The Ariel Helwani Show - Matt Hardy in studio, Merab Dvalishvili, Jorge Masvidal & Yoel Romero, Sean Strickland goes off, news & notes

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Ariel Helwani kicks off the show by announcing a live show in New York City before UFC 328, then brings in The Boys in the Back and Petesy Carroll to discuss Skye Nicolson banking another win, Takeru taking out Rodtang in his retirement fight, whether Sean Strickland’s verbal jabs have crossed the line, the build for his fight against Khamzat Chimaev, and more (16:07). Jorge Masvidal and Yoel Romero join the show together, talking about Romero’s upcoming fight for Masvidal’s bare-knuckle promotion, a potential return to the cage for Masvidal, Masvidal’s beef and war of words with Chael Sonnen, Masvidal being offered a fight against Darren Till, Romero wanting to fight Anderson Silva before retiring, and more (1:14:15). Wrestling legend Matt Hardy is back in-studio to talk about his recent run with TNA, the relationship between TNA and WWE, his own relationship with the WWE, including with President Nick Khan, being a locker room leader for TNA, stories from Wrestlers’ Court, his friendship with the Undertaker, other tales from his illustrious career, his thoughts on WrestleMania 42, and more (1:34:09). Ariel reacts to the Hardy interview, before touching on Jake Paul calling out Ilia Topuria, a run-in between Ryan Garcia and Henry Cejudo, Arman Tsarukyan saying he was offered a fight against Michael Chandler, and answering your Super Chats (2:18:33). Merab Dvalishvili is our final guest of the day, talking about training with Gina Carano ahead of her Ronda Rousey bout, recovering from his recently broken nose, Henry Cejudo pulling out of their RAF match, his feelings on Arman Tsarukyan, wrestling against Frankie Edgar, when he expects to have the Petr Yan trilogy fight, his prediction that Sean O’Malley will beat Aiemann Zahabi, and more (2:56:17). Ariel ends the show with more Super Chats (3:32:27).

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Earth. Wednesday, April 29, 2000. And 26, hello again, everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. It is great to be here on a lovely, lovely Wednesday afternoon in New York City. The vibes are great. Big win last night for your New York next. We're not talking smack.

We're not talking smack. We're just talking about what transpired. What happened? We're not talking smack. Humble and hungry, humble and hungry. We're feeling good. Crazy, crazy time in the world of sports. But a nice comfortable win, no anxiety attached to it,

no stress attached to it, nothing of that sort, was pretty nice on a Tuesday afternoon. G.C. OK? Confidence still high? No. I think I explained on the show yesterday. The confidence is shocked. As soon as we lost game four, that was it for us.

No chance. they at least secure home court, they at least defend home court. Maybe, but I doubt it. You think it's elementary, as they say. I think it's been exposed that the Knicks are the better team this year. And in great 2026. In a weird way, there's a part of me that feels like we should have won in five,

but in a weird way, I think the debacle that was game two was a blessing because I feel like it changed something in them. And I know game three was a disaster, but, you know, that little stretch right there, it feels like it changed something. So let's see, let's see. some big games tonight. I'm excited about that. I have to admit, I have a mix of emotions. I feel actually quite emotional on this Wednesday for multiple reasons. There's a lot going on

at Uncrowned HQ. There's a lot to be excited and grateful for. Some of that I'm going to share with all of you in a matter of moments. So there's a lot there. Peace and love, peace and love. Yesterday, after the show, we had a great meeting about some of these things. There's a lot that we can tell you about, I'll get that in a moment. And then I made my way over to my son's soccer game. And I know that there are some parents out there that will understand what I'm saying and feeling. And I know that there's some people out there who have no idea what I'm talking about. But went out there. It was pretty cold at night. And I'm sitting in the bleachers. And I'm relatively alone by myself. And for whatever reason, I got there at halftime.

My son played three minutes of a 40-minute half. and my heart broke for him. He's not meshing with his coach right now, and I could just see his body language. I could just see him from afar. I could see how sad he was about that. And he's a pretty good player. He deserves to play more than three minutes.

But I'm not the kind of dad who makes a whole big stink about it, did speak to him afterwards, spoke to the coach afterwards, understood where he was coming from. But my son was sad. He was crying. I could see how heartbroken he was.

And that's a really tough thing. It's tough to see your kid feel those emotions. I remember feeling some sort of way when I didn't play well in sports and whatnot. It's just, it's tough, man. My son's turning 14 tomorrow and there's the big, you know, phone delivery that's happening, and I'm a dad of a 14-year-old, and I can't believe that. I just feel like I'm dealing with a lot right now. All great things.

Everyone's healthy. God bless. Thank you so much. But I just feel like it's a wild thing to have a teenage son and watch them grow and deal with things and heartbreak and setbacks, and you want to hug them, and you want to teach them and you want to be there for them. And then I saw that clip of that guy talking about our mortality and life. And man, I feel like I'm going through a lot right now.

So I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be here with all of you. I feel like I'm on the brink of crying every two seconds. And I don't know why. But I guess that's life. And I guess that makes me a very weak, soft snowflake. But nevertheless, such is the life that we are living. We have a great show planned for all of you.

I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to be doing this show. Marab Duolishvili is going to be joining us at 4 o'clock to talk about his RAF matchup against Frankie Edgar. That was announced. I think it was yesterday. I think it was yesterday it was announced. And so that's a fun sort of East Coast battle.

Marab, an adopted East Coaster going up against the East Coast wrestler slash MMA fighter and Frankie Edgar, the pride of Tom's River. RIF doing big things. More of these matchups they're putting together. as we've discussed. That's May 30th in Dallas. We'll talk to him about other things going on in his life and his career, Aljo, et cetera. Prior to that, we're going to be joined by Matt Hardy.

In Studio, one of the most popular and legendary pro wresters of all time. Of course, one half of the Hardy Boys, one of the greatest tag teams of all time, joining us in studio. He's a part of TNA, TNA on AMC on Thursday nights. He's in New York doing media. We had Matt and Jeff in studio back in July of last, year. That was tremendous. This time we go one-on-one with the immortal one, the one-and-only Matt Hardy. So I'm looking forward to that very, very much. Prior to that, we're going to be

joined by Jorge Mazvedal and Yuel Romero. Yowell Romero is headlining the Gamebred MMA card on May 1st. That's Friday of this week in Miami. And so this is his first gamebred bare-knuckle MMA fight card. Yoel is still rolling along. 49 years young tomorrow. His His birthday is tomorrow. He's 49. He looks like he's 24. Had a bare knuckle fight in February. The guy is, I mean, talk about ageless and timeless and immortal and all those things.

That's U.L. Romero. Or as they say in Cuba, Joel Romero, I do believe. So anyway, they're going to join us together, and that will be at approximately 2.15 p.m. Eastern Time. So stay tuned for that. Now, we were supposed to be joined by Chal Sunnan in all my years of knowing Chiazun. He has never had to cancel at the 11th hour, but unfortunately he tells me he is not feeling well.

He is feeling awful, and I believe him. And so we'll obviously connect with Chale, actually pretty damn soon, probably next week. So my apologies if you were looking forward to another Wednesday edition of Ariel and the bad guy that is not going to be happening today, but I do wish him a very speedy recovery. Hopefully he feels well soon, and obviously no hard feelings there because Chale is not that guy. He is, I don't think he has ever, ever, ever canceled on me in any way, shape or form. So much love to the bad guy. Much love to the bad guy. Okay, so we have a few things. Yes, there's the lineup right over there. Still a tremendous show. I mean, golly, that is

amazing stuff. Very excited about today's program. We have a few things to discuss right off the bat. number one, let me tell you that we've been hinting at this for the last few days, but now I can tell you officially that we are doing a live show in New York City on May 8th, the day before UFC 328, that is next Friday. So in nine days from now, May 8th, New York City at City Winery, NYC, you may recall in 2020, was it four or three? Four or three? It might have been four. No, three, three. Twenty-twenty-three. We did a show there. Action Bronson was there. Dylan Danis was there. Who else was there? Action Bronson, Dylan Dennis, Giuliana Pena and others. It was a great show, a great time, a great venue. Everyone seemed to like it very much. We're doing it again this next Friday, May 8th, City Winery, NYC.

It's presented by free. Thank you very much to them for making this happen. And it is live for you all at 8.30 p.m. Eastern. Doors open at 8.30 p.m. Eastern is when the show starts till about 10. It's at the loft at City Winery, NYC. That's 2511th Avenue on the west side of New York City. That's how it looks on the website. The tickets are on sale right now.

now, the link is live, you can buy tickets. Hopefully we sell them out in one day and we don't have to pitch this anymore. That would be tremendous. In a matter of seconds, if not already, the link will be pinned in our chat. Has it been pinned yet or not yet? In a matter of second? In a matter of seconds, it will be in the chat. You'll see it up there. If you're in the New York area, the Jersey area, the tri-state area, the Connecticut area, any part of this region, please do come check us out. I can tell you, as of right now, it's looking like two to three fighter guests are going to be joining us. I feel very confident in saying that. Big names, recognizable names, famous names, active UFC fighters, people that you like, characters from the show,

and all of us will be there. Myself, G. G.C., Rick, Andy, Frank. Jordan, all of us will be there. It's going to be amazing. So again, that's next Friday, May 8th, the night before 328. If you're going to the Ceremony Wayans, it's at the very least two or so hours after all of that. Usually it's around 6, 7. So you should be good. There's the link right there.

You can buy the tickets right now. I'll tweet it out as well. We can tweet it out now, Spencer, if you want. Or I'll put it on my Instagram stories. All those things and more. next Friday, May 8th. A lot of you are asking, NJPAC this, next live show that.

I can tell you this, we're doing a bunch of things with these guys, so shout out to them, and we've got a commitment for three big things coming up this summer. So this is sort of the kickoff to three fun things coming up this summer, which will culminate with International Fight Week in Vegas.

So if you're planning on going to Vegas for International Fight Week, there's some fun things in the works as well for that. Shout out to them, shout out to you, Shout out to us, looking forward to that. And I'll probably tell you next week about the guest. But let's scoop up them tickets now. And then we don't have to worry about any of that stuff.

That stuff always kind of gives me anxiety. I always get worried about, oh, ticket sales, this and that. But this should be relatively easy for all of us. So one more time, May 8th next Friday. Hope to see you all there. We've had some regulars. We've had a few people show up to a few of these, these Helwani Road shows, if you will.

I don't know how many we've done at this point, maybe five, six, something like that, six, seven, eight. Nah, maybe not. Who's to check? It's not eight. Somewhere in the five to six range. Maybe even more, actually,

now that I think about the ESPN days. It's a fun time. It's a great time. You gotta be there. So please, get your tickets now. That was item number one that I wanted to bring up. Item number two that I wanted to bring up. And that was part of the reason why we were meeting

after the show yesterday. Our show is going to Los Angeles Fight Week for the MVP MMA show. That's on May 16th, but we will be there May 11th, May 12th, May 13th, May 14th. So, Hulani Show, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, BITB, Thursday, all live from L.A. Same schedule, different studio, different state, different city,

but we're all going to La La Land. And I believe actually for some members of the team, this will be their first trip to the Golden State, I believe. Or maybe it's just GC's the only one that's ever been there, right? I was going to say some members. Just you. Yeah. What are the thoughts? What are the emotions?

Not the first time to California. Been to California many, many times. Really? But not L.A. Correct. Yeah, my brother and uncle live in the Bay Area. Been there many times. Love it.

One of my favorite places on Earth, but ready to go to Hollywood, baby. How do you feel about that? I mean, this is a big deal. I'm hype. I'm, I'm, I'm as hype as I was when we went to Vegas for the first time. Oh, yeah. I mean, you've checked off a few items off the old bucket list. LA's a great place. Yeah, I can't wait to see that into it, though.

Dublin, yes. Hopefully you guys will be attending that as well. So, yeah, obviously, I'll be a part of the Fight Week activities. Actually, I think I'll have a pretty cool role on the actual fight night, telecast as well. more on that in due time. But we're going to be doing all our shows out there. And I love L.A. and the studio looks great.

And I'm very excited about that. So like I said, New York show May 8th, then L.A., like a day later. And then the other stuff that we have planned for June and July, this kicks off a pretty busy stretch for us. A pretty exciting stretch. And hopefully Pizzi hasn't logged on yet and he's not feeling too much FOMO. shit, I was hoping that I was hoping that you were. I'm glad that the one member of the team

that hasn't been to LA is finally getting there for a play, GC, you know what I mean? Have you never been to L.A.? No, I've never been. Never been. No. Look to fly, bro. You got direct from Dublin?

I'm sure we do. I'm sure we do with G.C. How are you boys getting on anyway? You know what I mean? Yeah, no, we're getting on great. We're getting on great. There's a lot going on here. We had to, you know, move some things around,

but that's live television for you, Pete, see, that's live television for you. You get about us, Pete. How are you getting on? Yeah, how are you getting on? The stash is still going strong? I was listening to you this other way in here, rushing back with Reggie feverishly trying to get back in time.

And of course, alas, I was late. No, you weren't. You were great. He tried to take a poo, two doors down from the house when I thought I was back on time, and then it adds a bit of time to it. But it was, this is the story about your son, not getting on the team.

And I got flashbacks to my own. Fledging Day as a football player, absolutely devastating thing to happen at it. He can't let it get to him. I let it get in my head. And I turned on that coach, and I never fell away back into his good books. So it was him leaving the team eventually.

Wow. Power struggle. Yeah, you need to make sure he finds a silver lining in this situation, my friend. You know, I equated it actually to the Knicks because he loves the Knicks. And I say, look at Jordan Clarkson, look at Jose Alvarado.

They went through stretches where they didn't play. they were ready. They stayed ready and so they didn't have to get ready. Coach called upon them. They're huge parts of this current playoff run. And, you know, to the coach's credit, who I was like, you know, a little bit.

I was like, man, it's a 13 year old soccer. Like, what are we doing? What you think of his argument? Right, don't have to get into the nitty-gritty, but after hearing him out. He said to me that he felt like my son was a little distant from the team. We're a family.

I'm like, you know, family 13. Okay, fine. My son doesn't go to their school. A lot of the kids go to the same school. He doesn't go to their school. One thing he did say, too, his credit, he said, it's now my job to build up his confidence. I'm going to build up his confidence back up. And I thought that's a very mature and good answer. Why'd you have to kill the confidence to

begin with? Like, why did we have to, like, why did we have to break him down to build him back up? Because he's telling me he's the best left wing on the team. He's fast. Maybe he's a bit of a maverick. Yeah. Sometimes you need to break a wild horse. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, it's tough. It's very tough to see your son. Like, I could see the shoulders kind of caving in the head down, and it's hard to just kind of sit there and see him, you know, shrink a little bit. But he's going to be happy tomorrow when he gets that birthday gift, that, you know, much anticipated cell phone. How you feel about that? iPad boy. No more. How do I feel about it? I'm going through a lot right now, Peezy. I'm very emotional right now. I'm going through a lot right now. It's been,

it's been a tough stretch for your man. You'll get true it. No, we will. We will. We will. Guys, we have a lot to discuss as far as news and notes are concerned, so let's get into it. I wanted to tell you that it was a rare Wednesday in which there was a lot of activity in the world of combat sports. Over in Melbourne, not to be confused with Melbourne, Australia, of course, Australia, home to the UFC this weekend, Perth event. More on that in a moment. We did have a matchroom card headlined by Sky Nicholson against the Maria Turner. And wouldn't you know it? Another big dub for our good friend Sky Nicholson.

she successfully defends her WBC interim, Super Bantamweight title. Afterwards, she made a call out to a pretty big name over in the UK. Here's what she had to say. No, you didn't want to talk about this before this fight, but this fight's over now. What do you want to do next?

I want super fights. I want to be undisputed champion of the world. I've been very vocal about that for a long time, even at Featherweight. We're at Superbantam now, and I'm ready to take over. Do you want to say some names to us? Ellie Scotney, you've got all the belts.

I'm next in line. Let's make it happen for the fans. Hell yeah. I would love that fight. That would be a great fight. Obviously, Ellie Scottney with MVP. She's with Matchroom. They've worked together.

That shouldn't be an issue. That would be a tremendous fight. And I feel like that's the kind of fight both of them sort of need right now. Two big names going toe to toe. She almost got the stoppage there. G.C., much to your chagrin. My H-Dal almost cashed. but it was a bit of...

I'm sure Draft King's, you know... They got a little... Almost, yeah, there you go, you cash it. Come on, draft King. I feel like almost sometimes should count. No? No. Still a great performance.

Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. It was a master class. Taramana, Taramana, also with the big knock. Actually, a vicious knockout. We have the clip right over here. Take a look at this. It's sort of zoomed in.

Look at that uppercut. Golly. Out on the ropes. Oh, look at that. The rope's got a shit out of me. God, the arms like swimming, too. That's where the injuries. You know, I didn't even notice the arms the last time.

That uppercut, that one uppercut did it. And look at this. He's like, look, oh, my dear God. That's dangerous. What a, what a punch. God, and like it, like, falls. It's like he's falling down stairs going down the ropes. That looks like a bad one.

I feel like he was out with the uppercut and the right just completely. He is a large man. So Matrum has a deal with Australia where they're doing. I think six shows a year for the next few years. So they're trying to build up a lot of the local talent over there. Over in the world of one championship guys, a massive, massive up, is it fair to call this an upset? Because I know...

Just Rotang is so famous, right? Is that what you're talking about? Okay, tell us, yeah, Takeru versus Rotang in Takeru's retirement match, right? And Takeru gets to win. This was for the, what was it, for the flyway title over there? Yes. Your own flyway kickboxing title. Rotang was the interim flyway kickboxing.

champion. He had not been caoed since 2013 according to tapology. And did he get chaos? What age is raw time now? Yeah, he got finished. Wow. Crazy, man. I don't know how old he is. Because he's been around for so long. He's this

phenom for so many years. Most people were introduced him through Joe Robben. Yeah. 28. 28. That's crazy. That's crazy. Holy shit. I thought you were going to say like 39.

No. That's what I thought. My honest to God guess was going to be 33. How many fights is the dude had, though? He has had like 15 lives of fights. If you count every like MMA, Maitai, and kickboxing, he has something like

500 fights. Insane. Takeran just 34, by the way, and retiring. Oh, man. You're not much. 46 wins for this guy, Takero. Rod Teng's

Oh, shit. Rodtang's moitai and kickboxing record, 274 wins, 44 losses, 10 draws. That's ridiculous. 74, golly. That is insane. That's like 330 fights.

But he does, I mean, he has slowed down. His last fight prior to this one, March of 25, prior to that one, November of 24. So he was slowing down a little bit. But yeah, that is absolutely insane.

There's been a bit of a back and forth between Rod Tang and Chachry Sitchotong, the founder of one champion. Chip and it seems like Chachry took a bit of a shot at the legend after the event. Here's the post-fight press conference. I love Jonathan and I'll support. He has, you know, if he wants to be a three-sport world champion, that will obviously, you know, be incredible. If you can do it simultaneously, it'll be even more incredible.

Who knows? He has so much talent. And what's so impressive about Jonathan is he's always maintained his humility throughout this whole journey. And his hard work ethic, you know, everyone knows Jonathan works hard. He levels up, he's humble, he surrounds himself with the best coaches and teammates and that's something that's I think we saw what happens when you make a lot of money and fame gets your head and you stop training and you don't have a team around you We saw an example tonight, right? You know being the best in the world in the world's largest martial organization is not an easy thing and staying the best

staying on top, is it even harder? So number one, he's referring to Jonathan Haggerty, who also fought on that card. We've had him on the show before. He fought in a kickboxing bout, successfully defending his one bantamweight kickboxing title. This event was one samurai one. It was at the Ariaki Arena in Tokyo.

And there was kickboxing, there was MMA, there was Muay, all on this card, which has sort of been their thing as of late. But obviously, a lot of the MMA fighters have left and there have been some whispers about, you know, being shelved and lack of opportunities and fights and payments, I could tell you that I've reached out to Chatsri Situ Tong, who we've had on the show before and have what I consider to be a healthy relationship with. He's come on, he's answered my questions. I know he read my message because it was on WhatsApp, but he did

not reply. Now, it was a fight week for him. I did reach out at the beginning of the week. So I'd love to have him on. I'd love to talk about what is the plan for one. He referred to. to one as the, you know, top martial arts organization out there. What is the plan as far as their MMA fights are concerned and MMA divisions are concerned? There's a lot to ask him about, and I would love to have him on. But it did seem like he was taking a subtle shot to me towards Rod Tank talking about how money can change you and get in the way and things like that because Rod Tang had been speaking about those sorts of things. Perhaps we're reading into it a little bit too much, but that's what it came across as to me and others online. Obviously,

happy for Haggurty seems like a great guy. We've talked to him before he's been on. But Rod Tang is an absolute living legend as well. And, you know, don't blame him for wanting to get paid at the very, very end of his career. So let's see. Let's see what the future holds for one championship. That's the action as far as this morning here in the United States was concerned. But a whole lot of stuff happened yesterday, guys, in Las Vegas.

And I want to start with Sean Strickland. Sean Strickland had a media day at the UFCPI in Las Vegas ahead of his fight against Hamzaa Shamaev next weekend in Newark, New Jersey. Let me ask you, Pizzi, because we were talking about it at lunch. You weren't here, obviously. Did you happen to catch any of this, any of the clips, the full scrum, etc.? I saw him saying he would shoot Shemaiah? Is that correct, if he showed up at his gym,

or if he sees him, or if there's some kind of bad. interaction between them on FOIA week? Is that what we're talking about? Yes. We're talking about that and other things. And, you know, I was, I was talking to everyone about whether or not we should play these clips, what the reaction was to some of these clips. Because truth be told, like that was one of the least, for lack of a better word, shocking of the things that he said. There's a lot there. And there's a lot that could be deemed offensive to a lot of people. And so I don't want to necessarily just play everything just for the sake of playing. Like, here's, here's Sean calling X, Y, and Z, X, Y, and Z.

I don't feel the need to do that. But there were a few things that he said that were, I think, quote, unquote, newsworthy. And I do think that there is a larger discussion to be had as to, like, when is enough enough? And I know we've had this, what's the line talk? But, you know, some of the things that he is saying about Hamzat, about Nasruddinimov, about Muslim people I mean, it's as inflammatory as it gets. And I know Dana White has said,

we're going to have security, I don't doubt that, they're not dumb. This could get really ugly. Hamza Chameh is not any type of guy. I was thinking about this earlier and I wanted to talk to Chale about it and we'll talk to him about it next week. I believe that there have been three fights,

maybe four max, where the trash talk has gotten so personal that it's sort of uncommon for some to digest. The first one, you can make the case, Chale Sondon versus Anderson Silva. The second one, you can make the case, Connor McGregor versus Habib Nirmagamadav. The third one, which is the one that I'm sort of like saying, maybe, maybe not, but I think you could put it in that category was Colby Covington versus Kamar Usman, and this would be the fourth. And I would say not since Connor Habib, have we seen trash talk that, like, talked about religion, ethnicism,

things of that nature. And so when he's talking about these things, he's saying these things to a guy who, like, doesn't mess around. He doesn't mess around. He's, like, Hamsat, like, he just, he's not that guy. Not to suggest that Sean is afraid of that,

worried about that, anything like that. I just hope that they are truly ready for something very bad to happen next week. And what I mean by very bad, obviously, I'm not talking about, like, a death or someone getting shot. But like, this could get so inflammatory

that the fight gets, called off. Like there's a brawl, someone gets heard. Who knows? Ptze just discussed the shooting comment. Let's play that one first, because we've never heard that type of discourse from a fighter before a fight. Here's Sean Strickland saying what he would do to Hamzat if, in fact, it got a little bit too close next week in New Jersey. He's sort of talking about, like, oh, if you guys run into each other, you know, blah, blah, blah, like he'll have his friends with him, you won't have anyone. I'm going to do, I'll pour my gun out on my ship. Got it tonight?

I love ghosts, dude. You know, goat tastes good. He loves goats. We have that in common. I just don't fuck him. He would have come up to me like a man. Say, you know what, Sean, you said some things about my dad Kradaroff. And I'm like, well, you know what, dude?

You hoard yourself out, not me. I want to settle this. I would say, let's settle us like a man. But if you come up to me with three fucking goat fucker Chechnas who don't speak English, I'm going to pull my gun and I'm going to shoot each and every one of you. All right, well, I think that's a bad warning. So he says there, look, again, I know there's going to be people who cares. I'm taking Sean at face value here.

I'm taking him very seriously. I don't think that he's just saying that for the sake of saying that. Now, is he going to show up to the press conference packing heat? I don't even know if that's allowed. I'm not sure what the rules are, to be honest. I have no idea what the rules are as far as the UFC is concerned. Do they have something in their contracts that say you can't do that, the state of New Jersey? I don't know.

But Pizzi, when you hear that, what do you think? Do you think he's just, is that just Sean holding court and it's open mic night? You know, he loves these moments, right? Let me tell you something, you guys. Come on, guys. Let's be a... I'm taking him seriously there, and I'd like to think that the UFC is as well. And I'm not trying to say the sky is falling here, but like, that's pretty...

That's next... That's different kind of trash talk. That's different type of discourse that we usually hear before a fight, in my opinion. Yeah, and it does, like, you're really too correlated to my... Gregor and Habee because there was that kind of chatter around that event too. There was shots that culture and things like this. The problem is what you're saying is true. Like I'm taking him at face value.

But what you're doing now is it's escalating to like a game of chicken between these two guys. Like he's saying like I'm going to have my going. I'm going to, if you come up on me, I'm going to have my gone. Chameyav seems to me like the type of guy to be like, do you think I'd be afraid? of that like do you want me to go and do that so it is kind of escalating teams before we've even got to fight week to the point where if you're the ufc it'd have to be thinking about like is it is it 100% safe do we have the logistics on hand to have these guys face off and as we know that's a big part to fight week but i understand your concern because it's two guys who you know are pretty aggressive

can be pretty unhinged and i feel like they're playing a game of chicken with the words that are using ahead of the fight. I don't even know if my word is concerned, guys. I don't even know if my word is concerned, but there's a part of me that sees this, and it's like you kind of roll your eyes and say, like, is there a line? Is it too much?

But Shemoyev's not going to roll his eyes. We know that. Shemoyev's not going to listen to this and go, ah, Sean's just doing another. I think you have a bigger problem than the security, than the logistic, which is a problem. To Pizzi's point, right, like, now they have to, most of the time, you can have two fighters,

You can have headliners. Take, for example, this weekend's headliners, right? Jack Della and Carlos Proches. We saw a video of them yesterday hanging out, talking. You don't have to worry about that, right? You don't have to worry about security necessarily being involved. And there's like a middle ground of that, which is like, you probably want to have some ex-sick security, but you hope that everybody's professional enough.

This feels like it's escalating to the point of going beyond that, right? If they saw each other that they might have an actual issue and there might be a physical altercation. But I think the bigger problem, even than that, is you listed some fights off, right? Silva versus Sanin. Connor versus Habib. Your bigger problem is that those are the biggest fights in UFC history. You're talking about the way you build a fight, this being the way you build a fight.

This being how you build the most successful fights in UFC history is by crossing these lines, is by going to this extreme, is by making you believe, whether it's true or not, And in the cases that you mentioned, I do believe it was true, whether these guys hate each other. And if they saw each other on the street, that they would rip each other's fucking heads off, or if they saw each other on the street that Sean Strickland would be compelled to even pull out a firearm. It's unfortunate that this is how our brains work, but I must admit that it works. I am more interested in this fight, the more that they escalate the stakes, even if I am truly uncomfortable with maybe how that trash talk is, right? If I don't really want to see Sean, I do not under any circumstances,

want to see Sean Strickland shoot Hamzat Shamaia. Zero, none, not interested. But I am interested in them continuing to build animosity to the point that it becomes a bigger fight, and I must admit it feels like that works. We have seen it work, and the fights you listed are the ones where it went that way. You're 100% right.

There is, I understand 100%, but I do wonder, I'm not Muslim. If I was a Muslim fan listening to this and hearing him speak, he's calling them, you know, some crazy things. And he's talking about like prayer towels and stuff. I would feel some sort of way. So is the biggest issue hums out or is it someone coming up to Sean as well? Like you're inciting a lot of harsh feelings in people by saying these things. There might be repercussions.

This is not the first community that he's insulted, though. Yeah. This is like what he does. But right now, right now and he's going to be out. I've never really heard someone say like, go. straight for Kadir off like that. Like, you know what I mean? That's a guy

He was... Oh, he's done it continuously. Yeah. It feels like a very dangerous game to the point you're making, right? But it seems like one that Sean Strickland is willing to engage in, right? Like, it doesn't feel like he's fearful of it.

It doesn't feel... I'll say that... No. Like, if you compare Sean Strickland, and I've done this in the past, if you can compare Sean Strickland to Colby Covington, right? Just to use an example of somebody who likes to press buttons who likes to...

I believe Sean Strickland to be much more of the genuine article. I believe Sean Strickland, of somebody who says these things with his chest and is willing to suffer the consequences or the benefit, right? He has built a very rabid fan base for himself in doing that. Whereas Colby Covington,

I have never thought was not doing an act, right? I've always thought that there was a fear of a repercussion because I don't think that he was that genuine person. I don't think that that was the real Colby Covington we ever saw when he was doing this. The Colby Covington prior to that day in Brazil was the one that was the real Colby Covington and he was playing a character.

And so I believe Sean Strickland is making a calculation in his head that he is willing to suffer those consequences. What will ultimately change things is if there ever was a situation where somebody did suffer consequences for this. Maybe people start to worry about more what they are saying to incite that type of thing. But Sean seems to be willing to take that risk. What do you think, G.C.? Yeah, I mean, this seems to be Sean Strickland and his latest target is Hamza At Shemayev.

I don't believe that he is going to shoot Hamza Atchamai. think they're even going to be put in a situation where they're going to be able to do anything. I just can't imagine a world where Hamza Atchamaiv is pulling up on Sean Strickland with two of his boys, and Sean Strickland is armed with a loaded weapon. I just don't think that it's going to happen. I think he is talking shit in that instance, but I think the things that you're saying is over the line, and I think he's going to continue to say that, especially about the Muslim community when it comes to Hamza Atchamai. and at the press conference

and all week next week. From the moment he beat Fluffy Hernandez, even the week of that, he was going after Hamza Tchamayev. And I don't think he's going to stop during fight week, and he's going to continue to do this, and it's going to draw a lot of eyes,

especially for that press conference the Thursday before and then the fight itself. I'll go back to you, Eric, because you're saying that makes you want to watch the fight more, you're more... It does. There is, like, we were talking about this earlier.

There's a way in which you could do this. I believe that Chale had a sort of charm to him when he was doing all this stuff. Now, if you're Brazilian, you may disagree, but him talking about the Nogaras and the bus and the carrot,

like it was sort of wink, wink, wink, nudge, there was no charm to Colby. There was no charm to Connor as well. I don't think this is charming. I don't think this, is this charming. No, Connor. I was going to say Connor. The towel stuff and all that.

Well, not that part, but... We might not think this is charming. There are people that relate to this. That love this. It's just like, he doesn't give a fuck about anything. he says what he means and he goes about it.

I get where you're going though. I 100% get where you're going. What I'm trying to say is, you think this is effective? I think it's effective in a different way. I mean, he's getting a title shot, right? Chale Sonnen had an element to him that was like, oh, that scoundrel, that rascal.

You know, there's that kind of like you forgive him, right? You allow him to do his pro wrestling thing, but he was so fucking good at it that you kind of just allowed him to do it. And I always think of a quote because there's a comedian that I love named Anthony Jezzelnick, who's a very, like, edgy, rough, like he jokes about topics that most people will say, too soon, don't joke about this topic. But he always refers to a quote by Andy Warhol, which is, art is what you can get away with.

And he always talks about this because you see in comedy, like now, a lot of people who just want to push buttons or say something offensive, right? And when they do that, when people get offended, they go, well this is just comedy you're not you're not allowed to get offended i'm just doing comedy and that's not actually the truth that's not how it goes it's not just this is comedy so i can say whatever i want you have to be able to get away with it that is the art and i do believe that chel sun and had that right is sean getting away with he i mean you got a that's that's an important question and i don't know the answer i think he is yes he's definitely getting away with it and and to your point about chale Chale had comedy and comedic timing

and he was actually a very, very funny character in the sport. Sean Strickland basically goes off of shock value. You tune into it and you're like, I cannot, like, you almost have to chuckle to yourself because you're like, I cannot believe he is saying this into a microphone. And on camera, and like, it's working, man.

Like, it works. If you look at the clips, like the one about him talking about how he's going to pull a gun on him has 10,000 likes on Happy Punch and almost a million views, you know, championship arched, RDS posts a graphic where it's Sean Strickton and the quote is just, I'm going to shoot him with a picture of Sean Strickton with a gun, another 600,000 views, 10K likes. It's like these posts of him saying these things always go mega viral, which gets more people

to tune into the fight. We do have to say, sorry, you go PT. One thing I'll just, you know, you referred to Chale there, and we're talking about Strickland. McGregor, even though that fight was huge, I did feel like there was a lot of backlash back home. that's not across America. He remained very, very popular in America while his popularity dwindled in Ireland because of that kind of stuff with Habib.

And even in the aftermath, like, Habib and his team were outrageous in the aftermath of that fight. But because the preamble was so vicious and because he had targeted things that are usually off the table, I feel like most of the people framed it. Like, well, like, you know,

play silly games, wins silly prizes. This is what you get. Like, that is the way most Irish people were kind of looking at that afterwards. I don't know if Sean Strickland is in that, well, he definitely isn't, in that stratosphere where you can lose on that level that McGregor did because you need to be transcendent of the sport at that stage, I believe.

So I don't think he's going to feel a negative impact, if any, the way McGregor did, if you get me. No, no, I 100%. Rick, say your point and then I wanted to jump in with something. I just want to say there's people who, when Sean Strickland talks like this and does what he does, that will identify. with that and be the ones who

feel like he's speaking for us this is how I feel and that but you do also have to remember you mentioned like if you're Muslim how do you feel about this right are those people then going to tune in to watch him lose to Hamzaa Shamaev my guess my hypothesis is yes

that it will engender people to have a hatred toward him the same way you know the best heels have always done it and want to see Hamza go in there and rip his head off the way Hamza promises to rip his head off. So I think it will work. I think this works. No, you're probably right. And I want to make something clear. I don't want to come across

and maybe I'm not doing a good enough job of doing this. Like I feel like I turn on a lot of show these days as sports and politics tend to get, you know, more, you know, intertwined and how more sports shows are feeling comfortable talking about politics as they go independent and whatnot. I don't want to make it seem like we're sitting here crying or anything like this. This is a massive fight coming up in 10 days' time. It's different kind of trash talk. I'm just curious about talking about it. Like, I'm not necessarily saying I'm boycotting. No way.

None of that. I'm not even the target of the things that he's talking about. But I do sit there and watch like, all right, is this working? When's enough enough? He's standing there at a UFC, you know, in a venue that is a UFC venue and there's media there kind of chuckling away. Like, it's just very unique. Yes, I don't think we're crying about this.

I think we're having a discussion about. But you know how it will be preeminent. Yeah, of course. but who cares? You're missing the understanding. This is one of the preeminent stars in the UFC today. And he is saying wild shit. I don't care how you feel about any of it.

He is saying wild shit. If one of your boys said this in private, you'd be like, damn, bro, you're really, you're just letting it go, man. And he's doing it on camera to get posted everywhere with UFC microphones in front of him. And it looks like he's at the PI as well. Yes, yeah.

One thing that can't be denied. This is a place of work. It's a place of work. It is crazy however you feel about it. Yes, Pete. does it do to the UFC? Like what, like to you guys, like you guys live in America? What way is the UFC viewed now compared to what it was with Habib and Connor? Because this is the similar kind of terrain. It's not as big. Obviously, they were two huge

superstars and much more heated, or more well known. But UFC is so successful now, right? They've signed this massive deal with Paramount. If this is the rhetoric throughout Fight Week, like, does that affect the perception of the sport? I think it confirms people's feelings towards you. Of course. I think, I think, I think anyone who is sort of feeling some sort of way about it says, oh, yeah, of course this is what they do with the UFC. The UFC and mixed martial arts has always been bar room brawling, no matter if it's Wonderboy Thompson in there or Valentina Shevchenko or anyone else. Like, it's always been that. So people see this.

People see, you know, the Trump stuff. They're like, oh, yeah, that's what that is. It's crazy people talking about shooting their opponents and talking disparagingly about other ethnicities. So I don't think it turns anyone off to Rick's point, if anything, and maybe there are some people out there like enough is enough and I'm going to skip this one, but the vast majority are probably tuning into it. One thing that can't be denied with regards to Sean Strickland, who have asked to come on the show many a times, but he's not interested, probably because of the 10-7 way back one about, you know, the donuts in the parking lot. One thing that can't be denied is that the guys got massive balls. when you're standing in the UFCPI speaking about your promoter, aka your boss, Dana White, the way in which he did yesterday.

Pee-T, did you see this clip? Like, you're, I see this clip and I'm like, yo man, you got massive balls. Like, this is not offensive. In fact, he's not saying that much, like, different than what I said on Monday regarding Dana's reaction to the alleged gunman incident in Washington on Saturday. But the words that he's using and who, he's talking about makes me think like, wow, there has never been a UFC fighter, a contracted UFC fighter to speak about Dana White like this. And I do wonder if this is the line, because

we've never seen anyone talk about Dana. We've seen people like poke and say things like that. No one has ever said this about Dana White. I'm sure Dana White is a sociopath. Like, I mean, let's be honest, like, at that level, let's be honest, like, at that level of like what he's accomplished, the kind of shit he deals with. Like, I'm sure, like, he's a super narcissistic. statistic sociopath. So, like, for him, like, you know, the lizard brain doesn't kind of compute. So he's like, fuck it, bring it on, dude.

Let's go, motherfucker. Which I respect. Respect that. Were you surprised? What, the Dana White? No, I... Yeah, no, I think Dana White would love to watch motherfuck get killed, dude. Yeah, no, he's a sick fuck, dude. 100%. I mean, come on. Do we not think that about Daniel? Like, the guy's probably a fucking sociopath.

Or even, I wouldn't assume, probably a psychopath. He is your boss. Yeah, I wish fucking, that's what I'm not. I'm making, if I should be making more money, dude. I've got to deal with these fuckers. I don't understand that last line, but I love when people say, like, they'll call you a sociopath, psychotic, sick fuck, but I respect it.

I respect it. Those two sentiments. I think he identifies to a certain degree, right? I think he probably, no one. Happy days, yeah. No one has spoken about Dana White like that. Like, do you think, do you think Dana White calls him or Hunter calls him and is like, yo, man, you can't talk about Dana like that?

You can't call him that. You cannot let him go out there and say everything that he says. And then when he comes after Dana White, be like, no, man, you're crossing the line by calling Dano a sociopath. Like, you can't do that. You don't think anyone's calling him after that? He might get a call, but it's not going to stop him. Yeah.

Didn't we feel- Did he think Dana would care? I mean, dude, he's calling him a sick fuck. He's calling him a sociopath, a psychotic. I've called my friend sick fucks before. All right, all right. Remember we had the thing at the last time he fought where the microphone got cut off at the end and everybody made a big to do about it and there was all this hoopla. But now he's just back doing the same thing.

I don't think you're immune to all of this. You've become desensitized none of this. To a degree, yes, but isn't that like when Pizzi asked you the question like how is this viewed compared to how people? The biggest thing that's changed is not the UFC. The biggest thing that's changed is culture. The biggest thing that's changed is how we consume media. the biggest things that's changed are much more meta conversations, right? At this very top level, the culture has changed to the point that this type of rhetoric is kind of more normal.

And to the point that we had an assassination attempt a few days ago and we kind of moved on. Like the news cycle moved on like this, like pretty quickly. And the conversation became about a ballroom in less than eight hours. Like we just, we are all desensitized as a culture. This entire country and beyond that, a lot of the world has just become desensitized to this type of rhetoric, to this type of conversation.

I don't think this is even like that crazy of a thing in the context of modern society. Personal feelings about it are always going to be different. Like, do I, if I had somebody in my life who's talking like this, would I pull them aside and be like, bro, like maybe don't? Yes.

But this is just where we are in 2026. It is a fucking. and wild world out there. You're right? I am desensitized and I feel like a lot of. You're 100% right. Even the way in which we consume media because 2018, Conner's saying things about Habib,

like even the way my Twitter works, it's just kind of there and they move on. Now it's like, Sean Strickland calls these people, you know, goad effers. And then he's saying he's going to shoot his opponent. And then he's saying that, and then I'm like scrolling down to the next insane thing that social media has now fed to me.

And then I'm moving on to the next thing that I never signed up or subscribed to or followed. And that's being fed to me. And it's just like, so you're right. Six aggregators posted it. So now you've seen it 12 times, you know, in the last hour. Gosh. Oh, we're fucked.

Sorry, I just put Ariel. And I'm giving my son a phone tomorrow? Oh, my God. No wonder I feel this way. I don't know. He's going to be like, Dad, do you see Sean Strickland? Oh, I've gotten in, have you seen Armin's? I've gone in this stuff already.

Well, Armine feels safe. very tame compared to this. It's coming. It's coming. Oh, my God. I don't know. I don't know. I think the larger question is, is there a line? Is there a line? And there's two different ways you can answer that, right? Is there a line just

morally? Like, right? Is there a line, like a general baseline guideline that there should be a line? I don't know that there is. The other question I'm more interested in is, is there a line for, like, paramount, right? I don't think the UFC is particularly incentivized to do something because the UFC

has kind of taken the horns on this idea of free speech. We don't censor anybody. We represent this. And that's fine. It's been working very well for them. And I think they have more sponsors than they would have lost previously if they tried to censor. So I think that's been successful for them. But does a company like Paramow, who's getting into business with the UFC at a very high level and spending a lot of money, does anybody in any of those boardrooms have any hesitation or reservations about like this type of rhetoric?

if that ever becomes the case, I wonder how that sponsors, you know, falls down. Okay. That's what you said from the beginning, right? The only time they'll ever truly react is if it hits them in the pocket, if it becomes a monetary issue. Yes, G.C.

I was just going to say, you mentioned the mic getting cut off after his last fight, and then he was able to go out and say all this this time, but this didn't feel like an official scrum. This just felt like a few media outlets standing. No, they invited them.

This was like the pre-before they leave. Before the trip to Newark's scrum. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this was a real thing. 100% it was a real thing. I'm just curious, once he gets up on the dais at Media Day next week, once he's at the press conference, what's he's at the post-fight press conference, will that volume go down if he started saying some months?

You're saying it's going to go up. I think he's going all in. I think he's going to go all in. But I'm more so talking about after he beat Fluffy and like the mic cut off. And he was like, what the fuck is going on? Why is my mic off right? Did we ever confront? Like, did anyone ever...

Nobody knows the story there. I was at the Olympics during that time and I was so happy to not be able to talk about all of this. Well, there's been conversation that it was like a certain amount of time. He felt like he was wrapping up. We don't have clarity on that. Nobody seems to, and I don't know, even if somebody said to strong Strickland, let's really like play this exercise out. Even if somebody said to Sean Strickland, don't say that. Do we believe that he would be incentivized not to? Do we believe that there would be repercussions that they could have strong enough that he would not. One, he talks about his pay being shit all the time.

He in that clip talked about his boss not paying him shit. He had that complex interview a few months ago where he talked about not being paid shit. So what are they going to do? Take that money away. Cut him. How can they penalize him? What would they even do to prevent him from doing this? I think cutting the mic is even like it helps him.

It makes him look like a rebel. If they try to silence him, he can just go out on his own. social medias and be like, yo, they're silencing me, man. They're not letting me talk. They are keeping me from saying what I want to say. They're not giving me free speech. He would 100% say that. It's just like he's like, it's a win-win for him.

It's a man with nothing to lose. You can't punish him because he doesn't care about those punishments. There is no repercussions that Sean Strickland is going to, and that is, I will say, again, this is what is attractive about Sean Strickland. This is what makes people want

more Sean Strickland. Is because of this nature, because of he's like the Joker in the Dark Night. Like, he's an agent of chaos. He just says what he wants or does what he wants. It's so outlandish that it really does stick out. There's no doubt about that. You watch a million NBA pressers

or football pressers. NFL draft. Everyone that got interviewed at the NFL draft, I'm so excited to join the organization. I can't wait. So is he actually brilliant? Is that the takeaway? I think it might be a bit of brilliance. You know, we're at street from last year. Someone gets really hurt, right?

That's it. If someone gets hurt and then it's like, well, what the fuck. It's real. I mean, I don't think, I don't think the, like, the world goes in circles and cycles. Like, I don't think it's forever just, I think we're in a moment here, as, as Rick said, like, where this is more, this is more acceptable. Like, for whatever reason, for more people, this is acceptable. They're used to seeing this kind of stuff. You know, I don't think that means it's going to be like that forever.

I think people are constantly changing. So unless something happens, like, if something happens here, you'll see what have to do with something. You know, if something fucked up happens between Chimoyaf and Strickland, you'll see what have to do with something at that stage, no? But we've seen fucked up shit happen

and nothing changed. Well, someone did ask, someone did ask, Hamzad about some of this rhetoric. Now, I think this conversation was recorded before the scrum is my guess. It's in Russian, I do believe,

so I'm going to read the subtitles, but here's what Hamzad had to say. And it was actually quite level-headed. if I'm being honest. Here you go. Sometimes I see the way you react. This is the question to some verbal shots from Sean Strickland. And it seems like it doesn't even anger you,

but rather makes you laugh. It looks like you take it as entertainment. Here he goes. When you go to the circus and see a clown performing there, how should you react? So it is what it is. So it just entertains you, right?

He asks, because some people think you're getting really angry at him. Kamsat says, friends of mine approached him and asked him what's what. And he said, brothers, I'm just trying to get this fight. I don't like fake people. You should be real, he says. But I have to say, he really built this fight up pretty well.

I don't care. This is what Hamzat says. What he did and what he didn't, I'm just looking forward to getting the octagon and fighting, taking my money and flying back homework and spend time with my family. and see my mom. So he doesn't really see him all that bothered. Now, I do feel, based on the timing that this was posted, that this was before. I don't know if this changed things, but it's not like he said, I mean, the only new thing

that he said yesterday about Hamzaa was that he would shoot him. I don't feel like Hamzaa is all too bothered about all of that. So he seems to be taking away. Maybe nothing's going to happen. I don't think Hamzaa Tchamai of is bothered by this. I think he's getting paid an exorbitant amount of hundred. Do you think he's going to show up there? like chilling, like you don't think there's going to be any aggression.

There's a big difference between sitting in a hotel room and being asked about it, and when you're sitting on a dais and Sean Strickland screaming about goats and Kadyrov. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when he's talking about Kadearov to Hamza's face and Hamzad has to sit there and have a response to it, it's going to be a completely different situation than when it's just, I'm sitting in a hotel room with a media outlet and talking about it. Look, we've seen Hamzat fly off the handle for, less? I don't know. Maybe this is the softer side of Homsop. Maybe we're witnessing, you know,

Hamzat kind of in a different mindset thinking about his family and not necessarily like getting into that. But Sean Strickland is trying to press the buttons that would get a response. And if they are face to face, I do feel like pressing of those buttons is going to be more successful than not. But notice what he said in that clip. He said that his friends pressed Shrictlin and Trickland was like, dude, I'm just trying to get the fight, man. And Hamsat himself was like, be real then. Like, what is going to happen post-fight? Is Sean just going to say to Hamza, like, you know, respect, you're a warrior, you're a beast.

I was just building the fight, man. Yeah, and Connor McGregor said it's just, you know, for money or whatever he said after Habib was trouncing him in the cage too. It's always just for the money. Hamza said he was just like, yeah, he's doing a pretty good job building the fight. You know, it's going to be super telling, guys, the paramount numbers for this one. The paramount numbers are going to be very telling.

And let me ask you this. Okay, so since 2026 began, we had Patty versus Justin. Then we had Volcanovsky versus Diego Lopez. I'm talking about the numbered events headliners. Then we had Max versus Charles. Then we had Yeri versus Carlos. And now it's this one, right? I'm not missing one, right?

Yeah. This is probably, I don't even think it's that hot of a take. This is probably the most anticipated main event of the year so far, right? That's because of this. Is it anticipated because of the style matchup? or is it just because we want to see if Hamsat's going to be able to take his head off, like literally off his head?

I think that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're also talking about an undefeated champion who's one of the most feared fighters in the organization. And popular, right? I was going to say he's also one of the biggest stars in the sport. Like, he does gangbuster numbers wherever he goes.

But if it was him versus imov, it would not be this. Not even close. Nope. Yeah, not even close. Strickdon is a great, great, great, great B-side for this one. And that's, this is me now, like, this is me not, I don't have a take here necessarily.

I think this is all very healthy. I said, you know, when we're having lunch, like this feels like a classic MMA beat discussion because, or a discussion that you would have on the crack on Fridays with the guys, because I don't even know what the thesis is. It's just sort of reacting and trying to make sense of this character and this fight

and the interest in this fight because there is great interest. You can't deny that. And it's going to do well, most likely. But what is that? What if it leads to something? I don't know. We also have to acknowledge Hamzot's part in this, right?

Which is that the Strickland thing that he's doing now doesn't work as well if it's not in contrast. If the foil of this is not somebody who we also need to know to be a loose cannon, a guy who doesn't care about the repercussions, a crazy person, all the things that we know about Hamzot. If Sean Strickland's just there talking to, you know, Drickis or Fluffy or anybody else, right? It's not like he changed. It's not like he's not trying to press their buttons too. But because of the anticipation, because of the expectation, because of what Hamza Tchamayev represents, that unhinged loose cannon, going to go fly off the handle guy, that's what makes it so compelling. That's what makes it so interesting and so, like, so satisfying.

Because in the story, it only goes one of two ways. Way one is Hamza Tchamaya, Sean Shricklin pisses off Hamza Shemayev to the point that he actually does do something bad to him and harms him. or Sean Strickland topples Tomza at Shemayev and both of those are crazy outcomes both of those are going to get people excited it works, it just works this is a perfect fight

you also talk about being the most anticipated main event of 2026 whether it is or not I think it is for sure it's definitely the most anticipated press conference of 2026 I will be sat on my couch before the stream even starts

because you want to tune in whether anything's going to happen or not you want to tune in because you want to see if something does you want hear what Strickland is going to say. What wild outlandish shit? What antics are going to happen next week? And that works in the fight game. Would it be satisfying or disappointing if Hamzaa Shamaia played it super cool? No sells it? I wouldn't be shocked, but to your point, man, we've seen him fly off the handle for less. He gave him on the shoulder. I don't know if he tapped

him, but he gave him a nice hard pat and that made Hamzat explode. Like he saw red in his eyes. but I wouldn't be shocked if nothing comes from it. Another thing, like, again, this is not me. I think ultimately my thesis here is, my takeaway is, that in the year 2026 in the society that we live in with the social media that we consume, this is how you sell a fight, right? Imagine speaking like this 10 years ago.

I don't know if it would fly and be accepted the same way. Imagine 20 years ago, 30 years ago, forget about it. But in the year 2026, when there's so much at your disposal right here, there's so much crap out there. And it's such a wild, crazy, divided world that we live in. This is the type of rhetoric. I mean, I'm not trying to be political. But we've never heard the President of the United States swear, right? That's just not presidential historically.

But that's okay now. That's accepted now. Everything's changed. All the rules have changed. And so this is it. he is maybe putting out the blueprint. Maybe he is the brilliant one, putting out the blueprint as to how you get by, how you get ahead, how you get what you want in the year 2026.

Another thing I'll give him credit for is this. He was asked afterwards, like, you know, will you guys kiss and make up at the end? He said, no, we're going to die enemies. I respect that. Now, let's see how it actually plays out. And I hope he stays true to that. Because actually nothing annoys me more than when there's this type of rhetoric before a fight, they fight and then they kiss and make up and say.

say, oh, it was just to sell the fight. I don't mind if you go through a war with someone, you're like, hey, man, respect. We'll never agree. Like, Ben and Eubank, I thought, did it great. We will never agree. We walked through war, you know, walked through hell together. We had a war. And on the night, it was nice.

And now, like, you know, months later, they still hate each other and take shots at each other. And they'll never be friends. I respect that a lot more than I remember one of the times where it was very profound to me. It was when Matt Sarah fought Matt Hughes at UFC 98. and that was so bitter and that was so personal. And then at the end, they hugged it out. Like, it was just a self-fight. Nah, man.

Like, if you're going to speak like that, if you're going to walk that walk, like, keep a real from now until the end of time. And so I respect the fact that he is saying that and not saying like, oh, let's see. Let's see how it plays out. So there's a lot to respect and like there. It also is worth mentioning, guys.

Like, Hamsa Chimaev is not exactly an angel. He's not exactly like the most, you know, sympathetic, like, oh, how dare you speak about him like this? You know what I mean? Like he's, you know, he's a dude who's at some, you know, some interesting people in his lives. He's posted some interesting things. Like, interesting. I'm being very, very kind saying that.

So he is sort of a villain in many people's eyes as well. And that's what kind of makes this also very interesting. Who is going to be the baby face on the 9th of May in Newark, New Jersey? Sean Strickland. You think Sean's going to get the pop? I don't know. Wow. Yeah, absolutely.

I actually don't know. There's 47 going to be there because he was last time I was there and he was the sweetheart in Illinois, I think. Yeah, that was two years ago now, though, so I think he was on the campaign trail. He doesn't go as often these days. If you don't think the USA chance are erupting out of that place? I think USA chance for sure, but like, Hamzaa Chimae has such a massive fan base. I just, I'm very interested to see. No doubt.

I think it could lead to just like a super hot crowd for this main event. I think I agree with Rick. I think Strickland gets the baby face pop. It wouldn't shock me. We saw it. We see it every time he fights. He always wins the crowd. He always wins the crowd.

Imagine he wins the fight. Holy shit That's what's Well look what happened in Australia against him I've wrote this guy off I've wrote this guy off a few times And I've been like holy shit Fluffy and Adesan

I've written him off again Signed sealed delivered I've written him off I'm doing it I will be shocked if he beats Tomzatz-Rimeye It will be insane Are you are you I know we're a little earlier here

But are you thinking Chamsat finishes him I would imagine yeah But you know It could be similar to the DDP fight Yeah I think it would be great for Chamsat if he can

get back to his finishing ways. Just put a little exclamation point on this. You know, back-to-back decisions. Strickland's done a right on the ground, man. He's always been very good on the ground. You're going Strickland? No. But I do think, like, to G.C.'s point,

I do think he could make it like a DDP for it where he's just blocking submissions and Shemoyev burns his arms out trying to choke him out and then you just kind of have a wrestling match with a few strikes thrown in it and it's a decision. You know what I mean? If it goes long, I like Strickland more and more. If it goes long, he becomes very live there.

I don't, I agree with what you're saying, Rick, but I don't think there's any way. Shemoyev is so explosive. He can always take you down if you get me. I never feel like the fourth, fifth round. It's like Strickland forces him to stand with him. I felt that way about Fluffy too. There's just Sean Strickland's defensive tactics are extremely underrated.

Everybody worries about the offense, right? Everybody talks about the volume, the jabs, the teeps, the things that he does offensively. but his defense is just rock solid. People do not just have their way with Sean Strickland, except for one guy named Alex Pereiro who knocked him out cold. Like that's what you basically have to do. I'm predicting Shama will win.

I think he'll finish him. But if he does not, if he does not get it done early, Sean Strickland is the type of guy who will make you suffer and make you pay for that in a major, major way. Once Fluffy Hernandez couldn't get what he needed off in that first round, it was over. I knew that fight was done the second that bell rang after round one.

He is just extremely dangerous. He is extremely dangerous. It's a very compelling fight. It'd be like the flip of Chale. Like, do you remember Chale just wrestled Anderson? And then Aniston gets submission instead. It's like, should I have wrestling the shit out of Strickland? And then he just gets him up against the fence in the last minute.

Bup, Bob, Bup, Bup. Ruff steps in to stop it, Strickland, the new champion. Man, what a scene that would be. After what we saw in Australia with not only, him doing to Izzy what would happen, but also the crowd going nuts for him winning, which we didn't expect. That was crazy. Obviously, we know about the history between New Zealand and Australia, certainly when it

comes to sports, but I don't think anyone predicted that. Honestly, nothing would surprise me at this point. By the way, Frankie, how do you feel about all of this? I'm so glad that you asked. No, I think you're right. It's something to discuss because, like, where is the line? How do you feel about it? That all makes sense.

And without really taking one stance or another, right? Yeah. Like if I were to mouth off about you like that, though, I would never hear the end of it. No, of course. I mean, I would give you more opportunities. It would be your... Yeah, go stricken route, Frankie. Yeah.

I think the answer is there is no one. Right, no. Yeah. Outrage sells as well, though. So there's part of it, like, if there are people outraged with this, that only kind of helps strict them as well, because it posed some more into this outrageous character who has, like, you know, has no long.

line, he'll say absolutely anything. It all works in his favor, even if people are outraged, but it's a tale as old as time in the fight game. People want to tune in to see you get knocked out or people love you and they want to see you win and shock the world. There are people that love Sean Strickdon and there are people that hate him. There are very few that just kind of feel lukewarm about him. Well, one thing is for certain the vibe heading into the main event this weekend in Perth, which is a fantastic main event, as we've said all week long, is dramatically than the vibe that we are going to get heading into next week's main event. Here's a clip of Carlos Prochess and his daughter, who he told us lives in Australia,

who will be attending his fight on Saturday, which he's very excited about. I think he said for the first time ever his mom and daughter will be in attendance, which is lovely, interacting with JDM, who he's going to be fighting on Saturday. Something tells me if Sean Strickland or Hamzat had kids, have kids, this type of scene would not transpire before next week's event. Skylar, he's the bad guy. He's the bad guy. He's the bad guy.

Good God. He's the bad guy. Wait, wait a guy. Look at Carlos' daughter squaring up to JDM. I love that. That's not going to happen, right? Look at this. This is amazing right here.

I love that. Looks like that video that Drake posted last week of the Ronda Rousey-Holly home promo leading up the young Ronda Rousey. But yes, we're not going to be seeing any of that next week, any type of friendly banter. But I guess that's what's great about the sport. Every week you get a different pairing. You get different personalities going toe to toe.

Here's Jorge. I'm sending him a link here. He's going to jump on here in a second. Thanks to doing that, man. Yeah, no problem. You know, we do it all here on the program. We all wear many hats. We do wear many hats, and that's why I love this show.

So that's the talk. I'm sure the comments are going to be very sensible to this discussion, but I do think it was a good chat, and I do like these things. I, once again, don't know what the right answer is, but I think what we came away with is there's an audience. This makes things bigger, and maybe this is the way to do things.

Not for everyone, but I think what makes it work for Strickland is you do feel like he is this crazy when he speaks like this, as opposed to other people who are playing a character. Like I saw a clip of Hokit speaking to Chale on his pod yesterday, and he's still doing the character thing. Like he's still doing the shy, sheepish, like Mick Foley, Sands mask, or maybe more mankind persona. And I don't know how long you could do that for without people being like,

yeah, man, like, give us the real, you know? Clearly people like this guy. People really like dig him. dig his fighting style, dig his overall vibe, but I don't know how long you can get away with that for. It shall be interesting.

A couple other news and notes that we can get into before we get to Jorge Mazvedal. Jorge Mosvidal is going to join us with Yoel Romero, I do believe, who Yoel Romero is going to be headlining the Gamebred bare-knuckle MMA show this Friday,

May 1st, in Miami. We'll also be joined by Matt Hardy in studio. the one and only. Pizzi, were you a big Hardy Boy fan back in the day? I'm right, I was. Absolutely. Everyone was, right? Polk engine Christian, yeah.

Yeah, hell yeah. TLC match, Ressomania X-7, one of the all-time greats. You know, my mate, Brennan Johnson, was a hardcore Hardy Boy fan back of the day. Really? Yeah. You know how I know this, because he celebrated a goal going like this, and I asked him, NBD. Did you do that? He's like, yeah, I was a Hardy Boy fan back in it.

Wow. So, you know, we're birds of a feather. You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyway, speaking of Brits, Chris Billum Smith has his first booking for Zufa boxing. He's going to be competing in Bournemouth. Is it at the stadium, Pizzi? The BIC.

I don't know if that's the stadium. Is it the stadium? Because that would be, I just didn't really. Doesn't seem very Zufel like to have it at the stadium, right? No, that's what I'm just saying. Like, I mean, that would be really cool if they did. I'd be very excited about it. No, it's at the Bournemouth International Center.

Attendance? Yeah, let's see, let's see. The BIC. But I think what's notable about this is this will be the first show. Wait a second, wait a second. This is a South Coast home to popular music, comedy, and live entertainment. No, it's like a smaller venue. This would be the first ZUFA show outside of the Apex.

Yeah, I mean, well, that's a good. good thing, I think. I think they've got to show a bit more. I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon, but I do think it would be advantageous for them to give us a little different backdrop every now and again. I think it would make the apex more palatable as well for boxing audiences if it wasn't that every week. 100%. Just like the UFC, right? Although we're all tired of the apex, but yes, it can't be every show. This is good. I'm curious to see how their first show, look, there's no secret. Look who's in charge. UFC and WWE. It's going to look good. It's going to look good. It's top notch. No doubt about it. It's going to be a welcome, welcome, welcome site, right? A welcome

change from their first four or five. And with Berlanga and Hitchens, like all these guys, Connor Ben, there was a rumor that he's going to be fighting this summer somewhere in the UK, and they've got the deal with Sky Sports. So this all makes a hell of a lot of sense. You guys let me know when I when I should get to her guest. Okay. But that was announced today, which is, I think, If you're a boxing fan, you know, yesterday we had Lou DeBella on the program. He was talking about a whole host of things in regards to the world of boxing, including Zufa Boxing, the Ali Act, all that stuff and more. He also spoke about Eddie Hearn.

Eddie Hearn was asked about his comments after this guy Nicholson fight earlier today in Australia. Here's what Eddie had to say. Luda Bella is the most bitter man I've ever met in boxing. I mean, he actually said, who's the better promoter? And he went, well, Dana White's business, you know, they're more capitalized. Like that wasn't a question, mate. Who's the better promoter? And it ain't even fucking close, to be honest with you. I mean, listen, they've got a fantastic company. They're a hugely powerful people. Who's the better promoter? Lou DeBella watches me, do what I do. And every

night, he struggles to actually sleep. That's how bitter that man is. I love Luke. But my God, I'm watching that thinking, you don't even work in boxing anymore. And you're still bitter. So what can I say? What can I say? P.C., that reminded me of Sean earlier. He's the most of my most bitter man. I love him, but he's the worst most bitter man. He can't, you know, he can't hold my jock. He can't do this, that, but I love him. And he does that all the time, too. Like, he'll hit you with nine straight insults. It's a weird shit sandwich, right? Yeah. It's a variation. It's more like a shit flatbread, you know what I mean? Than a shit sandwich,

I'd say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's well put. I did get a lot of texts about that appearance yesterday. Some people would not do happy with Lou. I mean, he said it, you know. comments about AJ. I didn't like the Katie stuff. Yeah, I know, you didn't like it either. Yeah. And I'm a big Lou guy. I'm a big Lou guy.

He's a loose cannon. That's what I like about him. You know what I mean? I can't. If I, but trying to tame the beast, I take away from what actually is alluring about the beast. So, I mean, what are you going to do? He had a lot of fucking cracking lines are really, really good.

Sometimes he just, like, he shocks me. Like, he'll go, he's here, here, here. And then he's, like, he'll go, like, straight up there. And then the best is the goodbye. The goodbye is just like, all right, man, I'll see you later. Did he say anything to you, GC, afterwards? We enjoyed the interaction.

I was just like, yeah, how was that? I was like, yeah, it was great, man. All right. Then bomb-old. Thanks, Luke. Yeah. Who did you? Go to your dinner, brother.

I challenge any of your audience to find one video from five years ago where she sounds the same as she does today. You've got any of your audience. Get your fact checkers on it. Yeah, I did hear that. Frank did not take too kindly to that one. Frank felt, he felt insulted?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's up, Frank? No, nothing. What's going on? Nothing's going on. Nothing's going on. I need to know what's happening. Nothing's happening.

Jorge Masvedal is joining us, perhaps, with some special guests. Take care, Pizzi. Maybe Yolel as well, Yoel Romero, who's headlining the game-bred bare-knuckle MMA show this Friday, May 1st in Miami. They had a great show just a couple of weeks ago. Anthony Smith, looking fantastic. And they're back with another one. This one. in their sort of backyard of beautiful Miami, the 305.

Let's go to them right here now and speak to the lads. Speak to the boys. Are they all here? Yeah, look at these guys. Oh, we've got Luis Palomino here as well. Everyone's here. Hello, boys. How are you?

Sorry. It's great, man. You got the English and women, you know. Yuel, Feliz Cumplianos. Grazie, my mano. Shalom, shalom, shalom. Shalom. You know, it's his birthday tomorrow, Jorge.

40 what no no 24 I think No it's 27 actually But it's wrong my my my my birthday is it Is like it Oh yeah 20 days before 26 days ago yeah Oh wait you already

It was incorrect It's incorrect It's incorrect My birthday is the 3 of every 3rd of April. What? But on the internet, it says tomorrow. Yeah.

Yeah, but it's wrong. That's wrong. It's wrong. Okay, well, happy birthday. So you've already enjoyed your birthday. Yeah, they said happy birthday, how much? My brother, yeah. This is you, enjoying your birthday.

Yes, in Russia, right? Yeah. No, tell you that, the Russia, two days, for my birthday. After he got back from Russia, two days later, it was his birthday. Okay. I'm not here the first. I like this, Jorge.

You're now the translator. Yeah. Yeah, for this guy for a long time, and he owes me a lot of money. Jorge, give us the breakdown. You're the promoter for this card. Gamebred, bare-knuckle M.MA. Why should people watch it?

Where can they watch on Friday? One, it's the most violent show in the world. Two, you can watch it at Cambridge Fighting Championships on YouTube free as can be. And these are just two of the assassins that I got on the card. The whole card is stacked with a lot of talent, a lot of guys that have fought in the UFC, the NFL, Bellator. But these guys right here really stand out to me, some of my favorite fighters.

And I really think some of the most violent guys in the world of combat. Luis Palomino, nine-time world champion over at BKFC. And then this guy needs no introduction, Joe Romero. Both of them are making their debut in MMA with no gloves. So we can only just expect violence. Both of them have numerous fights already bare-knuckle boxing. So I couldn't have thought of a better fit. No mercy.

No mercy. you know somebody's going to go to sleep fast so i mean this is this is the show that i'm most like stoked about ever that we put together uh yeah i saw a lot of recognizable names there kurt hallibah honey marks fabio maldenado darrell horcher who's fighting louis palomino uh what's the difference for you louis as far as bare knuckle fighting bkfc style fighting and bare knuckle mb i know you've never done bare knuckle mb do you feel like this is the same thing or is it a little bit different because there's more weapons that you're able to use. It's like riding a bike, brother.

You know, I started out with them in May, and I went into bare knuckle five or seven years, only boxing, only bare knuckle boxing. And when George gave me the call, I just started to sharpen up all the old tools, waking up the body, and it feels like I never stopped. For me, it's, you know, we're, you know, day raised, you know what I mean? We go hard on the pain, man. When it's time to dump, we thump. So that's the sort of the way I look at it.

I'm going to go in there. I'm going to look to cut somebody up, slice by slice, and they're going to look to take me down. The old school, take the striker down story. And good look with that, man, because I'm very aggressive when it comes to it. Joel, I know you had a fight, a bare-knuckle fight in Russia in February, and I know there was some controversy attached to it. How do you feel about bare-knuckle?

Do you enjoy doing this? You've done it all. You've fought them all, but doing bare-knuckle MMA now. How do you feel about it? It's a very controversial fight, you know. I'm not happy for the final for the Shisha, you know, but it is what it is. I need to go forward. I'm still training hard.

You see I'm ready. It's almost three or four weeks before the fight. George called me and say, hey, are you ready for the fight? I say, George, he called me when I say like a... Six days I come to my house and you'll call me and say, Yo, I have a tournament for the in May. Say, Joe, I need to rest. I stay right now in my house maybe 40, 48 hours.

48 hours. Let me rest. Let me rest. And me say, Joel, in a play for you, Joel. In a play for you, Joe, in May 1st, say, you really need to find out. He's telling me, I'm not fighting anybody. I need a rest.

I'm going to be with my family and have vacation time already. And me says, let me at least say the name before you hang up on me. And you say, Joey, no, I don't want to know what I'm going to play with nobody. Joey, I'm not going to fight with anybody. I don't care who it is. I'm not fighting anybody. And I'm begging him, hey, let me say who. Okay, George.

Hey, me the name. Finally, he grants me the floor and I'm able to speak. And I tell him, Hank the Lombard. I say, Yes, I'm saying. That's it. I think I don't need a translation for that. But what happened to Hector?

Because it's not Hector, right? I don't know. Jorge me that he's he's asking to the investor to know, that he wants to play

in the company of Jorge. So, Jorge, he says, okay, I have a play for you, the play that more sense has for you, is if you want to say,

me, Ben, It's a play with a guy in their name. Okay. They're in their lives in their problems of the numbers. Okay. Hector had put in word that he wanted to fight. Joel was available.

Not necessarily available, but I knew I could make this massive happening between the two of them. So when we had Alan Birch who was originally in the headline. When he got hurt, we desperately needed a main event. And thank goodness I was able to get this fight. secured now it's not going to go down right now because some medical issues with hector but you know this is CIA. And then so when they say, okay, the numbers that you want, the negotiations that you want, told Hector they gave him the money that you wanted. We agreed upon what we wanted to do. I think we're going to. So, let me localize it and let me see if you can. In that moment,

George me He says, he says, what there's what I'm, okay, I accept the

but, well, things are and he not he's not a

battle now. So it's possible that we know we make the

face in September. So basically I had accepted the fight,

but two days into the three days into a fight, he did get hurt.

I don't want to or not hurt I should say he had a medical problem that I don't want to

disclose and it'll be back in September though. We're going to rebook

September in Miami as well. And Joel says you can't wait. Jorge, let me ask you, when are we going to see you compete on one of these? Or you're going to see me compete. I want to say maybe this year, maybe not, you know? But it's going to happen before I put up big loves for sure, in fact. I have to fight my own promotion bearer at least one good news. As of late, it has gotten a little bit interesting between you and Shell's son. And Shail was supposed to join us today on the show before you. And he got six, so he wasn't able to join us, hopefully next week.

But I want to know what's going on here between you. Rumors that I'd be in the same line. He said, I can't deal with the mental pressure. This guy's going to break me online. So, Chelle, I get away. He didn't come on the show. You coward look, he couldn't even come on the show. But listen, in all honesty, Chale's doing bad in life.

I know he's like on his fifth mortgage. So I really don't like beating him up too much. But I understand why he's mad. He just started taking shots out of nowhere. He applied for this new gig I got over at Deep Waters, Paramount. It's me, Dean Thomas, Dustin Poreer, Chris Whiteman. We're going live every Monday live, you know, calling the fights, talking all types of shit because it's like a podcast.

It's not like a desk where we have to be censored. You just go full out. That's a good plug, huh, area? Yes, respect. Respect. Respect. Those bitch ass showed up with coffee, flowers, fucking baked goods for everybody's sucking dick and kissing ass to all the producers.

And they told them kick rocks, flag height. They gave me the fucking job. So now he's mad he's taking shots. or shut the fuck up. I got a proposition. We either fight at my show and I'll give you a nice paycheck or just shut the fuck up. Don't bring him my name no more. You're a coward. I want to keep talking. I hate this back and forth shit. We either fight leg, man, or shut the fuck. That's it.

That's all I got to say to this fucking individual in transition. And I got to get him now before it goes full to the other side because then I can't, you know, no longer fight him. So I got to get him right in the house. So time, it's a time-sensitive matter, you know? Have you actually made him an offer yet? Or is this the official offer right here and now? We're going to, in the past, for boxing, I made him,

She didn't take him off. She wanted like $27 million. But we're going to make him a fight in MMA, see if he accepts it at heavyweight, you know, because I know his badass can't do anything else. So whatever. Okay. Do you think it would happen in the UFC

or do you want it to happen in your show? You got kicked out of UFC. It has only happened in my show. Okay. You know, let's never forget that this is like the most caught guy with Peds in the system. Like, we take him to the UFC, they're going to test him again.

He's going to fail. You know, I know that he's going to be on Peds. fighting against me and I still do what the fuck you want. Chella, I might show me. My fuck, what you do, brother? I feel bad for you, man. Yo-Ole, what do you think about this? Chale versus Jorge.

Bro, that's just not amazing. Doesn't they really fight what the people want to see? Something like that, you know? Good names, a, a, a, a, tanté controversia. But you'll have, men. Baja erasiveness. You're going to be.

you're going to know how to talk for a living but the real bad assurras, not because they're for talking, you know what they're saying, you know how to speak and carry themselves. Yes. It's a technical level. And also will be a technical level. And you're also going to see a street fight.

And he'll be a desire. And there's going to be a lot of, wishes for blood to run. That's what the people need. Something that's something that's in the time

of Kappa, Roman. That's what the people want. The one of the ancient Roman times was given to me some.

I did want to ask you, Hory, speaking of Bear Knuckle, Darren Till just signed with Bear Knuckle FC and he has

mentioned you wanting to fight you and saying that you're not interested in whatnot. This would be an interesting

fight, a rematch of sorts. Have you been approached to fight Darren Till? Yeah, I was approached

to fight Darren Till and other promotions and it was of no interest because it didn't have no money. They were trying to take advantage of us. I wouldn't even mention the promotions, but it was like a shit-end deal where I was, at least on what I was getting offered, I'm like, not a chance, but I'm not doing this for free. This is a very highly anticipated rematch when we get to throw down again.

The first one was a banging, you know. So I think that as long as I'm compensated, I'm interested. And if I'm not compensated, I'm not interested. Luis, how's Jorge as a promoter? You've fought all over the world, many different promotions. How's your boy Jorge doing? Oh, it's dope, man. Look, I grew up watching him.

I mean, I've been following his footsteps. You know what I mean? It's like he was the guy from Dade that made it possible for me to be envisioned myself doing it too. So following that footstep right there and look to look at how far he got, man. So now to have him as a promoter and you feel, man, you feel the appreciation to the fighter, right? He's a fighter. You're never going to compare a promoter that's promote fights. to a promoter that has lived the life of a fighter.

You're never going to be prepared. The difference is huge. You know, I feel appreciated. I feel like, you know, how every fighter should feel. And that just makes me want to perform. So with that being said, Jorge, why even entertained fighting anymore? You've got this thing going. You're great at it.

You enjoy. It's only for Leon's eyes. And I wasn't even trying to fight. But he knows clicks. He keeps calling me out. And I don't like that shit. We either fight or shut the fuck up, Cheo. You know, and I know you're trying to raise up money for your surgery,

and you really, really need it back because Trump cut all that fucking medicine out for people that are like you, you know? So I'm sorry, but what can I do that? I got the job at Paramount. Fucking me alone. This Friday, Game for Fighting Championships on YouTube. I got 13 fights, MMA, bare-knuckle area,

and I got these two animals headlighting events. Please don't miss out. You guys know what this is. Five peleaders that were, and five peleaders also that were, that were in the line, in the field of the UFC. What's that? What do you say? He said that if you ever saw he, probably break you like a pencil.

Me? What did I do? Yes. Joel, he doesn't know. Te amo, te am. You did some to piss him off, but I don't know what if it's... No, no, no, no, no. You know me, my brother.

Yes. Don't, don't care about he said. You know that guy. I know, I know, I know. Thanks. We got five, we got five former UFC fighters in the car. But let me say this while I'm sorry. I was asked this question and it was a beautiful answer.

Tell me. If it was anybody in the world, Joelle, and I'm just going to ask him, if there was anybody in the world that you would want to fight before your career was over, and he said a beautiful answer that they would. Tell us a guy. Handed from Zipa. Okay. I want to see.

I have a big respect. And many times, much of it many times, much of it, I said it many times. He said it many times that he would like to fight Anderson, because he has a great respect him so much. He's the guy that he respects the most to Anderson. I went to, from the Olympic Games. In when I was in the Olympic Games. When I went into Mixed me to enter into the United States, it was to fight Anderson Silver because Anderson Silver was the best, was to go.

We're doing quite. We were a lot of course. three-faces, but never never materialized. I think that God gave the opportunity of some day to play with him.

No, it's not who's not for me, that's more than a honor and a grand record to have played with Anderson

before he'd be never even win or loss and just to get in the cage with Anderson Silver. So this is a fight that he

would like to retire on and, you know, if Anderson would want to do this right, he would love to do it. He gets three years. I'm in the first year of the

Olympic. He gets three years so he retires. He's on his first year of his Olympic cycle and this is the last three years of his career.

So he says, tune in now or wait forever. I'm preparing as I'm putting all, I'm preparing all, I've prepared

well, he's always trained hard but now he's been adding more fewer. He's always more percent of of dedication

to all what what I'm doing. We have more dedicated to his rehab. I'm with his hand held up high. He wants to retire with his hand held up high. So his last three years that he got up competing, she's going to give it his own and not and take as many soldiers as he can. And by the way, Anderson in boxing or M.M.A.

Whatever was he want. What? No, whatever. Boxo, M.M.A., whatever. M.M.A. Bare and Nocles. That would be the one. That would be the one. One last one for you, Jorge. Bo Nickel, Kobe Covington.

What do you have to say about all this? They're fighting? Well, you know, they've been going back and forth, the wrestling. Kobe's bitch ass never would. Kobe would never go with a guy like Bowie because he knows he can't dry hump him for 15 minutes, you know. I think, you know, Kobe will retire before he ever does anything against Boe, whether it be RFA, fighting, playing video games. Like, he's not trying to do anything with Bowie. He's never like fighting wrestles like that.

So I wouldn't think that he ever accepts that fight. you know. A shout-out-to-my-boy-bo. Big fight for him. White House. Are you going to be there at the White House next month? I don't know.

If they pay me, you know, they're dropping bags on this, but I'll pull out. But right now, you know, it's still in the air. You got to take care of your boy to come out. I feel you.

Well, you will be in Miami on Friday, May 1st, game bread, Bar-knuckle MM-A. It's good to see it back. You guys took a bit of a break, but now you're back. You had a show recently.

Look at the line up here. Double. Then we're coming back, September. We're coming back. October, we're coming back December, brother. I love it. Thank you, guys. Good luck to you, Luis. Good luck, Joelle. Thank you, Jorge, as always. Much love, guys. Shalom, chalom. Thank you so much, guys. There they are. Three legends in their own right. Appreciate them stopping by. That's another show that you can add to the docket for this weekend. We've talked about May 2nd, being a very, very busy day in the world of combat sports, starting with the Carlos Proches versus JDM main event.

We've also talked about Juno Nakatani versus Naoya Inouye and David Benavides against the one and only. Zerto Ramirez, what's even more exciting is May 8th in New York City. We announced this earlier today, my friends. May 8th, New York City, City Winery, City Winery, NYC, the loft at City Winery, NYC, to be exact. Tickets are on sale right now. We've got to figure out how many of these we've done, but it's another hell Roadshow presented by our new friends over at Free FRE, new sponsor for all things TKO as well. So we're sort of friends now.

This is tremendous. And we're doing it next Friday in New York City, May 8th, like I said, multiple guest fighters in attendance. It's not the biggest venue. We are putting this together rather quickly, as you can tell. We're literally putting this out there nine days before. So it's not the biggest venue. but I like those smaller sort of comedy club type venues.

About 100 or so tickets, get them while you can. We'll all be there. Myself, Rick, Frank, Andy, Jordan, G.C., everyone's going to be there. Fighters are going to be there. About an hour and a half after the way-ins in NYC. So not in Jersey, in NYC. It's going to be a grand old time. The link to purchase the tickets is in our YouTube chat right now.

It's pinned right now. There's the link. what it looks like. That's what it looks like right over there. Click on buy tickets. I'll put up the link on my story as well, Instagram story, all those places and more. I've tweeted it as well. Thank you to Spencer for doing that. There you have it. Halwani Roadshow May 8th. Then we're off to Los Angeles, fight week in L.A. MMA on Netflix, historic card. It's a massive stretch for your boys and gals here at Uncrowned HQ. All right. Great stuff there. Still to come. Marab Duwali Shvili, a lot going on with him as well, but what a great honor it is to be joined by our next guest.

I mean, an absolute legend, a living legend from the world of professional wrestling, one of the greatest of all time as far as tag team wrestling is concerned and has had an unbelievable run as a single star as well, multiple time world tag team champion in TNA, RohH, NXT, obviously WWE as well, former TNA heavyweight champion, ECW champion, WVE champion, WVE, champion, United States champion, European champion as a singles wrestler, now part of total nonstop action. You could check out total nonstop action on AMC. Every Thursday, we're talking to the one and only, the inimitable Matt Hardy. Is he actually here? There he is. Unbelievable to have him in our presence. Hello, Matt. Good to see you again. How are you? How are you? Great to see you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, buddy. Pleasure to have you back in studio. This time solo. Solo. Just as good and exciting. How are you doing? Everything good? I'm doing very, very well, man. No, Kamalaise. How about you? I'm doing great. Thanks for asking.

Everything good. Can't complain. Family good. Everyone's good. I saw you. You posted a picture of you and your daughter earlier today saying going off to work our obligatory picture, but that was probably not today, right? It was. It was this morning. It was my son. Oh, was your son? Barty. No, it's all good. Wait, but don't you live in North Carolina? I do. I flew in this morning. You flew in this morning? I literally flew in. got to the airport, took a car to the hotel, checked in, came right here. You're a road warrior.

And he insists on that. He's like, he says, dad-da, if you're going to work, I want to take a picture. Wow. Because I want to make a memory every single time we do it. Every single time. He does that every time. He's adamant. There was one time I had to leave really early, and I didn't wake him up, and he got very upset with me.

He got mad at me. He wants to, it's a mandatory pitcher. He wants to take him before I leave to go away to work. That is how old is he? He is six. Six. And you have three kids? Four.

Four kids. Three boys, 10, eight, and six, and then we finally had a girl, which she swore. Oh, my gosh. What a full house. Look at this crew right here. This is the family right here. Yeah, there they are. Yeah, that's a recent picture. That's from last week. That is amazing. We were actually out and about right outside of cowfish in Raleigh, North Carolina. We ate there that day. What's it like being a dad? How would you describe it? It's the best. To have children, I think you all understand this. I think you have to be a, a parent understand this, you finally have someone more important than you, someone that you

would sacrifice yourself for, especially in wrestling, there's a lot of ego involved in pro wrestling, I think, because, you know, they, especially in the 90s when we were coming up, they're like, you are the character, you have to live the character, you have to be you, and you live it through and through and through, just guys that have those egos, you have a kid, it changes everything, because now there's something more important than you, you're secondary, and they are what is most important. And to me, just being a dad, more than anything, makes me say, like, I have to make sure my kids are good and they're straight. And my job is to make them into good, decent human beings.

Do you see yourself in one particular kid more so than the other or a part of you in all four kids? I mean, I see a lot of myself in all my kids, but I can say Barty, my youngest, I see more of me and him than anyone else. And he is the one that has been the most interested in wrestling. He's like, he's like, Dad, will you take me out of the ring?

Because we have a ring in our house in a building behind our house. And he said, well, you take me to the ring and just teach me some basic wrestling stuff because I want to be ready whenever I'm old enough to do it. How old do I have to be? Wow. 18 is, you know, legal. That's legitimate.

Were you 18 when you started? I know. No, okay. We're not. Yes. You know, and I was not. And even with him, too, we'll go out there and we'll do little stuff and I'll lock up and wrestle around with him do whatever.

I don't want him to bump. I want his body to develop and be healthy and get where he needs to be as far as mature from a physical aspect. but it's so much fun. It's fun interacting with them. Do you want your kids to fall in your footsteps? I want my kids to do whatever makes them happy. Would you be okay with that if they get into the business?

I would be okay with it. And I think it would be very beneficial because I could also talk to them about what the pitfalls of the business, you know, the pitfalls of the business that come to come with it and keep and steer them away from those. Like what? Like what's a pitfall that comes to minor too? especially whenever you get hurt or beat up and they still need you to perform or work or you're in a spot and you're doing this.

Like sometimes, especially back in the day, whenever we were doing 10 days on and four days off when I first started, you know, like, well, guys, just get through it. Just get through it. And they're like, oh, we'll take a couple of these, take a couple of these, you know, pills or whatever it may be. And, you know, obviously I had those battles and overcame that. But just from that, just teach them how to also self-care. Do you look back on some decisions that you made and said, man, that was dumb. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah?

I mean, I think we all do. I think life is a never-ending learning process, right? And, yeah, there's definitely times in my life where I have made different decisions. And I look like, what was I thinking there? Or like, I wish there would have been someone there for me to smart me up or give me a better, a better view or insight into what I was doing. Was there a time in your prime that you were not fit to wrestle, but you did because you felt pressure as one of the top dogs, as one of the guys in the company, you felt like you had to, and in retrospect, it wasn't smart? No. I mean, there wasn't a time I actively went to the ring and wrestled when I wasn't in the capacity to be there at all. But there was a time where my bag was really beat up, like 2008, 2009.

And this is before I kind of burned out in 2011. And I remember talking to John Lornitis, and I said, hey, is it okay if I got a little time off because my back has really bothered me some mornings? It's very hard for me to get out of bed. I have to get in the tub and soak and stretch and do whatever. And he's like, hey, we really need you on the road. You know, we need you on the road because you're a guy that we trust. You won't take liberties with these people regardless for they're big or small. You'll do what's best for the match and you'll take care of these guys. So I really need you to be on the road and I don't want you off. So I just try and work through it if you can. And I go, well, it's kind of hard

because his back really bothers me. And he says, we go to your doctor and see what he says. And you go to the doctor and like, okay, well, this is happening. And I have these back issues and hip issues, whatever. And he's going, oh, we'll take this. This will relax your muscles. And this will be for the pain. And that's kind of where that starts.

Okay. In 2026, how many dates do you think you'll do? I will probably do when it's all sitting down. As far as actual wrestling goes, would be actually in the ring of wrestling. I will probably do. 7580 days. 7580?

Yeah. Wow. In your prime, what were you doing? Like when you were a youngster, you know, mid to late 20s? I mean, in 1998, when I started on the road, myself and Jeff full time, we were doing 10 days on and four days off. So I guess we could calculate that pretty quickly. So well into the hundreds, obviously. Yeah, yeah.

250, 240. Do you like this number now for your age? You're 51 now? Yes. Is this too much? No. I try to be very smart about it. And a lot of these, the majority of them are obviously T&A.

I'm very committed to those guys, you know, because they have the AMC deal. And Jeff and I, we have a lot of input. We're very passionate. And we try and help other people in the promotion as well. And we're trying to grow the promotion and make it as stable as it must be be. But whenever I do independent events, there I can kind of work and I can do the greatest hits. And I can work a lot smarter. You know, still, just last week, actually, I was doing something to Dutch as well.

we're in this feud with the righteous right now with the Dutch and Vinny versus myself and Jeff. And this is a lot of twist and turns coming up is going to be a really good story. I think it was all sitting done. But I was doing a day where I came off the turnbuckle to the floor and dropped an elbow to put him through a table to sacrifice him as he did to me a couple weeks prior to get my revenge. It was an icy floor. And for some reason, the table did not break and like the leg just split out. And it did kind of jack my back up a little bit. And I had to wrestle the next night, a house of glory. for WrestleMania, which was challenging, and I got through it, and everybody helped out with it,

and we're real smart with how we did it, but it was one of those scenarios where I go like, God, I'm glad I'm, like, smarter and older and wiser and just smart about this stuff. And then I'm also glad I have two and a half weeks off before I have to wrestle again, you know, so I can heal and make sure my body is appropriate by the time I go back to wrestle again. How difficult is it to go, like for this trip here, you're doing media, right, for TNA? Correct. Is it just a one-day thing? Are you going home tonight?

No, I will go home tomorrow night. I'm here. I'm doing some media. I'm doing the upfronts tonight, representing AMC at the up fronts, which is very cool. Myself, Mike Santana and Carlos Silver are going to be there. And then tomorrow I'll do some media and then I'll go home tomorrow night. Is it hard to leave the kids? It's always hard to leave the kids. That's probably the time of the stuff.

It's probably getting harder, right? As they get older and they watch you around. It is. Well, even when as they're younger and they're really like, you're their world. Yeah. It's funny. My oldest now, it's going to be 11 in June, Maxwell. who was a kid on TNA doing stuff.

But he's kind of like forming his own personality, kind of does his own thing, and he's starting to get in the kind of strange teenager vibe. Okay, okay, okay. Where he's just, he's living life, kind of doing his own thing, and he's not as dependent as he used to be. But for the younger kids, it's really hard, especially for Barty and Evie, the Gothic baby.

My youngest, the girl. Do you feel guilt when you leave them? Sometimes, sometimes, but I'm so, glad we have cell phones because I record videos nonstop and send them to them or FaceTime. And I make sure to stay in constant contact with them, which is very important. And I can't imagine guys who used to go for months at a time. Like when they would go to Japan and they couldn't really see their kids and their family. It's just like I couldn't, I couldn't imagine doing that at all. The reason I asked this to you is because it seems like just from social media, you love being a dad.

You really love it. You love your kids. You know what I mean? Yeah, no doubt. I mean, they're the most important thing in my life. life. You know, I mean, they're more important than me. They're more important than my wife. I mean, they are the most important thing in my life, no doubt about it. Do you bring them to a lot of shows? Yeah, especially if we can, especially if there's anything local. I love them being there. How has the AMC deal been? It started in January. Have you felt the difference? Have you felt like the game has been elevated for TNA? How would you describe how it's been since it launched? It has been. It has been successful, no doubt. It's been a slow growth and it is what it is. I am so

happy that we are on a network that a lot of people can get now before. We're on access TV, and it was great to be on that, but it just wasn't in a lot of households, and there wasn't a lot of eyeballs that had access to it. So it is very nice to be on a bigger station, and numbers have been growing this last week. We had a big setback. We're up against the draft, but it is what it is. But we're in there and we're fighting, man, and that's the whole deal. We want to continue to make TNA a prevalent promotion in pro wrestling and also a place where guys can come and carve out their own niche and make a living for themselves. And so there's been some change, obviously, a ton of change over the years. Carlos is a relatively new boss, not so new anymore, but he came in. He was not a wrestling guy,

per se. Carlos Silva, I'm talking about him. We knew him from the world of MMA. He was there for a while. He did some tennis stuff as well. How would you describe him as sort of the leader of TNA now? Carlos is a very, very smart and savvy business guy. And he is not from the wrestling world. And I think he has got, he's really been thrown into it. He's got a crazy, a crazy fast introduction to the carny world of pro wrestling in some ways. You know, there's some things that have just happened that he has kind of ended up, ended up in where he didn't get the best feedback from it, obviously, but he's learning every step of the way. And it's great because there's times where he'll even come over to me like, hey, Matt, this guy was thinking about doing this. Do you think that fits? Is

that appropriate? Does it work? Especially in the context of pro wrestling, whatever else. And I think he's always willing to lean on guys that he feels confident that kind of know what is going on and that have been around the business for a while. But his job as a business guy is to make the company profitable. And he has done that. He has made the company where we are making money and is being profitable and is growing. Okay. Well, that is tremendous. That's all you really want at the end of day.

There was a deal. You mentioned that House of Glory show. Wasn't there a deal where, like, in one of the big matches, there was a TNA guy that was supposed to compete and they took him out because he was going to go up against ricochet, right? Was that House of Glory? What did I say? Yeah, House of Glory. Yes, in Vegas. And it sounded like TNA didn't want their guy going up against an AEW guy, and so AEW brought someone else. Was that the same show you were on? I don't know if it was that show. It may have been, I am not certain.

But that was one of the things Carlos kind of stepped in, right? Okay, yeah. So what is your take on it? Was it handled right? Should it have been handled differently? Well, in my honest opinion, I think, If we are partners with WDB and WDB is kind of laid it out how we're working together with TNA and, you know, AAW is kind of its own entity. We probably from that point on it should, but I said, oh, if you're doing any bookings, we probably shouldn't do, you know, TNA, AAW thing. Okay. That would have been my guess. These things happened.

And I think in these finishes, they had things that were going to work for both parties when it was all said and done. it probably should have never been set is what I would say from the beginning and I think going forward that would be the case now because they were said and things were there and I love doing this and chatting with you because I like to be very honest Yes, great the first time and I appreciate it

No doubt about it, very transparent But if these things could have happened And all parties could have been happy It would be great if it could have continued You know and just let it go especially because it was advertised, but what should have happened, most likely, is that because we are partners with W&B and AW is like this own entity that is a competing force, these matches probably shouldn't have ever been cleared in the beginning.

In a weird way, pulling it drew more attention to it. Of course, right? It kind of just would have flown under the radar. Yes. Hardcore fan base would have watched it and that would have been it. I'm not even asking you about it probably if the match happens. Right. And once again, this is all new to Carlos.

You know, this is like Carlos has never been involved in the carny world of pro wrestling. And, you know, it is what it is. And he just kind of stepped in it when it was all said and done. But the thing I can tell you is that the guys who he pulled out of those matches, he compensated them. He paid them. Okay. Their full fee, what they were getting. And I know he talked to Mike at high spots and he compensated him for the plane ticket he had bought and everything else.

So he tried to do everything he could to make it right. Okay, fair enough. How are things with WWW right now? because there was a time where it was like hot and heavy TNA on NXT and vice versa, a little less so these days. So how would you describe the relationship? Yeah, I mean, I would say a lot of that is probably because it was WrestleMania season and everything was focused towards WrestleMania.

And then WrestleMania now has come and it has gone. And they had, they kind of cleaned house a little bit. They caught a lot of people up from NXT and they kind of reset. I would imagine the TNA, WWV slash NXT relationship will probably heat back up. a little bit coming going forward. And one thing I can say that I am very happy about, we signed a contract with WWE to be in the video games coming up. We're in 2K, WW2K-26, and we're going to be doing the video games coming up for the

immediate future. And we're talking about doing more merchandising stuff. Because, I mean, when it's all sitting down, we're like a WWE Legacy Act. Of course. I don't think anybody will dispute that. And I like being able to be at TNA, be in a position where we can contribute, we can work with younger talent, new talent, we can still save. relevant. We can still be involved in something that feels important with what we're doing on

TNA, but then crossing urban still having merchandise and doing stuff with WDB. Because I do love WWB. I've said this, I said in the post just recently, we have two homes. WD.B. was like our childhood home. If it wasn't for W.D.B. and Vince McMahon, allowing myself and Jeff to do what we did as the Hardy Boys and giving us an opportunity to have this tag team ladder match, which became a table's match, which became the TLC concept, and we became famous there with WV, we wouldn't be who we are. But TNA is also our home because if it wasn't for DNA I wouldn't have got to roll the dice on myself

and try and do this insane concept called Broken Matt Hardy, you know, and Brother Nero in the Broken Universe, which totally rejuvenated our career and led us back to WDB when it was all said and done. So we definitely feel like we have two homes. WDB's our childhood home and I think TNA is more of our adult home.

When you show up to those events, those NXT events, do you feel like your home or do you feel like a bit of an outsider? No, it feels very, it feels very, very comfortable. It's funny because I saw your guy and I just saw something we were talking about. You said, I want people to bring up Nick Con a lot. Yes, yes, yes. He was your agent. He was my agent, yes. Prior, yeah. Prior. And whenever we went to SummerSlam and we were sitting ringside with the Dudley. Yes, in Jersey. Yes, in Jersey to promote the, the Belmont for Glory match we were having

with him, the last match, which very proud of that match we had with the Dudley's out. We came back and Nick was there and I got to chat with him for a few minutes. I said, oh, you guys good. everybody taking care of you. You guys feel comfortable. I said, yeah, man, I feel comfortable. This is her home. He said, well, good. He said, I want you to be comfortable. It's very important that you're comfortable here. It actually sounds like Nick, as you're saying. Yeah, and had a very nice conversation with him for a few minutes. Was that your first time speaking to him? I want to say, yeah. I'm pretty positive it is, yes. So you felt welcome. You felt like you were sort of an extended member of the family, so to speak. I mean, as soon as we walked in and got to the locker and

went to the TBL, you know, like Michael Hayes was there. So many of the people from reduction, I mean, there's so many of the crew that has just been there for decades, right? So it's like, you know everyone. Yeah. It feels like you're at home again. Is there any part of you that's like, man, I'd like to be here more often?

I think so. I mean, that could possibly, I mean, that could have possibly even a possibility if something we'd really pushed into. Okay. When was that a possibility? Like, when could that have been something you explored? I mean, I was just going to say in the last couple years,

especially since we, you know, since we've been a little, a little more hot, but I think we are much better suited at TNA for what we want to do because we want to contribute. Even at A.A.W. Whenever my deal ran out, you know, Tony had offered to resign us, and he was going to resign us with X amount of dates and really great, amazing paydays for what we're going to do. But you could kind of see that he just wanted us there as the Hardy Boys, you know,

because we are this well-known name. but we wanted to really like get dirty. We wanted to roll around the mud with younger kids and we wanted to be involved and we wanted to like create this legacy and cement. Our legacy is like one of the greatest ever do this. We wanted to be involved in something with like heart and soul. And I even think if we went back to WDB, I don't think that would happen like it does at TNA. At TNA, we have a lot of input on what we do. We have a lot of control on what we do.

And like I said, this thing we're doing with the righteous, I think it's going to morph into something where, you're going to see Matt and Jeff totally reinvent himself and go on a totally new direction that we've never done something outside of what we've ever done altogether. Okay. And Jeff's really excited about it and he doesn't get excited about much of anything, which is crazy. But I feel like TNA is the best case scenario for us to get those opportunities. Okay. Are you actively involved in other storylines creative at TNA? Like are you helping out or are you just kind of like the veteran sort of locker room leader, so to speak? You're there. Are you actively involved? If people want to ask for your advice, you're not there for the day-to-day stuff.

I would say as of right now, I am more of the locker room leader where guys will say, hey, what do you think would be good here? Or how should we do this? How do you think we should play this? What would be better for you? And I have had conversations with Carlos about doing more. Okay. And I think going forward, I probably will do more when I'll sit and done.

You'd like to? I think so. I mean, I'm a lifer, especially once I step out of the ring actively, and I'm not wrestling in the ring. currently I'm alive for I'm going to be doing creative and producing and whatever else. I'm curious, and maybe this is a hard question to answer. Who's the greatest locker room leader that you've ever been exposed to? Who's someone that you want to be like now as you get up there, that you felt like, you know,

respected others, led the way, was there for advice, things of that nature. Is there someone that comes to mind? That's a great question, actually. The first person that really stands out, I would say, is Undertaker in some ways. He's the one that I think a lot of people mention. I feel like I would be different, though, because it's a different time. The culture of the wrestling business is different. The culture of society is different.

So I think I would adjust all that. So I feel like in some ways, I feel like Taker was a good guy because he was the locker room leader. People respected him. There were times if he had to crank down on someone, he would and make sure that they were in check. But I think now it's just very important to lead by example. He would do that. There would be times where he was hurt or he was beat up and he would go out there and he would work and he would try to work as smart as possible. And he always showed up. He was very loyal to WWE, you know, never left after being there. So he was very much a locker room leader in that capacity. And I feel like that's the same thing I do. Like I'm older or a little.

beat up, but like even if I'm hurt and I know there's something I can do, I can do it safely and get through it. I'll make it work. And I try and lead by example. Were you ever sent to wrestler court? Oh yeah. I was in wrestler court several times. You were? Myself and Jeff when we were young. I think everybody was back then. What'd you do? Do you remember? What was your offense? The first time I really remember going. Wait, can I ask, how were you sent to, like, who approaches you? How are you subpoenaed, so to speak? This is a fascinating thing. The person who's opinion me was John Bradshaw-Layfield. Come on.

He walks up to you? Well, this is how it started. So we fulfilled our dream, right, in pro wrestling. Our dream, myself and Jeff, we wanted to be the WWF World Tag Team Champions one time or WCW World Tag Team Champions one time. That was our dream. If we did that, we could go out. Once, that's it. Yes, just once, just once.

And we actually were in Fedville, North Carolina, and we were wrestling the APA, the Acolytes. JBL, Bradshaw at the time, and Ron Simmons. And we defeated them in Fedville, North Carolina, which is 30 minutes from where we live from the Hardy compound. And we had a good match with them. We had lots of family and friends and just all kinds of people in attendance that were very supportive of us, right? So it was a big night for us.

It was great. But even after winning the titles, I remember we left. We went to Ruby Tuesdays afterwards. We had a big meal, and a whole bunch of people came and hung out. It was like, oh my God, these guys achieve the dream. It's amazing. And the next night, we were going to work in Poughkeepsie, New York, or white planes, maybe even. But I remember we got on a plane the next day in Raleigh going up here, and I'll never forget.

We get to the airport. And Michael Hayes was there, which was our manager. And in many ways, we call him a wrestling daddy. He was like our mentor. He taught us more than anybody else did, especially during that time period. And he said, hey, guys, I got a surprise. You guys are the champions. He said, guess what?

because I'm a million-mile Delta guy, got you guys upgraded. You guys are in first class. We're like, no, no, no, no, no, we're good. We're fine. We don't want that. We don't need that. He says, no, trust me. He said, everybody's checked in.

There's two open seats, so we're good. He said, I upgrade you guys both. So you guys are good. We're like, okay, well, thanks, Michael. But I feel like we're going to push our luck a little bit. I'm worried about this. We're still new here, and we don't want to piss anybody off. And then we sat down on our seats, and I want to say,

I was like beside maybe Ron Simmons and, Jeff was beside Bob Holly, and they were like by the aisle and we were by the window. And then we're getting ready to depart and we're like, okay, well, this is maybe going to be okay. We won the tag titles. Michael tried to give us a kindness and gave us first class seats and we feel special. And they said, oh, we have to hold on. We have to wait just a few more minutes. There's one passenger that is coming on the flight right now.

And there was just, there was an issue, but we have to wait on them because it was very important. It was the last second deal. and coming onto the plane and down the aisle was Glenn Jacobs, Kane. And they go, where's your seat at, Kane? Where aren't you sitting? Where's your seat? He says, I guess I'm backing coach. I don't know.

There wasn't a first class seat. And something had happened where he had to change his flight or whatever. And he was obviously meant to fly first, but because of whatever the circumstances were, we had taken those last two first-class seats. And Jeff and I, we both immediately jumped. Like, we're going to get out and Ron Simmons's homie down. No, you good right here. You good right here.

Just sit down. And Bob Holly's doing the same thing. And you're good. You're good. You just stay right here, kid. You stay right here. And then once we got to the building that day, we said, hey, we got to let you guys know. You guys have been indicted.

Oh, my God. You guys are going to court now. You are guilty of stealing Kane's first class seat. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. Were you terrified? Because this is not like a joke, right? You are going to be prosecuted.

Yeah, I mean, it was it was pretty frightening. Yeah. You know, who's the judge? Well, the judge ends up being the undertaker. Okay. He was constantly the judge. And the prosecutor was J.B.O. Oh, gosh.

John Bradshaw-Lafield. And whenever we were there, I, God, I'll never forget it was so funny. So we were sitting there. And I remember he was doing a spill. And he said, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Matt and Jeff Hardy, two kids who've been here for a couple of coffee and I'll be honest I think they're monsters

he said Kane is a former world champion a guy who carries the company who sells tickets sales pay-per-views and they took his first class seat and they just threw it out the window they could care less they said get back in coach Kane and we're like we don't say any of this obviously exaggerating it for entertainment he says so ladies and gentlemen he said

imagine if they would do this to a world champion. These guys who have been here for a year, if they would do this to a world champion, just imagine what they would do to you or you, or you, or you, or you. You know, and he does the big, dramatic thing, and we're just like, oh, shit, we just wanted to be over. And there was a point where he pulled us, I said, look, he says,

we're going to be on you guys a little bit. He said, but, like, really, we're going to get Michael for this because he should have known better. Okay, okay, interesting. But then once it was all set and done, And we were sentenced. It wasn't too bad. And they weren't too hard on us.

We had to buy Glenn lunch for a week. Oh, wow. And then Michael had to carry his bags for a month or something. That was a sentence. That was a sentence. That was our punishment. Did you have a defense attorney? Did you, where were you just defending yourselves?

We were defending ourselves. Oh, what a scene. And I think we just decided it was probably better not to say anything. Does everyone show up? Does the whole locker room show to this? Most guys, yeah. Wow. Because it was a house show.

You know, we were, once again, that's what we were. when we do like, you know, a Monday live and we would tape on Tuesday. Yeah. And ours was going to be on the next Monday. But then we'd go right back to work, Wednesday, house show, Thursday, house show, Friday, house show, Saturday, how show, Sunday, how show. And, you know, we just on the loop. And even looking back in hindsight, I kind of understood why they did these.

And it was kind of like to instill respect in some people. And a lot of them were not really insidious, so to say. Like really, like we're out to get this guy because we don't like him or whatever. You know, and a lot of them would like to teach you lessons like, oh, you probably shouldn't have done this. Or maybe you shouldn't have tried to sit in first class if there's these other vets or whatever. But they were trying to teach lessons and respect. But there were some that weren't on the up and up.

You know, there were some that you could tell they were out to get people. If you started pissing a lot of people off wrestling. And that's just the culture has changed a lot. Yeah. That doesn't exist anymore, right? No, that's been a big positive. The culture of pro wrestling has changed. It's much better, you would say.

Much better. What do you think was the reason for the change? I think it mirrored society in many ways. Just as society changed, I think it had to change with it. How do you feel about- Especially becoming a public company? Right, of course. The fact that there are so little, if not any, house shows anymore.

Is that surprising? House shows are really good for getting reps in. You know what I mean? and like keeping your win up. It's nice in some ways that they are doing these bigger TV events and everything else, but I also think house shows are an amazing place to go out and practice or test things and try things out to see if it translates. You get a reaction from that live crowd in the arena,

and that's like the most authentic, legitimate reaction you can get to see if something works or not, as opposed to having to do it on TV for the very first time. So you think that it would be beneficial to have, a little bit more. It would be nice to have them every so often. Maybe not as much. Yeah, maybe not as much. I don't think guys should be doing 10 days on,

four days off like we were doing in the beginning. But it would be nice to have them every so often, I'd say. Have you seen what Taker's been doing in Mexico? Yeah. It's a good booker. This is so funny. We did WWW World and appeared over there where we signed and took photos and signed a whole bunch of merchandise in the back.

And we were walking. I was walking back to go do my signing. And there was a big bright light shining on the hall. And I saw these two figures. There was one tall and the one that was shorter beside him. And they were coming. I couldn't see where there was just like dark, shadowy figures. And then we walked past him.

I was just talking to Jeff. And they were talking about before we started signing about how it goes. And then grabbed me from behind. He's like, hey, he says, you're not you going to say hello to me? You're doing that. And it was taker. And I was like, oh, man. I said, honestly, I couldn't even see you.

I just saw this big, tall figure. I said, I had no idea it was you. But that's so cool. It's so good to see you, man. He gave him a hug. And I said, man, I got to tell you. I said, I'm super excited for you, man. Are you excited for Dave Meltzer to give you the Booker of the Year?

And he said, shut up. You know, just joking. Yes. But I said, no. And I hear a lot from him from Jeremy Warras. J.B. is someone we obviously work super close with the Broken Universe. And he does all the AAA stuff as well. So he works with Taker pretty hand in hand.

But I love the fact that Taker is so hands-on and he's so into it. You can tell he's really passionate. It's amazing. Yeah. That grande Americano or Grando Americano, the, The Levy Kaiser and the pop that they got when they had that brawl. Did you see that brawl that they had? I did, yeah.

Wasn't that amazing? It was something about that brawl that just stood out to me. It was a little bit messy. You know, you once had a very famous brawl with Edge back in the day. Sure. When it feels authentic and not choreographed, it just works so much better, right? It does. A lot of the wrestling, in my opinion, a lot of the wrestling product is too choreographed now.

You know what I mean? Where I like it when it looks a little nasty and real, to a degree. You know, a little rough around the end. Yes. And one thing, Taker, Taker always gave great advice about things like that. And there were a lot of things where Taker, both Taker and Stonecold, Steve Austin, said things to me personally. In matches, I got to work with him because I got to work with Taker quite a bit for a while. When he was working with Brock, he had like this little subfewed with me underneath it for a little bit.

And he would just say things and it would like set off light bulbs in my head. You know what I mean? It's like, wow, it's like you really can't get better until you work with the best of the best. Like, you see a lot of guys on Indies that are really good, but then they kind of like plateau. And it's because they don't work with guys better than them. And you just have to work with guys that are better than you and no more than you. And like, we finally got to do that at Debbie. Taker is such a valued mind and just has so much knowledge of the business.

And it's so smart doing things. And not just for guys his size, big guys. I mean, he gets it, like, depending on what your size and how things are, as it relates to the context of a store, he's really good with all that. Did you go to Mania? I didn't actually go to the Mania event. I was all around there during the time. You watched it. I didn't actually go there, yeah.

A lot of criticism of it. What do you think? I called it Solace, just for the record. No, I saw that. Okay. And you and John Albo's spoke about that. That was the first thing. John jumped on that quick, and he liked it.

I mean, I... You guys do a great job, by the way. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Every Friday, the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy drops. He liked that. He took that from me, so he bit that from me immediately. And that's what he put on the thumbnail.

Yes, I saw that. So I didn't see night one because we were working. Oh, that was the bad one. Yeah, right. So I saw, this is funny. So I saw night two. Night two, we had finished what we were doing. And we talked about going, and they talked about going over there.

I was like, I don't know. Our flight is like, kind of, if I get there, I don't want to stay and hang out and visit with everyone. And our flight was like right towards the end. But I did get to see night two. as I watched night two, I was like, oh, this is pretty good. I wonder if night one was okay, and like the internet was just being, you know, over the top with it. But then I did see back most of night one.

And night two was obviously the better night. Yeah. And it's just, it's a different product. You know, it's just, it really is, it feels very mainstream. They have all the advertisements and everything else. It feels very different from standard, WB. And I think it's hard for a lot of people to kind of grasp that just WDB changes. Like, I can say this being older.

I sometimes hate change. You know, I think there's things, we look back, you know, 20 years ago, like when it was a much simpler, easier time. It was so good. It was the best. I wanted to be like that. Right. But, you know, things change. Things evolve.

They continue to go on. I mean, and it's still making money. It's still doing big things. And it's just, it's a different animal in this day and age. Night 2 was definitely better than night. It was much better. I can't say that. No doubt about it.

But when it's all said and done, WrestleMania is, it's WrestleMania. It still feels like a big event. WrestleMania is sacred to me. And when they do things like having someone who paid money to be at the announcer table and not say a word, to me feels... That was pretty wild.

Wild, right? That was wild. You would never, I made this correlation. You would never watch the Super Bowl and they would cut to Joe Buck. and Troy Aikman in the booth and just have a fan standing there with them because not everything should be for sale. Right.

And to me, one of the things that I always loved about, like I grew up, the first thing I ever loved was pro wrestling. That guy right there, Brett Hart, I saw you had a photo with him. Like that was my first hero in life. I adored Brett Hart. And to me, when I think of WrestleMania, I think of Bob Euker in the back being choked by Andre the Giant. I think of me and Gene in the back with Hogan.

Those backstage interviews and vignettes and cameos from people, all that was lost. That was all cut out. We didn't have any of that. It was commercial. Commercial, commercial, commercial. Like, WrestleMania is so special. It's when everything comes together. The grandiose outfits and entrances,

even the entrances were cut. They went to commercials. Right. If you're cutting that, to me, you're not understanding the true magic. And I'm not saying you shouldn't make money. I'm not saying there shouldn't be ads and stuff like that. But it just felt like that's why the word soulless came to mind

because it didn't feel like it was honoring that. And you're not wrong. I mean, it is definitely so evolved and so, different from what the initial concept of WrestleMania was as a mega then, right? It felt very prostituted because all the ads and everything else and, you know,

I also feel, and this is one thing I had a discussion with John on our podcast about when you go to these paper views like WrestleMania, if you have these big matches between big stars, like these matches need to be, they need to be good, they need to have time. Yes, they need to have a good payoff at that point because that's what you're building to. I feel like

the TV is the vehicle. that you build these matches and you tell stories and da-da-da-da, you don't have to give everything there. But once you get to these pay-views in WrestleMania, that's where you have to deliver the goods, no doubt about it. And I know a lot of people criticize because of some of the matches being shorter on night one of the paper reviews for sure. Night 2 Brock retires. Do you think he actually retired?

Do you think he's done? I don't know. I think we'll see him again. Okay. I think we'll see him again. You and Jeff worked with them in the very early days. Remember that? We were his first program.

Backlash, right? He debuted the night. after mania. I was actually in attendance in Montreal. He comes in, he smashes Spike Dudley. And I think you guys were the first pay-per-view match for him, right? We were next.

And then the next week he tried to attack us again. And that's where he did those chair shots. What was he like? Was he so strong that he didn't understand? What was he like that very, very, very early raw version of him? I mean, he, he was, I had great experiences with Brock. One thing I, one thing I definitely remember is we were doing that. And I remember with those chair shots that we gave him, he came up a couple times.

And he's like, hey, look, guys, like, I know, you know, whenever you hit me with these chairs, like, I'm not going to go down, but I'm going to go flying out of the ring at the very end because they want to make a lucky killer or whatever. So you just, you've got to make sure to lay those chair shots in, okay? It's like, okay, we will. Don't worry. And I mean, because we were psychos doing Indies. Like, we would do chair shots all the time because we still on TV, right?

So we, it's crazy how many unprotected chair shots we took back in the day, you know? And I was like, I promise, you know, we'll do it. And then he came back to a little lady. He said, look, seriously, like, I have to look strong in this. Like, you've got to let this chair shots. And we're like, yeah, okay, we're going to. And Jeff, who is the most laid back guy in the world, I think a third time later, he said, look, he said, make sure to nail me with that chair. Jeff said, I will.

Yeah. And it was funny. Like, okay. Enough already. And he got it. But he was good with that, man. Even when we came back, he said, where the chair shut is good? Yeah.

Oh, gosh. Really? He cared that much. Yeah. He said, were they good? And he was a little, I think he blinked out a little bit, too. I love also on your Twitter feed, your X feed. You always have like this day on this date in this year.

So I want to let you know. I want to let you know it was 25 years ago today at Backlash 2001. Eddie Guerreroen Christian. Wow. Did someone tell you that already? I saw it this morning. You did. Oh, I need to post it.

That's how I see it because I never remember these things, but just people say like, oh, this happened. There it is. Yeah. Yeah, this happened so many years ago, whatever. And then I'll usually have this clip somewhere. What comes to mind when you think of that match? Anything, any memory of that? I do.

That match specifically, Eddie had a rough night that night. I remember Jay and I, we had to like kind of like, hey, just chill, blah, blah, blah. We'll put it together. We'll do this. And this is before Eddie left WDB and got released, I think. But it was one of those nights where he'd had a pretty tough night before. And we just said, hey, we'll put it together. Me and Jay sat back and we put all the match together.

And we put Eddie's stuff in there, whatever. And then once he got a little better, we kind of clued him in and we went to the match. But Eddie was magic, dude, working with Eddie. When Eddie was on and in the best, I got to work with him all a lot. No one I have ever been in the ring with, ever been in the ring with, has been able to listen to a crowd and change the direction of the match or what you're doing better than Eddie Guerrero. Eddie, I would work Eddie four nights back to back and he would change the match every single night. Wow, wow. Based off of the crowd. Based off the crowd reaction to give the crowd what they, what they wanted.

Even the finish? Typically the finish wouldn't change, although one time we did change it where he thought he was going to be the ve-faced and I ended up getting cheered more and he changed the finish. On the fly. On the fly. No one cared in the back. The producer of Black Juggelons. It was cool with it. Gosh. He was really talented. I mean, he would do different stuff. He said, like, let's see if this is a crowd that just wants to interact with the wrestlers, or do they really want us to, like, bust our ass and work? You know, they want us to go.

And he was so good with that. And one of the most important pieces of information I feel like I'd ever heard was from Eddie Guerrero, where we were both Hills at the time and we were working together on the road. And he said, oh, well, let's just start, let's start wrestling, let's have a match, let's do some good stuff, let's entertain the people. And whoever they start getting behind, they'll become the baby face and they make the comeback. We'll just see. This is when I was doing like Matt Hardy version one

And he was a hill as it was anyway And I remember he had grabbed me in a chinlock and a hold And he's like, okay, okay And I started coming up, it's like, oh, the crowd's not doing anything And I was nervous younger And I was just like, whoa, you know, because we're both hills Like maybe we should keep going. I don't want to bore the crowd

And I start fighting my way up doing that And he's like, stay down, boom And he holds me down again And then I started to do we need to come up, Eddie? Don't you think we need to come up? Because I don't want the crowd to get bored I don't want them to, you know, like get upset with our match, whatever. And he said, no, just stay here.

And he did. And eventually the crowd came. And then I talked to him afterwards. I said, thank you for saying that because I kind of lack confidence. Because, you know, typically I'm not a baby face right now. I'm kind of a career baby face in many ways from being what happened to the Hardy Boys. But like, you know, I'm glad I listened to you. And, you know, the crowd did come.

And he said, one thing you got to remember, he said, because we had done a lot of good stuff, we did a lot of things where it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. and then it was down. He said, one thing you have to remember about the crowd, this is one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten. He said is that you have to bore the crowd to agree. Wow. He said, if you do a whole bunch of stuff where the crowd's up like,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to stop. You got to let them breathe, you got to let them reset because the crowd can't maintain that pace or just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see a lot of that in this day and age in wrestling, right? But he just said, he said, and just the simplest is the way to say it, sometimes you just got to bore the crowd. You've got to bring them down so they're ready to come back up and let them get their energy and emotion back to get involved in these next high spots you're going into.

And that's always stuck with me. And I've always remembered that very much as far as pacing of a match. I feel like I could pick your brain for three hours. Fortunately, you have to go. This flew by, by the way. This was so much fun. Are we finished already? We are finished.

You have to go. It feels like it's been five minutes. I feel the same way. Last, last thing, tell the people why they should be watching on Thursday nights, T&A. AMC, why is this something they need to go out of their way to watch? I think you need to go out of your way to watch TNA every Thursday, 90s, because we really are. We are on a comeback. TNA is very much like Matt Hardy.

I had that motto for the longest time, like I will not die. TNA will not go away. It's like a cockroach. People have been trying to kill it for years and years and years, but we're not going anywhere. And there's a lot of good things that are going to be happening. And I feel like TNA is very much like ECW in the 90s because TNA is where someone can come and get over and they can work. They can reinvent themselves.

They can get hot. And we are now on a big platform where everyone can see it. And we're not the most financially rich promotion there is. Some guys are going to leave. They'll end up going to WB or they'll go to A&W, whatever, but we have to continue to make new guys. And that sort of thing. And I take a lot of pride in that.

T&A has been very good to myself and my brother. They were good with my brother when he went through his dark days. They were really good with me when they let me roll the diet. and do this crazy broken Mount Hardy, which I would have never gotten that opportunity anywhere else. So just the opportunity that they have given us, the opportunities they have given us, it feels very important to me to try and give back to TNA. And the thing we're doing, the righteous right now, I love this.

And there's going to be some great twist and turns. And I'm super excited about doing something new. And so it was Brother Nero. So excited for that. Such an honor for us to have you here. Thank you so much. And my best is your brother as well. And check out the podcast, too.

The YouTube channel every Friday with John Alba. It's great stuff as well. Extreme life. There it is. We'll take a break. Say goodbye to Matt Hardy. We'll be back with Marab Diwali-Shele. Do not go anywhere.

Great stuff there from John Nash. That was last week on The Crack. The foremost expert when it comes to these topics. Ali Act, in particular these days. The boys had a great discussion with him about all of that. So do check that out. Whether it's on the YouTube channel, whether it's on the Area Hawani show podcast feed, whether it's on the crack podcast feed.

You can check it out on all those things, all those different platforms. What about Matt Hardy? Golly. There's times where those wrestling interviews are some of my favorites because where else and to who else

can you speak about things like wrestler court? I love that stuff. I've read so much about that stuff and he was such a big star in the era in which I was such a big fan. I really fell in love with wrestling again around 97 and up until I would say around 05-06 I was super into it.

Obviously I fell in love with it initially in the very, very early part of my life, 85, 86 is when I first fell in love with it, WrestleMania 1, Brett Hart, all that stuff. So to pick his brain, that flew by. That was so much fun. There was so much more I wanted to ask him as well that really did fly by. We had some great factoids. Our guy Alan put together some amazing factoid because I know he likes the this day and history stuff and I wanted to get to more of them. But unfortunately, we ran out of time.

There's a great website called Cage Match. I think it's cagematch.net that is sort of like wrestling's version of Tapology or Sherdog, the FightFar. and you can go through a particular wrestler like Matt Hardy's match history, including all the random house shows that he's been a part of, which, you know, it's hard to keep track of all that stuff. I'm just hopping back into the booth. They have that? Oh, my God.

I had no idea that they had that. Every single match. That is crazy. Like if you go to Matt Hardy's cage match page, you have to go to like 50 pages back just to get to the beginning. That's nuts. Yes, everything. So random, random shows.

Is this like community? Like, who's doing this? Yeah, who is doing that? That is nuts. I had no idea that that existed. Oh, yeah, cagematch.net, the internet wrestling database. And it's very accurate. Like, you don't get a lot of mistakes.

And so via this website, Alan found out, which is not a hard thing to find out when the debut would have been, but it was 32 years ago next month, May of 1994 against Nikolai Volker. And I had, I kept it up here. And so they have it. Nikolai Volkov, but they even have the length of the match. Nikolai Volkov defeated Matt Hardy in two minutes and 31 seconds on May 23rd, 1994.

WWF Monday Night Raw, number 64 at Struthers Fieldhouse in Struthers, Ohio, USA. Take a listen to his first, his first, one, two, three, four, five, six opponents. Nikolai Volkov on May 23rd of 94. Razor Ramon on May 24th, 1994. Then on July 1st, 1994, crush. By the way, at all of these, he got crushed in like a minute to two minutes.

Owen Hart, on July 2nd, Undertaker, on July 3rd, Erwin R. Scheister, the father of Bray Wyatt, Mike Rotunda, on July 7th. That was his first stretch, and then he didn't come back until December of that year. And actually, for some weird reason, and this would have been a fun question to ask him, I'm sure there's a funny reason for this. He's Matt Hardy against all of these guys, except for the taker match, which lasted 68 seconds.

He's Brian Hardy, for some reason. He's listed as Brian Hardy. And if you click on Brian Hardy's name, it then takes you to Matt Hardy's profile. This website is actually insane. It tells you every single name, every single moniker, every single finishing move, tidbits about his career, what he's done as of late. It's really remarkable. So I wanted to go through some of that with him. But we ran out of time.

And we did get to mention that it was 25 years ago today, backlash 2001 against Eddie Guerrero and Christian. He retained the WWF European title. And I remember vividly Lesnar's debut. And then his first match was against the two of them. amazingly, Lesnar is a month older than Jeff and almost three years younger than Matt, and they're still going very strong. Lesner retiring, let's see if that actually comes to fruition. I feel like there's so many guys, I don't think this is a problem saying it.

I recently got a chance to meet Jalen Brunson, which was extremely exciting, and I'll share a photo. I was waiting to post it because the thing that I met him and Josh Hart for, believe it or not, which was still like a moment in my life and my kid's life. I'll explain why in a couple days, I got to meet him, which was amazing. It was about a month and a half or so ago, and he was wearing a hearty boy's shirt,

and I feel like kids of his era, of his age, Matt and Jeff is akin to, like, Brett and Jim the Anvil to me. Matt and Jeff, for mid-to-late 20s, early 30s kids, who are now, you know, older wrestling fans, they were the guys. They were, they were two. So when he was wearing the shirt, I was like, I know he's a wrestling fan,

but I was like, oh, Hardy Boys, you're a Hardy Boys guy? Oh, my favorites. My absolute favorites. And they're living legends. The security guy, Steve downstairs, was marking out when he saw that. Freaked out.

He was on the security list. And he was there last time that Jeff and Matt went through. Like, those, as you said, those are the guys for people of, you know, the age that I'm at now. Like they were the guys. It was them, Edging Christian, the Dudley boys in all those crazy matches, and the Hardy boys were just the coolest ones. They were freaking cool as hell, man.

Another thing I wanted to ask him about was your gal G.C. Saul Ruka, who is very much like a new age Lita, who was a part of the Hardy team before a minute. And he had the story with her and whatnot. And I was curious what he thought of her. There was so much I wanted to get there. It's rare that I have one of these sit-down interviews in studio. And I'm like, man, there was so much that I wanted to get to. but it was great and we'll save that for another channel. He's a great storyteller as well.

If you do like his stories, do check out his YouTube channel with John Alba. They do a great job of recapping things and not just talking about his own career, but other things going on in the world of professional wrestling. Okay. Wrestler's court was my highlight of the, like, just learning about wrestling. Do you not know about that? I don't know what it is. Oh, so basically it's like you do something bad in the locker room.

They subpoena you and you're going to court. whole locker room was there and they treated as if you are being sent to court and there's a punishment and everything. Like they took the locker room etiquette so seriously that he tells the story about you're sitting in first class and this was supposed to be for Kane, Glenn Jacobs, you're now going to court and it was a legit thing. Like it wasn't like laughy, laughy, let's have a good time. They took this real serious and there's stories of guys like the Miz and whatnot being sent to wrestlers court and like really being made an example of really getting a serious punishment that they, like, he had to buy him lunch,

like he had to buy him lunch. There was no way out of it. You did in real life. Yes, that you didn't pay respects to the business. You didn't pay respect. Wrestling, especially from that era, is all about respect, the business, the history, all that stuff. You walk into the ring, you wipe your feet.

You're backstage. You have to shake everyone's hand. And here I am talking about it. Like, I ain't no expert. I ain't no veteran. You're one of the boys. I don't want to pretend. But that's why when I've, the few times I've gone to go back there,

that to me, that to me, is akin to like Disneyland. That's you guys going to the Harry Potter world. I'm looking around and I'm like, wow, this is it. This is backstage. This is, I love it. The one time that I got to spend the weekend there in Montreal was one of the greatest weekends of my life just because I got to observe all these little, these little like intricacies of backstage.

And it's nowhere near what it was, you know, 25 years ago or so. But if you, like, if you were a rookie GC and you went back there and you didn't shake everyone's hand, and this is what I've read, this is what people have said on shows, interviews, and look everyone in the eye. Like, didn't go out of your way, you were being sent to court. Wow. Like, you were, you were effed. And then they televised that. No, no, no, no.

Oh, this was behind the scenes. Yes, this was internal. But so many people have talked about it. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't a show. It was an internal thing, like, we had to figure this out as a part of the locker room. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. And there's been crazy stories of people like shitting in people's bags and stuff. What? Oh, yeah.

Nuts. Crazy ribs. That's real court, not wrestler court at that point. Yeah, seriously, right? No, like crazy ribs. A guy goes to take a shower, take all his clothes, take his bag away. Crazy stories. Super intern Josh is saying there's a 30-man team who does the cage match website.

Oh, wow. 30-man. I mean, I thought tapology or like Sherdog was crazy, right? I thought that concept was nuts. To imagine it for pro-restes. where they're doing way, way, way, way more matches than real fights? I couldn't even imagine. So 30 makes sense to me.

And then he mentioned an example of the Miz getting banned from the locker room for a year and had to change in the hallways because he ate chicken over Chris Benoit's bag. Like, just nuts. Why did he eat chicken over Chris? Who knows? But he got punished. He went to wrestler court. It seems like the punishment fit the crime if I'm being on.

You don't do that. You don't do that. You don't eat over the bag. Who shits in someone's bag, too? There's this, I don't know. Doesn't Shaq notoriously shit in, like, people's sneakers and, like, in the lockers and stuff? That's, like a thing with Shaq. Frank, you better watch it back, bro.

Yo, man. Who me? Yeah, that is next level. You're going to shit. I love that stuff so much. Wrestler's court. I wish he told 10 more of those. I know, I know.

He's a great storyteller. Yeah. Great stuff. So thank you very much to him. Rob Dwellishfili is going to join us at 4 o'clock. Talk about R.A.F. talk about what's next for him. There's a lot going on.

Al Jermaine Sterling. More news and notes, if we can. What about Jake Paul? Jake Paul was on the complex news YouTube channel. Our boy Matthew Jelty, I believe I'm pronouncing his name correctly, was talking to Jake Paul, and he mentioned a potential match,

fight, sparring session, something with Ilya. Here's what he had to say. We can react to it. I think you said you wouldn't even have to put headgear on to spar with him. Yeah, no. it would be like playing with a little toy, you know?

Like, I'm not even kidding. And also he's like 5-5, you know. It's like if we were the same weight, he's a good striker. Same height, it would probably be closer. I would still beat him, but he's like he can't even ride roller coasters, you know? Like, the guy is tiny. Matthew Welty, my apologies, is the interviewer's name, does a great job doing more and more MMA slash combat sports interviews. I mean, obviously this fight would never happen. Who would be the

favorite in a fight between Ilya Tuporia and Jake Paul? Boxing? Yeah. Jake Paul. Yeah, you'd have to think Jake Paul just because of the size and Ilya's MMA. It would be the same sort of as he's a little bit bigger than Tank Davis. Right? Tank Davis 135. Ilya now 155. Tank is shorter. Who was the favorite in the end for the tank fight before it got scrapped? It was tanked, but not by that much. Right. I was ready to... It was not like the AJ fight.

I was ready to retire off the Jay Paul winning. It's a weird scene that would have been, right? Like, what a weird visual that night would have been. It's a crazy thing. The thing is this fight would never happen, not because of the size difference, but because of the fact that Ilya fights for the... I mean, probably also because of the size difference. I mean, he was just about to fight a smaller guy.

Exhibit. though, no? Yeah, so who cares? They weren't going to, like, they weren't going to dance. It wasn't going to be Capoeira. I know, but I think Ilya would probably win. I do not. No?

Even a little bit, no. What if it was boxing, but with four-ounce gloves? He's still a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter. It's really hard. Against guys who are not a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. I mean, isn't he only, like, actually, like, six inches shorter? Yeah. Oh, just six inches?

I mean, first of all, no. You're saying foot. It's a double. Jake Paul. He's like 5.7. He's like 5.7. Yeah. And what's Jake?

Like 6.1? 6 1, yeah. 6 inches. 6 inches. Yeah. It's a lot. All right. Speaking of crossovers, we had Ryan Garcia and Henry Sohudo.

Does anyone know what the context is here? Like, where did they see each other? How did they actually bump into each other? Just on the street? Ryan Garcia is. it's just become like that guy who's just like collabing with everyone on the street, connecting.

They had a bit of a back and forth and Armin got involved. Let's take a look and react. Do you agree? Did you rather see the Triple C versus Armin or Colby? I don't even know if Ovi's just a yapper. I got real Olympic champion.

I won't take him out. I won't take them out. I can promise you that. I saw what I had to see. Oh, there's Armand. There's Chad Bronsty. If you beat him, I'll give you your 40K. Come on. Oh, you hear that?

If you beat him, I'll give you your 40K. You want your 40K back. Okay, so Armand says Me versus Henry there. Ryan's looking fresh. I love the outfit. Shout to him. Chad Bronstine holding the telephone there. Interestingly enough from Ryan there, he says,

if you beat Henry, I give you the 40K? Does that count as some sort of acknowledgement that he sort of does still owe him the 40K? He definitely owes him the 40K. They've both brought it up several times. I think Ryan has acknowledged already. He owes it to him but isn't paying. He's like, you want the 40K, you have to box, man.

Yeah, well, I mean, if I'm Armin, I'm taking that deal. Who's the favorite in an Armin versus Henry wrestling match? Armine's way bigger. Armin. Yeah. I'm taking Armin, and, yeah, Armand's come out and said that 40K is nothing to him, so he doesn't care. He has come out and said that, yeah. Like, imagine, he's laughing and joking on FaceTime.

Imagine you had someone that owed you 40K. I know, right? I would not be friendly if we showed up on Facebook. You're like, please hang up and send me the 40K now. Oh, your phone works. Venmo me the 40K, bro. It's going to be interesting. Who was it?

I think it was Colby, or maybe it was Armin. You know, there's this rule where if you're, you know, if two UFC, fighters can't go up against each other in these grappling wrestling matches, right? But I think it was Armin who brought up when talking about the Colby Covington feud. If they're not in the same way class and there's no chance that this fight is going to be booked in the UFC, would the UFC be okay with it? Because that really opens things up, right? Then you could do Armin versus Suhudo, Armin versus Marab, these types of matches. The world is your oyster. O versus Colby. Chad Bronstien had mentioned like talking to the UFC whether they were going to.

schedule it. Yeah. And if they're not, then maybe they would let them do Bull versus Colby. We did, we didn't mention this yesterday, but Armin has another date for RAF.

I actually broke the news yesterday. May 30th in Dallas once again, and he's going up against a guy named Mugsy, who's a, I guess he's like an influencer type. I'll be honest, I didn't know who Georgia Poulos was. And Mugsy,

who I believe has lost to Giorgio in the world of R.A. but is a big, big star. His real name is Keelon Jimison has 926,000 followers on Instagram. And I was asking Chad about him. And he says, anytime they do like these meeting greets at RAF before, which they love doing for the kids, Kyle Snyder, Kyle Dake, et cetera, Mugsy always has the biggest line. And, well, I'll tell you, I collapsed with them.

And 58,000 likes, not your typical engagement on them. on a fight announcement post. But some people were saying that they didn't like this because he's already beaten, he's lost to Giorgio and Armand beat Giorgio. Anyway, the Armin R.A.F train rolls along. It seems like he's just competing for them every... He's Mr. RA.F.

Every month. Yeah. I mean, look, even if he's getting, there it is. Shout at the Mugsy with a Z. Even if he's getting like 100K, this is great. Two minute rounds, three rounds,

he's generally in shit it's like it's probably the easiest money the guys will ever make it and has ever made it's very good for it's amazing it's actually brilliant that he's doing this people that are like talking shit and they're like oh go do your wrestling matches every month if I was arm and I'd be like okay

I'll just keep getting paid man ultimately what do you think he gets in the UFC at best 500K at best something like that yeah at best I don't even know if it's that maybe now I don't think he was I actually think he said that with Patrick

Betts David? I think he said, I get like 500K for the UFC. Okay, so he does five of these. He's probably, he's probably equalling that. By the way, I love that you call them bets. What is it? PBD? It's just bet. Be it mine, you know. Yeah, he says his highest UFC pay to is just over 500K. There it is. Maybe probably, I mean, probably the last one.

Like, he wasn't doing that when he was competing against Mateus Gamron. That's for certain. He was on the PBD podcast. which I know Frank is a huge fan of. Aren't you a huge fan of it, Frank? Biggest fan ever. PBD, Patrick Bet David. He did say something interesting

about the White House card that we had not heard from him, a potential fight that didn't come to fruition. Here's the clip. Did they call you at all for this fight or no, for this card? Were you at all?

Yes, they called me for the... You see Chandler? Ruffie and Chandler? They wanted me put against the Chandler. And then they understood, like... it's bad for Chandler and he represents US. It's like 99.9 that I'm beating him. And then they put Ruffy.

So if someone yet heard in Rufi or Chandler, they might call me too. Oh, so either one of them, they might call you. Yeah. Yeah, but ideal fight for you. Yeah, it's a title. Yeah. You want the title fight.

Yeah, I want a title. Yeah. This is a big deal for him. Patrick Bet David, by the way, is, I believe, of Armenian descent. and I believe at one time owned a piece of the Yankees, if not now. Yeah, I was going to ask. I've seen him have massive guests on them,

I just don't know anything like that. What's up, Pete? Oh, Pete, you're back. It's going on, boys. We're really jerking your chains. The tumultuous afternoon over in Dublin for old Pizzi. My mistake, my mistake. I thought the earlier performance meant they could.

Oh, listen. Now we see, you're just kind of in and you're kind of out. That's it. I'll tell you what. I want to hear more about this wrestler's course. I'm very excited about that. I would watch a 10-part documentary just of stories about wresters court.

You know what? They've got that Dark Side of the Ring series on Vice. They should do that, right? Like the greatest wrestler court stories, tales of yesterday. It is from an era, though, that I wonder if everybody will be wanting to share it, right?

It's almost like you want to keep that. The K-fabe and also like the... I think a few of those stories got out. I don't think like Undertaker is dying. to tell every single one. No, no, no, no. What would someone have to do to you for you to defecate in their bag, Ariel? Oh, for me to do it?

Or what would I do to something? No, for you, you tap the shit in my bag. What would I have to do? I leave my bag there and I do something. And then I come back and there's... I don't think I can bring myself. I don't think you sound overly eager for this. I'll do it for free, Pizzi, if you're asking.

No, that's next... I'll make sure to leave my back back around your suit. That makes me sick. That's evil. That's evil. That is, that is, I don't know how you could do that. Could you make up with someone? Say you, you've wronged someone, Ariel, and they defecate in your bag.

Is there any way back beyond that? Say it's the coachies, the main guy in the dressing room, he takes a gaff in your bag. Is there any way back for you to? A gaff. How, like, how many ways can gaff be used? Okay, so here's the thing. Surprise, mate. I thought it was your house.

I'm just, I'm just, I, this is a quick Google. search because I know this has happened. Not on the work computer, bro. What? Not on the work computer. No, no, no. I know this has happened. And the link that came up, which is insane, if this is true. Now, I'm just seeing like, I'm not watching it. So this is like, Jamal Hill would be, it's okay. We're not judging you. Jamal Hill would be very disappointed in this. The journalism? Yes. But one of the clips is Mark Merrow. Do you guys remember Mark Merrill?

Yeah, yeah. Talks ex-Poc, Sean Waltman, who I think is a phenomenal guy now and we've Yep. Pooping is the title in Sable's bag. Oh! In the woman's bag. Ex-Pack pooped. Yes. And this is her ex-husband.

He looks like a guy who'd do that. What are you doing? This is her ex-husband? This is her ex-husband talking about Xbox at the time. No, at the time they were together. Yeah. Talking about someone else. Now that's Brock.

Okay, so now here's the other question, Pete. Someone poops in Elaine's bag. This is the scenario. This is Mark Mero talking about Xbox pooping in Sable's bag, who at the time were together. If someone went and pooped in your wife's bag, what are you doing? You might go... How's she been eating chicken over there, bag? That's a good point. Let me ask you a better question. If it was Brock era, do you think that bag's getting pooped in or is that too... You say thank you for the poop, is that too scary? Is that too

scary to even attempt? I don't know if I'd mess with... I don't know if I'd mess with... I don't know if I'd mess with Brock's family. I don't know if this is even true, by the way, so I don't want to disparage the great Sean Waltman, but this is what's popping up here. And then there's another Randy Orton one. You're just putting it out. You didn't even read it. You didn't even know. I'm literally, Scott Hall opens up about the most disgusting pranks, pooping in bags. I think he groin chopped the bag after me? No, he did the thing on the corner turnbuckle where he did the Bronco, like, rode it like that. It's not the, it's not the bag, but there were some scoundrels back in the day when I was growing up in my neighborhood around Halloween time, and they would

do this thing called pumpkin pooping, where they would take people's jackal anton's and take dumps. Oh, God. What age are we talking? you that film, which is the one where... I think it was teenagers, but it was insane. Flaming bag of poop? Yeah, yeah. And then they got to stomp it out. It's poop again. You know that? Don't stop it out with your boots. There we know. Don't put it out with your boot, dad. Be quiet, devil woman. Don't tell me my business, devil woman. Frank, you're getting it, but not

quite getting it. He's almost there. Verbatim. You got to watch again. Yeah. Scott Hall, the late Scott Hall, was on the CCW podcast, and he said, Fuji, Mr. Fuji was most known for the poop rib. He passed it onto Kurt Henning, who passed it onto Xbox, and if they don't like you, they just poop in your bag. Oh, you have to have status

to be able to do it. They have... Mr. Fugia... ...was a lineage. And sometimes he explains, it would be multiple poops. It would be different textures, and it was like, I never really participated in any of that. I was aware

it was happening. I never pooped in anyone's bag. No, this is insane. Okay. So you're having breakfast, you're taking your food. You're having your lunch. I never wanted to see it because some guys would walk around and go, wow, look to me. And I'd go, no, no, I don't believe you. Or I believe you.

Excuse me. Then they'd poop in your bag if they didn't like you. And depending on how you sold it, they even did it to Medusa, Lundra Blaze. She came in with a little bit of an attitude. She got poop ribbed. Sonny and Chris Candido, Skip and Sonny, oh, one time on a European tour, they got poop ripped. And Kurt would do the upper decker. He would go in your room.

if he could get in your house he'd like it even better he would go in your hotel room and lift the back of the toilet like the part with the flushing goes he'd poop in there and he'd put the lid back on and you'd be smelling it for days

I've heard of a new story that's fucking okay but you guys realize that like this is the same Kurt that Rick Flair mentioned roofied him last last week of the program I would not want to hang out with this guy you know that Shaq does this too right

no I know about the upper decker but it's just crazy. Do you know what a kettle is? Like, do you have a kettle there? Yeah, for the tea. For the tea, yeah. Yeah. So you boil the kettle.

Of course. I have a friend once, who went to a party, it's late. Stop. Doesn't really like the vibe. Who are these people? Shits in the cattle, puts it on boil. Oh, gosh, gosh.

Why? You put it on boil? All right, you ready? A bad motherfucker. There we go. That is grounds for fighting someone. I'm on a Reddit thread from nine days ago. Uh-oh.

Every documented incident involving Shaquille O'Neill, his own feces, and his teammates. I can't. Ty Lou claims that when rookie Devin George failed to bring donuts to a team meeting, Shaq retaliated by defecating in George's shoe

just before the game. Multiple former teammates, including Gary Payton, claimed that Shaq would save a week's worth of urine and feces before pouring it on rookies unprovoked. At random, Shaq would defecate it in his hand and display it to teammates. One particular target

was veteran teammate Lou Amundsen. He can't be better. Oh, I remember him. I like to ride his bike to the arena, and it started with Shaq hiding his bike from him. It then progressed to stealing Amundsen's toothbrush and stirring it in his, oh, wait a minute. This is getting good. Nah, stop. What if someone's eating right now.

Someone can be having dinner right now and listening to this nonsense. Allegedly, Shaq does this. Allegedly. No, I got the stories. No way he's put in the end. Let's cleanse our pallet here, guys. We need to cleanse. We need to clean.

You off. Armin Terukian, that makes us think of Islamachev. He has said that he has started. his training camp. What's he training for? A potential showdown in the Iledelf. Let's hear this. Let's listen to this together. Islam, there's been some posts on Instagram about you, starting your fight camp. Is that true? How does Instagram know that? And you don't even know that, right? So could you either confirm or deny it? Yes, it started. I always have at least one camp a year, which is conditioning. So as soon as I got a time,

window, I put the team together and came here to lift weights. So it is the first stage of the fight camp, the weightlifting, yes. He looks pretty jacked in that. He does look very lame, doesn't he? Is the translation wrong? Does he only have one camp a year?

Is that what he was talking about? Or is he just saying there's like one... There's a conditioning camp. Got you. Got you, got you, got you, got you, got you. Well, there you have it. And he started taking creativity in the last time. Can you imagine the second time he's doing that?

Maybe. The pecs are looking. Protein powder this time. Oh, shit. Well, that is promising. What about Mr. Shafkat Rahmanov, guys? He's back, sort of? Well, he's rehabbing.

Okay, this is promising. Speaking of the welterweight division, what a couple of years this man has had, right? Poor guy, yeah. It's awful. Does Shafkat Rahmanov versus Issa Mahach have ever happened? Man, it's tough to say yes to that question. He needs a chunup fight now for real.

We're not there yet, but he's, he's become, at least for now, like, one of the great what-ifs in this sport. We're not there yet. Dominic Cruz came back from multiple ACLs and all that stuff, but he should have fought for a belt by now, right? For sure. And could have been the champion. Definitely, yeah.

It's undefeated. He's finished everyone, but Ian Garry. He was going to fight Balal Muhammad. I think he would have won that fight, right? I like that fight from him, yeah. Most people thought he was going to win that fight. Well, good to see that he's back rehabbing and in good spirits. I was reminded, I believe, from the MMA History Today account, which is one of my favorites out there.

April 20, excuse me, April 29th, that's today, 2011. So what is that? 15 years ago today, one of the great scenes in UFC history transpired. It was the Super 7 Q&A in Toronto before UFC 129, of course, the 55,000 seat venue, Roger Center. That was 15 years ago. all the champions together. And first of all, yes, those were all the champions. No women's champions at this time.

No flyweight. We did have Kane Velasquez right there. John Jones, Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, Frankie Edgar, Josie Aldo, Dominic Cruz. What a freaking pick, right? What a collection of talents. I mean, that might be one of the greatest collections of champions at one given time. Anderson's still doing his thing. Like he ends up losing in 2013.

George St. Pierre is still doing his thing. Dominic, Jose Aldo. I was at that one. It was amazing. They did it at the, where the, I think where the Marley's play, their OHL team, minor league hockey, but a pretty good venue next to BMO field, next to the Rogers Center.

It was before the weigh-ins for 129, and this was before they had the morning weigh-ins. So this was the actual way-in, And why do I bring this up? Because Joseo was fighting on that card the next day. And if you look at Joseo, you could kind of see

that he was a little bit miserable. Now, George St. Pierre was also fighting on that card the next day against Jake Shields, but his cut wasn't as bad as Aldo's at that time. So both guys deserve a ton of credit. They're sitting there cutting weight.

Like, obviously they're not cutting. Didn't Aldo leave early? Did Aldo leave early? Like, because he had to cut more weight. Yeah, he was like, he was dying up there, as far as I remember. And he just, like, he did a certain amount of obligations he was like, right, I've got to get out of here.

I might be incorrect on that, but that's how I remember it. I remember it being a thing that he was up there, that it was a little bit tougher for him than it was for GSP. And I remember feeling like, wow, it's pretty damn cool that these guys are doing this an hour before they have to actually step on the scales. The afternoon Wayne was the only one. So they were probably struggling up there. Not to mention the fact that they're about to fight in huge title fights the next day. Aldo against Mark Harmonic, GSP against Jake Shields. Both of them won those fights.

but it was just super cool it was super cool what was that PT remember was that the hominic hematomaphite yeah yeah one of my favorite

walkouts in UFC history do you remember that one that was I'm coming home I'm coming home but before was overdone and he was sponsored by the Hamilton Tiger Cats

of the CFL and he came out wearing the Thai cats had which the place loved erupted Hamilton not too far from Toronto those were the fun little you know it was that one

the Demetrius Johnson Xbox one, John Jones, Nike and Gatorade. There were a few sponsorships that really kind of stood out. I believe Anderson had Burger King for a minute. JDS had a Nike thing for a second. Not big deals, but it was still.

Do you have Corinthians as well, the Brazilian football team? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think the Santos had that as well. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Man, those were the days. We're getting old, Pete. Yeah, we are.

Were you at that one? No, you weren't. No, I wasn't really on the same until McGregor took off. I never started going to the US until, like, I was kind of covering just regional MMA up until McGregor kind of took off into the global scene. We have a couple minutes here. Perhaps some super chats, Frankie. A reminder, Marab Dwalisheel is going to join us in a couple minutes, so stay tuned for that unless he is actually here. No, he is not.

Super chats, Frankie? They're extra super. Sammy J's 6 Z3S. Hey guys, Liam Pitts 4-0 Pro record coming off a 10-fight winning streak, Swedish-American maybe Contender Series in the future. He is 22 years old, Swedish-American Flag Emotches. Okay. I saw everyone getting crazy about someone that the UFC signed that had like a 4-2 record.

Did you guys see this? No. Everyone's very upset about this. Ah, the standard. Is he direct to UFC, not Contender Series? I think they're right. I think yeah, yeah, yeah. Heavy weight?

And not short notice? Maybe short notice, yes. If it's short notice, then it's like, all bets are off. Yeah. Is it? I mean, I guess so. Yeah, they sign guys all the time that would have been like contender series cannon fodder that end up being short notice.

All right. What else, Frankie? What else? The Gator 117. BS explanation for Paramount on why they can't post full card replays. bought a product for $7 billion and now can't post full replays? ESPN did it. I'd like to

I will admit when we heard that I was like, yes, PN did it. What's the difference? Unless you don't want to pay for that music issue after the fact, but I feel like there's a way around it. I think they must have lost all their money with the $7 billion. They didn't have any more for music licenses. Okay, so you know

on FightPass, when you look at old fights, they put some generic crappy music over it. You know that, right? horrible. So they could do that. They could do that. I mean, like, the UFC does it already. That really kills the buzz.

It does kill the buzz. But it's better than nothing. It's better than not having the event replay up there. People want the replay, like, the hour after it's done. And it's like, if they had to go in and edit every single walkout, it's going to take. There's got to be, like, some sort of 24-hour period where you can have it up there. It is a little bit weird. No?

I will say the license stuff is really sticky. Like, you're allowed to use it for this, but not for that. But why doesn't that happen in boxing events to say like I'm rewatching them on the zone? They don't blur out the music. They're coming out. They're like they'll have. After the fact. Yeah, they don't.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. Listen, I've heard of the issue, but it's like when you go to Fight Pass and you're watching something from 10 years ago, then it's an issue. But if it's in the immediate aftermath, I've not, I've not heard of that issue, to be honest. I tell you when it really sucks. Like when you're talking about Mark Harmonic and big entrances like that, you try and go back on watch that and watch that. race, we passed. It's awful.

I try and get the buzz off it because the music actually drowns out with the crowd. Yeah. It's horrible. It's like laid on top of it, so to speak. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like you can't, you know?

Can't get into it. Can't feel it in your waters. What else? What else? In Bu, 90. Ariel snag Lou DeBella for an uncrown podcast. Oh, man. I don't know.

I think everyone would hate us if we did that. I think Lou for us is best served like every four, five, six months, you know? He does his own thing. He checks in. It's a real, it's a real, it's a real journey just to get him to show up. You know, he kind of goes dark for 48 hours, and you're not quite sure if he's actually going to show up. It's a lot of fun.

It's a lot of fun. Did I get the U.O. Romero birthday wrong? I mean, it does actually say, is it, was that, it says his birthday is April 30th. Yeah. But I did get it wrong. I got duped as well. Okay, you got duped too, yeah. At least you didn't get like a cake or anything this time around and say...

No, I've been known to screw that up. Like, Tapology says April 30th. Wikipedia says April 30th. Like, who's to check, you know? What else, Frankie? What else? Actually, ZW2242 says, maybe Dana simply couldn't hear the 100 plus Secret Service agent screaming down at him.

Okay, okay. What else? Frankie? What else? It's a possibility. Mbue 90 writes back new segment, Herio's court for behavior at uncrowned office. Petey decides punishment.

No defecating. I'm done for that one. Also, can I donate two May 8th tickets for a giveaway? Oh, yeah, absolutely. What does that even mean? Like, he wants to buy them and then donate them? Yeah, probably because they can't attend themselves. That's a minch move in BU 90.

That's incredible. Yes, absolutely. I don't know what needs. I'm not interested in picking the punishments if there's no pooping. PTA you coming. If Nube 90 pays, yeah, no problem. Oh, yeah. All right.

No problem, mate. I feel confident saying you can go about your evening now. We're good now, PT. But thank you. You're like that reliever in the ninth inning that we need. Are you ready? There he is. There he is.

Some guy. Some man for one man. All right. One more guest to go. Massive name. You know him. Your friend in mind. The great Marab Duolishvili is here.

Let's not waste any time and say hello to the pride of Georgia who's kind of up to join us. Yes. Marab, my friend. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Always a great pleasure to have you on. Where are you? This is a nice little backdrop here. Is this in your house?

No, actually, this is a syndicate. This is from, like, UFC made these posters, and they give John Wood. So, and I'm not syndicate. I love it. I love it. By the way, I heard, wow, I heard Gina Carrano talking about training with you. And she said that she was starstruck training with you, being in your presence. I don't know if you heard her talking about you, but what does it like to have someone like Gina, a legend,

who's returning next month, speak about you in such glowing terms, and what has it been like having her at the gym? What can you tell us about that? Of course, it was a great honor for me to train with her, and I was surprised, good surprise, how good she is. And, you know, Ronda Rossi has a judo background. I have also judo background,

and of course I always support judo, But, like, I won't be, no, I think Gina Carano will win this fight, you know, how good she is, you know. Because when she was fighting, I was very young and I was not even in the MMA. I never seen her fight before. But, like, when I training with her, I was so impressed. And I go, I watch her, like, everything. I check all the fights and she's real deal. and I think she can be around her also even.

It's going to make UFC fighters look bad, and she's going to make judo also look bad, but I think she's going to win. But Marab, she hasn't fought since 2009. She's impressed you the way she's looked. Yes. Wow. She's trying really hard.

I'm impressive. I saw her maybe like one years ago, or like maybe it's been like nine months or like long times ago at syndicas and then you know she was just training by herself like she was already like a respectful quiet and then you know

I was like also because how how how quiet she was training and like this I don't even approach her yes and then I don't want to bother her

and stuff like this and my friend was oh I'm a big friend and everything. But I see the change, like even her body change and her training change and everything. And she's really training high level. And I think she's going to deliver it. Have you been actively training with her or just a couple times? Just a couple of times. Like, I would love to train with her more now. I did see again even this morning, but I haven't training with her. She's, she's, she, She was in and out like training because I'm sure like traveling and stuff and I was also a little bit traveling.

But maybe, you know, we have some time before her fight and I would like to train more. Rob, how's your nose doing? It's doing better and better every day. And I'm training with the mask, like wrestling head gear, like wrestling head gear, which protects my nose. and you know one time this wrestling

headgear broke and then I had to take off and then of course I get hit in the nose and wasn't comfortable but like I said the other day

I am ready whenever the UFC give me fight I'm fine you know I'm training I am in good shape and I'm just waiting

for UFC call and the UFC contract to and then I will fight whenever I mean, you still will decide to me and Peter are really going to fight.

Did you have to have surgery? So they, okay, I thought that was my opportunity because as you see, my nose is cracked and then like after the, like after I broke last time, he cracked even more. And then I thought I was going to fix it like since he's broke now, but when I go to doctor, doctor tell me to, if I need surgery and make shriek,

I need long recovery and also it's UFC doctor sent me there and of course UFC

never want like a plastic surgery or something like you know they don't want they want to you'll be fine you know

they and then that's all I want to hear too the doctor told me recovery will be a long time it's better to live like this and I said you know what

fucking I'm not getting married anyways and so Or if somebody loves me, that they will allow me with my crack nose, and I'm fine. Of course. They'll love you for what's in here.

Trust me, as someone with a very big nose, there's hope. It's okay. Don't worry about it. It's not crooked, but it's quite large, mine. I don't know if you've seen it.

It's very big. I heard about it. You heard about it. You heard about it, yes, yes. By the way, Marab, I saw you with a nice young lady at an event recently. I think you were giving her like a nice, hug, I thought maybe that was your future wife.

It seemed like this one, was this? Oh, no, never. No, that wasn't, I thought maybe I was excited for you. This is not future wife? Hey, when it comes to wife, I'm very old school and very traditional. But, you know, I'm a single man and I think I can't have a father, you know. Of course. Yeah, but once I find traditional women,

then I won't be able to do like this stuff too. But that was really fun. She was very cool, sweet, and America is a great country. A lot of sweet girls here. Yes, yes, yes. Can I ask, okay, so you injured your nose and you were supposed to fight in RAF if you or compete in RAF. How are you going to do that?

A couple weeks ago with the nose intro, were you going to compete with a mask against Henry? I was going to compete without mask, and I said if I get hit, and of course if I get touch or hit, and then my nose will, of course, will be sensitive after and painful. Then after I was going to use the mask, but I was going to deal with pain anyways. But I don't know what happened with Henry. He disappeared after we made weight. You have no idea what happened. You don't know if he got hurt, if he was sick.

So, okay, what happened was, so even this wrestling match was at 155 division. I still have to skip the dinner because I was a little hurt than 155. And because I skipped the dinner and I wasn't able to sleep good. And Wayne was 8 a.m. So, and then I don't get a good sleep only like two, three hours. And I go to check the weight, and of course, 155. And I eat good breakfast, and I said, I need a good nap. And I go to nap, and once I go sleep, they call me morning, like maybe 10 or 11 a.m.

and they said Henry pull out we're trying to give you a new matchup they give me first offer was I don't remember names so the guys was competed at 1.45 and I said

yes I want to compete but my friends Arsend and my friend Wato they told me like just you was training for Henry and then when I look that those guys are really wrestlers.

And as you know, I'm not, I'm not a wrestler. Yes, I'm a good MMA wrestler, but my background is judo. And wrestling has different rules. They're very low, like they, you know, they're almost touching the floor, like how low stand they have, and they have rules pushing the outside or stuff like this. And it's a different sport, you know, it's wrestling himself. And anyways, after they did offer me Armand Sarukyan, but. And then that matchup doesn't make sense, especially Arman wants to compete with me and with Uraya,

and if he pulled out with Uriya, it's weird. And also, you know, he's two-eighth class bigger than me and stuff like this. And actually, and I was thinking about it, but thank that I don't did, because what I see, what Aramon did against Uraya's ever legend. I was disappointed. You know, Armand should not throw him out like that. And Bauria is a very good man and a very good fighter. I have even more respect for him, like how he handled this situation after, you know,

because I don't like how Armand threw him out. You know, that was like, no, like that wasn't necessary and should not happen. Okay, so there was a lot that you covered. there that I wanted to ask you about. First, can I just ask, if you would have said yes to the Armand match, would that have happened? He would have competed twice on the night? I guess he was ready to do it, yes.

Okay, and I saw a video of him kind of like getting pretty close to you and sort of challenging you. Did you feel like he was not threatening you, but, you know, I never knew that there was any sort of, this is pretty close here. What do you think? No, no, he was cool. Actually, he was very cool and respectful. I don't feel any...

Is there animosity between you two? No, no, nothing. I'm cool with Armand. He's a great fighter. And he's my neighbor. He's from Armenia. And he actually born in Georgia. And he also sometimes goes in Georgia.

A lot of Armenians lives in Georgia, and we are brothers and we are neighbors. And Armand is a good fighter. I have so much respect for what he done for sport for sport and everything. But things like this, like he throw out a ray of favor. That was necessary.

And I'm just like, I was disappointed and I'm just saying because I was thinking to compete with that. Actually, this is not the first time I got offered against Armand. First time I got offered against Armand. That was a high reality grappling. That was before my Pitarians

fight and the, the, he's, I'm not sure, his name is also Arman, I think he's also from Armenia. He, he, he texts me on my WhatsApp and he opened me this much up and it was in Armenia this much up. And then I said, text me after a Pitarian fight. I said, I want to, I'm focusing for the UFC Pitarian fight first and after you can, you can text me and we can talk about. I don't want to think about it. And then after the fight, of course, like I was a little bit vacation with Mark Zuckerberg in Hawaii,

and after I go to Spain with I'll, and I never heard about it. I forget about it. And then I thought also Armand was competed against Shara Bullitt. And so, and then like three days before the match, but I was like four days before New Year or something. I was with I got a call from the same guy, Armand, his manager. And they said, can he still do it? Like a six-minute match, like a grappling match against Armand.

And I wanted to do it so bad because it was only six minutes and submission only once this rules is. It was good for me. We all know Armand is a better wrestler than me and better grapper than me and bigger than me. But because of the rules, I was going to compete it, and I was thinking too I can get the job. Because if it was no submission, and the matchup will be draw. And I would be such a little bit like, I was feeling little vans that if I will take it in three days, know this, especially I was in vacation.

And then I go gym next day training in Jiu-Jitsu, but as soon as I train Jiu-Jitsu, my cut re-opened, and it was impossible, it was even bigger open. And then I tell them to know. That was the first, I got first offer like this, and then this wrestling was a second offer, but this time, like I said, I don't know, I was, I don't really want it because, yeah, it's a wrestling rules and Arman is, he's in different way class. Okay, so this isn't something you want down the line. No, no, especially, like I said, after what he did to against him, if ever, I don't want to do it. Okay.

Because, like, you know, I don't want to fight Arnone, you know, because, you know, if he did, like, some kind of stuff, like, against me, then it's, it's, it's, it's. a fight and then we don't want to fight of course i said i'm cool with him he's uh he's a good fighter and a good guy and uh yeah it just i was just uh yeah i don't want to fight against him you know either shrit or either in in in uh in m ms well you are competing against frankie edgar that was announced this week um may 30th in dallas to me it this is sort of here it is This is sort of, you know, two, I consider you guys Northeast legends because I connect you to New York as well and he's New Jersey and obviously 135 champion and he was 155 champion. And this feels like a dream matchup to see you two next to each other and especially in wrestling. How do you feel about this matchup?

What does this mean to you? Like, I'm so honored to wrestling match against Frankie Edgar. when Frankie Edgar dropped weight class and he came to our wakelars, we were in the same way class. And to be honest, I never wanted to fight against him. You know, he's such a legend. I have so much respect for him. And he's a good father now.

I'm sure he's his son wrestling too, but does wrestling. And he's legend himself, a very great man. And, but because I got my matchup in RAF got canceled, I wanted to wrestle so bad. Like I don't make an RAP debut and I really want to compete because this is the best wrestling organization in the world and I really want to match up and they offered me with Frankie Edgar and of course I said yes, that would be my honor. And now we have a match, which is, would be great. And then, you know, like I said, I don't want to fight against him.

Never want to fight against him like legend like himself. But this wrestling match, it's like a challenge for me because I'm competitive at his sport. He's a wrestler, real wrestler. And I'm a more MMA wrestler and judo guy. So, and it's going to be good match up. Interesting. I'm also interesting how I can do. in wrestling and against the legend like Frank.

Yeah, I think it's a really fun matchup. These are the types of matchups that RIF has been putting together. Do you still want the Henry one? Is that something you're still pursuing? Actually, I do want to, but, oh, sure. You're going to move this one. All of them are going to fall. Yeah, no, it's good.

I'm going to make my chair. So, okay. I do want if Henry is healthy and I do want to compete against him I thought Urea Favar told me he must have some family problem because how he left he said he has injured

and as soon as he announced this and he left he'd go back to Arizona and I mean he has a family and Ura Favreau said maybe he's some family like something and then and that's why I was so quiet and I was

just respectful but now he did say another interview he said he felt he was going to get injured which is weird so oh i'm not sure what's the i don't know if any ones i would love to wrestling against it i saw him speaking to you in russia did you uh did you get annoyed when he did that in russian i don't like it because like he speaks spanish and i speak georgia and i speak georgia So why we live in America. So why we need the Russian here, you know? Do you think he knew? Do you think he knew about the history?

Or do you think he innocently thought that you speak Russian? I wasn't quite sure. Do you think he was trying to annoy you? I'm not sure. Like, he's called himself cringy. So sometimes it's cring. That was his cringy moment there. And then especially his second time, maybe first time, he don't know.

But like, like, you know. know that area is then Europe like we all understand like basic Russian like because like you know a lot of Russian lives there and then you know like the Russian language is like a big language and we don't understand like it's Spanish here like you know like here like Gracias and Buono and Mamacita and stuff like this. Yes yes yes so same maybe first time He didn't know, but second time when I was, he still talked to me, I don't have like Russian, but like, why. And then I'm so mad sometimes, like, they call like other, like all these Caucasian people are Russian, but they're not Russian, you know.

Yes, they're not, Russian people are different. Even Russian people don't call these Caucasian people like Czechian people or people from Dagestan or Setsia people. or Kabardine-Bakaria or Inkushetia people. Even like people from Moscow or like central Russia, they don't call, they don't consider them as Russians. They call them black ass, Chownishol. So they're not, even Russian don't call these Caucasian people Russian. And sometimes in America, they all call these great fighters

and great Russians because they, I mean, they all from some Chechens, Pakistan, Ossetia, like I said, Ingu Shetia and Kabat-Mak, Aya, and all these small countries. Small area.

Earlier, I liked how you just said, oh, I went on vacation with Mark Zuckerberg, like, no big deal. That's one of the people. What a life. Unbelievable. It's crazy. Look at you guys.

This is you and Hunter and Mark Zuckerberg. Where'd you go with Mark Zuckerberg? Yeah, he's been inviting me like a long time and right after Peterian fight I had some time, you know, and I was going to take some time off. And then right after Peter's fight, week after, it was a gigas fight, and I go to visit me and Aljo go to Zakenberg. And we were training with him and I was surprised how. how hard he's training. And I'm sure you see that me and him sparring. Yes.

Yeah, and then, yeah, he's really trained every day, wake up, like 7 a.m. training. I never train 7 a.m., but he does. Would you like to see him compete in one of these? Do you think he can do a jiu-titsu match? Or there was once talking? Absolutely. Even MMA. I think I'm a German-A, he can do pretty well. Wow, wow.

You think he will? Yes, of course. Like, all some, some, yeah, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a German maid. I'm not saying like young like a blackbird jujitsu against blackbird juicists. Sure, sure. But like somebody like like good much shop, I think he would be very good. I'm sure he will win because he's also has a good cardio and he's also not stopped. And he's also knowing as a machine, you know. Yeah.

He's a guy's really hard worker. Whatever he does, I'm sure like I'm sure most of the time he works on computer. but like we're physically, he's just keep going. He all want to, always want to learn, always asking a lot of questions, and I love that. And then actually I got inspired from him. This guy don't have to do training in MMA. Don't have to work like that, but he does. Takes a machine to know a machine.

You are the machine. Imagine the guy who quit his job six years ago in construction, telling that guy that you'd be hanging with Mark Zuckerberg. Imagine telling that guy, huh? It's a crazy life, Marab. This guy, you posted this, six-year anniversary recently, just a few weeks back. Imagine telling that guy you'd be hanging with Mark Zuckerberg. No, I will never, never can dream about it.

Even like, even two years ago, like when, like, 2024, I was not a champion, and I just want to fight for the belt, and my dream was to just win the one time. Not only win one time, I definitely also three times. So yeah, I'm grateful. And, yeah, but I'm not done yet. I'm only getting better. Have you been told a time frame, maybe a month, when, it sounds like you believe and you've been told that it's going to be the Jan trilogy.

Do you have any sort of idea when it's going to happen? Yes. After the fight in December against Yang, Hunter did my after party and he told me

he was very nice and respect and everything and he did tell me take much as time you want heal up

and call me when you're ready it's going to be trilogy against you and Jan and I said thank you so much and

And okay, I will, and then of course, and then I go in Hawaii with Zucker, I go in Spain with Ilya, I go my country, she's in my family, and when I come back, I call him a month later, and then they started working, but of course, and then Peter did some small surgery on his back, and that's everything changed after that. And I was hoping to get fight before White House card because UFC did say that. Most likely our fight won't be in White House. So that's why I was hoping to get fight against Ian in May. So I don't want to move, but now we all know.

I mean, now I'm guessing I will fight maybe hopefully in August because if we are fighting in July, they must call us or they must enhance them. Because I'm thinking maybe they're pushing in August so, but whenever I'm ready now, I'm not champion and I can't call, I can push when, especially Peter has a belt and that's his choice when he wants to come back. When I was champion, yes, I was

telling UFC to give me fight as soon as possible, who is the best contender? That's what I did two months after when I put Cole from Colise-Hagan I will I fight you know you know they announced when I was in your show Sure that was great

Yes so like like I said Like when I was your show I tell them Hey I'm ready even if you guys Give me fighting December so they know my answer So they don't even Compound with me They just Corpeter then make an asset

So that's how it's usually works now Regarding the White House card Who do you think wins O'Malley or Zahabi I like Zahabbi, but of course I'm rooting for Shono Mali. And I think Shonomali will win this fight because, yeah, he's where he has a good knackle power. And I think they're going to strike. And because Zahabi is not a good wrestler like me and MMA wrestler, I would say.

I'm not wrestling. So I'm not like me and then. And I think Shono Mali will die. I like how you say, of course I'm rooting for Shanaali. A lot of people might think you won't. Why, of course? No, I love him. Now I love him 10 times more.

Okay. Okay. And then the only heartbroken moment was against Shano Mali when he won against my friend, Al Jammai's telling. But that was Margada. He stopped early. That wasn't his fool. That was Margaret stopped early in fight.

What about Aljo this weekend? I know you were there. He looked amazing, right? He looked incredible. He looked himself like he always does. Like I said, always he's big brother for me. He's like just a little bit older than me. And he's bigger than me, like the sizewise.

And also he always was. better than me as a fighter, as a wrestler. And I'm so proud of him. And I'm glad. And I'm happy now once again, everybody see this. His performance against very top prospect, Zala. Yes, Yusuf Zal.

I keep talking, and every time it comes up on my feet, I watch it, the foot sweep. You know that foot sweep that he? did as they were standing, that was slick as hell. I wish we could show it. It was, it was beautiful. That was amazing. Yes, Aljo do have like this all type of good technique.

And yeah, he can like, we all see it. If he wants, if he decide he can strike too, like he did against Brian Ortega. And yeah, even striking against Yosef Zalala, he was doing very good. striking and whenever he wants to take him down he always get him and take him down and yeah, very good fight and yeah he make it look easy

Honestly who wins Aljo or Volkanowski Ah That's a tough No, of course Al Jalja myself You have to say that, it's your friend No, yeah like Much as like

You know it was like Even when my brother Ilya Toppria was fighting against Alexander Wakanowski. This fight was like, you know, almost I don't want this fight. You know, of course I want my brother, I win the belt, but at the same time I love Alex Wokanosky too. But now again, I love Alex Okanowski, but he's fighting my brother, Al Jemai Staling.

And of course, Al Jalje must win a second belt. And he needs that he's going to win that. And Wokanoski, he already won enough. So he's fine, you know, it's fine. By the way, speaking of Ilya, we had him on the show last week, and I asked him about when you came to visit him, when you were there at the beginning of the year, when he was going through his tough time,

and I loved what he had to say about you. So I just want to play it for you really quickly and get your response, okay? Here's Ilya. He just called me, he told me, he knew that I was going through a person, my personal things. He called me one day.

He was like, listen, I want to be with you and spend a couple of weeks or days and support you. I don't know. We can train and he came as a brother. We spent some time together. And I love him. Everyone that knows our relationship, they know that I respect him and love him as a brother. What a good friend you are, Marab. That was beautiful that you did that.

No, really is great. And, of course, like, am I? You know, like, we are family. And, yeah, I love, Julia. He's like, you guys must, you guys don't know. He's even, he's a great fighter, but he's even 10 times better human being, a great, great friend, a great, great guy. And, you know, he's really my brother, and I'm proud of him.

You do have, Marab, we love. You love you, everyone loves you, everyone loves you like a brother. But I saw this video of you, you do crazy things. But when you climb the building, Murab, this makes me very nervous. You can't do this. You have too much to lose, Murab. You can't be climbing buildings like this on the street. This is crazy stuff.

You're in the prime of your life. You have babies to make. You have a woman to marry. You have a family to grow. Hey, I have two brothers and they have a kid, so it's okay. I born long, I will die once. And I am not going to change. I am who I am.

I'm still going to climb. I'm still going to do crazy things. You could have waited for him to come down. He could have come down and met you on the ground. I wasn't sure if he wasn't able to come down. But, yeah, you know, he said he was from... Look at this. Look at this here.

This is a big... Look at this. You're like Spider-Man. On that, on the railing. Yeah, yeah. Just another day. Yeah, just, it's my instinct, you know. Well, that's what we love about you.

Congrats on getting this match. I like this match very much. I'm looking forward to it. That's a great card, by the way. Your good friend, Chris Wydenman's on that card, too. RAF-9 in Dallas on May 30th. Chris Wyden against Colby Covington. Gable Stee's in on there.

Armand's on there, too. This is great matchup. Yes, Chris Weidman, my brother, you know, another mentor and another guy who I looked up when I start my M.MA career, you know, when I start training in Long Island. But there is also one more friend, giving him a Rachwili, he is competed against Snyder. If you don't know, give him much Arashvary. He is Olympic silver medalist, the last Olympic. He'd already win one match in RAF, so I hope he beats Snyder in wrestling.

Even Snyder is legend, and I have so much respect for him. So, yeah, so me giving my generation, represent in Georgia, Chris Whiteburn also, representing U.S. and representing Long Island. So it's good. Oh, and I think Iran is there too. Yes. And I don't know who's going to be making bad. Yeah, there's so many big names.

One last thing real quick. Do you really barbecue in your car? Is that a real thing? Yes. Come on. This is real? What is that? Come on.

This is not just for the picture? No, it's a video. I post the video. You must see. Come on. Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? It's just something different.

and something to like challenge it. I mean, I don't do this, of course, every day. I did this first time, but... What is that? What kind of meat is that? Chish kebab? What is that? No, it's just beef. Beef. That looks good.

But this Georgian style, we call them Swati. We just put on sticks and then just cook like that. That's Georgian style. Looks amazing. You're the best, Marab. Thank you so much, my friend. Appreciate you, as always. Much love to take care of the nose, okay?

Just be careful. We'll do. Thank you so much for having me and all the best. Yes, and we talk to you soon. We'll talk to you soon and good luck on May 30th, my friend. Appreciate you, thank you. All right, there he is. Marab Dwalisvili, the Pride of Georgia and Long Island, New York, dare I say.

And he is returning on the 30th of May, but obviously he wants that title back. And so one wonders when that would happen. If Connor fights on July 11th, they're probably not going to have another title fight on there. Islam and Ian maybe but perhaps we're talking September maybe we're talking Abu Dhabi in October

that'll be a long time in between fights but maybe not the worst thing in the world for Marab bit of a different 2026 campaign compared to his 2025 he fought four times in 2025 and hasn't fought yet in 26 but maybe that was maybe that was a blessing for him

just what the doctor ordered for him. But hopefully we do get that fight in. And quite frankly, even despite the fact that he hasn't fought in quite some time, no one has really emerged. Now, Amin Zahabi wins on June 14th. Maybe that changed. Heck, Sean O'Malley wins. On June 14th, maybe that changes. O'Malley has the somewhat controversial win over Piotr-Riyan. Zahabi has been doing his thing, but he says that Hunter Campbell gave him his word. So I have no. heard. Maybe I'm blanking here of Hunter promising a title shot and then taking it back. But I could certainly see on that June 15th program a big win for one of those guys and

everyone's like, oh my God, he's next. So let's see, let's see, let's see. I think we might have no, I saw, did we have another super chat come in there? I know we went to the super chats early. No, I'm seeing any. I've seen a couple. Here's Hay Shultzie who says, in honor of iPad boy, my son, what was y'all's first cell phone? I had a Motorola Pinni Farina,

pinningferina, which had a button that auto-flip the phone open RIP sends. Yeah, I'm sorry about the Sends. Tough one. I had a singular wireless in 2000, and I got my first cell phone. I remember exactly where I was playing around with it for the first time in two. It was my, it was my senior year of college.

It was either 03 or 04. It was either the fall of 03 or the winter of 2004. And I remember thinking this thing is very weird. It was a singular wireless. It was like a flat one skinny. You had to obviously like press a button three times to get to the letter. I definitely had a razor. Definitely had the flip.

Definitely had one with the little pencil thingy. Never had a Blackberry, though. Never had one of those. Anyone on the team's first cell phone and iPhone? No one's that young, right? Connor could be, right? It could have been, yeah. Technically could have been, but my parents did not get me one.

What'd you get? Samsung flip phone in high school with 250 text messages a month that I constantly went over, that my parents would get super pissed. you know you know like if you're if if if you're a parent who gives their child that today that's unacceptable it's a it's like an impossibility yeah it has to be an iPhone it either has to be an iPhone or an Android although a lot of the kids like most of them have iPhones most everyone like we we we we floated the idea of oh you'll get the flip you know itterbug doesn't he was like keep it he was like no no no I don't want to don't want it don't

Okay, but then can't you push back and be like, I want you to have a phone. I don't want you to have a device. Yeah, the pushback was he didn't have a phone until 14. That was the pushback. We offered this a year ago. And he didn't want it? They didn't want it. We even give him an Apple watch like two years ago.

And he's okay with that, but he never wears it. Like we have to tell him to wear it. You're going to get a haircut. You have to bring your... It's so funny, like trying to teach a youngster about these things. He went to get a haircut. I gave him Apple Pay money. And I said, did you, you know, I know how the screen looks.

You leave the tip? Oh, I didn't think I had to. Damn. That barber was probably not very pleased. Of course you have to leave the tip. Yeah, but just next time he goes back, he'll double up. I told him to double up. Yeah, I told him.

I mean, haircuts, you don't have. It was my first time I fucked up. 60 bucks for the haircut for the kid. Tip or pre-tip or post-tip? I think pre. Pre? It's ridiculous. Maybe no tip.

Yeah, maybe no tip. Gratuity included. That's a Frank Lens cut right there. That's too much. It's like the local place. It's not even that special. Damn. I mean, it's good.

So your boy doesn't tip him and you're shitting all over. No, no, it's great, but it's not like we're going to like some sort of like New York City upscale salon here. We're not going to Frank spot. And where's your spot? Lower East Side, Frank? No, man. I go to Black Rabbit. Yeah, hell yeah.

Here's Jake from the Windy City Who says, Did any of you check out The new SNLUK It's good and well-paced? SNLUK, what? Yeah. I actually have checked it out.

I've watched three or four of the episodes so far. Yeah, it's literally... Can I be honest? I have not heard of this. I feel like many people haven't. I didn't know until G. G.C. told me. Come on.

Where does it air? Peacock is where I watch it. I would assume it airs over there actually on live we get it the next day. They can like cuss, say whatever they want. One season. This is insane.

But yeah, it is literally, like, I haven't heard of any of the guest stars except for Tina Faye, and she did like the kickoff, like, welcome to S&L UK. I love that. First of all, Jake from the Windy City always has great questions. I mean, he's blowing my mind here. It's a British live sketch comedy show according to Wikipedia. Yeah, I've heard of SNO. No, no, no, British.

Oh, oh, oh. It premiered on Sky 1 on the 21st of March, 26, so a month ago. Yeah, it's recent. It's very new. Create an executive produced by Lauren Michaels. It is a British adaptation of the original American series featuring an ensemble cast. Oh, wow, this is amazing. Like, the set looks exactly like the set in New York, but just British version.

It's just the London version of it. So it's airing on Sky there, but then they probably put it on Peacock here because they don't have Peacock. Same thing as well. Like, it's just like... Same music? No, not same music, but it's like same format. Like the intro is all of the cast members. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then they have the musical performance. Then they do the digital shorts, and they have the weekend update and everything like that. It's the exact same thing. But it's just all British. Like, they're making fun of... I wonder if it's doing well. Like, is it resonating?

I enjoy it. I don't know how it's doing. So you have watched every episode? Yeah. You've gone out of your way. Yeah, and I have no idea who the guest stars are. Why don't you tell us? Super famous.

He did. told them one day. I was just like, anybody watching SNLUK? I had not heard of this. And I'm on Peacock a lot. Yeah. Maybe I just kind of thought

it was the actual SNL and blew right by. I'm on Peacock a lot these days between Premier League, NBA playoffs. It's a mess. Yesterday, it's Peacock, ESPN, it's too much. I'm not even one of those guys who's like, oh, it's hard.

But it's actually getting kind of hard. It's getting kind of. You said you're not one of those guys. I feel like the whole discussion the other day on how you are that guy. No, no, no. That guy. When they announced the

new NBA deal. Everyone's like, oh, it's getting so confusing. And now there was a playoff game on ESPN happening at the exact same time as a playoff game on NBC. That would never happen back in the day. There would be like one day is all TNT,

the other day is all ESPN. And then you got to go, okay, so now I got to go to PCC. What day was that? Because I feel like I have been. No, yesterday. Those weren't all on Peacock yesterday? I watched on Peacock.

No, because I actually, at halftime of the Knicks game, I wanted to see the fourth quarter. They're five minutes left in Celtic Sixers. Celtic Sixers would have been the one on ESPN, right? And it was on ESPN. And so I'm looking on Peacock. I'm like, where's Celtic Sixers? And then I opened my Yahoo Sports app, and it tells you.

And I'm like, what? ESPN? Why is it on? I do feel like they were mostly that, though. Like, I know the games were on prime. I was watching. Today. It's split up again?

It's split up. What's the game, the shitty Raptors calves? What's the odd one out? How can you say that about your own team? They suck. The E-sucks. The Cavs suck. The Raptors suck. So Magic Pists is on Amazon.

Yeah. Raptors, Cavs is on ESPN and then Rockets Lakers on ESPN. Oh, so ESPN gets the double. The double to it. The one Amazon, now I got, how do I switch back and forth? How could you ever? Exit your app? No.

You enter the other app and you hit play. Who could do it? Plus, like, NBA playoffs is going to be front and center on the app. Where's NBCSN, by the way? Because that died, and now I think you have it. They have that still? They brought it back, I think, on YouTube TV or something. Are you asking because there will be NBA games on that?

and Peacock. What's a lot of two to France on ABCSN? Oh, it's also on NBCSN. So NBCSN was a channel Yeah, yeah. Which was OLN

then versus the NBCSA. Yeah, yeah. Then it died a few years ago. But they've now brought it back as a streaming only thing. I think only on on YouTube. Oh, shit.

YouTube TV, yeah. October 2nd, 2025, they announced a new agreement to relaunch it. Just on YouTube. It was part of the deal when they split and all that stuff. But I don't know what's on

like at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on NBCSN. I think it's just a streaming thing. It's not like a 24-hour channel. But anyway, so tomorrow, you got to go from ESPN to Peacock. If you got NBCNNN... Oh, boy. Oh, my God.

Kidding me. I'll kid you. Here's something from the Wall Street Journal before we go. Live plans to tell players and staff by Thursday that Saudi Arabia's public investment fund would end its funding for the Upstart League,

but the PGA Tour isn't yet ready to welcome back those who jumps ships. So I guess what people thought was coming, an inevitability, is actually happening by Thursday, which is tomorrow. This is like the longest. We've known about this for a month already. Here's my question. I know you're a big golf guy, G.C., right?

Two degrees. Then pulling the funding. Is that the end of the league? Does that mean the league is just done? Yeah, it has to be. There's no other funding? There's just no way that they can get enough support to pay these superstars with just ticket sales and broadcast rights, there's just no way.

They didn't have a great broadcast deal, right? Was it on the CW or something? Yeah, no one watches that shit. Unless I am not a huge golf guy, but tell me if I'm wrong on this GC, the entire concept was because they had the funding. Like, this is just a money play, right? There's no... They're paying Bryson to Shambo and Brooks Kepka $100 million.

Phil Mickelson, here's $100 million. They offered Tiger Woods half a billion. You can't sustain that with golf. There's not enough. fandom there. But is there even like, what I'm saying is like, is there even a product? Isn't it just like we are paying these golfers insane?

No, no, no. They have a, they have like live events where it's, and they're separated in teams and it's a corny team outfits. And then they show up at the majors, they walk up to Augusta and they're like their bumblebee's outfit and they just look like, will they be welcome back? Eventually, they'll

get back on the tour. Do you think it'll be frosty? Oh, I think at the beginning it'll be frosty. There's a lot of these guys who didn't jump ship, who didn't take the paychecks. Guys like Roy McElroy are going to be like, ah, welcome back, man. You really sold your soul for that one, eh? Weren't there some guys a few months ago that had already

come back, though, or did I make that up? Or maybe it was one guy? There were a couple guys that had Okay. They left, right? They went to live, and then they came back, like, hat and hand, and then they did come back on the tour, right? Yeah, they'll eventually let everyone back on. I mean, playing the majors. He was one of the big, like, guys that was

really salty about the whole live thing. Oh, oh, he wasn't a live guy who came back. He was salty that the other guys went. Oh yeah, he was like the most, probably the most vocal star. Why? Explain it to me. What is he upset about? Essentially, he was just like, you're just selling out to go play for this league that's manufactured by an insane amount of backing that isn't going to turn into anything. Then the whole thing with the, you know, history of Saudi Arabia, sport washing, everything like that. He just felt like it was hurting the, you know, how the golf as a sport. Yeah, golf, the sanctimony of golf.

Well, I mean, those guys are going to be, those guys are heroes now to the casual golf fan. It's going to be one of the more fast. Remember when it was the story to watch, like, how deep into sports, how deep into Western sports are the Saudis going to get? Now it's going to be one of the most fascinating stories to watch how much they are going to scale back. There was a point, like, it might have been like early this year or end of last year where I just felt like Saudi had put their money into every single. sport that we had. It just felt like there was a new announcement every week where it's like Flag football's coming. We got to live

golf. Every boxing match. Renoldo's playing in the league. Raymar's playing in the league. Every single combat sports coming here. We're doing the six Kings tennis tournament. Yeah, the World Cup announcement. No NBA though, no basketball. Yeah, no NBA. Trust me. The Read games were coming. No major league. No NHL. But yes, I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

It just felt like there was this one stretch where it was just like every announcement. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And Now all of a sudden it's like almost like not that long after, they're pulling it all out. I think you can make an argument that it, it, it, the ROVI, not, the ROI. Yeah, I mean, the, uh, the flag football thing got a little weird there, right? Yeah. They pulled it out, right? Like, they're not doing it there.

Well, no, they did it there, but then they moved it to LA and I think they had no involvement in the end with it. Yeah, that's what I'm, yeah. Uh, I mean, the big, the two big things that we care about, obviously combat sports boxing, there's a part of me that wonders if AJ Fury will be Turkey's last hurrah. Wow, you think? I don't know.

This is just me talking, but who was it? Oh, Lou yesterday. Lou Gebella, yes. Turkey has enough funds to do this on his own. He doesn't need the Saudi government or anything like that. He could do this on his own via the ring.

So I'm not suggesting that it's going to be the end. But that would be a great last hurrah if it was one. There is also a big difference between Turkey funding it and the investment fund funding it. Of course. Especially in terms of the deepness of the pockets, but also just the optics of it. That was super interesting that he said.

The other interesting thing he said was he suspected, and this was, again, speculation, he didn't say that he knew this for a fact, that the deal with Zufa boxing, they would have had the money up front. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That to me, because a month ago or so, I don't even remember how long ago, we had a conversation where when this was starting to take hold, when they were talking about the Saudi money coming out of sports, I said, I don't think they would, Zufa, I think, would get out of it if the funding was gone. Yeah. That would eliminate that altogether, right?

If you get all that money up front, you've got all these TV deals already. Then the money's there. You're not, there is no funding being pulled. That would be very interesting if they had actually secured all that money in the front that they don't have to worry about it coming. The, you know, the monthly deposits or however it would have been financed previously. That's, that's interesting. Which leads me to the second point, which is WrestleMania. next year, which is a massive, massive deal.

And so if they are operating that way, one would think that maybe that money came up front as well. So a huge story to follow. It's going to be very interesting. One last super chat, and it feeds into the goodbye here. Great show crew. We taking an all-Azi main card parlay this weekend, Tuvasa into Perich, into Erseg, into Selkilde, into Adjeeld,

into a JDM, LFG. This is from James Frye, I presume SYD is Sydney. You going with that, G.C. All-Azzi main card parley? They're all favorites. Hell yeah. Trusting Tyee-Vas and Brando Perich

and your parlay is tough, but we gotta support the Aussies. Tuivasa is the fave? I know it's a short-notice fight. Minus 2-10. Hell yeah. I like that. By the way, James Fry,

I had to look it up because I wanted to confirm it. Oh, same guy? This is my guy. This is my guy. Give James a shout out. James is an absolute legend who may or may not have chosen the direction of our Aussie football team. The boys in the back are bought and paid for.

That announcement will come tomorrow on the program. You'll see tomorrow. But shout out to James Fry, an absolute legend. What a freaking plug. 415, sub-BITB. It's become a stable. It's my favorite part of the show. Sometimes when I don't watch the beginning of the show

Can't watch the beginning of the show I make it a point to tune in live Just for the voicemails I love the voicemails I'm actually kind of jealous of the voicemails If I'm being honest I love the interactions And the stories and the characters

So there you have it That's tomorrow What's the pound for pound? Pound for Pound's gonna be good tomorrow In honor of Carlos The Nightmare Proches Nightmare Scenarios Just in general, in life

Yeah where you find yourself And you're like this this is a nightmare. I've had a few of those in my day. We've had many of those in our... Listen, if you ever want to submit a guest pound for pound, we would accept for sure.

First thing came to mind was bathroom in Egypt, brother pooping around the trail. Number two? The shart. The shard for round the Middle East. Same trip. Well, and then number three,

when you hit the curb and almost shit your pants. That one, that was awful too. Gotta be up there as well. We can do those right now. Number four, turning the stream into a member street. Another nightmare.

You got it. Is that your nightmare or their nightmare? I mean, it was all of our. Yeah, it's it. Yeah, it's everyone. Anything that you're, when it's happening, you know, the sweat's starting to build up on the forehead and you're like, this. This is a nightmare. That pre-show text where somebody says, Dave, this is what's going on.

I had one this morning. Always a nightmare. Yep, actually, not even this morning. Literally 10 minutes before the show. Main card, by the way, at 7 a.m. So it's not the worst. You know, I know some people are worried about the early start. Main card's at 7 a.m.

Eastern on Paramount Plus talking about the JDM process card. So that's a 7. That's actually for someone with young kids, that's actually a brilliant start. Absolutely beautiful. Knock off Inouye and UFC. Inoway Ringwalk is estimated for 8 o'clock Eastern. Oh. Like, I'm talking.

Oh, my God. As good as it gets a beautiful spring morning. Oh, my dear. A little breakfast. Someone who has a kid who wakes up at 6.30 in the morning now, this is the best. This is the best. This is the best. This is prime time for you now, Jordan.

This is better than a 7.30 p.m. tip. This is better than a 1.7 a.m. Tottenham Hotspur's start because no one wants to watch that anymore. Is that happening? I don't know. Is it 7 am.? I really don't want to watch. Yeah, it's a big one. We got force tomorrow. Europa League semis. Who would have thunk it?

What is the game? Let's see. Spurs? No. Well, you're in the clear on Saturday. Sunday? 2 p.m. Sunday. Relatively late. See, that's great.

I got that's my prep time. Monday's show can't pay attention. Pete Tee will text me when his dad's screaming at the TV. A rare Monday morning forest game against Chelsea, which is a weird one. A 10 a.m. kickoff for Forest.

Oh, by the way, before we go real quick. Who won? Did Arsenal win? One-one. Oh, in the 90th minute. Holy smokes. Actually, it's about to wrap up. 96 minute. Okay. That's not bad for them. Away. I want Arsenal to make the final.

I know a lot of people hate Arsenal. Why does it feel like these leagues take six years to, like, I've been hearing you guys talk about this shift for forever. It's different. Premier League Champions League. There's Caribald Cup. What's the difference of like the NBA starting in October? Yeah. I wish it wouldn't.

It's shit. It's too long. This is champions league. No, but this is going to wrap up real quickly. This is not champion. No, because I hear, it seems like I've been hearing for nine months now. Like, we're in it. We're in it.

We're big two points. Four points. Four points. Four games left. Four matches left. It's dice. But tomorrow's Europa League semies against Eston. Oh, okay.

And then you get a gear up for the World Cup, baby. Oh, I can't wait for that. We need to figure out, what are we going to do about that? Like, how many, you know, are we going to go to bars? What do we do? I will be attending a few games. I know, but not here. USA bars for sure.

If you're real about the England, we're going to the England. I would love to go to the England game. Down to boots? No, prices are going to drop, bro. All right. Gentlemen, it is time to say goodbye. What a day. What a day.

I mean, I just want to point out to everyone. Chale was supposed to join us at 1.15. We hope he's feeling better. Peace and love, peace and love. We, on 10 minutes notice, spoke, and thank God for Sean Strickland in his crazy comments, spoke about all sorts of things, not just Sean, City Winery, May 8th, for about an hour and 15 minutes. We improvised. On the fly, no prep.

Everyone, you know, picked up the slack. Ain't that what journalism is? Did their thing. great discussion. It was, it flew by. It wasn't even like we were struggling. I'm very proud. And then the Mad Hardy conversation was just tremendous. What about the cameo from Luis Palomino? And what about the birthday boy? Joel Romero. I'm going to now call him Joel all the time. No more Yoel, no more Jorge. It's Jorge and it's Joel. That's what I'm going to do. But it's been a great day. And now it's time to go.

And we've got a lot going on. Next week's going to be a big week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, UFC, Newark. Live show, City Winery, 8.30 p.m. New York. We sell out all the tickets in one shot. I know this is short notice. I know there's a lot going on. I know we're doing this in New York City.

And there's a lot of options. And it's not exactly where the fight is happening. It's just, you know, across that little bridge there or that tunnel. You get the point. Anyway, it's presented by FRE, free. Shout out to them. And, uh, and then we've got the watch party post show, LA shows, Netflix shows. What a time to be alive. Thanks to our guests. Thanks to you. Thanks to them. Back tomorrow. Same time post is a piece out here.

Brother.