I don't think anybody's coming out of this fight going, oh my God, I can't wait to see this guy fight next. It was kind of a ho-hum thing. He did what he needed to do, but it didn't put him into a category of being some kind of highlight real level striker

like we know Jean Silva to be, right? So I think he ultimately lost in every direction. He didn't show the dominance, the thing that makes you undeniable, the thing that Habib had, where regardless of the fact that he was controlling people in the grappling, that he was unstoppable, he was undeniable.

And I think Mossar could have been that. If he decided to grapple with Lorone Murphy for the entirety of this fight, I think he would have showed that there's levels to this game, and he just didn't showcase that, nor did he show that he's more exciting than the other option. And so I feel like he actually lost in this scenario from that perspective. He kind of tried to cut the baby in half and ended up just ruining the whole thing.

And now I think they're going a different direction. Yeah, I do. What did he show you that's any different than his past fights that makes you go, ah, now, okay, I finally see it. What did he do that made you say that? If you're the UFC? No, I mean, other than just winning against the guy. But he could have dominated Lorone Murphy.

Let's call it what it is. All due respect to Lerone Murphy, he could have ragdolled him for five rounds. It was very clear by the end of that fight. That if he wanted to, he could have done whatever he wanted to with Lerone Murphy and the grappling. And that would have been more impressive to me.

And don't get me wrong. If the UFC brass would be asked if they'd like to see that style, they wouldn't. But the alternative is this half measure thing that didn't do anything for me. It didn't make me think, all of a sudden he's a much more exciting fighter.

It also makes me wonder if he's in a fight with Alexander Volcanowski, is he going to do the same thing? Is he going to strike for two rounds and then try and wrestle? Or is he going to go in there and try and grapple him the whole time? It didn't make me any more confident

and anything differently. I think, to your point, he is a fantastic fighter. He is an elite fighter. He is possibly the best featherweight. GC and I were talking about if you're taking futures on the champion of the featherweight division,

Mavsar was the one that I said I would take right now to be champion. And so nothing in that regard changed for me, but nothing also changed for me in the excitement level. If the mission was to be more exciting, it wasn't any more exciting. It was exactly the same.

It was just less grappling. Listen to these names. Lorone Murphy, Al Jermaine Sterling, Arnold Allen, Diego Lopez, Dan Yiquet, Hakim Dawoodoo, Nick Lens, Mike Grundy, Enrique Barzola. That's the UFC run,

Sung Wu Choi is the first. And the fact that we're in this position, but that's what it is. It's no longer a meritocracy. It just isn't. me throw it back out to you guys. Do you agree? Did he, did he do anything? It was, I was actually more excited. I was uncomfortable watching him because I knew that he was doing this only because he even said it in the post-fire. This is, this is perfect, perfect. Here's Mossar, Post-Fight press conference sending a

message to Dana White. He tells you how he feels. He feels underappreciated. He feels like the UFC and Dana in particular does not like him. Here's what he had to say in the Post-Fite press conference. Dana White was here earlier and he said that potentially you are the next matchup for the champ Volkanowski. Do you feel good about him saying stuff like that? Thank you, Uncle Dana, for saying this because before you only hate me, like he's saying hate to me. I don't even think Dana said all that much hate, but I think it was planted in his brain that, hey, the reason why you're not getting this, they don't like you, they don't like your style. You guys saw that clip of Ali, his manager saying this. He's got no highlights.

So he went in there trying to create a highlight. The problem is he's not that fighter. And so it was very awkward to watch because you knew he could take Lorone down with ease and he did so back into the fight. And so in the end, listen, I'd like to think that they'll make the right call, but I have no faith in that. And the better fight, by the way, I don't even know if the better fight. I think Alex versus him will be a fine fight because Alex is just a gamer and I love watching him compete at this stage. But yeah, the crazier fight, the more electric fight, the more fun fight probably is John Silva.

It probably is at this point. But did Mavsar do anything to change your mind? All I took away from that fight was if he wrestled, he would have been more successful. I didn't need him to change my mind. That's my point. But his goal was to change people's mind, right? That's what got planted in his head. And I do want to be fair.

Dana White did actually like explicit. One of the most confusing things in recent history was after the Arnold Allen fight, Dana White saying that that was like the worst fight he's ever seen, which I could not have disagreed with more. It was completely fine. It was just... It was bizarre. So he has to think about that, right?

But I don't think he did anything to change anybody's mind here. That's the problem. If that was his mission, he wasn't unsuccessful in my mind. Go ahead. So Dana White is there. And I'm getting messages from people in the building. People are leaving before the championship round start. Not just like a few people are getting up.

the way out to this gym is a line of people and Dana Wood is sitting there watching this as this guy is trying to stake his claim at the title that certainly won't help you either that really won't help what a bizarre scene that whole show was right I mean to talk about this market this venue this whole territory

being red hot just a few years ago and now to see let's be honest the state of the card the lack of depth the lack of names the booing during the MVP fight the malaise during the main event people seemed like a little bit I saw the footage of people leaving I saw the empty seats

Ptze you know this mark you've been there before I was there for Bissping versus Silva in 2016 Anderson Silva I've never heard a louder crowd I was there UFC 120 when Carlos Condit and Dan Hardy fought I've never heard a louder crowd before to see how far the O2 events have come is also depressing

it's equally depressing and again people will talk about the gate and all that stuff, you won't feel it today. You're going to feel it in two, three years because I took the temperature of people in the morning and asked them like, you know, what was your, what was your grade or like your one to ten? What are you giving this card on paper before? Dana loves to say, oh, you know, you can't judge a card. No, we could judge it on paper and then it could exceed our expectations. I got a lot of twos and threes and fours. And maybe that's a lot of negative nancy's out there, but I certainly didn't see a lot of like, oh, banger, underrated.

you don't know ball if you're not excited about this type of card. How could it have come this far? And can I just suggest one thing, PT? Can you bring PT up there for a second? I want to talk to. Like, I feel like the UFC needs to rethink its strategy for these cards. Izzy versus Pfeiffer would sell out the O2 just like this. It seems like they feel like they have to load it up with British fighters.

I don't think they do. The O2 and London is a very multicultural. eclectic place. Just like you go to Montreal with JDM versus Belal, you could go to the O2 with Izzy versus Piper. You know what I mean?

And I feel like they keep trying to like put this square in a circle. There just aren't those names right now and you have Arnold fighting a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas. So if you're not going to have the big stars like Aspinall who wasn't even in attendance for goodness sakes

and I can't wait to find out why, just make the best fights possible for that market. And I think the market will be just fine. I think the fans would actually prefer that. would they not? Yeah, and look, like there's an issue here where, you know, they had some great UK performance, no doubt about you,

going to talk Chanel later, Nathaniel Wood was unbelievable, Mason Jones, you go on and on. But there's also like a less of a track to get to the UFC now. With Contender Series, it's taken away from the regional scenes quite a lot. So you have people rushed into these spots to fulfill, like, you know, the demand, so to speak. I agree with you that. Say, I always think that Aspinall v.

Volkov was the best UFC London card because it was after the pandemic. And they just had the bases loaded with talent. Arnold Allen against Dan Hooker, Paddy Pimbled on the card, Molly, everything like that. These people were like household names. You know, I thought Luke Royley, I think he's a future star. I think he'd be the face of the UK in a few years, no doubt about it. But just kind of slotting him into the Paddy roll and being like he's the new Patty. Patty was a star before he got to the UFC.

He'd be stopped walking down the street in Liverpool. I'm sure Luke is too. and people are really high on Luke. This is no way to disparage him. I think he's brilliant. But it just doesn't feel like it has the same layers, the same matchmaking doesn't seem to. Like, I've said this to Rick and GC a few weeks ago

when we were doing a show. The matchmakers used to have a real finger on the pulse with what they were doing, and they'd pair people together where, you know, and you've been here, I've been beside you watching these fights, Ariel, where pay-per-views, whatever it may be, they just have a fight together there

that make you go, holy shit. I can't believe this has happened. Like you're nearly shaking anticipation. It doesn't really happen that much. That said, there was for Haricor's two fights there, particularly, Mason Jones, and Mason Jones and Axel Solo, obviously Ares champion v Cage Warriors, double champion, the first double champion since Connor McGregory and Nathaniel Wood, the face of Cage Warriors in London, one of the faces of London MMA against Cato,

obviously, a double champion in Octagon. That was the Harrier stuff. And those fights were fucking amazing. I thought they were brilliant. It just, it ran out of steam with the main card. And the same people that I know that used to go to all of these fights just aren't bothered anymore. And they're still watching MMA. They're still following the sport.

It just, it doesn't feel like these are moments where they need to be there now. And maybe that's the same just aging a bit. I also have another friend who goes to every single event. And he pays top dollar for great seats to be there. And he's texting me during it, like, just like, I'm a bit depressed here. Same as you, like, during the main event, he's texting you. That's not a good sign in the first place. You know, if you're at an event, they should have you in the palm of your hand.

Look, it's, um, it's not what it was. And the matchmaking seems to be a bit off. They have a lot of people coming in, very early doors. I thought it was a lot to ask. And I think this guy is a great personality, Curtis Campbell. I didn't see a lot of them because he came up through FCC. Same way as Lorone did. Like the kind of surprise packages, I don't know what they're going to be.

Lorone, of course, turned out to be a great fighter. I think it's a lot of pressure to put a guy on the, the first fight in the main card, coming off a Contender Series. You know, I think that's a tough spot to put Curtis in. But yeah, there is a magic loss. Of course, it's unfair to compare it to 2022 being the best one. But as you

said, Bisp being V. Anderson back in the day, we sat beside each other for that one. It was brilliant. But even like Jimmy Manoa when he's headlining, the buzz in the room when he's fighting Jan Blahovic was absolutely insane. I just don't know if they're stimulating the audience in the same way they once did. MVP is one of those names.

MVP is one of those names, and there's a chicken or egg type of scenario that played out. And I would argue that he only started to speak up about his disappointment post-fight booking. I didn't really hear much about, you know, this is a guy who's going from 170 to 185. He's been searching for the big fights. Everything that MVP has said, you really have to give it to him. He is asking for the big fights. How many times have we heard him ask about the Leon Edwards's of the world, right, since he came over to the UFC. He's been asking for this. And so once they booked him against Sam Patterson, didn't even put him. him Maine or co-main, I think he felt some sort of way about it. And then he comes out with that, you know, that song. They don't really care about us. I believe that he's talking about the brass. And, and then the performance was, you know, it was uneventful. There was not a lot of action. And I think that that was a byproduct of him feeling some sort of way. Why am I going to put myself out there? By the way, these two know each other. They've sparred together, him in San Patterson. Why am I going to put myself out there? Why am I going to take a risk against the guy who's trying to make a name off of me.

Now, yeah. Exactly. Look, I understand the fight game. I understand that, you know, this guy, it's a circle of life. This guy is trying to make his name off of him. But MVP is not at the end of his career. MVP is not a guy that's like hanging on for a dear life. He's very much in the thick of it right now.

He's only lost once in the UFC and it was a close fight against Ian Gary. Like, he's right there. And so to trot him out there, you know, not even in a featured fight, so to speak, in a fight that had no backstory, the guy's not. not, you know, on his level as far as resume is concerned. And he clearly was upset about it after asking for everyone at 85 or 70. He's giving you all the options in the world. That was depressing too. And I'm curious to see what his take is going to be. I'm curious to get a sense for how he feels about it all and whether or not he lays any of the blame on himself or is it all on Sam or was it

just his head wasn't there. He didn't want to take a risk. Maybe he doesn't want to lose with just a couple of fights left on his deal. I don't know. We'll find out. We'll talk to him. It's been a minute since I spoke to him. But just that, I felt like that was sort of symbolic of the whole damn night, of the whole damn fight card. And these are fight cards that like we are, like our mouths are foaming for these fight cards. Like the O2 crowd, the O2 events are the antithesis of the apex events. They're filled with excitement and drama, just like the Paris cards are because they know everyone on the card from top to bottom. They know the backstory.

They watch them in Cage Warriors, all that and more. And it just felt like this one. it was lacking. It was just lacking. And it feels like there's just been too much of that as of late. And you know, you couple that with the answers that you get at the Post-Five Press Conference, the demeanor, the state of things, the matchmaking. And this is why, this is why I continue to say, the master of good timing, the master of good timing, the master of good timing, the beneficiary of the best timing in the history of the sport is Connor McGregor. Because he is sitting there. He is sitting there as everything is kind of, I'm being dramatic here, kind of burning down. That meme of the dog and every, this is fine. He's kind of sitting there being like, all right, yep, I'm sitting pretty right now. Of course you want me back.

And I'm telling you, we told you about the meeting two weeks ago. I told you it went well. Petey told you it went well. At this point, I think it would be safe to say that it would be a disastrous situation. Something disastrous would have had to have happened if he's not fighting on July 11. they need this now more than ever. They need Connor McGregor to be on this card. They need Connor to come back.

They need the return to the Mac. They need the promo. They need the poster. They need the posts. They need the social. They need all of that. They need people talking. They need people getting excited.

They need this guy now more than ever. And they have to do everything in their power to make this happen. And I saw a clip. Let's play this clip of Max Holloway because Max is very cerebral. Max is very calculated when he says things. I saw this clip of Max Holloway over the weekend. And I thought it said it all. Here it is. Like I said, man, before the fight I was talking about it.

I mean, Connor's there, you know. Connor got one over me. He's talking about coming back. I'm coming off a loss. I mean, it looked pretty fun to get down back, you know, with him. So we see it happens. I know a lot of people are worried about the weight and this and that, but if he doesn't want to cut weight, then I don't want to cut weight.

We can do it at any weight, to be honest. It's just about getting it back, you know? So at that day, that would be a fun fight, but we should happen. We see what the way UFC wants to go. he wants to go and that's all we can do you know sign me up man if if 55 is kind of busy right now we don't know who to pit i know connor keep talking about coming back that'd be a fun fight you know that that fight really excites me and uh way wouldn't be an issue max is a very smart guy all the talk was oh you lost the belt charles isn't getting that connor fight after that fight

i don't even think connor wants a bmf title i think max is trying to tell us something there and i would put him with nate out it feels to me like he's trying to tell us like this is what I want and I don't think he's talking if things aren't happening behind the scenes. And so that's what I feel by reading all of this. But as PT said and as I said, these talks are going well and I think they're going well because the UFC recognizes, hey, we need to make this happen. And we'll get into the John Jones stuff in a second as well. But I feel like we're trending in the right direction to that return.

And this will feel like, what will it feel like? What's the perfect example for feeling good about life? Like it'll feel like what? like, what is it, a Mai Tai on the beach? It feels like Ronaldo coming back to Manchester at that time. I know that didn't go well, but I mean, when he came back, that kind of... Wasn't that a disaster? I guess maybe, yeah, no, no.

Oh, you think he's going to beat Max? Return of the Mac. No, at 170? Interesting. Conner ain't going down to 55. There was once a time where we were worried about Max at 55. Remember that? Now he's going all the way to 170.

Yeah, but it's a fight where he's just not cutting weight as opposed to... A true BMF. Yeah. No weight classes. Can I ask you, though? Yes. I feel like we've been kind of talking about it, but I think the significant reality is, let's say Connor McGregor is coming back in July. That is fantastic for the UFC, no doubt in my mind.

But I think the bigger issue, rather than car construction, rather than who's headlining, is ticket prices. Oh, yeah. The prices of these cards are not commensurate with what they're delivering. And I don't think you can solve that just the Connor McGregor ticket prices are going to be astronomical. and the UFC is going to try to capitalize on Connor McGregor's return in a way that is pricing out fans who just want to come and watch

UFC events, want to come and watch these fights. I don't think that the problem was necessarily that people didn't want to show out for Lerone Murphy or MVP or anybody else who was on this card. The problem is that they were too expensive for the people that truly wanted to go to go. And I don't think this is a new thing for the UFC.

I'm talking to people who are, who are in this local area, who I know very well, who are interested at going to the New Jersey card, and the ticket prices are too high for them to go. I don't know if just stacking the deck. This is a WW problem too. I'm hearing about this in WW, right, with WrestleMania tickets and whatnot.

People are complaining about this. It seems to be across the board, and I don't know that Connor McGregor solves that problem. He solves the problem of, is this going to feel like a big event? But are the people that are going to be in that arena, the crowd that you're looking for to be in that, arena, I don't know the answer is going to be yes.

I'll tell you where the tickets are pretty cheap. Zufa boxing at the apex. Now that's a, I don't even know what the tickets are there, but I feel like. Are you sure? I actually don't know. I have no idea. It's a great point. It's a great point, Rick May.

I've been hearing a lot about that. And I can remember, again, to reference that card in 2022, Asmel of V. Volkov, the first one after COVID, Chisangamilata was on the show talking to me about, like, the first time we went to a USC event, it cost me 20 quid to go to the brawl in the hall and now it's like 300 quid you know what i mean to go and see this event but you could kind of justify it based on all the the buzz that was around that card i don't think that the dick of prices have changed all that much for that card you know like it's just people wanting to go to be at a ufc event rather people going like i can't wait to see the luke roly fight or i can't wait to see

the ron uh stake his claim at this title you have seen has always been the thing hey we're in town we're going to the event matchroom doesn't even have that in england to to that degree right Like it's UFC and WW. You have seen WW are the only ones. Hey, we're in town. We're going to the event regardless of who's on the card. And you're losing some of that. I know our guy, Dana, was looking at tickets for Newark.

Did you get a chance to look at those tickets and what are they like? Yeah. On Ticketmaster, it looks like the cheapest one that I could find was $400. Wow. Like all the way in the rafters, huh? Yeah. So that's more, that's not as expensive I was expecting. Okay.

However, in 2021, I went to UFC 268, and my ticket was like $300. That same ticket now is at least 700 to 800. It's crazy. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. And there are fans who are willing to do it. UFC comes to town, they're going to pay.

But there are a lot of people who are getting priced out. You know, it's not getting priced out. G.C. over at the Arepa Heaven Village over there. It's looking good here, boys. What's happening? Looking good here. We've been whipping them up. They're getting nice and toasty.

I gotta take them out. We got to do the check. Andy, tell me what I'm looking for here. Yeah, so I want you to grab one. Yep, with your hands. Oh, yeah, it's hot. I know it's going to burn. I know it's going to burn.

And they put it right up to you. Yep, you want to tap it. Wow. I hear it. I hear it. I hear it. I would say that was done. Look at that cross.

That's amazing. Look at the toastiness. It's hot, boys. It's piping hot. You guys talking about the ticket prices? Yeah, tell me. Seattle this weekend? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, man. It's going to be four of us going together. we want to sit together. Yeah. Nosebleed, rafters. As high as you can go in the climate pledge arena, $278.

Get in price. For a fight night. For a fight night, bro. I paid $200 last year for nosebleeds in Atlanta. So it's going up incrementally. With every penny, though, right, GC? Hey, man, six fights, six decisions on that main card last year. Worth every penny.

I actually like the Seattle card. The Seattle card is actually not bad. That is that. Way better than the London card, in my opinion. And now what do you do? you stuffed the stuff. What do you do? You cut those open or what? Yeah, I'm going to have to let them cool for a little bit. I mean, they're piping hot, cut them open, stuff them. And then like, you know what, what do we say? Fifteen, twenty minutes? We're ready to try these bad ones.

All right. We'll check back in. Can I just say, don't cut out that crust that's around them? That is the best part when you're using a napo maker. That's it. But I did want to see Connor what it was like if you actually made one by hand. Oh, okay. So you want me to take the dough over here. Yeah, yeah. Did you add some water? Yeah, I got to add some water. It's been sitting here for a while. Andy with the request You want me to make like a flat one, eh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's see, let's see. I'm sure you've been doing some research, you're crushing. This is great. Uh-oh, I might have put too much water. Why flat? Why flat? Why does it matter?

Well, usually when you make them like traditionally, you have to flatten them out. They're not just a ball. So you're saying like this is if I was making it on a griddle. If you were making on a griddle, yep. But how are you going to heat it up? What do you mean? Right now? No, you wanted to make it flat.

But then what? Isn't the thing going to shape it anyway? You would put it on Abu Dara. This is not the traditional way to make him. This is the shortcut way. So he's not actually cooking this one? He's not. Oh, okay.

He's just making the... But let's do the whole experience, no? Yeah, hell yeah. Whoa. All right, so we definitely want to go a little bit smaller with these. Yeah. So you go, like, ball it up and then go flat. It's almost like a tortilla a little bit.

Kind of. Let's work the corners. You want to make it like round. Yeah. Yep, yep. And now you want to... This is so good. It's quite sticky.

It's tough, juicy. Tremendous camera work here. Hemp. I'm a tough as they say. Shout to our guy, Chris Hinesman, absolutely killing it on the cam. Shout to round out the, like, making an actual.

You really want it like a disc, eh? This is, yep, that's what we're going for. So you kind of have to work around the sides. Did you see, usually wear all this gold around his? Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Like, flavor of flame. This whole thing right here?

I don't know. I don't even worry about this guy. What are you got here? Is that a Rolex or what? It's, yeah, Rolex adjacent, Nixon. Hell yeah.

Jason. All right. So this is what we're thinking, Andy. This you would throw on a griddle. Something like that. Okay. Yeah. We'll work on the technique.

I'm going to make up a few more of these bad boys. She just said it. I felt that. I felt that. Yeah, yeah. That was very authentic. That was directly, a direct shot from Venezuela. That is not how you do it.

You're crushing. I'm so fucking jealous, boys. I can't even tell you. I'll make someone on Mountain Island in a couple weeks, Pete. Frankie told me he didn't bring it there and I pick you up at the airport. Yeah, Frank didn't even bring lunch today. He's just... Oh, he's waiting.

Gosh, no wonder he's so quiet. Oh, I definitely do the same thing. Frank, are you even here today? Just a check. Hey, there is. He's going to be having one singular rapa, so hopefully it fills them up. All right, we'll check back in. Let us know how you're doing.

Don't work too hard. I wonder if you're cursing Bryce Harper and company back there for this. But it seems like you're having a good time, so we're happy for you. Okay, a couple of other things that I wanted to get into, guys. John Jones. Yeah. Do you remember when all the... this went up in smoke, the dream of him fighting on the White House, there was a wise man who

said, what did he say? What did he say? Not the actual wise man, by the way, like the real wise man Paul Heyman, but a wise space man. I know, I know Paul didn't weigh in on this one. A wise man, who also happened to be Jewish, by the way, who said what? He asked for a number. They didn't want to give him that number. The number they were offering was in the vicinity of Connor Ben's number. Do you remember all of this guys? And then it didn't progress after that? Does anyone remember this? Yes. Well, anyway, here's Mr. John Jones once again confirming.

He confirmed when I said they were in negotiations. He confirmed when I said, you know, they couldn't come to a deal. And now he's confirming specifically the number. Here's a tweet from him over the weekend. I was ready, willing, and physically able to step in. I was willing to take substantially less than the Aspinall ask, but they wouldn't budge $1 over $15 million. I felt like our fight was worth more.

And so that has become the new baseline, 15 million. So, hey, hey, guys, we saw the 15, we know you saw it as well. Great. That's the new number. So a fighter comes out. John Jones asks for 30. No, no, no, it's going to be 15. That's the new number. Even though John Jones, Connor Ben, arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all time. We're now putting him in the same bucket as Connor Ben. As I said a couple weeks ago, if Connor Ben is worth 15, God bless. That means Connor McGregor is worth 75. That means John Jones is worth $30. 45 if you ask me. But anyway, I heard the same. He had 30. They said 15, came in at the 20 to 25. They said, nope, we're moving on. We're moving on. We're not even negotiating. And now here's Dana White being asked at the post-fight press conference on Saturday about all this. And his response is very consistent, although now with more of this information coming out, it makes it even more interesting. And I'll explain why in a second. First, here's Dana. talking about the White House card

and how he wasn't offered a dollar over $15 million and how he felt the fight was worth more so I just wanted to get your response to that essentially John Jones was never fighting on the White House card how many fucking times I've got to say this he was never fighting on the White House card I literally have done two press conferences talking about this these guys went out

found everything that they thought was available and possible and then I picked the fights. There's no way in hell I was putting him on the card. No matter what the money was. John Jones was never going to fight on the White House card. So if we are to believe Dana White right now, are you telling me that they went out,

they negotiated with people? Because John's numbers, everything he's saying, I've heard as well from multiple sources, only to not actually be serious about putting him on the card. So why the hell were they negotiating? Why were they talking to his lawyer? Why were they talking to his team? Why were they even getting into numbers at all?

Like, why even call the guy if he was never going to be on the card? Which, to be fair to Dana, he has been saying that from the beginning. Why were other members, Hunter Campbell, of his team, speaking to members of John's team, negotiating, talking numbers, talking interest if he was never ultimately going to make, like, why waste everyone's time? That makes no sense to me. Were they hoping to come to a deal and then convince Dana White? Or can I offer this?

Can I offer this? I know that the White House. I know that our current administration has bigger fish to fry right now. Like, let's be honest, right? There's a lot going on in the world right now. They should have bigger fish to fry. This should be the last thing that they're thinking about. But is there a world where they know they couldn't deliver John Jones?

They know they couldn't deliver Connor McGregor. In other words, they know they didn't want to deliver Connor McGregor. As we've said time and again, he was never going to be on that card because they need to sell tickets to a Connor McGregor fight. But they don't want to come out and say that. That doesn't make you look very good to the administration. And so what you say after you can't come to terms is he was never, that's the hedge. That's what you do to protect yourself. Because if you truly didn't want this guy on the card, trust me, they wouldn't pick up the phone.

They wouldn't speak to him. They did want him on the card. They just didn't want to pay over 15 million to have him on the car. They didn't want to break that number. And so that's what this is. Do you think Hunter Campbell, busy guy as he is, truly the straw that is stirring the drink, that is the UFC, you think this guy is wasting a second of his time doing stuff that's not going to amount to anything? Do you think he's speaking to Connor's team, his lawyer, he's doing all of this stuff, crunching them, whatever it is, if ultimately he knows that this is going to like just get. shut down, no. Hey, look into this. See if you could get them on the cart.

Yeah, he's asking for $30 million. Ah, fuck that guy. Let's go to Ilya. And we'll get Alex to fight surreal. That's what happened. So he planted that seat early on, knowing that they probably would get back to that $30 million number, knowing they don't want to pay that number. Remember, they kept up $60 million. We're going to lose this. We're going to lose this. We're going to lose it. It's going to be a loss leader. All that stuff. And now he still continues to say that. But John is calling their bluff. And so to see this relationship that was very kumbaya-ish, not that long ago, now dissolve into this. It's fascinating because John is coming out there and putting out tweets saying, hey, no, I was talking to them. And I could have fought. What's that tweet about the 99% of the roster?

He said something to the effect of like, yeah, I may be banged up. Random thought, arthritis hurts. It doesn't make you cripple. I'm still smashing 99% of the roster. point four seven to be exact of you out there and I believe the guy I don't know if he's beating Tom

maybe he's the other 53 yeah thank you PT but that's exactly what's happening here there is no first of all they 1,000 percent were talking to John's team and when he said he was negotiating there was talks

and he did throw out that number because why wouldn't he throw out that number they were offering him that number number last year, but I guess what they learned is, you know, yesterday's price is in today's price. And so he went back to the 30, which is the number I told you about last year as well. They said no. Went back to the 15 because that's the new number. That's the new hot button number.

Lord help us if they offer Connor McGregor 15, which I don't think they'll be that cheap to do. I think everyone recognizes he's worth more than that. Could you imagine? But anyway, the gate will be more than that number, for goodness sakes. he said, no, I want that. And my understanding is he was willing to come down. They just weren't willing to play

that game. Is anyone reading this situation any differently? Because that's exactly what I think is happening here. Yeah. That is exactly what I interpreted from it as well. I just wonder, as you said, they're motivated to get Connor back in, but that number is still important, right?

What is Connor McGregor worth to the UFC and to the MMA fan base at this point in time? John Jones. John Jones is putting the dirty laundry out there. He's saying they offered me 15. And let's just talk about it. I know Zufa Boxing, TKO, Ring is all different but like in what universe can you actually explain to the world

that John Jones is worth as much as Connor Ben? And where are all those people you know, I saw a lot of people writing things about like the ticket sales for Wardley and Dubois before those tickets were even on sale. Where are those people with the seating charts for Tottenham Hots on April 11th, because it seems like those are struggling right now. Maybe, maybe just maybe a need, you know, Ben needed Eubank to sell those tickets. Maybe. Or maybe it's an indictment on Regis program.

I don't know. Point is, in no universe are Connor Bennon and John Jones the same type of monetary draw? Like if you're going to be in this sandbox where everything is combined, where all these entities are together, you have to think that this side of the fence is going to look over at that side of the fence and say, like, wait a second, you're paying X amount to a guy who's done this much, then I deserve this much. This is all the stuff that Eddie did predict. Now, again, I don't think it's going to lead to like a revolt and all that stuff, at least not now, at least not yet.

But we are seeing it play out quicker than I thought. I didn't expect it to be this fast. Couldn't agree with anything you said more. I think Connor, sorry, I think John Jones has been criminally underpaid throughout his career. He should probably have 100x the money he's made. No doubt in my mind. Point one, you need more than John Jones speaking up, right? I mentioned Connor McGregor because I think Connor McGregor is the next opportunity for somebody with any kind of leverage to make this work for them, right? If Connor Ben is making $15 million, you offered John Jones $30 million for the Tom Aspenal fight, but you only offered him 15.

Connor McGregor now has all these data points, right? He's now the one who's able to say, okay, what am I worth if I have these pieces of info? Secondarily, though, the fans of this sport, I don't think give a shit. Like, I don't think, I don't think the logic of John Jones should be worth more matters to them. They all see these guys as overpaid, spoiled babies, regardless of what they're making. Even if the reality is, they are criminally underpaid. From Connor McGregor on down, every single one of them is underpaid because they could be making more, and they generate so much more for this company.

being the UFC and TKO, but I don't think fans are sympathetic to that plight. The fighters don't seem to care. So it ultimately just kind of like goes nowhere. It just sits in this in this realm where we talk about it, but nothing happens, nothing changes. The fans don't get behind anything. They don't care. And the fighters don't. I'm okay with that. I'm at peace with that. Doesn't mean we can't talk about it. We should talk about it. And for John to lay the cards out on the table like this is fascinating. And it's, it's, it makes all the sense. of the world, Dana's not going to sit up there and say, yeah, we couldn't come to terms of them for the White House card on Donald Trump's birthday.

The easier thing to say is he was never going to be on the card, right? He's not going to admit to the freaking, you know, White House that, hey, we couldn't come to terms with the biggest American name in the sport, the greatest of all time. Like, think about it. Logically, guys, he's going to, this is a fight card on the White House in celebration of America, the 250th birthday of the United States of America. America and you have the greatest of all time who just so happens to be American and you couldn't come to terms of them. You think he's going to say, yeah, we tried, we negotiated, but we just couldn't

come to terms. No, the easier thing to say is he was never going to be on the card. And so then let me ask you, for someone in attendance, one of the great media members in attendance, well, then why did you guys negotiate with him? Why did you have those conversations with them? Did you really offer him 15? Yeah, he's going to say, well, you know, we went out there and we asked everyone. What? You don't do that. You don't just like cast this freaking bait all over. all over town and hope that one of them hits and then you walk back to the like it doesn't work that way what is this this is bizarre that we're accepting all of this he he can't be held to account for it i don't think anybody's accepting if i'm being honest i think everybody sees this for

what it is is there anybody who's actually fooled by it i think everybody sees that dano white is just lying through his teeth but his his line continues to be we were never john jones was never on the card. He's been asked like, were you negotiating with Jonjo? Ah, we talked to everybody and then he was never going to be on the card. It doesn't make any sense. No doubt. But I, he can't, how do you force him to tell the truth?

He's just lying. He continues to lie. Let me tell you something. You don't need him to tell the truth. Because we tell you the truth right here. That's true too. Right, PT? Yeah, I guess what do you think they're going to offer, McGregor? That's interesting. I think McGregor's a good

company man. I don't think they offer. I go public. I just, right, the thing that Rousey said is just stuck in my head. Like they aren't interested in going above a certain point

for these kind of fights. I don't think she was offered 15 million. I'll tell you that much. But I'm just wondering, like how much would they be willing to put on McGregor's return? You know, he is a number in his head.

Like, McGregor, probably the only person in history that probably had a point when in 2016, after he beat Eddie Alvers, was like, oh, I want equity.

Look what I'm after doing. to this company. You know, like, honestly, at that stage, he had transformed, Tim and Rousey

had transformed what the UFC was and brought to this bigger level. He isn't quite there anymore. He's very far from it, if I'm going to be completely honest.

I think athletically too, but he is the biggest star on the roster. That's also a comment in itself that 10 years later, no one's come along that's even touched him. He's still out there on his own.

So how much is he worth to this new regime? How much, if John Jones is worth 15 million, He's I think John Jones is worth 30 million Don't forget He was worth 15 million this time

From the UFC He was worth 30 million last time He's worth 50 million right now though That's what we know Apparently yeah So what is that just as high as they can go now Deonté wilder money Has become Connor band money

A wild thing Less than a year ago that number was 30 And if I'm Connor McGregor That's my start That's my minimum If you were going to give John Jones 30 million dollars At any point in his career

I'm worth double-out That's baseline period, end of story. Although my understanding last year was that Saudi Arabia was helping to make that fight happen. I don't know if that's the case right now. How this all shakes out, how this all gets broken down. I have no idea. Are we going to have a press comments where Dane is like, we never wanted Conner McGregor on a pay-per-view again? Oh, Lord help us.

Not out of the play. Not out of play. Even when he's asked about it, like he was asked about him fighting in Ireland and all that stuff. Like he doesn't say like, no, we're not talking to Connor. There are times where he's like, we're not even talking to Connor. You could tell even he's trying to like tell us something or warming up a little bit to the idea of Connor fighting, which if I were a betting man right now, I think we're training in the right direction of him coming back in December. And I think that that would be a welcome sign. Why haven't we heard anything?

We both heard it's going well a few weeks ago. Why haven't we heard anything? I mean, they haven't even, they just announced the May. I mean, like, they're, they kind of move. Oh, yeah, fair. You know what I mean? It's still, it's still a little over four months away. They announced the, the April, the Miami pay-per-view, like a month and a half out.

So I don't think they're in a huge rush. Is there an update for Mr. G.C. over there. I see him slaving away. There sure is. We've, we've got five of rapist stuff with the chicken salad, getting ready to come out to you. I mean, look at this. That looks amazing, G. What the hell?

Oh, man. This is unbelievable. Freshly stuffed. With the flag. With the flag. Cheese right now so you can try both of them. And then I'm going to run them in and y'all are eating. All right.

That is crazy that you do this. Can I show this Andy? Look at what Andy brought in. What did Andy bring? What did Andy bring? Look at this. I wasn't going to let you see me the only one. Wow.

Wow. So I made this. This is a Castillo. It's kind of like our flan. It's at every party pretty much that we have. So I made it for you guys. And for Frankie's early birthday. Oh yes.

Frankie's early birthday. When is Frank's birthday? Not revealing. Today's your birthday? Thank you. In May. We'll talk offline. I love.

Frank's birthday is a two month celebration. Ptie, how do you feel about all this? I mean, have you ever felt more formal? Lions making a solid for the enemy. Remember, Ptie. Yodo. All right, Ariel, I'm running these into you and then I'm running them into the control room and then we're doing a taste. Hell yes.

Oh my gosh. So what we've got, we've got a chicken and a cheese, right? Yep, you're going chicken and cheese, everyone else just going chicken. chicken. My word. I want to say the way that you stuff this, Connor, is like perfect. Like this is how it should look. You need a fork to take out the filling. I'm so proud of you. You crushed, dude. I learned from the best. I learned from the best. And the flan is what? The flan is what? Or is it not a flan? No. It's like a flan. It's called a quesijo. It's a little bit thicker than a flan. Okay. And it's made of what? It's like a custard. I would say. So it has like eggs, condensed milk, caramel on top. It's still, it's just delicious. Sorry, Pici. This whole setup, I feel like this is GC's new setup. Like, he should just be hanging out there. He's on the move.

Okay, what's happening? This is... All right, I'm now I'm actually on the move with these. I'm heading to the studio with the rapist and a hand. I gotta be honest. I should be there in about 10 minutes. The, uh, why? You don't like the chicken?

I want both. I want to try it. Oh yeah, hell yeah. You're only, you're the only one getting the cheese? I don't know if I... What about the, uh, the mini Venezuelan flags in there? It's very... You know what it reminds me of?

It reminds me of that. chicken place over in London. They put the little flag in the chicken? What is that place? Nandoes. Nandoes, that's right. That's what it reminds you of. You know how I feel about the flag and the chicken. I love that. Very quickly, shout out to Luke Riley, went over Michael Aswell, Jr., MVP, defeated San

Patterson via unanimous decision. Let me get this right. I'm going to get this right for you guys. I'm going to get it right. I'm going to get it right. It is Evil Baranewski. He defeated Austin Lane via first. round knockout, 28 seconds. CLD beat Roman Deletes, Danny Silva. Yeah!

Look at this guy. Wow. This is it, guys. This is it. Thank you very much to the Venezuelan baseball team. Thank you to Ronald de Cunia Jr. Wow. Guys, Pizier, are you so there? Yeah. The smell is some kind of smell.

I'll tell you that. You know what it smells like? Ruben this. No, no. It smells like victory at Tottenham Hotspur's Stadium. yesterday, 3-0 for the good guys. You saw that, uh, commiserations to, uh, our own on-air Jordan and Mr. Carroll, uh, for the loss, you know, how's that relegation taste?

This looks, I can't really share his thoughts on the match to censor. Yo, this is like, this is legit. Can I wait for all of you to get yours? No, you bite first and then we're, I bite first. Should I go check it first? Yeah, who knows how long this is going to be? We'll just watch you, either. Yeah. Wow.

I'm shocked by the weight. All right, here we go, guys. A little music, Frankie. Uh, that. That's nice. Oh. Oh, wait. New music?

What, what am I waiting for? We have. I can't wait anymore. I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh. That's where the fork is needed. Are you going for it?

I'm going to join you. How's the crunch? How's the crunch? Mmm. Just going to pop a tooth pick myself here just to keep something in the melody. That out to Miguel Cabrera. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, the tang in the chicken salad, like the mustard that was at it? Mm. This is... Is it? Yeah? No.

This is tremendous. I don't know. Deloitte for this. Frank, are we going to get a ding for this music? Yeah. Come on. We're professionals. Oh, GC's about to partake.

Here we go. Look at this piece right here. This piece right here is tremendous. Yeah. Mm. All right, there we go. We've all tried it? Mm-hmm.

Pici, try yours. Come on, PC. He don't feel too bad. Dan has to wait until the next round as well, because we got to get Andy's take on it. We've got to get the professional. This is. Oh, I even got napkins here?

Wow. Well, don't, G.C., that it looks spectacular. And it's so good. I wish you just made them look a bit shittier just to make me feel better in this situation. Did you test it out yesterday, G.C. Or is this your first time trying your own creation. I tested out the chicken salad. The chicken salad is good.

It tastes how it used to do. It's outstanding. I'm going for the cheese now. I really am curious about the cheese. I mean, I don't know how it could be back. It went all over my desk. Good thing we don't have an in-studio guest today. Imagine John Martin is here.

Rick, what you reckon? Haven't heard your way in? Yeah, Rick. So fucking good. I can't even like... Frank, how's yours, Frank? It's amazing. I can't stop eating.

Oh. Is Frank eating one or is he lying? No, he's actually eating it. Oh, he is? All right, here we go. Here's cheese. Here's cheese. Here's cheese.

Here's cheese. Here's it. Has Andy waiting yet? That's what we all need to hear. Is Andy's way in. Andy was resetting everything. But I'm about to weigh in. I'm about to weigh in.

I'm about to weigh in. Let me try it. Here we go. Oh my God. Get that control room shot right there. Pizzi, how's that toothpick, huh? The mango is really good, man. It's either mango or strawberry for me these days.

This is what it feels like when someone's cutting weight and everyone around him is eating a hamburger. Getting fucking water off them with credit cards and shit, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is phenomenal. This is as close to like a Venezuelan grandma made it, Connor. Props to you, man. This is amazing.

The pickles out a little bit of something. I love it. This is so good. Reina Pepia is what it's called in case anybody wants to look it up. Good job, G. making us proud. I'm proud of myself now. So good.

It's okay that USA baseball lost. We got to give these a go. Give yourself the old Barry H. Hey, shout out the... Look at that. What does that mean? What does that mean? That's what we call people that are like our friends.

Like, it's like, yeah, that's our buddy. Like, that's, it's like an endearing term. Can I tell you... Can I tell you my wish for G. G.C.'s life now? Yes. I want G. I want G.

I want G. I want G. woman and I want him to invite her back to his apartment and be like let me cook something for you. Manifesting. Could you imagine? And then he, and then this gringo, that's what you would call him, right? If he came to the cookout, is that accurate?

No, he's El Panana. Oh, he's al-Pano, my bad. And then you cook up this for her, I think it's, I think we're all booking our flights to Venezuela or Colombia or some. That's it. That's it. That's it. And Tris Sletches for dessert.

Oh, my God. Also, not invited to the cookout. invited the carneasada. Oh, that's right. That's right. Oh, my God. Wow. Now I'm going to have to stare at this for the rest of the show. Or eat it, man.

I need some of that cheese one, though. In between Costello, Vanscina's, I'm spinning all over the computer here. Hey, Costello, one second. Real quick, let me just get another bite in here. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. That is so. That's why you've got to have the fork, all the filling comes out. Tremendous.

Yeah. Tremendous. Well done. Well done. Really. This is actually something that I thought of this in the moment as we were just kind of wrapping up the show on Wednesday. It might go down as one of my great ideas.

another one huh? Pizzi's unimpressed By the way speaking of Mofsar Yes He's really letting that personality Come out

He had this tweet About taking over London What? No, you guys didn't like it He had the, what is that Oh is this the personality Took London coming for Sydney Why is he sitting in like a lawn chair

In the middle of the street? Is it like a Beatles type of thing that he's doing Or am I crazy? It doesn't look like Robbie wrote to me now. I mean, were they sitting in chairs like this?

I don't know. It felt very Beatles-esque. It felt very Beatles-esque. He had some other banger tweets. They're calling him the fifth Beatle in London at the moment. Are they? His hair is actually Beatles-esque. It's a little bit of,

that's fair. That's fair. He had some other, it's a lover mania. He had some other banger tweets, guys, and it's, it's unclear whether or not he wrote them. What do you guys think?

Why is it unclear? No, it's from his account. Who else would have, wrote them. I had so much fun inside the octagon and I felt absolutely no pressure. It wasn't easy getting there, but once I stepped inside, I felt like a kid in the park. I want to thank the UFC for giving me the opportunity to the headline in such a big arena. I can't wait to do it again. Thank you, Dana White. Sean Shelby and Mr. Hunter Campbell. This is for all my haters. A couple of the opponents I beat had a lot to say about me and they weren't very nice. A couple of the others

were respectful. Either way, love me or hate me, I'm going to be a champion and you will not. I only focused on winners. Losers stay focused on winners and you already lost. That's 100% not him. 20 and 0 in UFC resume. Lorone Murphy, Al Jermaine Sterling, Arnold Allen, Diego Lopez, Dan Ege.

Yeah. We all agree with that. I don't really disagree with any of it, except for who he ever. I hope he gets the title shot, honestly. You know what I mean? And he can't be calling me a hater. Like I obviously beat Mick Conlin last week.

I don't want to bring that off. But I'm a winner too. Sure, sure, sure, sure. What about the fact that he almost didn't even make it? He had some visa issues, passport issues, Laron changed teams. There was all kinds of drama for both guys leading up to it. In the end, he gets the nod.

Vogue didn't seem all that bothered by it all. He was hanging out with Matt Damon, of all people. I'm not really sure why. Was it at some sort of, like, horse racing thing? Look at these two guys right here. Vogue looks like a, he looks like a movie hero guy. Not quite superhero, but you know what I mean? like he looks phenomenal next to Matt.

Is he younger than Matt? I think he is. Yeah. Anyway, Lorone watched the fight and this is what he had to say about it all. He believes, I think, that the judges got it wrong. Just watch the fight back. Congrats to have love either way. He was very classy

in defeat getting on the microphone saying give this man a title shot. Diego Lopez did have some things to say about Lorone. No, Lerone. No, Lorone, we are not the same, never do that again. And then Lorone chimes in and says, I didn't lay on my back and guard for three rounds, bro. Let's fight next.

I'd love to see that fight. That's a great fight, yeah. Diego's fighting Steve Garcia, White House card. So, let us see. One last thing on all of this, Alex Volcanovsky was on the post-fight show, and he did weigh in. True to Form, classy as always. Here are Alex Volcanovsky's thoughts after the main event on Saturday. Yeah, it was an interesting one.

You know, he's all touched on that. I don't think we all expected Mopsar to just want to stand with Lerone, whether that was something that he felt he had to do just so, you know, he could guarantee himself a title shot. I'm not too sure, but you could see that he was a lot stronger when he wanted to take it down and then was able to outdo him on the feet. So for me, it's quite impressive, to be honest. So Fair Play to him, he's 20 and 0 now.

and I guess she's next. So there he is. Alex Fulkenovsky, always asking for the toughest challenge. We'll have more on the state of the 145 pound division, more news and notes, some more drama regarding Eddie Hearn

and Mr. Dana White, so all of that's still to come back into the program. But let's get into some interviews now. This man was in action on Friday. In Madrid, the first major event of MMA nature to take place in Spain, in Madrid, to be exact. Obviously, there are other events happening there.

Wow is probably the biggest one. But for the PFL to go over there was a really big deal. To have one of their own headline as the middleweight champion was a massive deal. Costel Van Sienes versus Fabian Edwards was the main event. And in the end, the local crowd went home happy. Costel Vancinus looked phenomenal in the fight. He wins via third round knockout some helboes. Travis Brown-esque in the third.

round knocking out Fabian Edwards to retain that title. He is still the PFL middleweight champion, and he's kind enough to join us right here now to talk about it all. Here he is Costello Van Stenis. Hello, Costello. How are you? Ariel. Congratulations. I'm doing good. Thank you so much, brother. Thanks. I'm doing great. I'm in the clouds. I'm having time of my life now. How are you, Ariel? I'm doing great. Thank you for asking me. A lot of people don't usually ask me. I appreciate that, but we're here to talk about you. You experienced an incredible moment in the summer when you won the belt against Johnny Eblen, but I would imagine this was a different type of incredible moment to be in your, you know, in your home country to win you were the center of attention to win like that.

Can you describe the emotions you felt on Friday because it seemed like it was, it was very, very special to you? Yeah, it was special. I mean, I said this to, I'm saying this to everybody, winning the title from Johnny Ablin from an undefeated fight was, was beautiful. I thought that was the highlight of my life. But then defending the title of Madrid, Spain in front of my own name, and, and I'm saying, in front of my childhood friends and everything in my country,

and that's something, I still don't know how to describe that feeling, you know. And then knocking somebody out that I had like a little beef with like six years ago when we're two kids. And now, yeah, like smashing him in third round, that was like, whoa, am I dreaming? If I'm dreaming, don't wake me up. I thought PFL did a really great job of promoting this event,

you know, those vignettes that they did about the culture, about how much it means to Spain. were great, we're beautifully produced, and you were the star. It was all centered around you. Did you feel that pressure? Because throughout your career, you've kind of just, you know,

you've built your name, you've sort of, you know, come up. Eblen was the star, he was the champion in South Africa, but here it was, it was the Costello show, so to speak. Did you feel any different? Did you feel that pressure going into it?

Yeah, it was, like you say, Costello, it was the van Steener show. My brother was on the card as well. He knocked the guy out in two minutes. and then I told everybody don't tell me what my brother does I don't have a brother at the moment it's just me on my own

in this world at this moment for this night but then some camera guy from the PFL said what do you think about your brother's knockout I'm like what did you win so I jumped I jumped meters in there you know I was like oh that took like a backpack

around my back so I was really happy of that and man it was it was one hell of a show man and fighting for Spain representing Spain. It actually felt in such a small year, like let's say the last three, four years, the MMA business has been growing so much, but I would have not imagined growing that hard and like this big. I mean, it really felt like when I was fighting, I had the whole crowd with me

fighting. People were cheering for me and booing for Fabian. I was like, whoa, it's not just me fighting. Of course I have pressure on me, but it was like the energy pressure. It was a positive pressure. And so just to be clear, regarding your brother, you were trying to avoid his result altogether. You didn't want to know what happened at all until the end? Yeah, it was, you know, exactly. I have never experienced this. And to be honest, I couldn't also ask other people from this level to ask them, how do you deal with this? So I was like, okay, it's just me, myself and I, I, I don't have a brother, I don't have family. It's just me and myself and I in this world that has to put a performance on whatever happens. If I hear something stupid,

just shut my ears and just keep on going. But yeah, the cameraman was in front of my face and he actually said, what do you think of your brothers, K, I was like, what? I even got a little bit angry at a reporter before the fight. He was asking, what do you think of your brother's performance?

I'm like, shut up, I don't have a brother. I don't want to know anything. I don't even know if you won or lost. And she was like, what? You don't want to know? Like, no. Because just in case, if things got bad, I'm going to have a bad time.

Sure. But probably impossible. Probably impossible to avoid it, and it obviously worked out. Did you feel a boost of confidence or a boost of energy, positivity when you did find out that he won? 100%. It made me so happy. I mean, my brother is the most important thing for me in this life. I'll do anything for him.

And then knowing that he won, that gave me so much confidence. I was like, at that very moment, it sounds a little bit weird. I was like, I don't even care if I win or lose now. You know, it's all about my brother he won. but then after a few minutes I was like okay no now it's me now it's me now all the pressures on me all eyes are on me and I'm going to make my family

my nation my country I'm going to make every fan that supports me I'm going to make them proud I'm going to make myself proud I remember speaking to Anthony Pedes after he fought at UFC 185 many many moons ago and his brother

Sergio fought on that card as well and he lost at the very beginning of the card and Pettis ended up losing in the main event to RDA he lost his belt that night in Dallas and he said afterwards never again

I never want to fight on the same card as my brother because of how it affected him he admitted that it did and so obviously this was a big moment for the two of him for the two of you excuse me and you don't want to rob your brother

of that moment as well but moving forward would you prefer to not be on the same card as him because of those emotions attached 100% 100%

because of things go wrong and I find out I would probably lose quite a lot of energy and concentration. I think, I believe I haven't experienced it, and I actually don't want to experience it anymore. Unless they'd say, hey, you guys want to fight it on the

same card again, I'll probably say no. But if they say, we'll give you an extra 100K, I'd say, let's fucking go. Okay, fair enough. I understand that. Overall, how did you feel Madrid, Spain, how did you feel the country, the city, accepted a major event coming, accepted the PFL? What was the buzz like, the vibe? I know you were focused, but could you tell us for those that weren't there, what was it like? You fought on other PFL cards. Did this feel big? Did it feel special?

This feels the biggest event ever, actually, to be honest. I've seen loads of events, other PFL, well, not really PFL, but I've seen other big events and making the crowd making a lot of noise. But this time I actually experienced it. And like what I said, before Ariel. Once I just walked through the door and I saw the whole crowd cheering on my name where I felt like a football player. Like here in Spain, football is huge. So the crowd makes a lot of noise. But at that moment, people were whistling against Fabian and cheering for my name. They were shouting my name and was like echoing the whole stadium. I was like, man, this is this is crazy. It's not just me fighting. It's the whole nation. It's the whole country. It's the whole

Vista Allegre at that moment fighting against Fabian. They were really happy for me with every punch I landed and every punch I was receiving that was like whistling or saying yeah like shouting out booze stand them up if he was on top. Speaking of footballers

there were a lot of notable footballers in attendance. Did you know that guys like Vinnie Jr. and Jude Bellingham would be in attendance? No, not at all. That was really funny. I was like I was like they said a couple of footballers were coming from Madrid but I didn't know it was these big names

you know and then once I saw them after I didn't even see them before the fight but after the fighter saw it like whoa what the heck that's pretty that's pretty awesome these footballers want to yeah they're actually fan of the sport so that's that's really dope incredible I even saw I think a photo of there it is you and Tebow Courtois

in the cage that's crazy are you a Madrid fan I am if I have to choose for a team on being Madrid foul. To be honest, Ariel, at the beginning, I couldn't even see him correctly. I was like, whoa, this guy's huge man. I think he's a basketball player. But then I was getting closer and closer.

I'm like, oh my God, that's the goalkeeper of Real Madrid. Like of All Madrid. I was like, whoa. Incredible. Well, it's a great honor for you that they'd be in attendance to watch you compete. And so let's talk about the fight. What did you make? There were a lot of questions afterwards regarding Fabian's

game plan about his his willingness and it seemed like just his desire to grapple to try to take you down and obviously that led to his undoing in the third round did that surprise you or did something else surprise you about his plan of attack no it surprised me a lot i was actually thinking uh after the fight like why why the why the heck would he want to take me down if his strongest weapon against me was striking but then i was thinking back i was feeling that my my ankle's swollen on my ankle's like a balloon so i was like all right wait i gave him him, I gave him that ankle.

I gave myself this ankle. So just imagine how his ankle was being. And of course, I landed some shot on him. I think I wobbled in once. So that maybe gave him a little bit of a scared feeling for getting knocked out, maybe. But I know that his ankle was really, really messed up after I calf kicked him, inside calf kicked him a few times. So I think that's the reason he was shooting.

I don't know if there's another reason. But I believe, if I'm thinking back in the fight, I believe that's the main reason. And he was like wanting to take me down because his ankle was just giving up. Okay, okay. So it seemed like the takeaway was why did he have that game plan? Your thinking is actually he had to change his game plan because you roughed them up. Is that accurate? Yes, correct, correct.

Because his game plan at the beginning was always filing, striking, hit and don't get hit. But yeah, if you want to hit and don't get hit and your ankle is giving up, there's no other choice than just stand and bang or take the guy down. because he had some pretty weird moments where I was like why would he try to want to take me down? I'm a lot stronger than he was. I felt that I was stronger either way

and clinching wise. I know there was a bit of bad blood as you referenced earlier considering the fact that you fought about six years ago. How do you feel about Fabian now? No, I feel, I feel inside the sports, I'll probably, if we have to fight him, I'll still hate him.

But outside the sport, outside of the MMA guy, out of the M.A. sport, I think is one of the best fighters, one of the elite fighters in the world. Hats off to Fabian for how far he's became, how far he came, he's beat Impa,

he's beat Dalton Roster, Kato him, and he had the tournament world champion. So he is a champion, he is a champion. But, yeah, as long as I'm in this business, he's not going to be

PFL world champion. Did you speak afterwards? No, not really. I told him he's a great man. He's a great fighter. He's a great athlete, but that's all I said. I don't know if he understood what I said. Okay.

I spoke to Gagot afterwards, though, because he's like living 15 minutes away from me here in Spain now. And for my parents' house. And he was like, man, you're beating all the people that beat at me. You're actually destroying them. Right. Yes. We got to pay him back, right?

Right. You're carrying the torch. I love it. You mentioned Rosta. Yeah. Obviously, this is great. This is a great bit of matchmaking here because you defend the title

and then this weekend literally eight days later you've got four of the better middleweights if not the best middle weights including the man who you'd be back in July competing in Pittsburgh for the PFL Johnny Ebblin Brian Battle,

impicus Sanganae and Dalton Rosta as you mentioned. Do you have a preference? Do you have a preference as to who prevails and I would imagine your next opponent will be one of those four guys?

Yeah, definitely. Look Ariel, I believe I am actually one of the best middle-ways fighter in the world. Maybe I'm not the best fighter now because I'm injured. Maybe I won't be in a month. But the day we signed the contract and the day that person is in front of me, I'm going to make sure I'm the best middle-way fighter in the world. And it doesn't really matter.

I want the guy that has the best performance. Now, actually, if what's his name? If Evelyn wins against Brian, I would like to fight Evelyn again. I want to show people and I want to prove people. and I want to prove him that it was not a fluke and that he was not lucky I don't know where he got that from

because I messed his face up yes he did take me down he did control me on the floor a couple of times but he didn't really injured me I mean Fabian had injured me more than that he did and yeah

probably has to have to prove it to him again see how his performance goes and see if he actually wins depends how he comes back after a loss like that okay so so it sounds like your preferences if Ebelin wins and looks somewhat good

he'd be the guy. You want to shut him up? You want to put your point. Yeah, I want to do it again. I want to, it's not a, I'm not a world champion defending my belt. I'm world champion chasing other big names. I want, I want to fight the best fighter in the world. Since you open the door, can I just ask, when you say best middleweight, I obviously think of Hamza Chamaev as well. How do you think you match up against Hamzaa?

Oh, that would be a dream coming true. I'd love to prove myself, and I'd love to prove people in other country. and around the world that I can give him a very good fight. I believe in myself, because if you don't believe in yourself, you shouldn't be in the game. I believe I would beat him. Of course, I've got three losses, and that will people say, yeah, but he's 17 and 3, and counts that is undefeated.

If you lose a fight, it makes you a better fighter. Trust me. So I believe I'm not going to say I would smash him, because I'm not going to smash him, but I do believe I have a chance. I have a good chance of beating him. I do believe that actually the PFL middleweight division have one of the elite fighters.

If you compare them to the UFC, we would actually do a very good show and a good fight against them. Like this weekend, we have Israel Adesania against Joe Pfeiffer. When you compare yourself to those top names in the middleweight division of the UFC, you feel like the PFL middleweight division stacks up and there's an argument to me being made that it's better?

100%. 100%. 100%. I'd say, I'd say if we ever get the chance to have three, let's say two to four PFL middleweight fighters, get the four best middleweight fighters, including Johnny Ablin and Fabian Edwards and somebody else. We stack them up against other four of the top 10 or the top five middleweight fighters of the BFC. I think people will be very surprised. People will be surprised like, holy share. When you watch those guys, especially Hamzad, do you start comparing yourself to them do you think about how you would match up with them all always yeah always always i try to watch

all the middleweight fights i'd say what what they're what they're doing good so that i can adapt to that and what their mistakes is what i would do i'm always trying to study i'm trying to be better fighter every time after a fight but also every time after watching a fight can i just say also um i loved speaking of your brother earlier him walking out with you behind you holding the belt is not something that we usually see in big time MMA. It's a boxing type of thing. I thought that was a great look. I love that. The UFC for whatever reason

never does that. Was that your idea? Was that the PFL's idea? I hope they continue to do it because I thought it made the fight seem even bigger. Oh man, that was beautiful. It gave me goosebumps. I mean, that gave me actually superpowers I promise you are you. It was all PFL. PFL gave the belt to my trainer,

Ricardo Wando, Wando. And you take it, hold it up behind Costello. And then my brother came down with his team because we had separated training camps and he came down and was like Gino you hold it and Gino just came with this energy my brother came with an energy and the whole team of my brother was there my team was there so it looked really cool man I was like for it's it's not only the crowd fighting against my opponent but it's like my brother and I you know since we were young fighting everybody from the mud to the mansion at this moment now it's like us defending

it's not me defending bells we are for defending the belt love that was crazy I love It was all PFL though. Okay, I hope they continued to do it for all their title fights, but it was especially powerful considering it was your brother backing you on the way to battle. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. By the way, you mentioned that you had separate training camps. Was that on purpose as well? Why would you not train together?

Yeah, yeah, because if something happens to my brother, of course, we're training, we're fighting. It's a little bit of violence now and then. Just imagine my brother's in training camps. Something happens. I get distracted because of helping my brother. I don't want that. So I started my training camping down in Kilcliffe in Florida. I did it there for a couple of weeks, a little bit more than a month with Henry Hope, with RDR,

and then with Rodriguez and Vicente Lucke. So that was great. And then I did my last month in the Netherlands with my old team, with Musassi team. And my brother just stayed in Spain. He did the training camp with the team we always normally train with when we are in Spain. So he just stayed here this time. And that was not to get distracted, you know. It was like, okay, it's time to grow.

And it's the best decision we could ever make. If you want to grow as a fighter, try to do things on your own. Do mistakes. Make mistakes. The mistakes will make you grow a lot very, very fast. I love that. Will you be in Pittsburgh this weekend to watch the unofficial midway tournament? Oh, shit.

I need to call my manager. I need to say yes or no. Nima said to me, Waiting on you. Go. I should have called him an hour ago. I totally forgot. I still need to decide.

I want to go, but they need to, yeah, I don't know. I have to do other things. Depends. They need to fly me over a business. They need to give me a plus one business class. Hell yeah. See what else they can give me. But PFL is treating me really good, so I bet they will.

Who knows? I just need to give me five minutes and then I'll decide. Fair enough, fair enough. No disrespect to the great city of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. You seem to be in a beautiful part of Spain right now. I wouldn't be too eager to fly over to Pittsburgh from where you are right now. So I understand if you just say, you know, I'm going to watch this one at home. I'm the champ and let me know who I'm fighting and when. Enjoy all of that, Costello. Get back to your manager. Let them know the answer. Congratulations. It was amazing to see you. You came off as a superstar,

as a champ. It was great to see the whole event geared around you, centered around you to see these megastars from Real Madrid watching you and you performed and you delivered beautifully. So well, done. Congratulations. Looking forward to the next one and great to have you on again. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Ariel. I hope everything as well. Thank you so much. Be too soon, hopefully. Absolutely. There he is. The reigning defending PFL middleweight champion Costello Van Steenis, his brother, by the way. Won in the first round. He knocked out Mark Ewan Geno Van Steenis, nicknamed the ghost assassin. He has now won his last two in a row. And yeah, they're on some kind of role of those Van Steenus brothers.

That shot of him walking out with his brother behind him holding the bell. I don't know, for some reason, it was just like, wow, maybe because we never see it in MMA, maybe because it was his brother backing him. You know, we've seen a few brother tammons, obviously, the Diaz brothers, the Pettus brothers, the Edwards brothers in MMA. And it was just, it was such a powerful image. I don't know why the UFC does that. They used to, there was once a time where they said that Matt Hughes was a nine-time

Walterway champion because they would count every title defense. as a title victory, which it is, but as a new one. So Matt Hughes's Twitter handle, I still think it is till this day, to be honest, is like Matt Hughes 9x, because they would call him a nine-time champion. They don't do that anymore, but their thinking has always been, all right, when the fight, I guess, when the walkouts happen, or when the fight or the event starts, there's no champion anymore. And I think that's kind of weird.

so the champion walking out and then his team kind of handing the belt over to the promotional officials is kind of cool and different. I like it. I like it very much. All right.

We move along. Still to come, Michael Vennon Page is going to join us. Chanel Dyer is going to join us. She had a big win in her UFC debut at UFC London. Michael Vennepage, of course, with the win against San Patter. But let's talk about a guy who really kind of woke up the crowd.

It was an amazing win. I believe the official time was 28 seconds. Yes, it was. First round knockout against Austin Lane. Again, I want to get the name right here because this stuff matters to me. It's Evo Baranovski. I hope I got that right. We're going to ask him.

He is the pride of Poland on a fantastic run in the UFC, 2 and 0 in the UFC, 8 and O in MMA, just 27. years young, hailing from Warsaw, Poland, the aforementioned Evo is here, aka Rudy, and he's kind enough to join us. Hello, Ivo, how are you, my friend? Hello, hello, I'm very good, I'm very good, thank you. Did I pronounce your name correctly? Ivo Baranewski. Ivo Baranewski.

Yeah, exactly. Not bad, not bad. Why is your nickname Rudy? because my hair is like ginger hair, red head. In Poland, Rudy, in Poland is like ginger head. Okay, okay. Well, the hair looks great. Well, done on that part and also well done on Saturday. Your winner of Austin Lane was amazing.

And I kind of felt like you woke up the crowd. There were a lot of decisions and then there you are. You come out 28 seconds. When you were thinking about the fight, when you were preparing for the fight, visualizing the fight did you think that you would finish him

that quickly did you think that this would be a quick night for you and that was my best visualization before the fight

that I finished him like like was but before the fight I felt that this fight will be

I think two three rounds because Austin reach is very good and I found that

my for me very hard will be closed the distance Well, you did so very well and in very quick fashion. Can you describe what that feeling is like to score a 28 second knockout in the UFC at the O2 in front of all of those people in Europe?

What is that sensation like when the fight is over and you're realizing what you've done? It's very good feeling for me. Wow, I did that third fight because Continental is like a UFC, I think. Third fight in the UFC and every fight I've done. finished by a knockout so it's wow for me I'm very happy that and a great start to your UFC career and you also won a bonus and I understand you're getting married soon right can you repeat I understand you're getting married soon and I don't understand married like with a wife are you getting married no no not yet not yet but maybe in the future okay but I

heard that you said that you wanted to use that for that money for maybe a wedding down the line or am I wrong about that? I don't say. Okay. Maybe I'm... Maybe I collect this money for the preparation for the next fights, yeah? Some trips to the other clubs to preparing to the next fights. Okay.

Right now, do you train in Poland? Yes, I train in Poland in Warsaw. and in Anko S&A in Poznan. You train with Jan Bakovych? Yes, but we train with the separate clubs, but we sparring together. Okay, and you spar with him? Yes, yes.

And, you know, he's sort of, you know, there have been a lot of legends of Polish MMA, obviously in the UFC, Jan Bajovych, Yowana, on the female side of things. It felt to me on Saturday, like a lot of the fans were saying, like you are the future. We hear about the legendary Polish power.

You're the next one. Do you feel that kind of support from the Polish fans? And if so, how do you feel about it? Yes, I feel this support. I would like to go this way. Like Joanna, like I want to be the next Polish UFC champion. And this support from my fans, from my family, from my friends. It's a very huge motivation for me to be the next Polish superstar.

from Poland. I don't know if it's the lighting or something, but it looks like your right eye has like a little bit of a mark here. Is that from the fight or was that from training? No, no, no. It's for my first fight. That's this skin. Skinny. Oh, yeah. Always.

I forget the name, but this is skin. Okay, because I was going to say, I don't think Austin landed anything on you. I didn't see anything of notes. So it hadn't, you know, it couldn't have been from Saturday. This. No, no, no, no. I don't get any punch.

Okay. You mentioned using the money for training and whatnot. Would you like to train in America? Would you like to see what else is out there? Are you happy training in Poland? No, no. I think that in the future I go to America to train with some great fighters and maybe I go to Europe to another club.

but I think my coaches told me where will be the best, but I choose the club when you have told me who will be my next opponent. Sure, and you want to be active this year, right? Maybe three fights? Three fights will be great. Who would be your pick for your next fight? Who would make sense to you? Have you thought of that?

I do thinking about it. I say yes for everybody. You have no preference whatsoever. You don't dream about anyone. Maybe with Kutalava will be a good fight. You want Kutilaba, veteran, tough guy. Yeah, yeah, and I think a fight with him will be very good. You know, it's interesting.

A lot of the Polish fighters that were introduced to in the UFC, they come through KSW, because that's obviously the biggest promotion in Poland, but you didn't fight for them. Was there any particular reason why? Because my target and my eyes were only on the UFC. I want to be in the UFC and I go to a way to the Contender Series.

Okay. Interesting. And start from the Babylon. My way, my journey in the MMA start from the Babylon and that's smaller event like Paso in Poland. Did they reach out to you? Did they try to get you on one of their cards, KSW? I don't know.

For sure, I don't know. Okay. How were you introduced to MMA? When did you start training? How old were you? I started training in a MMA, I think, six years ago. I was 21, 22 years. And I finished my judo career because I was,

I try to be on the Olympic Games, but I don't have too much points. And after this, I say by myself that now I go to the NMA, and I think that was good, correct way. I think you made the right call. When did you start judo? I started judo when I was 8 years old, and I spent it 15 years. Wow, and who got you into judo when you were 8? my father

push me on the judo class because my every friend from my class train karate and I want to join to my friends but my father told me judo will be better and I go and I love it

from the first lesson I agree with him by the way but why did he think that judo was better than karate I think because in judo I learn not only the throws and not

only parts, but some gymnastics, some balance. And I think judo is very good base to the MMA. Yes, I think actually you can make the case that judo is maybe other than wrestling the best base for MMA. Yes, I think, I think yes, because in judo you have not only trolls, but you have some ground fight. you have some chokes, some, I don't know how the name. In ground fight you have chokes and how is the name?

Like arm bars and stuff? Arm bars and something like arms or something like this. Yes, yes. How close were you to making the Olympics? I was in national team. I don't, when you go, when you want to go to the Olympics. Olympic games in judo, you must be in the top 26 on that list. I was, I think, 45. So I think 1,000 points less. Okay. And when did you start to think, okay, after judo, I'm going to start

to transition to mixed martial arts. When did that idea begin for you? I always thinking about it, but my, the best plan was I go to Olympic games and after Olympic games. I, I do, I, In Olympic games, I did the medal, and after Olympic games, I go to the NAA. But I always know that I go after Maduro career to MMA. Did you watch a lot of MMA as you were growing up? Yes, I watched with my father, KSW. Okay, who was your favorite? I watched Yanboakovich fight.

Yambakovit was the champion in KSW. and after I watched highlights from the UFC and my favorite fighter is John Jones. What about Marius Puginovsky? Yes, I saw his fight. I think I saw every fight and he gives Poland fans knowledge about who is M.A. Sure. And he gives good promotion to MMA in Poland. Of course, yes.

His fights were always a big deal. So you say your favorite was John Jones, and now here you are a light heavyweight as well. Crazy how that all works out. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. That is crazy. But I very like to another fight,

but I think John Jones is my favorite. Is it hard to process that here you are, living your dream, here you are in the UFC, you're successful, you're undefeated. You know, two days after a great win, how are you dealing with everything? I'm so excited from this situation. I'm so excited because in one night I won two times because I won the fight. I won the bonus second time, my second fight in the UFC and second bonus.

So I think I will be thinking about it one week. Yes, you should. You should enjoy it and you deserve it. By the way, I saw a great, I don't know, they were doing promotional thing where you were dressed up as peaky blinders. This was a great look for you. Do you know this show? This right here, you look fantastic here. Thank you, thank you very much.

That was my stylish from press conference, but when I came to UFC, somebody told me that I don't go to the press conference. Come on. I don't wear it. Yeah. What the hell? Was there even a press conference for this event? I don't even know. Was there a press conference?

I don't know it before that in the UFC fight nights. You don't have press conference. You have only press conference on the UFC numbers, USC. Yes, yes, yes. But you still got a good use out of it. You look great. Thank you very much. I like this.

I like this. You have a stylist as well. You're a star. Not a lot of fighters who are new to the UFC have stylus. Oh, he may have lost them. We'll get them back. Okay, we'll get him back. Evo, a.k.a. Rudy. Baranovsky.

What a background this young man has. By the way, total combined fight time in three UFC slash contender series fights, two minutes and 17 seconds. Average of 46 seconds per fight. That's insane. He's back? Oh, hello, Evo. How are you?

Do you hear me? I'm sorry. But I think I have a good connection. Yes, thank you. I hear you, but I don't know. Can you hear me now? No. Oh, do you hear me?

I hear you. It's a bit delayed, guys. Yes, yes, yes. But I... Yeah, let's try to reconnect real quick. If you guys don't mind. 46 seconds. Obviously, Mr. Tom Aspinall

had the two minutes and two seconds. It's gone up a little bit. I think it's now 218. considering what happened in his last fight. 8 and 0 this young man, 27 years young, six career wins via KO, two via sub.

So he's finished everyone. Eight career first round stopages. This is a name that I think we'll be talking about for a long time. 2018 World Judo Junior's bronze medalist Black Belt in judo. 2020 ADCC Poland national champion in Jiu-Jitsu.

2022 World and European Amateur MMA champion. 23 makes his MMA debut and here he is back sorry I have a connection because I am on a flat in London

because I stay here a few days on a little vacation No no I understand I'm not going to keep you much longer Did you know your average fight time in the UFC is 46 seconds right now What is 46 seconds? Your average fight time

You're very fast with your wins. Yeah, I very like first round, you know. It's a good statistic. Yes, eight wins in the first round. How soon do you want to return? I think I need some rest, maybe one week rest, and I back to work, and I will be waiting for next conference.

And how far away do you think you are from the top of the light heavyweight division? In your mind, how many fights until you're fighting the top guys? I think maybe give me two years maybe. Okay. I think you are well on your way, Evo, and it's a lot of fun to see you do your thing. So I wish you continued success. Keep it up, my friend. And congratulations. And great to meet you. Great to have you on the show. Thank you very much. Thank you for invite me. Pleasure. There he is. The Pride of Poland. We've got a new legendary Polish power man.

his name is Evo Badaynofsky, aka Rudy. He is on some kind of role and he's won all of his UFC fights and he's won them in very impressive and quick fashion and actually he's winning all of his fights in very impressive and quick fashion, winning all of them in the first round. Super impressive guy. I'm looking forward to talking to Michael Venham Page. We're going to talk to him in about six minutes time

and we'll also meet Chanel Dyer who has a phenomenal story so stay tuned for that. Looking forward to talking to both of them. Tomorrow's going to be a great day on the program as well. I'll tell you more about it as we get closer to the end.

As we wrap up some of the London talk, what about Nathaniel Wood? He had a great win. He seems to be, I don't know, the kind of guy that people they don't respect,

they count him out, they don't give him the love and attention that he deserves. He's in every man, if you will. Here he is on the tube after his win. on Saturday.

A man of the people. Here's Nathaniel Wood. I got the win. Took a few injuries, imagine you're on the tube after UFC London and there's Nathaniel Wood just sort of chilling.

On the tube with you. Like all banged up, he's wearing his boot. Ain't no thing. No problem. We talked about John Silva. He was at the event. He was not impressed with the main event. Here he is walking out.

There's Nasurdin. There's John. What's he giving it? The old thumbs down or what? Yeah, I'm not impressed. He did have a nice reunion with Arnold Allen back there. Went backstage. Man, that he fought not that long ago.

Look at this. Look at these two guys. Oh, here's Arnold. Arnold's searching for John This is nice to see The two pals Look at these guys This is great

Courtesy of John Gooden Did a phenomenal job As always calling the action It's nice to see them Put in the surfboard Moment passes Yes, yes, yes It did end a little bit weird

And it did seem like Arnold was bothered By it all And then I saw a tweet From John Silva Late last night With a little promotion I like this

I'll be live On the area of Juani show this Tuesday at 2.30 p.m. That's in Sao Paulo. Alex Volcanovsky join me live. Let's talk it out together. No running from the debate like you've been running from the fight. I'm waiting for you.

Well, Kat's out of the back. He will be joining us tomorrow. Do you guys think Volk joins as well? If anybody can make it happen, you can. Yeah. Although I do think that that time isn't great for It's not great for Volk, right? Yeah, because of the time. I think that would be 530. Although he's an early riser. He's an early riser. Armin Sarukian did take to threads after the event regarding the 145 pound division and did say this.

UFC fans is a time for me to save the featherweight division. Armand teasing a move down to 145. Armine in action this weekend again, it's RAF 7 against Georgia Pulis. So Saturday night is going to be an insane night. I've got a big problem on my hands. My wife's birthday Saturday night, guys. UFC Seattle, you guys will be there. there and PFL Pittsburgh, you won't be there.

No. And RIF 7. There's a lot to watch. Fire up the multiple screens. What's your game plan? I don't know. We're actually invited to a bar mitzvah. None of the above.

You're all going to that? Yes. Oh, wow, shut out. That's great. I mean, it's an old friend, you know. More important. Yeah, you reach 43. Like, what are you doing?

Birthday parties, you're getting little hats and stuff. Listen, I'm with you on this train. but I feel like a lot of people are not. No, no, you're right. We talked about PFL earlier. We talked about Costel Van Steenis. What about PFL CEO John Martin? I could also tell you he's going to be in studio tomorrow on the program.

A lot to talk to him about, a lot going on to the world of PFL. Hadn't seen him, you know, with these types of fighting words just yet, Mr. John Martin. I thought this clip in particular was very interesting. Take a look. For all the talk around the White House card and the UFC, I got to tell you, it seems underwhelming. We have the best middleweights in the world fighting tomorrow night and then in Pittsburgh. The great fights,

the best fighters are happening right here in the PFL. Rick, what do you think of this from John Martin? I like the spice overwhelming. I gotta be honest. I've been missing Don Davis, you know? I have an affinity for old Don and so one of the things that Don did well was he threw

these kind of jabs out there. I like to see John Martin kind of continuing that. I like to see some kind of you know adversarial nature with the ufc i wasn't expecting him to hit it so on the nose like that you know like hey uh i know some of you are upset with something like he's like no the white house card sucks and oh by the way we have the best middleweight division in the sport yeah two very strong takes by the way but the best middle weights are fighting this weekend and next weekend he said which which division is better pfl middleweight division ufc middleweight division ufc middleweight division

what do you say? UFC. Are the PFL rankings? Oh, PFL rankings. What's that company that does the PFL rankings again? Oh boy, I forgot the name of it. Yeah. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, U.S.

That's it.com. No, it's not that one. Thank you, Armin. Middleweight, middle weight. Okay, here it is. Okay, so here's your top five in the UFC. Hamza Chimaev champion, so I'll include him. Drichis, Nasurdin, Sean Strickland, Israel, Kayo.

It's pretty good. It's not bad. over on the PFL side of things Costello champ this page is nice by the way I've never been here Johnny Eblen Fabian Impa

Jordan Newman Dalton Rosta do you know what's so tough about this okay so obviously I'm going with the PFL excuse me the UFC sorry

obviously I'm going with the UFC do you know it's so tough about this discussion right now right now like in March of 2026 it's so hard to have this discussion

with a straight face because of patchy mix. I think patchy mix ruined it for a very long time because patchy mix was the poster child for hey, oh by the way, this division is actually really good and these guys can hold their own and, you know, don't just assume

and then he goes over to the UFC and it just, you know, it wasn't great. It was great in Risen as well. But point is, I think it makes it a lot harder right now. if you know you know and those are really good fighters but that ufc the top of the ufc middleweight division is still very very strong and then chamsat is like the great you know the great equalizer if you will like he just he is so damn good and so damn dominant that it's hard to argue against him still to come

chenelle dyer who had a phenomenal win on saturday we'll get to her and learn more about her story very much looking forward uh to meeting her and speaking to her for the very first time but was very, very excited to hear that Mr. Michael Venom Page was going to be joining us. There's a ton to talk to him about, obviously victorious on Saturday against Sam Patterson. A lot to get into with the longtime MMA veteran. So let's not keep him waiting any longer without further ado. The one and only MVP, aka Michael Venom Page, kind enough to join us. Hey, Michael, how are you, my man?

How are you doing? You're okay? I'm doing great. This seems like a great little location that you're in right now. Where is this? This looks fantastic. Yeah, I'm in, we're just a little staycation at a Soho farmhouse. So it's like a countryside type vibe. Wow, in London.

Oh, nice for relaxing one. Yeah, so just outside London. Okay, okay, wonderful, wonderful. Well, sorry to interrupt the staycation. You're always a gent. You're always gracious with your time. Always appreciate it. Let's get into it. Much, much to discuss with you. All right, this is the big one. Forty-eight hours, you fought, you've had time to digest. Everyone's weighed in. You've weighed in a little bit. do you feel about what transpired on Saturday night? Yeah, I've gone back, you know, sat with it for it, by it. And for me, it wasn't good enough of a performance from my side. There were things that I was met with in the cage.

I didn't think I would be met with. You know, Patterson was a bit more on his back foot. And I actually really wanted to be aggressive in this fight. But again, just because that happened, I then didn't readjust and rethink how to work it out, how to press, how to close the gap. I was actually getting frustrated. I think it's the first time someone's got me frustrated in the cage. So, yeah, I just looking at, I like to focus more on myself. I was looking at myself and I need to do way better.

It wasn't good enough. I think the fans have got an expectation. on me, but I've got a massive expectation on myself and I didn't deliver. We had heard how you felt about the fight, how you felt about the matchmaking, how you felt about the state of things with the UFC leading up to the fight.

Did any of that sentiment, any of that frustration, for lack of a better term, affect the way in which you fought on Saturday? It's hard to say, to be fair, but definitely you forget how frustrations can actually manifest itself.

And as you said, I've had quite a few, you know, one obviously the opponent, it wasn't, it was somebody that I know well and I've worked with, so we didn't really want to have that fight. But it was also somebody I wanted, I would never have respect to us to even cross past right now anyway because status-wise, ranking-wise,

didn't think was correct. But at the same time, Once I kind of got over my frustrations, I was locked in to like, okay, I need to deliver, you know, a good result and then ask for, you know, the fights that I want again. I really pushed for the fights that I want. So, you know, I felt like it did, I would say it didn't, but obviously the performance that I ended up having, maybe it did play a part and seeping a little bit. The reason I asked that is I was wondering if, all right, you made it very much known. how you felt about the fight in the booking so like hey let me just do you know not the safe thing but like let me not put myself in danger get the win and then it's on to the next and then

I'll get a bigger fight like was that any any part of the thinking as far as how you were approaching this no I was the opposite I was like okay I'm gonna have to go big here I'm gonna have to really like put something on so they can't deny me the next fight that's where I was where I was at and again the game plan wise I was expecting Patterson to have a bit more of a you know it's a win-win for him so really hell merry let's just go for it but he was a bit more cautious and tactical styles make fights so because he was a bit more defensive it made it a bit harder to kind of close him but again I was trying to push forward and trying to make things happen genuinely I was even speaking to my coach mid you know each round I was like what am I

supposed to do with this like I was I was getting frustrated but I would say it was more my coach that was like you just got to stick to the game plan he's going to bite soon and you know he'll open up soon i wanted to just try to go a bit more crazy but and maybe a bit more reckless which obviously would have put me in danger as my coach that was like no no no stay stay to the game plan and and just look for him in a way that we've kind of what we've worked on um so yeah no i was trying i wanted to really deliver something big is that that's what i think adds to my frustration now You've sparred with him in the past, right? Yeah.

How long ago was the last time? I think it was around the, probably like earlier in my Shara bullet camp. Oh, really not that long ago. Not too long ago, no, no, no. Like, like I said, we know each other well enough to understand certain aspects of each other. Obviously, we don't, we wasn't trying to kill each other. It's more helping each other. But still, it's like, we know we're familiar.

And I think that's probably what added to maybe him being a bit more. because he knows how dangerous I am. I feel like if he hadn't experienced me in the gym, maybe he would have been a bit, he would have been a bit more, you know, wanting to come forward. But, you know, you'd have to ask him that. I'm not sure, but yeah, I was expecting a young guy to come out trying to kill me.

And again, like I said, I think he was a bit more, he was being a bit more safe. And I was, you know, I don't know, I just, I just was disappointed the whole thing more so side because either way regardless of what my opponent does, I should always have an answer and have something to be able to set the traps to figure out what's going on and then still get the result that I want. So yes, it's definitely all on me. You might have been locked in and didn't realize but I was wondering first UFC London fight for you big deal. 25th career victory by the way.

Congratulations. I didn't hear that mention and that's a great that's a great you know honor and distinction as well, but to hear the booze in the middle of the fight, how did you process that? To be fair, I'm never really phased by booze during the fight because, again, I know fans can get bored really, really quickly. And I know my style is one of those kind of styles where it's a lot of animosity built up. It's a lot of tension and not loads happening, but then there's usually explosive moments that will happen. And I guess because there wasn't getting those explosive moments during the fight, I kind of completely understood them. Like, I was booing myself in my head.

So I kind of, I completely understood why they would be booing. But that's not something that has ever faced me. I've been in fights where during the fight, you know, they get, they get agitated because not much is happening. And they've booed before. And, you know, I still go out and get the victory in the correct way. So never really been phased. It was more what was happening, actually happening that was annoying my

myself and frustrating myself that was the big effect. Have you rewatched the fight yet? Not properly. I've seen aspects of the fight, but I want to sit down with the commentary and everything and actually do that. I always like to have my family time first. And obviously I had family fly over, which was amazing to feel that support.

So just been spending time with them and they're slowly been leaving. And once everyone's gone, I'm going to sit down and tune into the fight properly. The reason I ask that is, are there moments that you remember looking back that you have regret where you were like, yeah, I should have put the pedal to the metal here? I should have taken a chance. I should have gone for it. Are there moments that are sort of replaying in your mind? Yeah, loads.

There's loads of moments, loads of things. I was like, oh, man, I should have just done that thing that we do when he was deciding to go this way. And I didn't throw that kick here. And I could have thrown that faint here to make him go this way. Like, there's loads of stuff when that's without, as you say, having to look back on it. It's just more what's going over in my head. And again, that is, for me, what's the most disappointing because I have answers for people that decide to do that

because I know, and I've spoken about this before, my style can either make you freeze, it can either make you back up or it can make you rush forward. And I have answers for when people do whatever, you know, whatever happens. And I just didn't push enough and really go for it. Also was wondering about the move back down to 170. Sometimes, you know, we've seen it in boxing a lot when someone goes really high up and then they come back down, the body feels a little bit different when they're back down.

In MMA, there's a big gap between middleweight and welterweight. How did you feel, especially on Fight Week, as you were cutting back to 170 for the first time in a while? Let me just start from the beginning. I was on Roadhouse over the, like, towards the end of the year up to December. that's when I really put on a lot of weight. And I mean, like, I was 106Ks and then cut down to 77 for the fight. Weirdly enough,

that last week, I actually was feeling really, really good. I actually got down relatively early. In terms of I had still about two weeks left where I could have cut from there, but obviously just taking my time now. So then when I had my cut, my cut was quite comfortable, to be fair. I was actually expecting to be a rough one, like you said,

because my body hasn't been used to being down there. I was expecting to be quite difficult. It was actually quite comfortable. My body felt great the next day. And this is what adds to the frustration is. Everything just felt on point. I felt strong. I was working with John Hathaway.

As you guys know, he was in my corner, and he's an amazing, exceptional body to be working with. And even he was saying, man, you're feeling strong. I'd be, I was where we'd done some spas before. He was, you know, helping me out a lot in the camp. And, yeah, like, I was just feeling good. And then I didn't deliver. So that's, again, adds to the frustration.

Because I was really, in my head, I had already envisioned, you know, a spectacular K-O. I could see it coming. I was just feeling super fast. Body felt great. Yeah. And it just didn't happen. So, yeah, I can't blame the weight cut at all.

for those that may not know 106 KG is around 233 pounds you fought at 170 that's massive did they need for you to get that big was that your choice no to be again in all honesty it's my first

film of that scale and it's a game of somebody spoke to me about this and said it's a game of hurry up and wait so you have to rush to get on set and you know you're waking up at 4 in the morning driving over. They have to be here on time, they're on time, get your makeup done, so on and so forth.

And then you're sitting down for hours. And everyone's coming out to, oh, would you like any food? We'd like any drinks. We'd like, you know, I was just eating cakes and biscuits and just snacking a lot and just slowly, slowly getting bigger. I did want to be, I did want to be a little bit bigger for the film, but I definitely went way too

far. This streak of not getting a finish now, five fights, about three years. Is this weighing on you? Yeah, it's frustrating. It's frustrating at first. Even though I wasn't getting a finish, I was kind of happy with the performances,

and I kind of understood, you know, what it had happened. Kevin's obviously a hard person to finish. You know, very hardly anybody does finish him. Even when he's been knocked down, he seemed to have a way of surviving and still staying on the fight. Ian Gary, obviously, just a technical fight.

And, you know, I've managed to push him into being a bit more of a grappler. then I've gone upper weight so I kind of understood it's already going to be harder to kill those kind of guys because they're naturally bigger than me but he goes like to Sharra Bullitt and Jared cana near who I just beat

so Jared used to be a heavyweight himself so again just hard to kill so I kind of accepted it but still was chasing it like and then this one I was just like man come on I need to I need to get back to the old school ways of MVP man and seriously I'm already

already writing schedules about what game plan and training structure I'm going to be I have to change in order to gain more power, gain more speed and get those knockouts. Takes a lot of courage to speak up the way in which you did leading up to the fight. What was the reception like for you on Fight Week? How did you feel, did you feel any type of friction?

With Sam? No, with the UFC, to be quite honest. Oh, no, no, to be fair. If anybody has actually followed my career, I've never been shy to just kind of say how I feel. I don't think it's a bad thing. Whether it's you're going to piss somebody off or upset of somebody, I've never felt it a bad thing.

If it's honest and it's not an emotional thought, there's frustrations involved and a bit of disappointment with certain decisions and so on and so forth, but it's still well thought out. So when I'm speaking to people, I'm not doing it from an emotional place. It's like, no, this is how. I feel, you know, irritated with this.

So, you know, I wish this was different. And I wish, you know, that had changed. And I feel like the honesty of that, people kind of respect. So, you know, I don't, I didn't feel any animosity. I didn't get to see Dana specifically over this past week. But I didn't feel any animosity towards or from any of the UFC staff. I felt a lot of support. They're all still rooting for me.

even spoke to Hunter and he's just like man I'm in your corner like you know if you need you got to speak to me let me know if there's things that you need we can have those conversations it didn't feel like anybody had any issue with what I was saying and I think it's just because you

you can tell it's coming from an honest place did you have that conversation with Hunter? Did he offer any type of explanation as to why it was Sam Patterson because that seemed to be a major issue for you? I never really got to speak to him directly about that.

It was more audio that was going back and forth and he spoke to my coaches a few times as well. And it was more, his thing was, is you are very difficult to match. And I took that as I guess people are

somewhat, I don't like to use the word scare because I think, you know, MMA fighters are some of the most fearless fighters in the world, or fearless people in the world. Because, you know, what we have to do.

But obviously they are cautious about the style that they're going to have to go into. So they might see somebody that's equally as tough as me, but it's more of a style that they are familiar with. Whereas I'm tough, but I'm an awkward style. So then why, you know, if you offer me two fights and MVP is one of them, I'm going to go with the other guy because it's like, cool, it's still a tough fight. But I've seen those takedowns before.

I've seen those punches before. I've seen those kicks before. I can deal with that. That I don't really understand. So I feel like that's where it came from. He said, you know, he's trying to find fighters. It's not getting a lot of reception. There's a lot of, because a few young guys that, you know,

they guess want to, you know, explode into the rankings and kind of make a name for themselves. I'm happy to do it. So this is what we can offer you for right now. And then the walkout. The walkout, I have to say, one of the all-time best. And it's a great song. And your movements were great as well.

Unfortunately, we can't play the song because we don't want to get dinged by YouTube, but this is the sort of tail end of it. Can you tell us? And I know you were asked about it at the Post-Fite Press Conference, and you gave them a little cheeky smile there, Michael. But tell us, what was the message you were trying to send us with that walk-out song? They don't really care about us by the great Michael Jackson. Yes.

Again, I said it in the Post-Fight press conference. There's a multitude of things. if I start with my own frustrations I think it was a little bit of that of just kind of like man the decisions that were made like I've spoken about in terms of being frustrated with

I think the main one for me was the fact that they put a young kid who's super talented who's had one fight in the UFC as a co-main event and it was just like I feel disrespected you know what I mean

like the effort and what I've delivered for the fans in the same arena and other arenas around the world. And then obviously, even I haven't necessarily got to finish. Yeah, I've delivered some, I feel like, some really entertaining fights. And a lot of people to speak about. And I've made a lot of noise still to be like, you know, he's not Colman, he's not Maine, he's in his own backyard.

And I think the majority of people in there were there to see me, I didn't deliver. They were there to come and see what MVP had to show. It was a bit of annoyance with that. So it was like I felt like it was relevant. But then genuinely, just everything that's going on in the world, in my head, it's like it doesn't really matter what side you fall on. Too many innocent women, kids, men are dying for nonsense, for these higher powers.

political battles and financial battles and just battles of power. And like you said, it's such a classic song. It's been around for so long. It's such an old song and it's still relevant and probably more relevant today. I feel like it's just a statement that, yeah, we're just all heading in the wrong direction. We claim to be progressive in so many different areas like science, technology and all those kind of things. And yet we're still going backwards in terms of how we treat each other. So yeah, I feel like it was just a per-

I heard it. We were talking about Michael Jackson. You know, we ended up playing one of his old, like he's on YouTube, like an old documentary of him talking about stuff, you know, his journey and so and so forth. He was literally the first song that I hummed as a baby. I was like one years old or one and a half was bad. Like he's been such an influential figure for everybody.

it just felt right. When did that hit you? Was that on Fight Week? No, no, no. It was before. It was, like I said, it was probably along the lines of when I was a bit frustrated.

I thought about it. And then, like I said, I won't make any rash decisions while I'm feeling frustrated or annoyed. But it popped into my head because we were watching that around that same kind of time as well. And then as things were going on and I'm just hearing the news about this and that.

And I was just like, man, it's still relevant, still relevant, still relevant, yep. And then when I, they usually ask around fight week, or just before fight week, what track? And I'm like, man, this is the track. This is the track I want to make. I want to, I want to just send a message. And I always try to, I've send a message or I'm entertaining or I'm doing something with the time that I have on stage.

So, yeah, I felt it was just right. It was tremendous theater. And also, I have to say, shout out to the UFC as well, because they can, they could put a stop to a song playing. They've done that before. The fact that they let it go on, I thought, you know, was quite notable in its own right. Definitely. There were some reports that Dana left in the middle of your fight. I don't know if that's true.

I wasn't watching him. I didn't notice. Do you know if that's true? Yeah, somebody had mentioned it, but again, I couldn't tell you if that's true or not. Someone just mentioned it to me. And even they didn't seem sure. It was, I don't know. But yeah.

Do you have any more intel on that? Do you know if it was because of you, your performance, anything like that? You can understand why people are trying to link it together. Of course, of course, of course. I don't know. Let's say it was due to my performance, then fair enough. Like I said, I would probably walk down on my performance. It was bad.

I'm not going to be butt hurt by if I was like kicking him in the face, being kicking him and slamming him and doing all this stuff. And then he decided to walk out then we'd be like, oh, what's going on there? Because I'll take that as personal. But like I said, I'm myself and disappointed in the result and the fight. if he was like yeah I'm done watching fair enough could I ask and sometimes people like to answer sometimes they don't but I'll ask anyway how many fights do you have left on your UFC contract I believe this I've got I've got one more I think I got one more there's a six fight deal so

do you want to the big talk was your future what you want to do what are you thinking do you want to stick around do you want to see what else is out there given how you felt leading up to this point, you just mentioned the disrespect word, how are you feeling regarding your future? Like I said, I think all fighters are going to have moments in their career where they feel unappreciated or they'd feel like things are not necessarily going in the way that they want. But ultimately, it is a massive privilege and an honor to be fighting on one of the greatest combat shows in the world as ever to exist. And I'm thankful to have been given a shot people say it's late in my career this and that regardless.

I'm thankful to be here today, to be given the promotion that they kind of present and gift fighters that, you know, do well and succeed on their stage. I'm just thankful of that. So like I said, I'll never shy away from saying how I feel if I'm irritated. And like I said,

it will always be thought out as well. But if I, if I'm genuine believer, I'll say it. But I'm super hyped that I'm part of the UFC as well as so many of my fans, friends that I've always wanted to go to the UFC and it's so nice to see you there now and that's how I feel. But I also want to get something back from it. So the goal is the UFC belt. So as soon as we have the next conversation about where I'm going to go, how many fights is that going to mean? Let's sign me up. I want to get a belt. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to be here. I just, I'm upset with myself that I haven't

delivered what I know I can deliver, but I'm dying to show that to the UFC and just the world. Sometimes when a fighter has one fight left, they'll try to wrap up a new deal before you get to that last fight. Sometimes you roll the dice, you play it out. How do you think it's going to work with you? Again, I guess it's the powers that be. It's in God's hands. But I personally, I'm looking at the belt. I know it's not going to be the next fight. So I need to be. be here longer. So, you know, with the next conversation when the UFC is ready, that, you know, I have with them is about, okay, how many, how many more fights do I need? What do I need to do? What division is the best, you know, direction to move in? I just want to get

there. And again, I'm coming to, I am coming towards the end of my career, but I still got a lot to do. I still got loads to do. I still feel great. I'm telling you, if I didn't feel as good as I felt, as much as I haven't yet shown it. If I didn't feel as good as I felt in the gym, I generally would be like, yeah, I'm good to retire now, but I've got a lot more to show. So just to be crystal clear, for anyone out there saying MVP's trying to fight out his deal

and leave the UFC, that's not your intention right now. You're open to everything. There's one fight left, but your goal, as of right this moment, as we're speaking, is to be a UFC champion. You want to fight the best. That's why you're asking to fight the best. And as of right now, though,

there are no talks about a new contract as of right this second. that fair? No, no, we haven't, we haven't had any, any talks here. Nothing's being presented. It might be, most likely, probably from their side, but I don't know when I'm supposed to go to speak to them or if they just, I just wait for them to speak to me. I was hoping, again, this, this, this, this fight was that big fight that showcases what I know I can do, which in which it wasn't, is kind of giving me a bit of a backstep now. So maybe I have to, maybe I have to wait to the next fight. Maybe that's what they're waiting for. They're waiting for

to see what they bought into. So maybe, you know, the next fight, again, give me someone that wants to come and kill me. I want somebody that wants to take my head off, and we can have a proper fight, and I can showcase my skills. Give me a, I don't care where, just give me a big name, and let me, let me put someone to bed in MVP fashion,

and then, yeah, we can move forward with, you know, progression to the belt. I know this may be a tough question to answer, but from your perspective, do you think that the powers that be want to be in the MVP, business. Sorry, say that again. Do you think that the powers that be in the UFC want to be in the MVP business?

I'm not entirely sure. It's very difficult to understand where people are, how they feel about me, based on decisions that happen. Like I said, I don't agree with it. I'm not even talking about just me, there's certain things I see from other fighters that I just don't necessarily agree with. But I don't understand how they come to these conclusions. Like, for example, Amosov, sorry, I feel like he should have that chance to fight for the middleweight.

But I thought it was like an obvious he's the next in line. But the decision has gone a completely different way. So I don't know, look, he might feel right now that they're not in the Imov. Yeah. Business, you know what I mean? So it's just hard to tell. You know, they make the decisions based on, you know, whatever talks they have in the back office.

And we just have to try to navigate what that means. But I'm in the MVP business. I'm looking to keep getting more and more people in the MVP business by showcasing my skills. I haven't done that. And I'm looking to do that. You know, I saw some posts that were attributed to you. But now I think that there's only, I look to verify.

It was just your Instagram post, right? because some people, you know how it is, especially on X. So I just want to clarify what you posted on Instagram regarding the fight is the only thing that you've said in the aftermath before this, of course, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the only thing I've said. Somebody had said to me, they'd seen something that I'd said,

and I was like, that's definitely not me. And actually, the team, they told me, one of the guys from the team told me about it, and they are now looking into where that come from, and they're going to have to deal with them and the paradigm team, so they'll get it sorted out. But the Instagram is, though, if anybody knows me, you don't even see me on many other platforms, really.

I don't really tweet or X, sorry, I don't really do any of that anyway. So it's just Instagram. Okay, okay, I just wanted to clear that up. And I'll let you go in a moment as well. Because, let's be honest, I don't think you got hit very much in that fight, right? No, no, no. Because of that, do you want to come back? If it was up to you, would you like to come back very quickly?

Yeah. As quick as possible to make as many people forget what just happened, including myself. So, yeah, yeah, the next couple of months, I'd be good to go because I'm at a very comfortable weight, just get back into the gym, start training, start working. Like I said, I've got a schedule of what I want to do now. I've spoken to my coach as well. We need to go through a few more details, but I'm already planning. that that next stage

and I just want to try and speak to the UFC and see, you know, and find out who and, you know, when. So I'm trying to get back in as soon as possible. Just for fun, because I know you'll say, give me a big name at 8570, I'm Hunter Campbell, you're Michael Page. And I say to you, Michael, tell me the name, tell me the wait. What do you want? All right, you said you weren't happy. What do you want? What's the answer to that? sorry, it is very difficult.

The reason why the first question for me would be, honestly speaking, in terms of me going towards the belt, what division seems more likely that you would prefer me at in terms of progression towards the belt? If I look at it without asking that question, world to wait seems very messy at the moment. And I do, I just feel like I've got more of my strengths are at welterweight, but it feels like there's a better or easier path at middleweight, but I want to clarify that with the UFC. And then if they, let's say they say middleweight, then give me a, Kyle Barat look great in his last one.

I'd love to have a fight like that. And he's a 100% game. I actually love what he did in that last fight. I'd love a Robby Whitaker. I think that's a great fight as well. If we're still in the World to Weight Division, I wanted a pratas, I've asked for Prattas, but them guys are obviously they're pushing for the belt.

They've been doing successful, knockout, so and so forth. I understand that would be difficult to kind of get those guys. Kobe came out talking crap saying that he had never been offered fights. I know for a fact that they have put my name forward, and he hasn't responded to that. So Kobe, I'd love to punch him in the face. And I'm happy.

I would literally, if they send the contract now, I would sign that today. So he's saying that he's trying to get on the White House card and this and that nobody's wanting to. It's nonsense. So he would love to fight. Who else was asking? Leon. Leon would be great. But again, I kind of want it in the UK.

but, you know, yeah, it's still to be a great fight. Buckley was complaining about how the division was, you know, not moving in any way, shape or form. And, like, people are just not fighting each other. And I completely agree with him. So why don't me and him just get on with it? We do it. So there's some great fights to be had. You know what my takeaway is?

I do wonder if the move up to 85 left you in no man's land. Maybe, actually, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe, yeah, maybe actually. and this is why I need to get a bit more of a clear, concise answer from the UFC exactly what you want me to do like 100% no, this, we want you here and then cool. I'm not going to fight anymore. I want to go with what you guys suggest.

Just give me some good names and let's run it back. Last question for you, it is hard to go into anything, any type of endeavor, any type of work environment when you're feeling some sort of way, whether it's frustrated, disrespect, or whatever, looking back now on the road to this fight, the training camp and whatnot, do you feel like this was a cloud? Like if you're unhappy, if you're frustrated, it just, the birds don't sound the same, the coffee doesn't taste the same. You know what I mean? Like, do you feel like it affected you as a person, which maybe then, I'm not trying to give you the out to make an excuse or anything, but which maybe they left you in a certain type of mindset on Saturday night, looking back now that it's over? I would, I'll agree, I won't say it affected Saturday.

I feel like, like I said, there were certain things I just should have done and regardless. And the reason I say that is I've always kind of prided myself on being able to turn on MVP on the night of the fight. And regardless of what had happened before, I could have been heading towards the arena, got into a car crash. As long as my body's good to go, I'm ready to just turn on and be MVP when I get there still. I don't have to, I don't like to have it as an excuse. but I've had friends and family saying, and I've had ups and downs mentally about, you know,

you know, if they like me or not, are they happy with me? What am I supposed to do differently? There are a lot of battles that I do have that is a cloud during the camp, but I still felt great. So I wouldn't, it definitely plays a part, but I don't feel like it would have changed anything per se. obviously you'd love to have a, you know, an easy camp, but there's so many different things. Let's say the UFC, I was, everything was all, you know, Gucci with the UFC.

I could have had family issues. I could have had this. There's always something that could, you know, life is just going to life. So I can't put it on them at all. It needs to be me. I need to be more resilient and ready regardless of what's going on. Great stuff, Michael. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate you coming on, especially on vacation. congrats on the win. A win is a win. 25 in a career is nothing to sneeze at. You're a legend of the game. And, you know, I think it says a lot about you. You come on. You answer the questions. You face the music, so to speak. Whatever you want to say, you're always a gentleman.

You're wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate you always having me on and speak to me. It's always a pleasure to speak to you, man. Of course. Congrats. Talk to you soon.

All the best. Thank you. The one and only Michael Venom Page. What a guy, one of my favorites. of all time and didn't even think twice about coming on from his perspective. I appreciate him. He's, you know, obviously receiving some heat. It wasn't one for the highlight reel.

He's had many highlight reel victories. And look, you look at the names, you look at the names that this guy has fought in the UFC since coming over, since making his UFC debut in 2024. Kevin Holland. Ian Gary lost that fight. It was a close one, but he lost via decision and lost fair and square. then the Shara bullet win then the Jared Cannon

near win at 85 these are two tough guys at 85 moving up from 170 to 185 and then back down to 170 fight Sam Patterson those names Holland Gary, Gary, Shara Jared are in one type of category he's right about Sam maybe being a great

fighter but not having that name value I understood where he was coming from now it gets really interesting one fight left he just told us one fight left obviously there are other you know places right now popping up he left pfl slash bell toar can't see him going back although it's a new regime so it's really a whole different operation now there is that situation which happens to have the same three letters as him that's on netflix on may 16th that's down the line but when he came out to that song i was like oh man look it takes a lot of

courage, a lot of balls to, well, I guess you could only have two balls, but big balls, big balls. It takes big balls to say what he said leading up to the fight, to be openly critical. I didn't think that he came across as a malcontent or disrespectful towards the brass. I thought he was wearing his heart in his sleeve. He was being honest. The chat that he had with the boys when I was away was great. Was open, transparent, honest. That's everything you want out of these fighters and why I love talking to them so much.

and so he walks out to that song he's talking about his displeasure it was great I believe everything he said about the reasons why he chose that song he admitted it he said it was his feelings towards the brass but also what's going on in the world

and everything he said was 100% bang on spot on I'm really curious to see what happens next who do they book him against do they give him a fan friendly firefight type of fight against one of those names he mentioned do they give him a grappler who we know we'll try to take him down, smother him, all that stuff. Do they try to, you know, have him lose on the way out?

Do they try to make him look good and reset? Like, there's a million different directions here. This is going to be an interesting story to monitor over the next four, five, six months. One more guest to go, and then we'll get to your news and notes and also some great super chats as well. In a matter of moments, we're going to be joined by the 24-year-old Chanel Dyer, who is, is 7 and 1 in MMA, now 1 in the UFC. The nightmare is her nickname. 3 and O in the PFL, by the way.

She was on Contender Series in September. She lost, that's her only UFC loss, excuse me, only pro loss, not technically in the UFC, and they signed her anyway, which is a rare thing. That's how high they were on her. Now, 7 and 1 in MMA, trains with Brad Pickett over in, in London, but has over 100 Muay Thai in kickboxing fights and started training in Muay Thai

at age nine. So she's a late bloomer, if you will, as far as UFC slash MMA is concerned, made her UFC debut this past weekend in London, so a home game for her, and it was a tremendous second round win. Havana Oliver was her opponent. She's had some great, great finishes. In fact, Jake Paul tweeted about her, what, a few fights ago, her head kick knockout, and that went super viral. Like, you get, yeah, there's the tweet.

I think we have the footage as well. This is the one that kind of put her on the map. Look at this. To the body, to the legs. And now, faint, faint, to the head. Bang. Look at that. Tremendous stuff from Chanel.

a lot of people think that she is a future champion in the making and uh she's well in her way fighting at strawweight and i was wondering why the pfl wouldn't keep her they don't really have a strawweight division they had a strawweight fight this past friday but they don't really have a a strawweight division so maybe they just felt like she was out of place but she did get the the opportunity to fight on that contender series card in september and had a tremendous debut this past Saturday. Team she trains out of in London that I mentioned, Brad Pickett, one punch,

legend of the game, former WECer, is a Great Britain top team. So looking forward to talking to her, and now I'm being told that she is joining us. So without further ado, let us say hello to the aforementioned Chanel Dyer, who was victorious on Saturday in her long-awaited UFC debut.

Hello, Chanel. How are you? I'm great. Thanks, thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. And congratulations on the win. First UFC win. Thank you.

At the O2 in London. Has this sunk in yet? You get the bonus as well. How are you doing on this Monday evening? I'm so happy. I'm so gas. Last week, last Saturday, best day of my life,

best timing ever. I can't complain. It's amazing. I'm sure it's something you've thought about. You've dreamed of. of, fair to say this has exceeded your wildest dreams, your greatest expectations? 100% exceeded my wildest dream. Imagine I've been to like the last five, six UFC London.

And then ever since I went to the first one, I've been saying I'm going to make my debut in UFC London. And I actually made my debut in UFC London. First five of the night came away with sick hair and the bonus. This is what dreams I made of. I'm so happy. Do you remember the first UFC London you attended? Yeah.

Which one was it? Just after lockdown, 2021, just over lockdown. Remember the card that I had that, the crowd of the year, that was my first ever, UFC London. But I was in,

I was like in the skies though. Wow, wow. I was in like the nosebees, but yeah, atmosphere was amazing. And even at that point, you were saying to yourself and to others,

you're going to be there one day. Three years, give or take, I'm going to make my debut in UFC London and actually came into fruition. I've been manifested. this for like years and it actually happened but I worked hard man ever since that point I knew that I wanted to make my debut on that stage I just been working my ass off and that actually happened what is it like to think about something to manifest as you say to dream about it to put it

into existence and then there you are making the walk in front of your people at the O2 you're about like could you even describe what those emotions were like what those nerves were like what were you feeling as you were about to fight I just had so much goosebumps I remember saying in the back I had because NUves is good, Nose keeps you right. It shows that you care. But I just remember reading this quote last week. It says, isn't this of what you wanted? And this is what I wanted.

How can be nervous when this is what I wanted? And I just honed it, gave me confidence. No pressure. Pressure just motivates me. I know my friends and families in the crowd watching me. They haven't watched me find ages. And they're all watching me. I just wanted to put on a sick performance for them.

Yeah. So much odd. I've watched that clip about a million and one times. Who are these people? much of them. They're all my friends from all around the world. Imagine people flew from like Bali, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, all just to watch me fight.

And yeah, I'm so happy to put on their sick performance for them. Oh, that's amazing. I can't imagine what that must have felt like to rejoice with them afterwards. I read that you started in Muay Thai around eight, nine years old, correct? Yeah, yeah. And you were a little bit late to the MMA game. Is it not true that initially you weren't the biggest fan of mixed martial arts? No, I used to hate MMA because obviously I've done Maitai for so long and I love Maita.

Maitai's beautiful, Moytai is amazing. Unfortunately, you can't make a lot of money in Maitai. So I transitioned to MMA when I was 17, 18. It was Eva Botson or MMA, but I like kicking too much silly Botson, so I chose MMA at the end of the day. And yeah, I just thought MMA was a bit weird. I thought Grappin was a little bit fruity because I didn't understand it. So I was like, why don't want to hug people? watch people, hug people.

I want to just watch strike and so I just want to watch Moitai or K1. So I started to appreciate how hard MMA is, how hard Jiu-Sui is when I started learning. I started appreciating them more. And then, right, I could actually do this for a living. Do you remember who was the one that ultimately helped you decide, like, hey, this is the best thing for your career. You may love Muay Thai, but there's no money here.

If you want to make money, if you want to have a career, you need to go down this path. How did you come to that decision? I was in college, well, high school, I think you usually call it, but I was that 17, 18, I was in college. And then my cheater was like, so where do you want to go from here? Do you want to go uni? Do you want to work? What's the plans from here?

And then all I know is that I don't want to work for the rest of my life. I just wanted to fight. Like, I love fighting, that's me. I love everything about fine. I just wanted to fight. And obviously, you couldn't do that in Muay, so I had to choose MMA. And it was so hard going from kind of the top end of. of Moitai, I actually became UK number one in Moitai,

so going from the top of Moitai to the bottom of MMA. It was so humbling, man. I got tapped up by kids, white belts, people half my size. But yeah, I just loved it and look at me now. Oh my gosh, look at you now. And we sort of started to first hear about you in MMA via the PFL. 3 in O in the PFL. We showed that clip, Jake Paul, binging you up and all that stuff.

Why didn't you stick around in the PFL? I'm shocked that they would let someone of your talent leave. Yeah, so I was in the tournament. I was in the European tournament, and I was meant to go in the finals, but unfortunately I got injury, so I had to pull out of the 100K tournament. It's devastated.

I was so heartbroken because I worked so hard to be in the finals. And then I was meant to stay for a few years younger, but I used to fight at flyweight, and I'm not a flyweight. I walk around 60KG, which is like 131 pounds, so I was never flyweight. I just did it because of the opportunity. So I wanted to go back to my actual weight class, had six fights at Flyweight, wanted to go back to Straw Weight. But no one wanted to fight me at Straw Way.

They said you fought everyone, knocked everyone out at Flyway, and you want to go down the weight class. No one wants to fight you. So, yeah, we came to a mutual agreement, and they released me on good times. They still big me up. But even after listening, they're all messaging me, like, wish me the best, and, like, they're so happy for me. So mutual, so I really like PFO. Okay, and I'm glad to hear that. And then you get the opportunity to fight on Contender Series.

and it doesn't quite go your way. Can you describe, it all worked out, but what did it feel like? Here you are suffering your first pro-loss, and it's on the platform that's, you know, you're hoping is going to propel you into the UFC. I was so devastated. Imagine I told my friend the day before the fight,

I said, tomorrow can even be the best day of my life or the worst day in my life, and they end up being both exactly at the same time. When I lost the fight, I was so heartbroken. And for an hour after the fight, I didn't know that I was going to get the contract. Not going to lie, I didn't really watch a lot of contender series fight. So I thought if we lost a fight, then it's basically over. I just kept apologising to my coach, devastating.

Got shipped off the hospital. I had to get a couple of stitches and stuff. And then, yeah, my coach told me the news that I've got the contract. I burst out crying. He burst out crying. The nurses were like, oh, my days, are you okay? I said, it's fine. It's happy tears.

It's happy tears. Yeah, I'm just happy I just got in. obviously my performance didn't live up to my expectations. I know I was a better fire than that, but that's what happens in the fight games. You win some, you lose some. But every time that I lost in amateurs, I bounced back 10-folds and this is what I've done.

I proved that last weekend I belonged in the UFC. Hell yeah. Yeah, that's supremely rare to get a contract after a loss in contender series. You're probably one of the very few. Yeah, I'm so happy I did. But yeah, I knew how it had so much work after that fight. just so happy I've got into the UFC.

I knew I belonged there in the first place. That coach that you were just referring to, was that Brad Pickett? Oh no, Barry Healy. He's at one of my main coach is Brad Pickett, obviously, he was at the five. But me and Barry, we work a lot. Like, even my finish in my last weekend, we've been spamming that culmination for ages. And he actually said it in the corner. He was just like, find a home for that right hand, and then they'll set up with a head kick.

And I literally, like, a minute later, I've done that. So we work a lot, me, Barry. Obviously, I have Brad do a lot of work with Brad as well. And my other coach, Ashley Grimshaw. That clip of, speaking of another great clip, when you found out that you were one of the bonus winners that you won the 100K, were you watching that live or did someone put that on for you after the fact?

This is great stuff. No, I was watching it live. Imagine that. Oh, I'm so happy. Yeah, I was watching it live. I imagine it straight after my fight. I went back to the hotel. Watch the whole card. I was hoping every single fight would be a bit boring so I could get the bonus.

But even still, I didn't know that I was going to get the bonus. I would put on the live stream and we're just waiting. I was like, yeah, I'm not getting it. And he said my name. I was so excited. It's like, oh, 100Kare doesn't mean a lot for a lot of people. But where I'm from, we don't see that type of money every day, let alone like over overnight. So yeah, I'm excited. That's life changing money for me. I can do so much from that. And it propels my career and my personal life, like 10-folds are so happy. And congratulations. It's amazing. It's actually $125, right? Because you get the finish bonus and the performance bonus. Yeah, and she missed weight. And she missed weight always.

I said I robbed the bank. We took everything. She lost weight. I took her money, took the win bonus, took the $100K bonus. I took everything. Wow. Would you get 20% of her purse for that? Yeah, I got 20% of her purse. I remember saying in the morning, I was like, oh, hopefully she missed weight by $0.2 because she took everything. eight forever to get to the weighing scales. I was that, hopefully she missed about zero point two so I can take some money and still fight her. And she actually did, so yeah. Wow. This has got, I mean, what a, talk about the greatest weekend of your life.

Literally, it literally is. I'm having goosebumps. Oh, it 100% is. Golly, I love it. I love seeing your, like, emotion. I hear you're a big anime fan. Yeah, anime fan, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The, anime show as well. What is that? What is that? What is that? Is that one punch or what? that one ticket no nah change one punch no um change some man change someone

great show what what's the guy uh the one the one with the one in it who's the one with the one one piece one piece one punch i was thinking of one punch i was thinking of one piece you like that one piece i like one piece i've watched every episode is that one five and three hundred episode it's so good though wait what's the shirt again what's the shirt you're wearing

uh chainsaw man i got an expert back there frank Frankie, what's chainsaw man? You like chainsaw man? My son loves it. Oh, his son loves it. Gosh, he's trying to say it's for kids. I dressed up as chainsaw man for Comic Con last year.

I've got like the mask, everything. He has that, he has like a mask, that chainsaw for a head. It's so weird, but it's so cool. Yeah, I went as him with Comic Con last year. That's your favorite? Anime. My favorite anime. No, my favorite anime is Naruto.

Okay, okay. Is that... That's what I grew up from. That's Charzard, yeah? No, that's Pokemon. No. That's the opposite. Frank, who's your favorite?

My favorite anime? Yeah. Evangelion. You know Evangelion? I've watched that, yeah. It's so deep, though. It's so deep, but it's amazing. It's beautiful.

It's depressing, though. Yeah, well, that kind of, that tracks with Frank over there. He's a bit depressing. Did you meet MVP at Comic-Con? Yeah, I bumped into him last. Comic Come, it was so weird. It was like, it wasn't even planning. I just saw him. I was like, wait, is that MVP? I was just like, it has to be because he loves Neuter. I dressed up as, what did I even dress up as? Some show as well. So yeah, me and MVP, we just started to talk about anime. He's so cool.

I love your... Procure Revengers, that's why I dressed up as. So, even though you love MVP over there, you were probably happy that everyone was booing his performance so you can get the bonus, yeah? I can't Yes I don't believe People Mom came to the show For the far

She hasn't seen me Fights since I was nine And she was like Yeah my fight was good But she was like That one guy He didn't do anything For three rounds

She was just bouncy bouncy Oh Who was she talking about Sam or MVP Maybe she was talking about Sam Patterson MVP MVP

She didn't go to PFL, nothing? Nah, nah, because a lot of my fights has been abroad or, like, away, and she works. I think she came to, like, my first ever fight when I was nine, and I lost, and I said, you're not allowed to come again. I think she took that too serious. Wow. No, she supports me. She supports me a lot.

Obviously, she loves me. But, yeah, this is a chance that she got to watch me a fight live, and, yeah, I put on a sick performance for her. What about your siblings? You have five, right? Yeah, five siblings. My two sisters came to my fight. My other sims, they were a bit busy with work and uni and stuff. But yeah, yeah, they all watched me.

They're so excited. Had they ever been to one of your fights, your sisters? Yeah, they have, but only, like, amateurs. Okay. So they haven't seen me fight in ages. I haven't fought in London in, like, what, five, six years. So, yeah, they all came out to watch me. So they're so happy.

My youngest sisters, they think I'm famous now. All their friends are, like, showing me. Then, oh, you're all over TikTok, like, you're famous, you're famous with sister. I think you are famous. I mean, you're winning via incredible finishes in the UFC. I love seeing all your pictures with all the famous guys. We showed you and

MVP. What about you and Izzy back in Thailand in November? What was this one like? Izzy, he's my favorite five all the time. If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be in this position. He's so inspiring. He's literally the definition of the coolest

person ever. He's so cool, man. He loves anime as well, so the whole weekend we just talk about anime. He taught me so much that one of the main things he told me is just to be myself that honed the opportunity enjoy the opportunity and just be me and that's what i did oh my gosh he's fighting this weekend you know this yeah yeah no how you feel about that yeah the fight i think that's a good fight for him like as he said he he solidified his legacy he won the belt he's defended the belt um so he solidified his legacy so he's been there in in the history but so i think he's just going to go there have

fun. I think we're going to see the old up and coming Izzy, the Izzy that just has fun and that enjoys it. So yeah, I think he's going to have a great performance come the weekend. Okay, so you love Izzy, but I saw you training with Sean Strickland as well. So what gives? Nah, no. Sean, he's a great, he's a great fire. I don't think they have that type of beef still. Okay. Now, Sean Strickley, he's a great fire. I know a lot of people think that, he's a great fire. I know a lot of people think that he's a bit left, but he was super nice to me. I like a lot, a lot from him in Vegas.

I think they think he's a bit right, too. He's a bit of everything. Yeah, he's a bit of everything. But you know how I know you have good taste, how you're a very smart woman? You said that the goat is George St. Pierre, and that's how I know you know Ball, the number one, all time.

What was this? What was this like? And where was this? Yeah, so I'll go Montreal quite a lot. I should be there next week, to be fair. as well. I love training there. I go try a star. I go H-2O. Half my family live in Montreal. My dad grew up in Montreal. He speaks French as well, to be fair. So I go there a lot. I met GSP about three times. And he actually came up to me in that photo. I think he watched

my PFO heads kick and he was like, oh, I saw you on Instagram. Like, well done. He's such down to earth past. He would jump in the normal sessions, the everyday sessions, help literally everyone. So he's one of the type of people that I want to be when I become the best in the world. His fire IQ is seconded him, picked his brain for literally for hours since when I went Montreal. So, yeah, he's a legend. Wait a second. Wait a second. I'm meeting you for the first time.

I'm enjoying this conversation very much. I'm even saying to myself internally, like, I feel like we've stumbled upon a future superstar here. Like, you're going to be one of our favorites. You're going to be a reoccurring guest on this program. And then you tell me that you love Montreal, that you speak French, that you have family and friends there. You know I'm a proud Montrealer, yeah? Do you just say that for me? Yeah, I know. You know this? You're not French.

No, I don't speak French. Oh, okay. My dad, no, my dad speaks friends. He grew up in Montreal. He went high school in Montreal. He went to college in Montreal, worked in Montreal, in Montreal. Half my family that still live there, they speak friends. But yeah, I don't speak friends. Where does he live? I live in London. Do you know where he lives? La Salle.

La Salle? What? Your dad's a La Salle guy? Where do you go to school? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, La Salle. This is a huge, huge revelation for me. The South on the West Island as well. The West Island. So you're one of our own? We can claim you?

You're one of our own? I can. I can get Canadian passport as well. I'm going to get one. What's stopping you? It's just long, yeah. But I only started going to Montreal after the last two, three years. But yeah, I'm definitely going to go a lot.

I'm going there next week. Why are you going next week? I get one. Just for a little break. See the family, Easter holidays, get some trains. and I go try star a lot. I think every time I go try some, my grappling, like, levels up tenfold. So I want to bang out my grapah and a little bit more.

Oh, you see Arnold Allen there? Yeah. But I met Arnold Allen. Obviously, he used to live in England, so I used to be around him a lot. But obviously, he trains a lot in Montreal. So, yeah, I've learned for ages. So we're friends online, friends in real life. He's a cool guy.

Oh, this is amazing. So when you fight, I could chant. She's one of our own. She's one of our own. Chanel Dyer, she's one of, I could say that? Yeah. Yeah, you can do. Hell yeah.

That's a great revelation right there. Can I ask you, Chanel, not to change the mood here because this has been tremendous. I heard a story regarding your nickname, The Nightmare. Do you mind telling us where that nickname comes from? Yeah, so I started martial arts when I was about 17, 18, and started that Timundra. When I went to Munger, I went to Munger. there was this guy called Jaru Shepherd, Jari the Nightmare Shepherd, actually. He was like one of the coolest guys ever.

I thought it was like a sick fighter, and he is a sick fighter. It was a great fire domestically, won so many his titles. Great, great person, grew very, very close to him, basically as an older brother figure. And I remember one day I went to his 30th birthday party. All of his family friends were there at his estate. He was so happy. And I left them.

We was actually going to meet up at the gym, watch UFC later. And I went to a gym, and then we got the phone call. And then the phone call said that there, Jerry Shepherd, he's been stabbed, that he passed away. And then I didn't believe it. But then it was real. And I just burst out, cry, and I was depressed. And, like, he was a fighter. And we had the same dream.

We was just talking about for basically months that we're going to be UFC champions, we're going to be UFC champions. We're going to be UFC fires. We're going to take over. And then he didn't get to fulfill his dream. but I get the opportunity to you. So I met his mom a few days later. She blessed me with the nightmare name and I'm going to carry on his legacy

to become UFC champion in both of our names. Wow, wow, wow. That made me emotional. Well done. I can't imagine what that felt like, but you are definitely carrying on his name. You made it to the UFC with the name, which is incredible,

and I feel like there's a lot more to come out of you, so well done. Thank you, 100%. I know you also met Bruce Buffer a few years ago and you told him that he'd say your name one day, right? Yeah, I met him at the UFC Hotel after, I think it was the first or second UFC, London. I went to, yeah, I met him at the hotel. I was like, you're going to be calling my name one day.

I said, you're going to be calling my name in UFC 400. I said last week he said, you're going to be calling my name, UFC 500. He said, oh, if I make it to there. But yeah, I said that. I've talked to it to fruition. It's incredible. By the way, did they ever find who murdered your friend? Was that person ever, you know, brought to justice?

Yeah, so they found to him, he murdered my friend. But I think he kind of had a bit of psychological issue. So, yeah, I think he's into like a mental hospital now. And they're going through the process. Okay, okay. I understand. I hope it works out. And that is an awful situation.

Yeah. Amazing backstory to the nickname. Also, is it not true that John Jones, I think, wrote on one of your posts and you were too afraid to talk to him or something like that? No. No, he commented on one of my posts and I think I said an emoji back or something like that. After I got like a head head care, I think I've just replied. But yeah, I said that if he called me or whatever, I was going to be too scared to talk to.

Okay, okay. No, no, he just, you just comment on my post. Man, you've got everyone talking about you. You got Jake Paul tweeting about you, GSP wanting to speak to you. It's good to be you. Yeah, I'm so. excited. Every time I get like, not even like a little bit down, I just go to my phone and this person

following me, this person saying this. I'm just like, I just keep going high, high, high, high. Every time I feel like I reach the peak, it just gets high and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. But yeah, I just enjoy it. I live for these moments. I just want to keep getting better and better so I can keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger

moments. I know it's going to happen. Like, I can't wait to go back to the gym, improve from my last fight. My last fight was sick, but obviously I can do better and just get better and better. and better keep fighting and keep climbing the rankings. That's what I want. I thought you were going to say,

just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I'm on your show, and that's really the pinnacle. That's better than walking out at the O2. I thought you were going to go there, but you didn't quite. No, I want to be in a show from the beginning, to be fair. I have a list, and it says,

one of my lists, one of my goals for this year is to be on the area of Hawaiian show, and I ticked that off after my first fight. It's sick. Hell yeah, hell yeah. That is amazing. How soon do you want to return? June, I want to say.

Okay. I'm going Montreal for a week or two, so I'm not with my camp, G.B. Top team, so I like to do my full camp in GV Top Team. That's my team. That's my home. So I want to do full camp. So June, that's the plan. June, late is July. I want to get free fights, minimum this year. I just want to fight. I do my best when I'm active, and I want to be active. And how far away do you think we are from, you know, I say we, capital W, from, you know, being in that, you know, in that, you know, I feel like straw weight could use a bit of an umph right now, some new blood. How far away do you think we are from that? It could be next year, you know, especially if I get like three fights this year,

then I have three fights next year. Definitely by the end of the next year, I think I'm going to be ranked. My style speaks for itself. I'm a siren, I'm explosive. Every time I fight, I come up with something mad, like something iconic, something memorable. So I think my style is going to pay dividends. I think the UFC is going to try to push me, put me like main cards, fight, exciting fights for me and just push me up,

working my way to the belt. But I don't want to fight for the belt, Sue. I want to fight for the belt when it's right. Because when I win the belt, I don't want to give it up. I want to retire a UFC champion about, what, 13, 14 years. So I have ages, so bided my time, gaining experience, having fun at the end of the day. Amazing. So great to meet you.

Wow. This has been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed it. Congratulations on your incredible success. an incredible debut. I mean, it's the stuff that I would say dreams are made of, but you seemingly exceeded all your dreams because it was that damn good. I hope you enjoy more success and that more great things come your way,

and it's going to be a lot of fun to watch you climb the ranks and follow your career from here on now. So nothing but the best, Chanel, from us to you, and thank you so much for coming on today. It was great to have you on. No worries, thanks for having me anytime. There she is. The Nightmare, Chanel Dyer.

What a great debut, not only on Saturday, but on this year program. Wow, it has been a while since we've had a guest make their debut on the show. And I was left kind of, I mean, she took my breath away. She was so great. She was amazing. What a joie de vivre she has. What a personality. I hope the chat enjoyed that just as much as I did, if not almost as much, because that was so much fun.

I love that. Guys, how great is Chanel? Is she not amazing or what? Not to cheer for her. She's unbelievable. Personality, exciting fights. Golly. She just seems excited about what's going on.

Yes. She's amazing. I really, really enjoyed that. You're biased. You're in the bag for her now that. The Montreal connection. I didn't even know the Montreal thing. I was thinking to myself,

it's like it is. This girl's incredible. And then she mentions the Montreal part, and I'm like, ah, we're birds of a feather here. We need some energy. We need something with some, some enthusiasm.

And then she just feels like she's kind of like exploding off the screen. And when she fights, too, she's fantastic. Unbelievable. And especially Straw White. Straw White's been a little bit. We need her desperately at this time. So if she can string a few together, it's going to be fun.

Man, throw a nice little uniform on her, you know, make her look like everyone else. Could you imagine someone like Chanel walking out with some sort of anime costume, you know? Well, we're an MVP would have probably both done it on the same night, too. It's crazy. What was that, Chainsaw Charlie? Which one was it? Chainsaw Man. You know that one?

Yeah. Okay. But you got to admit, when you said Charzard, you were trolling. Negative 10,000 aura, right? No, you were trolling. You had to be trolling. You were definitely doing that shit with Charzart. What was the other one?

I know Pikachu. I know Pikachu. There's Charzard. There's the other one, the other one. Who's the other one? No, no. Everyone stop chatting shit. Mutu?

No. There's another one that my kids always used to talk about. From Pokemon. There was Charzard. There's like 3,000 of them. You've got to help us out a little bit, bro. No, no, no. Snorlax.

Gigli Puff? No, no, no. They're all weird. They're all weird. Hater. No, listen. Supreme Hager. The original 151 are not weird.

They're great. Wait, 151 what? 151. 151. And then you have a little asterisk for Mew. What? What? I think we're losing viewers.

No, we're gaining viewers. Why 151? What the number was? It's like the 31 flavors from basketball. Robert was. No, it was actually the creators drank a lot of wild turkey once 51 was that true?

Yeah. You're shitting me. It's not true. I don't think the creators of Pokemon were alcoholics. Who knows? It doesn't seem like they were. Who is to check? All right, more news and notes fellas. Obviously the saga between Dana White and Eddie Hearn

very much in focus. Actually, both had shows in London over the weekend. I thought that that was interesting. show up to the 0-2 neither did Thomas this time anyway here is Dana White speaking about Eddie Hearn once again he was asked about Eddie Hearn here's what he had to say in terms of the growth of Zuffer boxing so I actually asked you about the the ideas you had for zuffer boxing back in 2018 at the darrens Hill Stephen Thompson post-fight press conference so you've been having this vision for a long time you have well and truly took the sport of

boxing by storm the beef with Eddie Eddie Hearn is a surprise to a lot of people because he said over the years that he's modeled matchroom boxing over the UFC model. Did you think that his signing of Tom Aspinall on a management basis was a direct retaliation to you signing Conner Ben? And what have you made of this whole experience between you and him? Because you were friends at one point. Yeah, I don't know what the thought process was. You know, Eddie was coming out saying, I look forward to competing with them and, you know, there's things that they don't know about boxing, going to learn and then two weeks later he's a MMA manager. You know, I don't get the move, but

is it, how is that going to work in a sense of negotiations? Because from his perspective, he'll feel like he might want to be in the room or be on those calls with you. Are there going to be certain things that are going to have to be put to one side? You mentioned that you had to do dealings with T. I mean, we've dealt with some fucking beauties over the last 25 years. I can promise you that. Theo wanting to fight you as well, Dana, didn't he? Eddie Hearn will be no different. It doesn't matter who the managers are.

It doesn't matter at all. We will get deals done with guys. Yeah, so pretty tame stuff. They will get deals done with guys, obviously. They'll even go directly to the guy. It doesn't really matter, ultimately. And I said that after the Tom Aspinall news came out. Tom Aspenol, though, was not at this event, as we said.

And as of right now, we don't really know when he's coming back. or what his status is with the UFC. Eddie Hearn was asked about Tom Aspinall's contract over the course of the last few days regarding, you know, what he thinks of it all. And I thought his comments were pretty interesting. Take a look. But what I will tell you is his contract

is a fucking disgrace, right? A disgrace. And I cannot believe the money that he is on. When you look at the commercial revenue that his fight would generate, against a Pereira or against a gain in a rematch. And honestly, if I'm Tom Aspinall, I'm looking at that contrary. I go, I don't even think you should fucking bother me.

Wow, a disgrace, an effing disgrace. Eddie really, he's bringing it strong. After John Jones tweeted what he did about the 15 million, Eddie weighed in on that as well. Take a look. John Jones also came out and said that he only got offered 15 million. The UFC wouldn't go above it. Obviously, he is 15, 58, 15 and 15.

So would you be open, possibly in the future, once Aspen was out of his UFC contract, possibly match him, MMA, you could make that fight? Yeah, but they're under contract. If they weren't under contract, I could do Aspenol against John Jones, and I'd play them double what the UFC offered them, probably. And so Eddie continues,

I watch all the interviews. I watch all of Dana's interviews, I watch all of Eddie interviews. And Eddie is cranking it up a little bit, guys. Eddie is definitely cranking it up. and I think the role that he is playing right now is that of a disruptor. I think he is trying to stoke the flames. I think he's trying to, I don't know,

agitate, rally the troops, so to speak. And I know that the fighters are paying attention. I know that they are listening. The question is what they will do about it. Obviously, it meant something to Tom Aspinall because he went into an agreement with him, but I think that's what he's trying to do right here because he continues to talk about the state of the contracts.

He continues to say, hey, you know, if they were free, I would have offered them double and people are reaching out and people are doing this and people are doing that. Dana's MO at this point seems to be like, let me diminish, let me minimize, let me try to say like, we're not bothered, this doesn't matter, and it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Zufa boxing scored a massive victory last week. no doubt about it. Zufa boxing scored a massive victory getting that Sky Sports deal. The Sky Sports deal is extremely valuable. It's extremely lucrative. This is not a time buy or anything like that.

They're, you know, they're a thing. They're a powerhouse. And if I'm a Sky, if I'm a Netflix, if I'm a USA and NBC, all their partners, like you have Dana White, you have Nick Con, you have Mark Shapiro, you have R. Emanuel saying, hey, this is our latest venture. This is our newest thing. Four fights in, five fights in, six fights in, one fight in. Those guys are going to sign up. They're going to sign up 100%. People are misjudging and misreading Zufa boxing. This is not Zufa boxing's final form. A, it's going to look completely different in a year or two years. B, it's not going away. And you could walk in as a Nikon who knows everything about this business. It knows every single power player in this business has made a deal with every single

person in the TV business. You walk in there and say, I've got this new thing, four fights in, don't worry, it's going to be looking like this and that in a year or six months from now. It's very easy to make that deal, given the track record. Are you manual, Mark Shapiro? Like, on the hierarchy, it's just like, it's like one of the old time greatest quartets in TV history. So for them to score that deal so soon into their run is A, not surprising, and B, makes all the sense of the world. If I'm Sky Sports, if I'm Sky Sports, if I'm Sky, I want to be in business with these guys. Because I'm sure they'll say, hey, we'll promote you on UFC, even though it's not on Sky. We'll promote you on WWE, even though it's not on Sky.

Like, it makes all the sense in the world. And so for them to take over that very important piece of real estate is a massive, massive, massive victory for them. in this in this ongoing war to win over market share and now you're kind of like encroaching on any territory that's what makes this super interesting that's his neck of the woods now i know matchroom is doing shows they did a show in orlando this past weekend they do shows all over the world australia coming up our country united states they're everywhere obviously the uk is their bread and butter that's their home base and so for zufa to now say hey we're planning our flag with the biggest broadcaster, cable broadcaster in the country, in the UK and Ireland.

That's a massive win for these guys, massive win for them. May not mean a lot to us over in the United States. It's a massive, massive victory in this ongoing war. I don't think that they made this deal. This deal has been rumored and being talked about for quite some time. I don't think that they made this deal in order to take a shot at Eddie per se, but the timing is tremendous. it's a huge win for them, huge win for them. And so Eddie's trying to stir the pot, stoke the flames,

and it's going to keep going back and forth. And I'm curious, Eddie's been hinting at things up his sleeve. You know, Dana's been hinting at things up his sleep as well. This has become the best rivalry, the best feud. When we do the awards at the end of the year, this might be our rivalry of the year because it's not going away and it just keeps getting more and more interesting. Now, the next piece is April 11th, rapidly approaching,

Tottenham Hotspur, let's see how that plays out. I saw Eddie say in one interview that he's going to be there. I don't know if he was being facetious or joking. I don't think he has any fighters on the card. I don't know why he would go to it. But let's see. Really, really interesting to monitor. But I thought that deal was great.

And the boxing business is starting to clean itself up, clean itself up in the sense that, okay, so Zoufa got this deal. We know about the top-ranked deal. Many reports saying that Golden Boy and DeZone have come to an agreement as well. So there aren't a lot of players that are out there. We obviously know about MVP and ESPN.

Netflix, they've got their deal, the MMA deal, that is MVP, Sky. So there's some big business right now. Interesting times in the world of boxing. Speaking of the world of boxing, what about Anthony Joshua? He's in Ukraine right now. He's linked up with T. Musick. Look at this shot right here. Look at that.

Slava, Ukraineia. But what about this footage of AJ hitting a heavy bag and the caption was, what was the caption? I saw it and it said it all. I mean, look at this. Look at the, look at the straight. Do we have full volume on this?

Is it possible to get, just look at that. That's a man who's been through some stuff lately. Dali, fighting through pain is the best way to heal. Unbelievable. And then he added a comment to this saying anyone who could hit that bag

with the same intensity and power will get 200 pounds. It feels like punching a steel wall. Dang. I mean, I can't wait. It sounds like Anthony is going to come back. It looks like he's going to come back.

And I think it's going to be a different kind of Anthony Joshua when we see him again. Please just give us the Fury fight. If Fury beats Mahmadov, just give us the Fury fight. Please, that would be we don't need anything else. We really don't. We really don't need anything else.

David Feldman had a show this past week afterwards. He teased some big news for BKFC. Take a listen to this, my friends. The Hard Rock has been sold out 15 consecutive times. With that number in mind, will we ever see the BKFC move to a stadium, maybe like hard rock miami are you reading my fucking mind are you reading my mind in the end of the summer we have something pennsylinson it'll be the largest fight that bkfc has ever done by far i'll give you i'll give you guys a little hint by saying 37 000

attendance so if if my man wants to call himself to cash cow he needs to step up for that fight that's the one that's the one guys any guesses as to what he's referring to, what could draw 37,000 for BKFC? You guys are aficionados? Yeah, I don't know. Mike Perry? I guess. Till? Till?

Who's calling himself? No problem, man, yeah? Is it him? I don't know. My favorite part of that is the David Feldman. Are you reading my mind right now? F in mine. Everyone's going crazy.

Everyone's clapping at the press conference. Are you reading my mind? These press conferences are crazy. Did you see someone asking for a job at the UFC press conference? Sure did, yeah. Crazy. You see this, Ray? I think the Zufa boxing announcer, no?

Well, I don't know, but I think he was asking for that, yeah. It just felt like an interview to me. It was wild, wild, wild stuff. Also wild. What about Armid Surukian and I show Speed with a bit of a link-up guys? I know you're a big fan of Mr. Speed. What are they doing here? Do we have any volume here?

What are they talking about these guys? They're not talking about anything. They're wrestling. They're just wrestling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. To some commercial music. Okay. We can't play.

Just a bit of a link up there for Armin? Of course, he's been linking up with Hamzat as of late. Here's Hamzaa Chamaev calling him, dare I say, fat? I can? Yeah, you show you? Am I allowed to eat one more? Yeah, until I find out what we go. Okay.

Don't give any more, coach. He is too fat already. Golly. Too fat already is not very nice. We showed you Anthony Joshua hitting the heavy bag They said recently that Isamahachav was injured But here he is also hitting a heavy bag

And looking Quite healthy? Did they say it was an injured hand? Doesn't look that injured Later Graham? What is that? That's a story. It looks like that's recent.

Let's go. Islam versus Ian Gary That is the one. Back at it. Islam Mahachav. That is good to see. Speaking of great to see, what about Kayla Harrison? Kayla Harrison, the bionic one. Back at the gym.

Look at that. Look at Kayla. That's a great shot. She's freaking back. God, I wish she would have been given that opportunity to fight at the White House. It just didn't work out. She's had ups and downs in her life, but she always comes down on top. And I'm happy to see that she's at the gym and hoping that everything works out for her.

We get to see her back at some point this year against Amanda Nunes. Alex Pera is gearing. up for his heavyweight debut at the gym sparring with big plino or maybe I should say small plino look at Alex look at those arms Alex's looking big I see some people breaking down the Alex footage saying that he's going to get smoked you see this you see this narrative that surreal is going to smoke him what is what is the justification I need to move he doesn't have the power the the know-how I don't know anybody of note saying this or just the yeah Johnny Cakes

456, 239. And when you say narrative being built, it's just by the one guy? I'm seeing it. Narrative being built. I'm seeing it. There's a lot of experts out there. There's a lot of experts out there.

I'm seeing it. It's the expert in the room with this right now. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's, I don't know, I just see this narrative. I just see it. I don't know.

People are saying it. I would say to, um, to discount Pereira at your own peril because it feels like we've been doing that a lot in MMA, right? Alex Pereira is one of the biggest all-time not supposed to be here guys ever. Like he is, he was supposed to be what Israel as Sonia said he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be the guy at the bar that said, I beat him once. And he turned into everything that everybody else expected him not to do.

He has accomplished all of it. So yes, he's the last guy you probably want to doubt in. all of combat sports. He's unbelievable. He really is, and I'm very much looking forward to that fight. What about, we spoke to Evo earlier. What about Mr. Jan Behovich, the original Mr. Polish Power himself? He did a half marathon over the weekend.

Look at this guy. Is that a beer? Yeah, hell yeah. Golly. What is that? A beer during the half? Have you done a half, G. I have, yeah.

I did one a couple years back. I actually just signed up for one this fall. Come on. I signed up for last night. Wow. You know, locking in. Man, we're different because just yesterday I told my wife, one of my goals for this year is a 5K. You do a 5K, I'll do it with you.

I would love it. Oh, wherever I got to go. Whole team. Come on. I don't know why. I want to do the whole, like, get the number, get the bib. I want to have that feeling of accomplishment. You can do all that.

We could even sign up for a 5K. They'll give you a medal for. Okay, can I, can I offer a piece of homework? Don't they have like 5Ks every day? Yeah, we can find every weekend. Every weekend? That'd be nice. Let's do it.

Can we do one? Can we get one of those like live view things and do it live on the program? How long would it take for us to do a 5K? 30 minutes? Yeah, 30-ish minutes. Easy work. Easy work. I could do that.

Was a tough weekend for a good friend Wingsie guys. He moved up to the pro ranks and- You said that kind of weird. Wingsie? You mean winged C? Wingsie? No? Wingsie? Is this like Banksy? What is this? Show me the knife. You know that? From Nuddy Professor?

No. She showed me the knife. Oh, I didn't notice the head hitting the cage like that. Running into the cage after. Wingsie. Isn't that his name? Winged C. You never seen what Nanny? This man is getting brutally knocked out and you're like, the Nuddy Professor. You seen it? It's not funny. Wings in old school. She showed me the knife. Winsie. Come on. No one's seen old school? I've seen also this is not like a core memory form Oh my god

We actually You do pick the most obscure You always pick the most obscure You're my boy blue Break the tank We're going streaking And you're like Wingsie

What the fuck is that? Frank you've heard this? No You haven't heard of this one Oh my I bet you by the way I bet you if I called my wife Right now she would tell you

You and her have a thing For sure Where you just pick Well also you are repeating it ad nauseum to her therefore she's like you know recruited into her I'm going to tell her what is the actual quote

Winston she showed me the live what's wait wait Jacqueline you're alive on the air right now and I want you to tell the world if I say to you what's the most famous what's your favorite line from old school

the best line in old school the movie old school what would you say it is Don't let me down. Now I'm getting nervous and I can't remember. Come on, come on. I don't know if I'll have time. No, not that one. Wincey, wincy.

My boy, blue. Winsie, if you drop out of school, I'll kill you. And then, and then? The knife, the knife. I see it. I'm breaking up. What did you say? What is it?

What does it say it? Wincy, if you drop out of school, I'll kill you. She showed me the knife. Yeah. There it is. There it is. All right, thank you. You're forgetting the real best line. Oh.

We're going to go to bed bath and beyond. No, no. Everyone knows that line. We like the obscure lines. We like the obscure lines. All right. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.

Bye. She showed me the knife. Yeah, iconic, man. Yeah, here's the exact quote. Shout out to Jack. You got it? Oh. You got one, um, no.

You got one of those like live you things? Oh, here it is. Here it is. You got the quote? What was that? Uh, yes. him from three minutes ago. Wienc, the character, says,

see, I'm the first one to go to college in my family, and when I left, she said, weency, if you screw this up, I'll kill you. She showed me the knife. She's showing the knife. What an iconic line. Who could forget this moment? This iconic line has 52,000 views on it.

Yeah, yeah, it's obscure, I mean, but it's iconic and obscure, no? Wiency. That's who I think of when I see that guy. When you see Wingsie. Has winged C been fraud check? Oh boy. Were there allegations that he wasn't? I was about to say.

Did we ever move beyond that? Got aura. He's got aura. Guys, speaking of which, you know, I'm always fascinated by the world of pro wrestling and I'm not quite sure what's going on with Logan Paul. Is he working towards a match against Tom Brady? Surely you've seen this over the weekend, right? Yeah.

What's happening here? So they had a little thing. Here's Tom and Logan. He's talking smack to him. Apparently Logan killed it in this flag football contest over the weekend. And then he posted a video like talking smack to all the football players.

Are we working towards a Tom Brady match at WrestleMania or some sort of involvement at WrestleMania against Logan Paul? That's what I feel like we're working towards. What do you guys think? Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't Tom a big W? Like, doesn't he like wrestling? There's that.

There's, there's, there's, we, when we were at Fanatics Fest. Well, he's boys with Michael Rubin of Fanatics, Fanatics and business with WW. There's two, it all started with Brady saying something about wrestlers kind of being like fake, pansies, whatever, not tough guys, wusses, all that. And then all the wrestlers respond. This feels like a perfect WrestleMania camera. And it's all the work. This feels like it work. Do you guys watch the whole flag football game?

No. No. Did you? No, I didn't watch a second of it. Was it like well attended? Couldn't tell you. Wasn't Turkey and them involved? I don't know.

Didn't even watch a highlight. It was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia and then they moved it? Yeah, I did know that. Yeah. All right. Who's the check? Yeah, who was to check? I did want to end on...

I did, thank you, Bob. I did want to end on somewhat of a positive note. Did you guys happen to see... So I did an interview with Randy Cruz of a podcast called Two out of Three Falls and he asked me if there's one pro wrestling figure that I haven't interviewed who would be at the top of the list

if I could interview one person. I said I've been very lucky. I've talked to them all, right? I mean, like I feel like I've been super lucky from my all-time favorite, Brett Hart to Triple H, to Paul Heyman, to Roman Reince, to C.M. Punk, to Cody Rhodes, to everyone in between.

Tori Wilson. I mean, we've talked to them all, right? I said, John Cena, has actually been one of the guys that I've never talked to and I'd love to talk to him. I was never a huge Sina guy, but great respect for him and he always comes across great. I saw this clip and I thought it was a nice button to today's program. I know we still have super chats, but this is John. I mean, just look at this guy.

Look at how great he is. John's seen over the weekend. If you ever get to be on the Red Cup and ask a question to someone. Sorry, the other one. Let's go with that. That's the other one. Let's go with this one first from the Megacon event. I'm going through cancer, stage four.

Okay. And I just had a spinal fusion. Okay. And then I had a brain tumor. Okay. And you were the one to make me fight. Okay. And next week, I just found out I need more surgery.

Okay. I wanted to know if I could hug you or see you. Absolutely. Look at how genuine he's here. And he, like, continues to hold on to him. And he's clearly saying something to him. What a guy. It reminded me of a clip that I saw from last summer.

Did you guys ever see this, this clip of John on a red carpet prior to one of the movies that he's in? Does anyone know which movie he was? It was like, the heads of state. Heads of state. What an interaction.

I mean, this is just like, this is, red carpet interviews are just sort of, you know, kind of empty and solace. This to me is the apex of red carpet interviews. This is like one of the greatest interactions that I've ever seen as far as a celebrity.

speaking to a red carpet interviewer. Take a look at this. If you ever get to be on the red carpet and ask a question to someone, either living or dead, who would you have loved to have a conversation with? So if we get to swap places and I get to ask you a question, you flew in when? That's not my question. You flew in from India, correct? Yes. When? I flew in yesterday. And how long was the flight?

My flight was from Bombay, Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi to London. Ten and a half? Yes. Okay, so my question to you was, you fly all this way to be in the heat, to be behind the camera and drive a journalistic interview. Why do you do what you do? Because I absolutely love the movies. It's in my blood.

And I can't think of doing anything else than this. This moment that I'm sharing with you right now is exactly why I think I was born and why I'm here. Absolutely love my job. That's one hell of an answer. I dig your passion. And I think that's who I would ask and why I would ask it. So thanks for making me think that way. I appreciate you.

Thank you, John. Thank you so much. Man, how great is that? Yeah, that's sick. Did you ever see that one? No. Oh, wow. Love that.

Have you ever seen that one, G.C.? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw it when it was going viral. So good. John Cena just seems like the ultimate good guy. Yeah. Isn't he like the number one make-a-wish guy of all time as well? Like, he just seems like the salt of the earth, best guy.

Yeah. That's why people didn't want to boom. That's why people didn't want to boom. They didn't want to boom. Oh yeah Shout out Shout out Joe What about

Leo Machado Gary Did you guys see this From the weekend Look at this guy That's Ian Gary's son Rocking Favorite fighter

Rocking the Carlos Prowded sweater Fist up Fighting Nerd's glasses What a legend What a cute kid as well Great stuff there And also

I'm seeing this from Our boy Darshan the IBF has officially stripped Mr. Jayapathaya. Her an IBF statement, Jayaa Pataya has now officially been stripped of his cruiserweight world title, The Sanctioning Body withdrew sanction of Apataya's title defense against Brandon Glanton, just days before it was supposed to take place, when in their opinion it became apparent that the Zufa Belt was more than the trophy or token of recognition that it was supposed to be. Opataya chose to proceed with the glint and bout and thus loses his IBF title. So this is a guy who wanted undisputed.

He wanted to be the man at cruiserweight and now he doesn't have that belt. He's got the ring belt. He's got the Zufa belt. But that was the first thing that he said when they made the announcement that he was signing with Zufa. He wanted undisputed and he's got some work to do. Obviously we've got the Benavita Zerdo fight coming up May 2nd as well. All right. Frankie, any super chats, my friend.

Okay, sounds like some good ones. Yeah, there's extra super. Okay. Jeff from Wendy City says, how's this for on this day? 25 years ago today, the WWF buys WCW for 4.2 million. Wow. Looking back in hindsight, what a shame. WCW had many advantages over WWF and terrible business and creative ruined.

Man, I remember... I was working on a radio show in Montreal called In the Ring on CFMB 1280am. It was a night time, a Friday night show at midnight, and it was on a station that didn't really have any sports talk radio during the day they'd have like bingo and stuff like that. And we had this show and the host was named Aaron Amadeus. And I would listen to the show every Friday and they put out a thing saying, hey, we're looking for an intern. And so I threw my name in the hat and I got the gig and I was the phone screener. And I was there when the news kind of broke. now this is 2001

there were websites back then right so there were no you know there was no Twitter Facebook any of that stuff so it was just like I would go on Scoopswrestling.com no dqu.com wrestling observer website

wasn't the best PW Torch one wrestling and it was just gigantic and then a few days later Vince McMahon shows up they have the final nitro from Panama City Florida

and Vince shows up at the beginning of the broadcast, the fate of WCW is in my hands. You remember that? Does anyone remember that? And then he was like, Jeff Jarrett, J-E-E-W-F, J-A-A-R-E-T, your F-I-R-E-D. Do you remember that? He was just like hiring and firing people.

It was crazy. And Booker T wins the belt on the final episode. Rick Flair gets all emotional. It was a wild thing. We had such high hopes. We had such high hopes for the invasion. and it didn't quite work out. I remember 2021 July of 2021, my family was in New York

visiting for some reason. I'm still living in Montreal at the time, but it was the invasion pay-per-view from Cleveland, and I went to WWF New York by myself to watch that pay-per-view, because I thought it was going to be like this unbelievable thing. It was Team WCW-Sash ECW versus Team WWF, and it was just like, holy shit, this is going to be,

you know, this is going to be, we're going to see all the big names. Goldberg's going to come over. Rick Flair's going to come over. going to come over. They all eventually came over, but not in due time. So it was more like Mike Awesome, Land Storm, Booker T, all great guys, but it wasn't, Ray Mysterio didn't come until later. They had that infamous Ray Mysterio, no, Buff Bagwell Booker T match, July of 2001. That was a total disaster. They brought out Scott Hudson. What a time, what a time. Twenty-five years? Holy smokes.

We're getting old. Yeah, high hopes for that. And as we've learned, with, PFL, Belator, UFC, Strike Force, it doesn't quite work out when you tried to keep the brands separate. It never works out. It very, has it ever worked out

in the history of mergers where the two brands are just separate forever? No, because you ultimately have one that you need to put the resources into, right?

The winner, and the winner always wants to take over. You want to assert dominance. You want to say, I want. Yeah. What else, Frankie? What else? Drew Webb says,

my second daughter Claire was born yesterday and I'm listening from the cardiac and ICU. Mom's doing great but we're expecting Claire to have heart surgery this week. Thanks for giving me a bit of normalcy in this stressful time. Wow, Drew. First of all, Claire is a beautiful name. Well done. That's my daughter's name and I love it. I don't want to say, I'm sorry you guys are going through this,

but I'm sending you strength and love and support from our team to yours. thank you for using us as an escape. That's a huge honor, but we're sending you love and support. And thinking of you, the whole team is thinking of you guys. I know that is not easy. I know that it's a very helpless, scary feeling. And yeah, we give you a big hug, man. Much love to you and your family.

And I'm praying that everything goes your way and that everything works out and that she makes a very speedy recovery. I know many families that have gone through that. And it is scary, but everything works out. And there's a great life ahead with no obstacles. And I'm wishing the same for you, your wife, obviously, Claire, as well. So congratulations. Well done.

And please keep us posted. And don't send in a super chat or anything like that. I appreciate you doing that. But please keep us posted and much love to you and your family. And we are all hoping and praying that everything works out. And we know everything will work out. And you'll be better off and stronger. And we're sending you that love and strong.

strength as well. What else, Frankie? What else? Would UFC break their business model for McGregor? What is their business model? I don't even know what that he's even referring to. Who is to check? Yeah, who is to check? They pay top dollar when they want to pay top dollar and they don't when they don't. But I don't think breaking the bank for McGregor would be paying him top dollar. He is the biggest star in the history of the sport and one of the biggest stars in the history of combat sports. He also already has the precedent of being the asterisk, right? He already is the guy that will nobody will ever box under

the UFC umbrella again. He is the guy who already has the asterisk, so he plays by rules that don't exist for anybody else. Yep. What else, Frankie? What else? Ariel, isn't it a little annoying that some content creators call themselves journalist when they don't have the education of how sources work?

I don't really care. Call yourself whatever the hell you want. Call me whatever the hell you want. I don't care about any of that. I know my background I know what I went through. I know all that. But, you know, it's all become very gray in the year 2026 and even prior to this year. So none of this really bothers me.

And quite frankly, like, I feel like a lot of people kind of think that the word journalist is like a bad word now. I don't see unless you guys see otherwise. Like, I don't see a lot of people calling themselves a journalist, like a content creator. Like, who's a content creator that calls themselves a journalist? I don't see that. I think they more often go out of their way to not call themselves to say like I'm not a journalist I do XYZ

I see you know what I see more of I see more of people who I would deem a journalist being like I'm not a journalist like I kind of view that as somewhat of a cop out sometime like ah I'm just a guy here in front of a microphone like no I mean I feel like you do a little bit more than that I'm not a journalist you know but this is what I think about XY and Z and these are the people that I spoke to but I'm not a journalist I feel like that's a hedge in case you get something wrong. I say it with my chest, all right? I've got that Syracuse diploma somewhere at my parents' house somewhere.

But I know where I came from and I am very proud to be a journalist. And I take that title, that diploma. I have great respect for it and it's an honor. And I think that it's very important to conduct yourself in a certain way when you are a journalist. When you consider it not some dude on Twitter who sits at home trying to like anoint themselves. some de facto watchdog over journalists. Like that to me is hilarious. Those are the funniest people.

The de facto watchdog journalists who have never done anything in the history of journalism or in their journalism careers and now all of a sudden they're the watchdog is the best. That's the funniest. Never done anything.

No one wants to work with them. They've not succeeded in any way, shape or form, yet they're the de facto watchdog. And who made them the watchdog? They made themselves the watchdog. Tremendous. What a gig? What else, Frankie? What else?

I wanted to shout out a finish MMA phenom, Sonny Braun-Fords, who is currently training at TriStar as we speak. Few years, and she is in the UFC. Yo, TriStar having a bit of a renaissance, if you will. 15-1, amateur career. Yeah, all right. Shout out. Just 21 years old.

The future, did you say female fighter or male fighter? Female. Mrs. Finland, because we had a Mr. Finland. Shout out, Makwa. Yeah. What else, Frankie? What else? And lastly, the Netflix card is solid, but I'd swap in.

Nate Diaz versus Dylan Danis and Mike Perry versus Darren Till, these fights have a better story. Your thoughts? Well, I don't know if Darren could come into... Keep my fucking name on. And Dylan, I think he had that concussion. Who knows?

I'm totally fine with Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. I like Nate versus Mike Perry, but... Yeah. Mike versus Darren has to happen at some point. I mean, we've been talking about it for what? Yeah. It just has to happen.

Seven years now? Is that the big fight that felt was teasing could it I can't think of a bigger fight for Mike Perry right like that Nate is obviously 37,000 if you do it in the UK maybe yeah is there anyone else you could get that would do 37,000

for BKFC? It has to be Perry right Connor um yeah besides Connor come on Connor's not happening but Perry's fighting in in May in a fight that could be like a pretty bloody affair right like he could get he's fucking Mike Perry I know he'll be fighting in a week after that's talking about a fight in August what do you say August that's in three months

Great. Three months after the May Fight is what I mean. Yep. Reading my mind. F and my. Gentlemen. Let me just see something. Sorry, there's two more.

Oh, okay. They came in at the last minute. I want to get the boys in the back of beer in Seattle. I appreciate that, super rich, Ollie. Yes? You don't have to do that, though. Why not? Just come say what's up.

You don't have to buy us a beer. All right. Give us the itinerary for those that may not know. What do you guys got? Tomorrow night, if everything goes according to plan after the show, we'll fly out to Seattle, do the show from Seattle Wednesday, do boys in the back from muckle shoot on Thursday, gallivant around Seattle on Friday, maybe a little fight feats, maybe something like that, a little food itinerary, and then UFC Seattle on Saturday evening.

Have you ever been to Seattle? No, never been in the Pacific Northwest, has been on my bucket list for some time. Rick? Never. One of the all-time great cities. Yeah, very excited about it. You're going to go to the market? Yep.

If they let us catch the fish, you'll see that I'm all hands team. I mean, I'm, I got glue on these puppies. It'll absolutely be caught. Also, we'll get to see an Israel out of Sonia fight. Oh, that's tremendous. First ever Starbucks is in that vicinity, too. Oh, we'll be there. Yeah.

Got to get a coffee. A Starbucks fight? Frank said it was his favorite part of Seattle when we did our list. The Starbucks? These words, we never smoked. Yeah. Anyway, it's a great time. Seattle. I've never been to climate

pledge, but climate pledge used to be Key West, no, key arena. Sorry, not Key Arena. It was a key? Key Arena, yeah. Saw Demetrius Johnson there a few times. The Supersonics back in the day, Seattle Storm. The Cracken now, right? You guys going to go to a Cracken game? Are they in town? They're not in town.

But Mariners are playing on Friday. Oh, that's right. Safeco? Not known as Safeco anymore. Oh, what is it now? It's something else. But that's one of the all-time best. Yeah, they got their second game. Team Mobile Park,

Apropole. Oh. Yes. Okay. Who are they playing? I don't know. Got to hit the needle. The needle, space needle, of course.

Okay, this is fun. And then when are you guys back? Well, Rick's never coming back, apparently. Rick is not coming back. That's that bullshit. I'll be back Sunday evening. Okay. All right.

Tomorrow on the program, guys, John Silva, as we said, are going to be joining us. John Martin, CEO of PFL, going to be joining us as well. Another one in the work. Stay tuned for all of that. Oh, Sebastian Fondora, also competing on Saturday. Saturday is an insane day.

We've got Fondora Thurman. We've got R.A.F.7. We've got PFL Pittsburgh. We've got UFC Seattle. Golly. We also have one more super chat. Oh, gosh. All right. Boys, are we locking into the Australian Football League this season?

Ariel claimed to be an Adelaide Crow supporter, but I need the boys in the back behind my Sydney Swans. Let me know how I could send you boys some jerseys. Sydney Swans. Sydney Swannies? Sounds fake. Last time someone had us do this, they made us place a future on the Collingwood magpies.

No, no, this is not my fault. They were absolute shit that year. Did we go to the swans? We're Adelaide. No, no, no. This is an Adelaide show. Oh, not you. Me and...

I'm down for Sydney Swans. They got some sick gear. All right. It is dangerously close to the game. I've got the cup over there somewhere. Yeah, send us some jerseys. Who's to check? Dr. Van Nostrand.

Email Rick. Lincoln is bio. All right. Time to go, guys. Actually, yes, though. He has his email in his bio. Yeah, that's why he said that. Sorry for outing you like that.

Sidney Swan's currently plus 700. Wait, has the season started yet? The grand final. No, nothing it starts this week. Where is that in the, like, how, what number in the place are that? Fourth. All right, so we're not out of it? Who do you think is more proud of themselves on this Monday?

Chanel Dyer, who kind of like blew the doors off of, you know, the O2 or G.C. For nailing the adepas, the way in which he did. I think Chanel Dyer. I feel like you're walking around with your chest out. Look, it's just another one to add to the list. Yeah. Cooked it. Cooked it.

What recipes are you making? You know, a rapist. Yeah. Some authentic Venezuel Dyer deserves to be more proud because her performance is incredible. Legit. Andy, legit. One out of ten, what are you giving him? Legit.

Don't be like, don't give us the PC answer. No, I'll give, okay, so I'll give it an eight and a half. Is that fair? I said seven and a half, I'll be happy. Yeah, the feeling was incredible. Okay, what could he have done differently to get the ten? If we had had the mudare, we could have gotten the arrepa, made the right way. Like, that's really, that's really it.

Now, what is that? What is that that you just said? Putre. And which is what? I'll send you a picture. Okay. Like, for the people, can you tell them? It's like a cast iron pan.

Oh, that thing. Okay, gotcha, got you. Okay, so you wouldn't ever be caught dead with the thingy that he used? No, I would. No, it's mine. Oh. But what you're saying is the other thing levels it up. All right, all right.

Well, it was tremendous. Well done to you. Well done to everyone on the show today. Tremendous guests. Tomorrow will be another great day. Thanks to all of you. Thanks to all that. Back tomorrow, same time, guys.

This is that peace. I'm out of here.